Sales guru Mike Bosworth takes an unorthodox view of the B2B sales and marketing process – one that puts the customer rather than the product or seller at the center of that experience. It involves treating the customer with the sort of respect that is typically lacking in traditional sales methods. Although the specifics of Bosworth's approach – described in his book “CustomerCentric Selling” – tend to be fairly detailed, the basic concept is straightforward and can be applied right away.

• Facilitate customer buying. Good salespeople don't badger their prospects to close a deal; it's obnoxious and it takes away from customer satisfaction. Instead, they facilitate a process through which the customer takes action to seek out and buy your offering because that process has helped them visualize its value in reaching goals, solving problems, and/or satisfying needs in their own work environment.
• Become the ideal. Try to determine what each customer would see as being the ideal experience in dealing with you, your company, and your product. Then try to define a sales process which would facilitate that ideal experience.
• Don't get bossy. Don't tell customers or prospects: “You need to….” Nobody likes to be told by someone else what they need to do.
• Verbalize products. Use verbs, not nouns, to discuss your product and its benefits. That helps you see the product's value from the user's standpoint. For example, if you sell office copiers, talk about ‘copying' – which is what the customer does – rather than ‘copiers,' which is what you do.
• Slow down. Don't let your most experienced sales people move too quickly toward identifying and solving a prospect's problem. It helps to have the customer work along with the salesperson to articulate their problem and find the solution because it helps them understand for themselves the value of your offering.
• Listen for goals. A watershed point in a sales call comes when the customer shares an important goal with the sales rep. It signals a degree of trust and their transition from a “suspect” into a “prospect.”

Integrating Marketing with Sales series

This Quick Tip is the last in a series offering tips on how to improve your integration of marketing with sales.

• Act respectfully
• Think conversationally
• Tested tactics of your peers