Selling Survey Reveals What's Most Important to Customers
You have heard the phrase "it's not what you know that matters, rather who you know". I would take that a step further . . . it's who knows you.
For example:
- 85% of job openings are filled by networks of people that already knew the candidate.
- For established businesses, over 80% of sales come from existing customers.
- And the remainder comes from NEW business that is driven by referrals or word of mouth.
Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement, in real life begins . . . "you will be in 5 years what you are today except for the books you read and the people you meet" - Charlie Jones
Peter Drucker once said "businesses exist for only one reason - to acquire & retain customers". Which begs the question, how do we acquire & retain more customers? The simple answer is to give them what they want.
HR Chally has surveyed over 80,000 B2B customers and asked them "why do you buy from the suppliers you actually buy from?" Chally was able to place all the answers into 1 of 4 buckets:
Price - 18%
Product - 21%
Total Solution - 22%
Relationship - 39%
By the way, customers are not saying that price, product, & total solution are not important. They are saying that these 3 criteria are not that different. What is different, very different & the hands-down reason they buy is the relationship that they have with at least one person within the supplier's business.
There are 6 principles that drive these realtionship.
What you know is not as important as who you know - and who knows you is most important.