Anybody you know still giving sales pitches?  Me neither.  Maybe that stuff still works for carnival barkers and the home shopping network, but in the B2B world, the sales pitch is deader than a dinosaur.  Successful sales reps know that, far from being a "sales pitch," every customer meeting is an opportunity to strengthen the relationship.  Here are the 3 rules to make certain this happens:

• RULE #1: Always seek the truth.  You want to find out if you really have something that can help the customer.  To do this, the meeting must be a quest to discover the real areas where the two of you can work together.  Quick tip: your customer knows that you're telling the truth when you're not afraid to say something negative (but true) about your product or company.
• RULE #2: Always keep an open mind. When you walk into a customer meeting absolutely convinced that the customer needs your product or service, the customer will sense you're close-minded and become close-minded in return.  If, by contrast, you're open to the idea that the customer might be better served elsewhere, the customer will sense that you've got his or her best interests at heart and will be more likely to listen to what you have to say.
• RULE #3: Always have a real dialog. A customer meeting should be a conversation, not a mere sales call.  This means that you should be listening to the customer at least half of the time that's spent at the meeting.  Furthermore, the dialog should be substantive and about real business issues, not just office patter or chit-chat about sports.

The above is based on a conversation with Jerry Acuff, author of The Relationship Edge in Business: Connecting with Customers and Colleagues when It Counts,

BTW, Here's a guest post Jerry did for me a few months ago that's definitely worth reading: "Sales Relationships in Tough Times."

By Geoffrey James