There are many resources online that help train brand new and even experienced salespeople. One of those websites is entrepreneur.com. This website has a constant stream of new business and sales articles that often provide insightful tips and tricks. One article of a particular quality is Mike Kappel’s “4 Reasons to Walk a Mile in Your Customers’ Shoes (And How to Do It)”.
In Kappel’s article, he lists 4 reasons to walk a mile in your customers’ shoes. The first reason is to understand customer pain points. This is something that Professor Sweet has discussed in class. If you know your customers’ pain points, you know how you can solve a problem for them and consequentially make a sale.
The second listed reason Kappel provides is to Find the weakest part of your business. If you take the time to evaluate, listen, and try and experience what your customers do, this can provide extremely valuable insight into the weakest part of your business. Once you have the knowledge of the weak link in your business operation, you then have the ability to compensate or strengthen this aspect. The stronger the sales operation, the stronger the chance to make a sale.
Building off of the second listed reason, Kappel gives us his third reason. To learn your business’ strengths. In the same way, you can identify your business’ weaknesses by putting yourself in the shoes of your customers, you can also identify the strengths of your business. Knowing your strengths well is just as valuable as knowing your weaknesses. If you know your strength, you can double down and fortify this strength and play to it in your sales process.
The last reason Kappel provides is to create a win-win scenario. When you walk in your customer’s shoes, you can find ways to provide solutions to customers’ pain points and your weaknesses. When you look for solutions, you can provide them to customers. Customers are only interested in buying products that provide a solution to a pain point or problem you have.
With these principles provided by Kappel, new or experienced salespeople can find their strengths, their weaknesses, and customer pain points. With all this knowledge, they will inevitably increase their frequency of sales.
Article Link: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/417719
BoweryJE22
This is really good advice. Furthermore, it really connects back to what we learned in class. It is vitally important to be able to understand you customer. Being able to see things from their perspective is crucial to making a sale where both parties can benefit. Walking a mile in your customers shoes is a really good way of accomplishing these things.
Great advice Zack! Kappel has so many great points revolving around the idea of listening and truly understanding you customer! Great job.