Don’t fall in love with your marketing, or your sales pitch, or your product, or your company. It doesn’t matter how much you love all of these things. It doesn’t matter if you think you have the best marketing in the world. It doesn’t matter if you think your advertising is cool. It doesn’t matter if you have the very best product on the market today. Nope, in the end all that matters is what your customers think. You should be emphasizing and prioritizing your customers’ needs over your own. You should be completely customer focused. 

Being customer-centric is truly the number one goal you can have if you want to be successful in sales. 

Salespeople who focus on what their customers want and what they need will always be the most successful in the end. To win your customer’s business you have to provide them with exactly what they want.

Instead of spending all of your time and effort (and money) on what you believe is the best message to put in front of your customers, the best thing to do is to find out what they want. 

If you find yourself saying, “I don’t know what is wrong with these customers? They just don’t get it. We have the best product, service, technology, marketing, and value in our market today. Why aren’t these customers buying from us? They just don’t get it. They must be stupid to not understand that.” Then you’d better rethink your approach because you are way off base.

Customers buy what they want when they want it. Customers do not buy because you are telling them to. They buy when they are ready to buy and when they feel that your product meets their needs.

To fully understand this, you have to dig deep. You have to study your customers to attain a good working knowledge of what their needs are. There are a number of ways to do this. You can look into the company to find out what they are like. You can study the market they are in to get a good understanding of what it takes for them to be a leader in that market. There are a lot of other things you can do.

But there is one failsafe way to find out what your customers want in a product and what they want in a supplier. And that is to simply ask them! That’s right, it is not very complicated. Just sit down with their buyer or engineer, or whomever the decision maker in the company is and have a good, honest, open discussion of what their needs are. Find out by asking them what they look for in a supplier. What are their preferences? Just know what to ask and when to ask it and then listen. 

And please allow me to re-emphasize that: please shut up and listen. Remember you will never learn anything while you are talking. You already know all about your own company, and the customer probably does as well. So just ask the right questions and learn what it will take to successfully learn what your customers’ needs are.

It’s not very difficult once you get the hang of it.

Just as a kind of primer. And to save you some time I have done the research for you and came up with the top ten reasons customers will buy from you. As you will see, most of them, actually, all of them are (do i really need to say it?) only common sense.

So, drum roll please…here are the top ten reasons why customers buy from you:

1. Quality: Customers perceive your products and services as high-quality, which means they won’t have to worry about quality issues when they deal with you as a supplier.
2. Price: Sorry, it is important. The customer has to feel he or she is getting the best value for their money.
3. Brand reputation: Trust in your brand’s reputation and track record is always important.
4. Customer service: Excellent service and support.
5. Convenience. Being easy to work with. Easy to talk to. 
6. Unique Features: Innovative products, technology, and capabilities.
7. Recommendations: This one is key. There is nothing better than one happy customer bragging about you to a potential new customer. Positive word-of-mouth or referrals are the best.
8. Trustworthiness: A sense of trust and reliability in your business. This is where you as the salesperson get into the act. If you are real and trustworthy and honest you will do well.
9. Emotional Connection: Emotional appeal such as alignment with the customer’s values and lifestyles.
10. Problem Solving: Your product and service effectively addresses the customers’ pain points and needs.

But always remember that things change. Customer preferences change, so it is essential to continually adapt your strategies to meet your customer’s evolving expectations and requirements. Building and maintaining strong customer relationships is key to long-term success in sales and of course in business.