Creating relationships and selling have always gone hand in hand, both within and outside of organizations. However, relationship selling and marketing go far beyond friendly outreach and exceptional customer service. Rather than focusing on only short-term goals such as customer acquisition and customer sales, relationship marketing emphasizes customer loyalty and long-term customer engagement.

The Benefits

Relationship marketing is part of a holistic and comprehensive sales approach that has many benefits. These include:

· Increased ROIs

· Better communication that provides valuable feedback

· Competitive advantages

· An enhanced customer experience

· More qualified leads generated from referrals

· Improved customer loyalty

· More valuable analytics

While fully engaged customers rake in over 50% higher revenue and sales than their disengaged counterparts, it is challenging to determine how to effectively incorporate the right selling

strategies and technologies. Here is how successful sales teams are creating stronger connections and engagement with their clients and customers.

#1 Learn How to Leverage Your Data

Top sales organizations are exceptional at collecting, analyzing, and applying consumer insights and data. Using these analytics effectively can help sales teams continue to drive their deals closer to the finish line. One key factor in ensuring that sales teams are able to achieve revenue goals is how well their current sales tools capabilities work.

With the right tools, successful sales teams can:

· Incorporate social network information and data

· Automate playbooks

· Leverage their systems to provide predictive lead scoring

· Use their tools to aggregate and make the data work for their goals

· Synchronize leads across platforms

#2 Prioritize Strong Relationships

Sales teams often have multiple initiatives, budgets, goals, and other forms of benchmarking that they are expected to exceed. While these forms of performance indicators are extremely helpful in driving sales and motivating teams, they sometimes overshadow the importance of putting the primary focus on building meaningful relationships. Top-performing sales teams understand and respond to the importance of creating and maintaining long relationships with essential people on the buying committee.

Sales leaders and representatives that effectively prioritize this aspect of selling often achieve their sales goals. The more crucial factor in ensuring this is done properly is investing a substantial amount of time into laying the groundwork and building these foundations. Companies that successfully achieve this aspect of selling often have effective account data management systems and promote collaboration among sales teams.

#3 Determine KPIs and Consistently Evaluate Their Progress

Any and every great sales team understands the significance and importance of measuring both successes and setbacks. Choosing the right metrics and KPIs is essential as these insights help to determine whether your sales team is performing above or below expectations. However, choosing the wrong metrics to consider can provide a false story.

When sales leaders and their teams utilize effective and appropriate metrics, they are much more likely to reach their numbers. In addition, companies and teams that properly use benchmark data can more productively plan for consistent and continuous success – rather than going through the motions and hoping for the best.

How can your team use metrics to track both its revenue goals and relationship selling success? This is achieved by choosing the right metrics and KPIs. The metrics that provide the most valuable information when measuring revenue and customer relationships include:

· Conversation history and the quality of conversations

· The total number of warm referrals – both within and outside of your network

· The number of contacts is in each target account

· Engagement of prospects

· The overall growth of your lead database

#4 Scaling Your Team’s Efforts

Successful relationship selling results from the perfect dance of customization and efficiency. Powerhouse sales teams understand how to maximize their reach and optimize their time by creating scalable yet personable interactions and communications with their prospects and customers. Most sales teams agree that effectively implementing a scaling process helps to consistently achieve revenue goals.

This step requires the collaboration of both leadership and the individuals on the sales team. To successfully scale outreach and communication, leadership must provide the sales team with valuable data related to sales content and outreach interaction and engagement. This information will help sales teams determine what is working and how to continue forward most effectively.

#5 Don’t Neglect the Relationship Between Sales and Marketing

Before any relationship-building occurs outside of your team and organization, it must begin within. The internal relationship between the marketing and sales teams is essential and crucial to ensuring that companies are successful in reaching and exceeding their goals and targets. Making sure these two departments frequently collaborate and demonstrate a strong alignment of goals and understandings is crucial to the success of an organization.

Sales and marketing teams that practice a healthy amount of cohesion between departments perform several best practices to ensure success. Coordinated sales processes help sales and marketing teams mitigate expectations and stay on track as they work toward achieving sales goals. To foster collaboration and open communication, both teams share reports, insights, and data. This is a critical step as today’s top sales teams rely heavily on data and analytics to plan sales plays.

The most essential share point between sales and marketing teams is achieved through creating a consistent and open feedback loop. Having a process that allows for constructive criticism to be passed and forth between teams is an effective and respectful way to ensure that both teams are working towards the same goal, one of which should be to strengthen relationships with consumers.

The Bottom Line

Sales teams that prioritize their relationships with their clients and customers experience more success. Of course, sales will always be a competitive and driving force in any industry, but one thing that continues to remain a primary focuses of all consumers is their experiences with the companies they choose to work with.

Ensuring that your team continues to build and strengthen relationships with the right buyer roles fortifies your role as a valuable resource for customers and clients. Without fostering connection and prioritizing customer engagement, sales teams simply cannot guarantee success. Where are you in this journey?

The Author is Sayantan Dasgupta, Director, Gramener