Think selling ends at the contract? Think again. Most clients, when asked, will tell you the point of contact is the sales person. Why? Because that’s who the client trusts.

Today’s complex marketplace has many demands placed on it by a seemingly never-ending quest for clients. Sales people play a critical role in managing client expectations, enhancing client service and preserving trust in the marketplace.

However, what, exactly, is the sales person’s role? Is it simply hunter?

The sales person is a natural extension of the company, and what many companies fail to realize is that clients don’t trust the company; clients trust the sales contact. This is an important distinction to make because not only is the relationship resting on the sales person, but the external trust a company imparts to the marketplace falls to these company ambassadors.

The win-win-win sales strategy aligns external clients (the marketplace) with the sales person and internal clients (company employees, including customer service representatives) and creates a strategy designed to retain all while enhancing overall brand trust.

With a strong labor market, top sales professionals are in demand. No longer can companies count on an endless supply of experienced professionals waiting to fill the sales function. Additionally, with the cost of replacing these positions, companies increasingly find themselves facing higher recruiting costs and, in some cases, the cost of lost intellectual capital, lost revenue, and lost client relationships can top five times a sales professional’s salary. Today, ensuring that sales professionals stay content and challenged is paramount for successful, thriving sales teams. Creating a sales process that promotes the sales professional as a critical component in that process creates a win for the sales professional as well as for client and employer.

The myriad of choices available to clients in our marketplace is staggering. One of the primary ways that companies differentiate competition is through human capital – the people who interface with the clients. The natural progression of putting people in front of clients is that the relationship naturally falls to the person the client sees most. Companies today realize that there is loyalty in the relationship. Facilitating a sales process that enables the client to interface with the primary sales contact offers the client access to a trusted point of contact, and allows clients an easy way to interact with the company. In many instances, a client will first go to a trusted source – such as the sales professional –before abandoning the relationship.

Companies seek to find a way to retain clients and to ensure that client loyalty is maximized. The sales sweet spot offers a win for companies because it aligns sales professionals with the client in a way that naturally protects the client’s welfare and, thus, the client’s lifelong revenue with the company. No longer can companies rely on an endless supply of clients or sales professionals. A strategy that serves both of these, in turn, serves the company through enhanced marketplace trust, reduced recruiting fees, reduced client attrition, and increased client loyalty, which, ultimately translates into greater lifelong revenue at a lower cost per sale.

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