Know Thy Enemy, Befriend Rivals

Scrutinize your competitors, and become friends with them, too. You just might partner to pitch a client, buy one out (or vice versa), or grow the industry together.

Here's a truth:  At BzzAgent, the word-of-mouth marketing firm where I'm CEO, I go to ridiculous extremes to obtain information about our competitors.

I scan Crunchbase, study websites, and download mobile apps. I troll shamelessly for gossip about our rivals' executive teams and star players.  And occasionally—when I'm really on my game—I hit pay dirt and obtain a competitor's proposal to a client. And when that happens, our team goes to work.  We dissect it for valuable bits of information about our opponents' pricing models, positioning, and capabilities.  And it's this information that allows us to accelerate our innovation, understand where our competitors are strong—and determine how we can exploit their weaknesses. 
For instance, from one proposal we learned that our flat-fee model was being devalued by another company's "cost-per-engagement" pricing. We created a strategy to counter that objection with clients and prospects. And a few years ago, we got the inside scoop on a new opponent's practice of throwing in-home product-distribution parties for marketers and got ahead of market by developing the next evolution of the concept.

We're also interested in information about our competitors' processes.  For a while, one rival company responded to email queries by tersely exclaiming that they only accepted clients who had a minimum of $1 million to spend.  Hey, we were happy to accept those that 'just missed' that criteria.  In another case, a company that tracks social influence positioned itself as a competitor to us—but inside information proved that their engineering-first culture could be perceived as unfriendly to clients.  Our awareness of that issue was the foundation for a very lucrative partnership discussion.

Sun Tsu said it best:  "…know thy enemy."  As a strategy, this means more than the collection and dissection of as much information on your competitors as possible.  Alongside minor cloak-and-dagger data gathering, you should also be developing real, personal relationships with people at all levels of your competitor's businesses.  Just as much value—possibly even more—can come from a direct relationship.  Why not identify and tackle common challenges and goals? Growing an industry is often about the sum of its parts. With a rival, you might create standards or align to compete against a regulation. Heck, you may even partner to win a big client.

And if you're leading an organization and aren't similarly fixated on both knowledge-gathering strategies, you are putting your company at great risk.
I wasn't always so obsessed. At one time, I thought BzzAgent was untouchable. I believed we could always stay one step ahead of the competition.  I was convinced that what we did was often right and what our rivals did was often wrong.  Of course we would continue to evolve and they would remain static.  But I was wrong.
Many a corporate pundit will tell you to just focus on your own business. Don't get distracted by the competition, they will say. In our case, we were so focused on ourselves that we failed to look up in time to see how things had evolved.   We were the first entrant into the space in 2001, and for many years we were considered the only game in town.  We didn't have to outpitch anyone.  We just had to be us.  When competitors finally showed up around 2005, we mocked the fact that they weren't nearly as knowledgeable as we were.  We were confident they lacked our experience.  We thought their variations on our model wouldn't significantly impact us.  But by 2008, we found ourselves losing more projects than we were winning.  Competitors had learned how to pitch against us.  Their innovations weren't to be mocked; they were to be admired.

I realize now that this happened because competition is different today than it was just a few decades ago.  Business in general is moving much faster and ideas can be replicated on the cheap.  Competitors—and even companies not yet in your space—will adapt and learn and find ways to become better than you.  They are nimble and they will adapt.  And while they may falter, it's a much better bet to figure they probably won't.  Competitors are often smarter than you think they are, and if you turn a blind eye to them—or even blink for a moment—they're going to eat your lunch.  If you care at all about the organization you're leading, gathering significant information about your competitors isn't useful.  It's not something that might be worth your time.  It's something you must do.

At Smarterer, a Google-backed startup where I'm executive chair, we watched as Gild, a company that had been only tangentially related to us, deployed an almost-exact replica of our solution, which gives people a score based on how adept they are at things like Excel and PHP and Photoshop.  While initial reactions included hand-wringing and disappointment at being imitated so closely, we eventually settled on a valuable realization: There is no longer first-mover advantage.  This has been replaced by an ability-to-adapt advantage.   For those who are willing to gather as much information as possible, react, and innovate ahead of rapid market shifts, success will be inevitable.  For those who fail to pay attention to everything happening around them, getting overtaken is the only possible outcome.   Yes, it's still true that if you have a good idea, at least 10 other people are doing the same thing—but now they're watching you as closely as you should be watching them.

But you shouldn't consider your competition the evil enemy.  They exist for the very same reason you do, and in most cases rising tides do in fact lift all boats. When it came time to sell BzzAgent (we were acquired by Tesco in July 2011), we had a number of direct competitors that became potential suitors, solely because we had shared a beer at one point or worked together on authoring an ethical code for the industry.  You might not end up as BFFs, but having a competitor as a "frenemy" can be incredibly valuable.
How do you get there? The route to a competitor relationship begins simply: Pick up the phone and call them.   Don't wait; just do it.  Or actively seek out your competitors at a conference and introduce yourself.  Let them know what you admire about them and offer to share an ingredient in your "secret sauce."  Follow up and follow through. Send holiday cards; share client stories.  This will break down the barriers that hamper your ability to learn from others and grow your business.  The information you gather will be a critical asset that will help you stay ahead in your industry.

And if a frenemy asks, don't lie.  You can say, "Yes, we do have copies of your proposals. Know what? I'll send you one of mine. After all, maybe we can learn something from one another."

http://www.inc.com/dave-balter/start-up-strategy-know-thy-enemy-befriend-rivals.html

I Broke These 6 Business Rules. Why You Should, Too.

I may be a rule-follower by nature. But when it comes to my own company, I've learned when to color outside the lines.

I am not a risk taker. Even as a child, I always did what teachers told me to do and listened to my parents -- well, most of the time. Through college and the early part of my career at technology companies, I followed a linear and predictable path to get to the next level of management, the next promotion, the next raise.

But then I started my own business. That’s when everything changed. No risk meant no reward. I learned that sometimes, the standard rules don’t apply. Especially these:

1. Never Work With Friends and Family.
The first two people I hired were my sister and my best friend’s sister. Why? My sister Lori is the most detail-oriented person I know, and Michelle was Nordstrom-trained on customer service. It’s been 15 years, and they are still with my company, kicking butt and keeping me sane. Sure, we’ve had a few disagreements, but Lori and Michelle have always been extremely committed to our success and respectful of my role as leader. We trust each other and discuss parenting tips as easily as project updates.

2. Get an MBA.
As we’ve learned from Steve Jobs, Walt Disney and Mark Zuckerberg, having an advanced business degree is not required for successful entrepreneurship. Leverage smart people, trust your instincts and just get out there. I gained tremendous insight by joining an angel investment group to see how other entrepreneurs positioned and marketed their companies. Professional organizations in my industry led me to successful owners whom I still tap for advice. And a CEO organization called Vistage gives me access to a braintrust of experts on any business matter.

3. Sales is the Key to Success.
As the business owner, I was the primary rainmaker for years. Unfortunately, I sucked at sales. I hate asking for money. So I hired professional salespeople, and they all failed miserably. Now I understand that my customers hate being sold as much as I hate selling. They really just want someone who will share a cup of coffee and understand their pain, then come up with a solution that doesn’t require even more work. That’s all.

4. You’ve Gotta Get a Plan.
For years, our team didn’t have any formal business plan, just a revenue target and a few key objectives. Of course, like a map-less Magellan, you can waste time and resources. You can even fail to notice when you do reach your goal. But spending weeks discussing and writing a comprehensive plan that few will follow isn’t productive either. Our started simple, and it’s staying that way: One page with an annual revenue target and theme agreed upon by the entire team, followed by one or two major initiatives for each person per quarter. That’s it. When the tech market dipped in 2009, our “plan” allowed us to quickly shift gears. We eased up on major account sales and made a major investment in social media. In the end, that’s what moved our recovery along.

5. Diversify Your Client Base.
Really, we’ve tried for years. But when an industry giant is your largest client and managers tell colleagues in other departments about you, who’s to complain? Word-of-mouth marketing is always a gift. Sure, we’ve worked with many other large clients, and plenty of small clients too, but our largest client is the one that keeps us in business. We work hard to earn their business again every day.

6. Never Work for Free.
There are still rare occasions when we give away our services. Actually, it’s how we started this business--by connecting friends who needed marketing and PR help with friends who provided exactly that expertise. After two years we knew there was a true business opportunity. And while we do have rent, payroll, insurance, taxes and other overhead costs now, there are times when we can’t resist supporting a non-profit organization or an especially close friend.

I may still be a rule-follower at heart. I still use my turn signals and wait patiently in lines. But one of the most exciting things about being an entrepreneur is being creative and discovering what works best, even if it goes against what others recommend. That’s the beauty of being your own boss.

http://www.inc.com/rene-siegel/i-broke-these-six-business-rules-why-you-should-too.html

8 Ways to Build Customer Loyalty

Top salespeople use these simple rules to keep their customers buying from them--even in the face of steep competition.

Customer loyalty is the key to profitability. The reason is simple. It costs more–geometrically more–to acquire a new customer than to keep a current one.

Without customer loyalty, customers leave. Then you can end up sacrificing as much as a third of your sales year just to get your numbers back to where they were the previous year. Ouch.

With that in mind, did you ever wonder how top salespeople keep their customers so loyal? It's not because they have great products or they're good at schmoozing. The secret to customer loyalty lies in putting the interests of the customer ahead of your own. It's really that simple.

Here are eight rules for making this happen:
1. Have a sales philosophy that emphasizes relationship building.
2. Define a unique niche and become the customer's expert on it.
3. Help the customer build the customer's own business.
4. Translate what you offer into the customer's business results.
5. Value the relationship more than making your quota.
6. Think end-of-time friendships, not end-of-month totals.
7. Achieve a perfect job of delivering what you've promised.
8. Provide absolutely impeccable service after the sale.

The above is based on a conversation I had with amazing sales mega-guru Jeff Gitomer. I love his stuff and I featured some of his ideas in my recently published book.

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/8-ways-to-build-customer-loyalty.html

Who Are Your A-list Customers?

Which customers should you be rolling out the red carpet for? Follow these three steps to identify the customers and prospects worth nurturing.

Attention this time of year turns to the Golden Globes, Oscars, and A-list celebrities. It got us thinking about our own A-list customers–the companies we would love to have as large and active clients.

Each business has, or should have, an A list of its most valuable customers and prospects, but also a B, C, and D list. But too often, companies, especially growing companies, lack focus and cast a wide net to attract new customers. They end up spending valuable time and resources on C- and D-list prospects and miss opportunities to cement long-term relationships with their A-list customers, who not only bring valuable business but also provide important endorsements to their friends and business colleagues.

It’s worth spending time as a management team to develop your own A list. We recently did just that, using a simple, three-step process that has given our team renewed focus on the customers that will drive our business in the long term.

1. Define the key drivers of long-term customer value.
 What makes a customer more or less valuable to your business? Is it their size, their ability to spend, or their past behavior or relationship with your company? Are there specific demographics that link to customer value? In our business, where we work with management teams to make growth companies more valuable, we created a “mindset” criterion as one of the characteristics that make a customer valuable. Define the three to five drivers of value for your business.

2. Create a comprehensive list of customers and prospects.
While most companies try to maintain a robust customer pipeline, we find that many don’t proactively develop a “long list.” Instead, they create a partial list that is mostly reactive to customer or prospect inquiries. If you are broader in developing your long list, you’ll be better positioned to identify the most valuable customers and prospects in your market.

3. Develop a customer value scorecard.
Rank every customer on the long list across each of the value drivers you identified in Step 1. Keep it simple: a 0-3 scale will work for most businesses. For our “mindset” ranking, we gave management teams that were open to innovative, strategic and fact-based thinking a three (most attractive), while those that made snap, erratic judgments were given a zero. Take the average of the scores across your criteria to develop a “value score” for each customer.

The goal is to develop four to five branches of customers: A-list (highest average score), B-list, and so on. Precise scores are not as important as knowing which customers are more or less valuable than others. Shoot for an equal number of customers in each bucket, although you may find there are natural “breaks” of customers that are clearly above or below the adjoining groups.

By investing the majority of time and resources to your newly defined A-list clients and prospects, you’re likely to have more success developing valuable, long-term relationships–relationships that should pay off for years to come.

http://www.inc.com/karl-and-bill/who-are-your-a-list-customers.html

You Can Win Customers for Life

Looking to build strong relationships with your clients? Master their personal styles.

At AnswerLab, one of my main missions is to provide amazing service to our customers. Zappos has pioneered the revolution of customer-focused businesses with its message to spread happiness. Countless business books advise us to learn what the customers want and simply give it to them. What they don't talk about is the importance of understanding the customer's personal style and communication preferences in order to do that. Without that, how do you earn the customer's trust?

Why care about customer style?

Our personal styles govern a great deal about how we react in situations, communicate with one another, and make decisions. Each of us perceives the world around us differently. Our willingness to fulfill a request may increase or decrease simply due to the way in which a request is delivered. Provide too much information, and a client may not respond at all. Provide too little information, and a client may lose trust. How do you know how much information to share? Start by understanding your customers' styles and how to tailor your interactions with them. To do so, you need a simple framework for knowing the minds of your customers.

Find a behavioral model

At AnswerLab, we use the "DiSC" behavioral model to understand personal styles. Many models have been developed (HBDI, Meyers-Briggs, 16PF, among others), but we've found DiSC to be the easiest to adopt, communicate, and observe in others. Every employee on our team receives a DiSC assessment within a month of joining the company. DiSC tells us what motivates us, what scares us, and how we behave in various situations. It also tells us a great deal about how we absorb and process information. Using this model allows us to:

1) Better anticipate customer needs
2) Develop deeper empathy for the customer perspective
3) Make the customer's personal style differences objective rather than subjective
4) Discuss differing perspectives with customers rationally instead of emotionally

The DiSC has four quadrants: dominance, influence, steadiness, and compliance. Each of us exhibits some combination of these behaviors. Once you learn the model and specifics of the quadrants, you can easily figure out how someone might fit in it, without ever seeing a formal professional assessment. That means you can quickly assess the style of customers and learn how to better communicate with them.

Apply the behavioral model
Once you know the model and how to identify behavioral traits in customers, you can develop a few simple communication norms. Some examples:

Let's get it done! This attitude is indicative of the "dominance" profile. If your customer is high in the dominance quadrant, she'll be extremely motivated to get things done. With these clients, you should be direct, offer alternatives, ensure she "wins," act quickly, and focus on issues. A slow response to this client will particularly frustrate her.

Let's get it right! This is the mindset of a customer who is high in the compliance quadrant. He is motivated to work within established rules, guidelines, and procedures to ensure accuracy and quality. When communicating with a "High C," be sure to listen carefully, be thorough, answer questions correctly, and use written supporting materials. Send one wrong piece of information and the customer will begin to lose trust in everything you do.

Let's be positive! This sounds like an "influence" profile. A customer who ranks high in the Influence quadrant often tries to persuade, promote, or influence others in a positive way. This kind of person is very focused on keeping others happy. When managing this type of customer, be sure to maintain a positive atmosphere, allow her to express herself, take time to chat and talk, focus on the big picture, and be enthusiastic. If you use a confrontational tone, she may retreat.

Let's do it as agreed! This is the "steadiness" profile. These customers tend to be cooperative, supportive, agreeable, and highly motivated to keep the status quo. When working with this someone like this, proceed in a logical order, ask specific questions to find out true needs, provide support, and remember fairness and justice. For this customer, changing process rapidly will make them feel uneasy.

Each style in the DiSC model has a preferred mode of interaction. Learn them, adopt them in your communication, and you'll earn customer trust and loyalty for life.

http://www.inc.com/amy-buckner-chowdhry/how-to-win-customers-for-life-master-personal-style.html

How to Excel at Anything

Hit a performance wall? Here are four ways to break through it.
 
You’re good.

You could be better.

Consider a skill you've developed: Business, sports, personal, anything. At first you were terrible.

Terrible is a great place to start because improving on terrible is easy. With a little practice you turned terrible into mediocre.

And you had fun, because improvement is fun.

Then with a lot more practice—practice that started to be a little less fun—you got even better.

Now you’re good. Maybe you’re even really good.

But you’re not great. And somewhere along the way you stopped improving, stopped having fun, and started to think you weren’t capable of being great.

Why did you stop improving and stop having fun? Hitting the wall wasn't due to a lack of effort, or willpower, or even talent. You stopped improving because of the way you applied your effort and willpower.

Say you’ve developed reasonable proficiency at a physical skill. Take golf. At first every swing of the club felt awkward, but you gradually found a groove. You started to think less. You quit thinking about your hips. You quit thinking about the height of your back swing. You quit thinking about what your wrists do in your follow-through.

You started thinking less because your skills became more automatic. In some ways that's a great sign: Automatic means you internalized a skill.

But automatic is also a bad sign. Anything you do automatically, without thinking, is really hard to adjust. To get better you must find ways to force yourself to adapt and modify what you already do well.

Here are four ways to force yourself to adapt—and in the process rediscover the joy of improving:

Go fast. Force yourself to perform a task more quickly. You’ll make mistakes; probably lots of them. Don't get frustrated. The more mistakes you make the better, because the best way to learn is from making mistakes. If a product demo usually takes 10 minutes, fly through it in five. (As a practice run, of course.) You’ll break free from some old habits, adapt to the faster speed, and find ways to make a good presentation even better.

Go slow. Take your time. Take too much time. Swinging a golf club in slow motion allows you to feel muscles working that you normally don’t notice. Taking more time to run through your sales pitch will uncover opportunities to highlight additional customer benefits. Going slower is a great way to notice habits that have become automatic—and to examine each one of them critically.

Go piece by piece. Every complex task is made up of a series of steps. Pick a step and focus solely on that step. Break a sales call into component pieces; first focus on perfecting your opening. No customer is the same, so develop modifications you can instantly apply to different scenarios. Deconstruct each step, master that step, and move on to the next one. When you put all the pieces back together your skills will be markedly improved.

March to a different drum. We all settle on ways to measure our performance; typically we choose a method that lets us feel good about our performance. So pick a different measurement. If you normally measure accuracy, measure speed instead. If you normally measure leads generated, measure conversions instead. Use video. Ask a colleague to critique your performance. Your customers, your vendors, and your employees all measure your performance differently than you do. View yourself from their perspective and you’ll easily find areas for improvement.

Think this process won’t help you excel? Consider this passage from Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open:

Every ball I send across the net joins the thousands that already cover the court. Not hundreds. Thousands. They roll toward me in perpetual waves. I have no room to turn, to step, to pivot. I can’t move without stepping on a ball…

Every third ball… hits a ball already on the ground, causing a crazy sideways hop. I adjust at the last second, catch the ball early, and hit it smartly across the net. I know this is no ordinary reflex. I know there are few children in the world who could have seen that ball, let alone hit it…

My father says that if I hit 2,500 balls each day, I’ll hit 17,500 balls each week, and at the end of one year I’ll have hit nearly one million balls. He believes in math. Numbers, he says, don’t lie. A child who hits one million balls each year will be unbeatable.

When you try to do your best every time, every mistake you make is obvious, even if only to you. Learn from every mistake. Adapt and modify your techniques so you constantly improve.

Because when you keep improving you keep having fun—and all the focused effort you put in will once again feel worth it.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-to-excel-at-anything.html

7 Must-Have Qualities to Look for in Employees

The smaller your business, the more crucial it is to get every new hire right. If you find someone with these 7 traits, make an offer -- quick.

While every hiring decision is important, the smaller your business the more important it is you hire the right people. When employee No. 300 turns out to be a disaster, the impact on the business is relatively small and often confined to a small group of staff.

When employee No. 3 turns out to be a disaster, everyone—and everything—suffers.

That's why attitude is everything. You can teach skills, but it's nearly impossible to teach and instill enthusiasm, teamwork and independence (great employees have both), and motivation.

And that’s why great small business employees:

Can come across a little different. People who are quirky, sometimes irreverent, and happy to be different may seem a little out there, but in a really good way. An employee who isn’t afraid to stand out or stretch boundaries often comes up with the best ideas—and helps you think in different ways, too.

May lack polish but overflow with personality. Think about your favorite customers, vendors, or suppliers. What typically comes to mind first? Those people are personable, friendly, outgoing, and make your day a little more fun. Look for the same qualities in the people you hire. Customers buy more and build longer-term relationships from people they like.

Think, “I’ll do whatever you need. It’s all 8 hours to me." I first heard that expression when I asked an employee to help me clean up after a backed-up sewer line spread (incredibly unpleasant) fluid across the warehouse floor. He smiled and said, "Sure. It's all 8 hours to me."

He felt he was paid to work for 8 hours, so the tasks he performed during that time period didn't matter (in a good way). Great employees are willing to do whatever it takes. Great employees are more concerned with overall objectives and goals than their individual duties.

Possess one outstanding skill. Small businesses have a variety of specific needs: Running the website, processing orders, generating leads, etc. Many roles can be outsourced. If you have the choice, only bring roles in-house because the candidate is truly outstanding.

Aren’t concerned with job descriptions or organizational structures. To a business owner a prospective employee who asks to see a detailed job description is waving a giant red flag. Employees are paid to work, not hold a position. (If you don't feel there's a difference you haven't run a small business.)

Want to learn and take over. You're often overwhelmed, so having the luxury to delegate and forget is extremely valuable. While employees with an independent streak can be more difficult to manage the payoff is definitely worth it.

Asked you for a job. Say you sell products online. One day a college senior walks in and says, "I checked out your website. I don’t mean to be rude, but it could be a lot better. I graduate soon and would love to work for you. Here’s a list of the changes I would make in the first three months, and here’s a breakdown of how those changes will improve SEO results and conversion rates. She’s targeted her approach, she’s done her homework, and she’s displayed a level of initiative every business owner hopes to find. While a prospective employee will rarely knock on your door, when one does, give her serious consideration.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/7-must-have-qualities-to-look-for-in-employees.html

The One Decision Every Great Entrepreneur Makes

Good founders benefit from vision and courage. But great founders know their success hinges on this one crucial decision.

Business is a lot like sports. While business is rarely a zero-sum game, since success does not have to come at the expense of others, still, some companies win while others lose—and the reasons why aren't always obvious.

Take basketball. As Bill Simmons (the most insightful and entertaining sportswriter on the planet) writes in his outstanding The Book of Basketball:

[The Lakers and Celtics] were loaded with talented players, yes, but that’s not the only reason they won. They won because they liked each other, knew their roles, ignored statistics and valued winning over everything else. They won because their best players sacrificed to make everyone else happy. They won as long as everyone remained on the same page. By that same token, they lost if any of those three factors weren’t in place.

Simmons calls this principle "The Secret" and says (quoting NBA-great Isiah Thomas), “The secret of basketball is that it’s not about basketball.”

The same principle applies to business. Talent is obviously important, but the ability to work together, check egos at the door, and make individual sacrifices when necessary is the only way a team succeeds.

Think about the business teams you’ve seen fail. Rarely was their failure due to a lack of talent or even the absence of a great idea. More often they failed because of personality conflicts, ego clashes, or competing agendas.

So is the secret of business that it’s not about business?

Not quite. Later in the book Simmons describes The Secret to Hall-of-Famer Bill Walton.

It’s not a secret as much as a choice... Look at the forces pushing you to make the other choice, the wrong choice. It’s all about you. It’s all about material acquisitions, physical gratifications, stats and highlights... And you wouldn’t even know otherwise unless you played with the right player or the right coach…. With a truly great coach, it’s not about a diagram, it’s not about a play, it’s not about a practice, it’s the course of time over history. It’s the impact a coach has on the lives around him.

That's why every great leader makes the same decision. Walton believes success at the highest level in basketball comes down to one question: "Can you make the choice that your happiness can come from someone else’s success?"

If you can make that decision you take the most important step towards becoming a great leader.

No entrepreneur has qualities like courage, vision, charisma, adaptability, and decisiveness in equal measure.

But every great entrepreneur does make the same decision—and so can you.

http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/the-one-decision-every-great-entrepreneur-makes.html

What Drives Customer Loyalty Now?

It's time to put away the golf clubs and pull out Google Reader: Sales are no longer just about personal relationships.

If you think customer loyalty is driven by personal relationships or because of your hard work, then not only are you wrong--but you're putting your revenue at risk. The reasons for customer loyalty have changed dramatically in the past decade, according to research published in the book, "The Challenger Sale" by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. Relationships and hard work now come in second and third on the list of what customers value most--and what will drive them to change providers.

Instead, customers today are looking for sales people to be experts--not in the products or services that they offer, but rather in the customer's own business. Sales people who can demonstrate that expertise in the sales process are winning big deals away from formerly entrenched competitors.

Here's how customers consider your value, from lowest to highest:

• If you know your product, you are a human catalog
• If you know your services, you are a technician
• If you can match your products and services to the customer's needs, you are a sales person
• If you know a customer's problems and business, you are a consultant
• If you know a customer's industry, market challenges and competitors, you are an expert

Customers are moving their business from sales people to experts. If you want to be the big winner in your market, you have to increase your expertise and demonstrate that expertise in meaningful ways to your customer.

Here's a course of action.
1. Learn your customer's industry, business challenges and competitors.
You don't have to become an encyclopedia of information to be of increasing value. Instead start with just a few steps:

• Read and subscribe to your customer's industry's top two or three blogs.
• Put keyword notifiers in your Internet search tool for the top three or four key terms for your customer's industry issues.
• Read the trade association newsletters and website materials of your customer's industry.

2. Ask your customers about changes in their industry.
Focus on these four categories: technology, regulation, mergers/acquisitions and innovations. These categories are forward-looking and often are the market drivers with which customers need the greatest help.

3. Suggest how you might help your customers.
Explain how your products and solutions address their upcoming challenges. When you are demonstrating expertise, the language you use is important. Focus on their issues more than your offerings. Use the language of:

• Time: How you can help them to be faster and more responsive to the market and to compliance deadlines.
• Money: Saving and making money is always a motivation for a buyer considering the value of expertise. In addition, there is the measurement of money in relationship to the market. How will working with you change their position in the marketplace in the area of value, price, cost or share?
• Risk: The impending negative impact of something that you point out can be a powerful motivator for action. Loss of market share, penalties for non-compliance and the risk of being technologically overrun by competitors are all threats that can help customers see you as a valuable expert.

Achieving a level of expertise value has a big impact on customer loyalty. Increasing your relevant expertise can help you trump your competitors' hard work and personal relationships.

http://www.inc.com/tom-searcy/what-drives-customers-loyalty.html