“Why should I buy from you?”

Yesterday we asked, “Why should someone buy from your business?”

Now we ask, “Why should someone buy from you? This is the more basic of the two questions because people do business with people first, then with the business.

Imagine yourself as one of five salespeople (customer service people) on the sales floor of a retail shop or an auto showroom. Why should the customer, who has purposefully walked in the door to buy your product, buy from you rather than one of the others?

Yes, I know. You greeted them first, or you smiled … I’ve even heard that you’re a team and you don’t compete with each other. Let’s get beyond those niceties.

The first step in selling the customer is to sell yourself.

The 5 Steps of Building a Customer Relationship starts with selling yourself first, then selling your business, then your product, then the price and then the agreement … and they must be done in order.

So, what can you say about yourself? Here are two basics:

1. I’ve worked with customers just like you for twenty years now and along with my printing comes my experience …
2. I’m new at selling printing but that means I have to work harder for my customers …

Or, if you have other specifics, hone your script and use them:

1. My undergraduate degree is in marketing and I truly like the challenge of creating unique selling propositions …
2. I haven’t been a CSR that long, but my five years in production really sharpened my project management skills …    

In short, customers have to trust us first. In order to trust us, they need to know that we know what we’re doing. Being able to assure them in some way is an often overlooked step.

So what can you say about you?