So, you have created a customer, you’ve actually sold something, and you have some money in the bank. Feel free to celebrate and luxuriate in the good feelings that bubble out of you. That’s one of the fringe benefits to selling — it feels great when you succeed.

Before you become too enraptured with yourself, let me remind that you are not finished. There is a greater goal, and a larger and more encompassing strategy into which this transaction fits. If you focus all of your time and energy on creating sales, you will, unfortunately, miss the mark.

In a very fundamental sense, in face-to-face, one-on-one selling, the ultimate goal is something larger and more significant than the sale itself. It is the creation of a positive business relationship, because the relationship supersedes the transaction and makes all future transactions much easier and more profitable. Think of that annuity. For example, if you have a great experience with the place from which you bought your TV, you are much more likely to go back there again. The next time, you are inclined to buy from them, less likely to price shop, and more likely to be less critical and demanding. You may even tell your friends about that place.

From the seller’s point of view, he has succeeded in creating a relationship with you such that you are favorably inclined to come back, buy again, and refer your friends. The second sale is so much easier than the first, because now you are less risk to the buyer. That’s the net result of a positive business relationship.

Creating a Partner

And the ultimate positive business relationship is something I call a “partner.” A partner is someone who trusts you, believes you consistently bring value to him, sees you and your company as an integral part of his business, and buys almost everything he can from you.

Your fundamental, long-term strategy is to develop and nurture a passel of partners. Your partners then become an asset to your organization, providing years of revenue, in the same way that a brand or product line is an asset to the company. You can’t note them on your balance sheet, but they are, nevertheless, one of the sources of future wealth for both you and your company.

Your fundamental strategy begins with the land of apathy and ignorance, in which your suspects live. They don’t know who you are, and they don’t care. Your job is to reach into the land of apathy and ignorance and identify people you suspect might one day do business with you. Then, you learn something about them, and eliminate those who aren’t really prospects to focus on those who are prospects. With those who are prospects, you engage with them, make them comfortable with you, find out what they want, show them how what you have gives them what they want, gain an agreement on the next step and bingo, you have a sale! You have created a customer.

When a customer buys over and over from you, he becomes a “client.” And some clients will be so enamored by the value of what you bring and the ease of doing business with you that they will commit to do a lot of business with you. They become partners.

The process of moving customers to clients and clients to partners throws off money, almost as a fringe benefit. Before they can become partners, they have to become clients. And, in order to move from being a customer (someone who buys from you once) to a client, they have to believe that you bring them value and can meet their needs on an on-going basis. Ergo, the ROF call.

ROF Call

One of the most powerful one-on-one sales calls you can make is what I call the ROF call. That stands for “Relationship building, Opportunity identifying, Follow-up” call. It’s the sales call you make after the customer has purchased and implemented your offer. For the realtor, it’s the call you make on your buyers after they have moved into their new home. For the car salesperson, it’s the phone call after the customer has driven off the lot with the new car. For the B2B salesperson, it’s the visit you make after they have begun to use your new service or product. And for our freelance grant writer, it is the visit you arrange after the grant application has been submitted.

Why would you do it? After all, you’ve made the sale, because you understand the bigger picture. It’s not just about this sale; it’s about the relationship.

It’s powerful because it’s unusual. When was the last time you had a salesperson contact you after the purchase? Since you will be one of the very few salespeople who actually care enough to follow up after the sale, you will stand out, head and shoulders, above your competitors.

The ROF call is powerful for one more, very specific and tangible reason. It often produces additional opportunities. At the end of this very specific sales call, you ask for other opportunities.

Here’s how you do it. After you have delivered what they purchased from you, then call them for an appointment. When you are one-on-one with them, first ask about their satisfaction with what they bought. At this point, either of one or two things will happen. They will indicate they are satisfied or they weren’t. If they weren’t, you need to apologize and do whatever you can to fix it. It’s good that you found out right now, before it has a chance to fester and spread to other potential customers.

If they are satisfied, great. Confirm it. Then ask them what other opportunities they have for you and your service or product in the near future. If they indicate something, good for you, you have an additional opportunity to work on. (You have “found out what they want” again) If they don’t, it’s OK.

But you are not done yet. Now, you want to probe for external opportunities. These are potential relationships and opportunities for you outside of the confines of this customer’s reach. Does he know other people to whom he can refer you? In a large organization, it could be other departments or plants. In a smaller one, it could be business colleagues. For an individual, it could be friends and neighbors.

If they provide you with a name or two, you now have a short cut into an engagement with a “right person.” And you are back at the start of the sales process with someone else. Since you have a recommendation from a trusted reference, you are entering that engagement with an advantage.

So, you have made a ROF call and wrung additional value out of the transaction. But what if they have no near-term additional opportunities? How do you develop a positive business relationship with this customer when there is no reasonable expectation of additional business in the short term?

Think in terms of “top of mind awareness.” Known in the advertising world as TOMA. TOMA means that you work to keep your name, or your company’s name, or your products, on the customer’s mind, so that, when the time comes for him to buy again, he thinks first of you.

Now, think in terms of “touches.” Touches are light, non-intensive communications from or about you to your customers that spotlight your name, and keep you at the top of their minds.

Now, put those two concepts together — TOMA touches. That’s the answer to the question, “How do you develop a positive business relationship with this customer when there is no reasonable expectation of near term business?”

TOMA touches are all around us. When you receive that birthday card from your life insurance agent, that’s a TOMA touch. When you receive that quarterly newsletter from the realtor who helped you buy or sell your last home, that’s a TOMA touch. Those e-mails from that investment newsletter you signed up for? A TOMA touch. That calendar that was mailed to you by people from whom you buy your auto insurance? A TOMA touch.

Notice that they all have some common elements. They are personal, addressed to you by name. They carry the name and contact information of the seller. They reflect positively on him or her. And they are light and non-intrusive.

In the B2B world, TOMA touches can be creative. They can range from a fun exhibit at the trade show or convention, to the gift basket delivered at Christmas.

Getting Noticed

Anything you can do to make your touch stand out and get noticed will be worthwhile. For example, in my world, where all my client’s vendors send Christmas cards, I send Thanksgiving cards. (Now don’t everybody go out and do this!) Instead of being buried in the pack of Christmas cards, because mine is unusual, it stands out.

The possibilities for TOMA touches are endless. Think in terms of all the electronic communications possible: Twitter, LinkedIn, e-mail, etc. Then think about hard-copy touches, like calendars, imprinted pens, self-stick note pads with your name on them, etc. There are entire catalogs brimming over with these kinds of possibilities. Don’t forget personalized birthday and holiday cards.

Finally, if the amount of potential revenue is large enough, consider strategically entertaining your highest-potential customers.

Consider this experience of mine from my days of selling for a wholesale distributor. I had a high-potential account that did not respond to my efforts. Months went by and I could get nowhere in this huge account.

My company owned four season tickets to the University of Michigan football games, and it was my turn to use them. I invited the head of the purchasing department from that account and her spouse to join my wife and me. We spent the afternoon together, first enjoying a traditional tail-gate meal, then a great college football game.

Immediately thereafter, however, I began to do business in that account. Business grew continually until it eventually became my largest account. The football game was the turning point in the relationship.

It wasn’t that I gained “inside” information. We didn’t even talk about business. But, my customer came to know me better, and, in so doing, became more comfortable with me as a person. And that made all the difference.

That was not the first, nor the last, time for that experience. I regularly treated two of my customers with their spouses to join my wife and me for a dinner at Greek Town in Detroit, followed by a Tigers game. We never talked business, but afterward, business always grew. Again, it wasn’t that we exchanged business information, cut deals, or anything of that nature. What did happen, every time, was that my customers came to know me better and differently. We became friends instead of just buyers and sellers.

There is an important truth illustrated by these examples. People like to do business with people they know. The better they know you, the more likely it is that they’ll do business with you. When they spend time with you outside of the business setting, they come to know you better. It really is that simple.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you can charge 20 percent more than your competitors, nor does it mean that you can sell an inferior product, or that your company can get away with second-class service. But, when many of these things are viewed by the customer as about the same as what your competition offers, you are more likely to get the business if you are the one who has the greater relationship with the customer. The relationship doesn’t stand in place of quality, price and service, but it can provide a competitive edge.

In my seminars, I liken the role of the relationship in selling to an oil can that is used to lubricate the gears of a sophisticated machine. If you stop oiling the gears, eventually the machinery is going to break down. The oil lubricates the interaction, and makes everything work smoother. Building powerful personal relationships with your customers is like oiling the gears. It just makes everything move that much smoother and easier. It is possible to sell without good relationships with your customers; but it is much harder.

Personal Relationships

In this time of high-tech communication, powerful personal relationships provide the high-touch for which many people are subconsciously hungering. Robert Putnam, in his landmark book, Bowling Alone, quoted a study by an MIT researcher that concludes:

“Though some unimportant business relationships and casual social relationships will be established and maintained on a purely virtual basis, physical proximity will be needed to cement and reinforce the more important professional and social encounters.”

Later, more directly to our point, the research concludes: “Widespread use of computer-mediated communication will actually require more frequent face-to-face encounters, and extensive deep, robust, social infrastructure of relationships must exist so that those using the electronic media will truly understand what others are communicating to them.”

In other words, even in this high-tech world characterized by voice mail, e-commerce and instant messaging, face-to-face relationships are necessary.

Is there, then, a place for entertaining your customers in this high tech sales environment? Absolutely! The question becomes not whether or not you ought to, but how to do it in such a way as to gain the greatest benefit. Here are some thoughts on how to entertain effectively.

Entertaining Strategically

Having lunch every Tuesday with your buddy who happens to work for one of your customers is not entertaining strategically. That’s a waste of sales time. Instead, do this. Make a list of all the individuals who could be instrumental in buying your products and services. Rank them in order of importance using criteria like how important they are to the sale, and how much business they control.

Then, start at the top and methodically work down through the list. Try to spend social time — not business time — with each. I have found evening or Saturday afternoon events work best. Sports events, concerts, and plays are excellent because they are attractive and appealing to a lot of people. To sit at the 40-yard line of a University of Michigan football game, for example, is probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most people.

Remember, the purpose is to get to know one another better as people — not as buyer and seller. So, don’t talk business unless your customer brings it up. And no sales pitches, please. When you do that, you harden the buyer and seller roles that each of you play. That’s exactly the opposite of what you want to have happen. Instead, search for personal common ground — things that you have in common with your customer. You are trying to get to know each other as people, not as role-players.

When you are entertaining, remember that you are host and that you should attend to all the details. That means that you make the dinner reservations, you see to the parking and transportation. If you are at a sporting event, you have cash to pay for beer and hot dogs, etc. Think the evening through in detail, and prepare for all the contingencies.

Finally, don’t allow the evening to go to extremes in any way. Don’t be the loudest fan, nor the last to leave. Don’t order the most or the least expensive item on the menu. Be gracious and moderate in everything you do.

Strategic entertaining can be one of your most powerful strategies. It is a way to build relationships which provide you with a competitive edge, while at the same time, meeting the customer’s preference to do business with people he or she knows.

When you have created a passel of partners, and have developed positive business relationships with lots of your customers, you have arrived at the end game for a salesperson. It’s all easier from here.

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