Relationships Over Transactions

The relationships you have with your customers is worth more than a single transaction. You dramatically change the relationship by over-vauling the transaction, especially in a transaction relationship where trust is paramount.

• You might be able to push your dream client to buy before they are ready. You might know how to use tactics like tie-downs to lock them into a decision. By locking your dream client into a decision they weren’t yet ready to make, you put the transaction before the relationship. Your dream client now carries a negative feeling about you because you demonstrated that the sales was more important to you than the person you sold.
• You might be able to take advantage of a client’s lack of knowledge about what you sell to give them a price that is higher than any price you might charge someone who knows the value of what you are selling. Over time, as your client learns that you took advantage them, they will come to discover that you put the single sale above the relationship. You won’t make another sale to this client, and they will share the bad experience they had with others.
• Sometimes your prospective customer will want to buy what you sell before they are capable of benefiting from what you provide them. By selling them what they want, you allowed them to fail, and likely cost them time and money. By taking their money, you have demonstrated that the transaction was worth more than the potential relationship.

The value of the relationship is worth more than a single transaction. When you get this wrong, you make a single sale. When you get this right, you develop the kind of trusted relationship that gives you access to all the future transactions–and maybe even exclusive rights to all of those future transactions.