Clients want to place confidence in your salespeople’s ability to identify and represent solutions accurately. To them, your salespeople are the company. They want the right solution and they want it delivered as promised. Therefore, you should strive to make the best impression in the field.

1. WHY CUSTOMER MATTERS
Help Your Sales Team Excel
MOHAMED
RAGAIE

2. 2
CLIENT
RELATIONSHIP
Clients want to place confidence in your salespeople’s ability
to identify and represent solutions accurately. To them, your
salespeople are the company. They want the right solution
and they want it delivered as promised. Therefore, you should
strive to make the best impression in the field.
MOHAMED
RAGAIE

3. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
CLIENTS WANT YOUR SALESPEROPLE TO HAVE;
1. Valuable insights.
2. Subject-matter expertise in the client’s industry.
3. Subject-matter expertise in the client’s business.
4. Trustworthiness caring, likeability, and humility.
5. Ability to fix breakdowns and clean up messes quickly.
6. Open and honest communication.
7. Respect that the client (or prospect) knows what they are doing.
8. Ability to identify their client's problems, even if there isn’t a sale to solve them.
9. Patience, not prematurely rushing to close deals.
10. Respect for the client’s culture and political standing at work.
11. Quick responses to questions and concerns.
12. Ability to make appropriate resources from the seller’s organization available.
13. Honesty, especially in pricing.
14. Gratitude for the client’s business.
15. Making their client relationships a win/win.

4. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
FIVE ASPECTS THAT MAKE A RELATIONSHIP WORK:
1. Agreeing on the scope and deliverables for what you are solving for .
2. Identifying who is responsible for what.
3. Making specific promises to reach other.
4. Making specific requests of each other.
5. Aligning on intended outcomes for client and their organization.

5. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
A RELATIONSHIP WORKABILITY:
Let a bicycle wheel represent a client relationship. Think about what
holds that wheel together (The Spokes).
Now ask yourself, “How many client relationships do we have with
missing spokes?
A Wheel with all its spokes in place is 100% workable, has integrity
and is trustworthy.
KEYS TO WORKABILITY:
 Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
 Stay engaged.
 Understand the client’s industry in general and their
business specifically.
 Understand the client’s goals.
 Quantify value.
 Honor your word.
 Get back to each other on a timely basis.
 Give honest and timely feedback.
 Make promises and deliver on them.
 Make clear requests.
 Minimizing sharing casual opinions.
 Don’t gossip about each other.

6. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
CLIENT DEFINITIONS
CLIENTS
 Recognize the value of your offering.
 Will pay a premium because of how you do
business, e.g. provide great support or respond
quickly to questions
SUSPECTS
 Aren’t known yet to have the potential to do
business with you.
 Have been identified by you or others in your
organization as possible prospects.
PROSPECTS
 Hold the potential to do business with you.
 Have been qualified by your organization in some
manner.
CUSTOMERS
 Buy on a transactional basis and aren’t very loyal to
their suppliers.
 Are focused on price, terms, and conditions of a
purchase.
ADVOCATES
 Experience high value in working with your
organization.
 Are interested in helping your organization
succeed because it’s in their best interest, as
well as yours.
PARTNERS
 Account for the most revenue.
 Receive a significant benefit by doing business
with your organization and know that switching
to another provider would be very painful.

7. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP UNDERMINE
SALESPERSON CLIENT
Point of view Point of view
THE LOW-BALL
THE CLIENT BYPASS
THE ARROGANT EXPERT
THE NONCHALANT THANKS
NO TIME AND NO RESPECT
SHOWING OUT LATE
ALL OVER THE PLACE
RADIO SILENT

8. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP UNDERMINE - SALESPERSON
THE LOW-BALL
THE CLIENT BYPASS
THE ARROGANT EXPERT
THE NONCHALANT THANKS
When salesperson holds back because they’re afraid of blowing
the sale and will reintroduce the items that were left out.
i. Coach your salesperson to be up front with honesty to
let their clients know that they don’t play games.
ii. Ask clients up front how price sensitive they are.
iii. Tell third party horror stories.
Description What to do
It’s the last week of the month and a few of salespeople are
short on their numbers, they bypass the client and go directly
to the decision maker
i. Resist the temptation to jump the gun and get more
information.
ii. Ask your salespeople to be assertive, but diplomatic at
the same time.
iii. Does the client share the same sense of urgency?
iv. Determine if it’s appropriate for you to talk with the
client’s boss.
Your salesperson makes the mistake of assuming the client
doesn’t know what they’re doing. So, the client isn’t offered the
opportunity to collaborate in the proposed solution.
i. Always operate as if the client is the expert, ask him up
front to get involved in scoping out your solution.
ii. Assume that clients want to be involved in the
proposal formulation process.
Your salesperson didn’t make a point of showing how much this
deal really means to them and the organization. So, the client
may be concerned that your company won’t give him great
service because their business doesn’t mean that much to you.
i. Let your salesperson genuinely show to the clients how
grateful they are for their business.
ii. Sales management can visit the client in person and
thank them on behalf of the entire organization.
iii. Pledge your support to do whatever you can to make
sure that the solution that your client bought is
implemented successfully.

9. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP UNDERMINE - CLIENT
NO TIME AND NO RESPECT
SHOWING OUT LATE
ALL OVER THE PLACE
RADIO SILENT
When salesperson walks into a prospect’s office and sits down
for a meeting. The prospect says they only have 15 minutes.
Then start to check messages on their smartphones and take
non-urgent calls
i. Ask up front how much time the prospect has, if it’s
significant less than the time agreed to, then by all
means take the time they give.
ii. Ask if it’s appropriate to schedule a follow up meeting
only if agrees that it make sense.
Description Coach your salesperson to;
Your salesperson scheduled a call and their client shows up 10
minutes late.
i. Five minutes into the meeting, send the absentees an
email or text message stating that the salesperson is
on the line.
ii. Email an agenda ahead of time including some specific
questions they intend to ask in the meeting. People are
more likely to show up on time when the meeting’s
purpose and agenda are clear.
Your salesperson’s prospect wants to meet to discuss an
opportunity to work together. Then they ask a lot of irrelevant
questions and talk about topics that are unrelated to business
i. Make it their responsibility to run a well-organized
meeting and train them on how to do so.
ii. Spend approximately fifty percent of the time in a sales
call asking good, problem-probing questions.
The prospect asks your salesperson for a proposal, so they
dutifully send a proposal via email. Then they wait and wait and
get no response. They follow up with another email asking if
they got the previous email. Still nothing. They call, leave
voicemails, and get no calls back.
i. During the meeting, make a promise to send a follow
up email, summarizing the prospect’s key goals, what’s
requested from them, what your organization is
committing to.
ii. After two weeks has passed, suggest that your
salesperson send an email that this opportunity won’t
be pursued any further unless they hear back.
Make it sound polite, but firm.

10. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
REPAIRING BROKEN CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS
UNDERSTAND
 Get background information on the
concern.
 Find out if there is something else going
on beside the immediate problem.
 Ask clarifying questions.
 Discuss options
PROVIDE UPDATES
 Give frequent status updates to all parties
involved until the problem is resolved.
COMMUNICATE
 First, apologize, regardless of who is at fault.
 Quickly and efficiently communicate that you are aware of a
problem or concern.
 Inform the client that action is being taken to resolve the
situation.
 Provide specific date by which the situation will be resolved.
CREATE A PLAN
 Work with your salesperson and any
other people in your organization who
are involved.
 Include people in the client’s
organization.
 Set timelines.
 Get agreement from all parties on what
a successful outcome looks like.
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11. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
CLIENT RELATIONSHIP
TAKE HOME MESSAGES
Clients have every right to receive the
very best service in the most professional
and valuable manner possible.
CLIENT
The foundation of all successful client
relationships is workability. Without it,
nothing works.
WORKABILITY
By examining what clients want, planning
effectively for sales and marketing
personnel to give value, and knowing
how to deal with and restore
breakdowns, you operate at an
extraordinary level of performance where
everyone wins.
WIN - WIN
It is up to you as an effective sales leader
to make revenue and make your
salespeople successful. It is your decision
to grow your business in an honorable
way that makes you and everyone you
work with proud to be a part of your
team.
EFFECTIVENESS
A
B
C
D

12. MOHAMED
RAGAIE
THANK YOU