{"id":1520,"date":"2008-04-18T09:45:52","date_gmt":"2008-04-18T14:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/relationships-drive-sales\/"},"modified":"2008-04-18T06:55:24","modified_gmt":"2008-04-18T11:55:24","slug":"relationships-drive-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/relationships-drive-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Relationships Drive Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Selling has always been about relationships, but it is becoming more significant in today&#8217;s world.\u00a0 According to a recent study referenced in this Selling Power.com article &#8211; <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sellingpower.com\/html_newsletter\/article.asp?NLid=1&amp;Layout_ID=754&amp;ARTid=3395&amp;nDate=April+16%2C+2008\">The Relationship Imperative<\/a> &#8211; product superiority is not as big a driver in customers&#8217; decision-making process.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;Product superiority used to be a big advantage for companies,&#8221; says Jim Dickie, partner at CSO Insights. &#8220;But collapsing product lifecycles is changing that. If a competitor doesn&#8217;t have a feature or function today, they can catch up a lot faster than they could in the past.&#8221; The result: product superiority has dropped down to the number three reason companies win deals with just 35 percent of companies citing it versus 56 percent who say relationships drive their wins.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Isn&#8217;t that notable?\u00a0 &#8220;Collapsing product lifecycles&#8221; is really behind this shift.\u00a0 I just read an article about 5 new cell phones coming out to compete with the iPhone.\u00a0 They are all touchscreen phones with many similar features.\u00a0 Maybe we are trading imitation for innovation?\u00a0 Whatever the reason, relationships drive sales.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Selling has always been about relationships, but it is becoming more significant in today&#8217;s world.\u00a0 According to a recent study referenced in this Selling Power.com article &#8211; The Relationship Imperative &#8211; product superiority is not as big a driver in customers&#8217; decision-making process. &#8220;Product superiority used to be a big advantage for companies,&#8221; says Jim Dickie, partner at CSO Insights. &#8220;But collapsing product lifecycles is changing that. If a competitor doesn&#8217;t have a feature or function today, they can catch up a lot faster than they could in the past.&#8221; The result: product superiority has dropped down to the number three reason companies win deals with just 35 percent of&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/04\/relationships-drive-sales\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[552,553,142,273],"class_list":["post-1520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sales-techniques","category-trends","tag-relationship-sales","tag-relationship-selling","tag-sales-technique","tag-sales-trend"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-ow","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1956,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/03\/the-little-r-relationship\/","url_meta":{"origin":1520,"position":0},"title":"The Little r Relationship","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 17, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"SellingPower.com offers up a spot-on short article about maintaining customer relationships in this economy.\u00a0 The pressure on salespeople is extremely high right now in two regards \u2013 there are limited opportunities to close new business and the business world continues its radical information shift thanks to the Internet. First off,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1398,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/01\/deal-killing-ceos\/","url_meta":{"origin":1520,"position":1},"title":"Deal-Killing CEOs","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 30, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"ManageSmarter.com offers an article I could have penned - The CEO as Salesperson.\u00a0 I can relate to this sales call: After initial introductions, the CEO took over the meeting and, ignoring the agenda, began a detailed demo and discussion of the product. He set about to demonstrate the superiority of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1462,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/03\/6-sales-myths\/","url_meta":{"origin":1520,"position":2},"title":"6 Sales Myths","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"March 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"This article is from ManageSmarter.com and it debunks 6 very common sales myths.\u00a0 My absolute favorite from the short article: Myth: If sales understood the product better, sales would increase. Reality: Actually, if everyone in the company\u2014e.g., marketing, product developers, IT, and fulfillment, to name a few\u2014understood sales better, sales\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Management&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Management","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-management\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1671,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/07\/sales-20\/","url_meta":{"origin":1520,"position":3},"title":"Sales 2.0","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I read often about web 2.0, recruiting 2.0 and sales 2.0.\u00a0 Math was never my forte so numbers scare me.\u00a0 But I did come across a very informative article in Sales & Marketing Management article titled A Step-By-Step Overview of Sales 2.0.\u00a0 The first pull quote: With instant access to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Communication&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Communication","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/communication\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1556,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2008\/05\/5-keys-to-credibility\/","url_meta":{"origin":1520,"position":4},"title":"5 Keys To Credibility","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 7, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Selling Power offers a short, but excellent article that provides 5 subtle ways to build credibility.\u00a0 We often talk about establishing rapport with prospects and then building credibility.\u00a0 This is sales 101, but it is surprisingly sparse in sales situations (emphasis mine): Of the five elements which are essential to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Techniques&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1025,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/06\/show-up-and-throw-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":1520,"position":5},"title":"Show Up And Throw Up","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 22, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"As a continuation of my post from earlier this morning, I came across another Selling Power article that complements the point about the importance of asking the right questions.\u00a0 The Sales Intelligence Imperative provides detailed statistics regarding the point at which many sales stall.\u00a0 Interestingly enough, the researchers found that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Sales Techniques&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Sales Techniques","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/sales-techniques\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/06\/windowslivewritershowupandthrowup-b573basin.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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