What does it mean to communicate with a client successfully?
Have you ever had an important meeting with a new client where things just didn’t seem to ‘click’ conversation-wise?
What about scenarios where you’re demoing a service or process? And everything you’re showing the client leaves them with the confused puppy face?
If you didn’t say ‘Yes’ to either of these, congratulations – You’ll probably know what I’m about to write.
To those who answered “No” – I have some experiences to share that allowed me to turn those ‘non-clicky’ and ‘puppy-dog confusing’ conversations into chats leading me to successful future interactions with my client.
That’s right. Successful client communication WILL lead you to successful future interactions with a client (DUH) – but, what exactly do I mean by this?
Definitions, Clarifications
So, what does it mean to communicate with a client successfully?
(To me,) Communicating with a client successfully means that the objective of your communication has been clearly explained by you and understood by your client.
Let’s say I’m having an educational conversation with a person and my objective is to teach them about multiplication. A successful communication between me and that person will leave with with an understanding of that concept (multiplication).
Since that’s out of the way, let’s move on to the real content.
1) Understand their process
If you sell a service, object, form of entertainment, you’re probably aware that you’ll need something to hook the other person in. Conversations work the same way. You don’t always need to entertain them. However, your words need to express or convey something that will prompt the other person (or people) to respond amiably. ‘Something’ can be emotions, information, descriptions, etc.
Many of us do this with context clues and from having a habitual understanding of people we’re communing with. We’re habitually communicating with our friends, coworkers, and family. As you spend more time talking to them, you may naturally pick up on ways to engage them in communication. But what if you need to talk to a stranger now? And their habitual communication style doesn’t ‘match’ well with yours?
Great salespeople exist to solve this problem. They’re adaptive to conversation. While they’re able to maintain their own habitual style of communication, they can easily change their own just enough to lead a client (customer) into purchasing a product.
How do they do this? – They learn to understand the process of your decision making.
This isn’t a post about the psychology of salesmanship (sorry, guys).
1.1) Converse with a purpose.
To allude to the example above, a salesman hooking into your decision making process depends on the purpose of his communication.
Purpose? – Yes, of course, purpose. He needs a reason to communicate with you.
Let’s say that you’re walking through the mall and you pass one of our beloved shoe cleaning kiosk people. They’ll clean your shoes for you and sell you their product. However, the sales approach came sometimes be a little… insulting. I’ve had the experience of one of these people (a guy) berate the cleanliness of my sneakers as I walk by his stand in the mall. Further, he offers to clean them and make them look better. After succumbing to my ego and getting one sneaker cleaned, he offers to clean the other IF I buy the product.
In my head, I’m thinking: “Does this m*********er think I’m about to walk around with one clean, one dirty sneaker?”
1.1.a) Diving Into the ‘Kiosk’ Example
His purpose for communicating with me: My shoes look dirty and he believes that he can sway me into buying his product BY demonstration. (this concept is important for later)
My purpose for engaging in communication: There’s a way to improve the appearance of my shoes. In turn, improving my overall appearance.
Moreover, I’m insulted AND upset. I’m inclined to say this communication wasn’t successful enough to lead to a future interaction (though other people may differ here). After buying the product, I never went back. (I don’t think I’m alone in this… Am I?)
Although I’m upset about this (and feel cheated), the purpose of his communication led him to his goal. I just don’t think it was successful because: I did not clearly understand the conditions of having BOTH of my shoes clean instead of just one.
However, he understands the process of my ‘ego’ working. He’s aware that I (and most people) don’t want to walk around with one super clean shoe on my foot instead of two. Admit it. It looks weird. Lazy, even.
1.2) Engage with intent.
While purpose is necessary to understand your clients’ process, you also need intent. Think of this like an end-goal.
The intent of the salesman conversing with me is to get me to buy his product.
The intent of me conversing with the salesman is to get my sneakers cleaned (Not for free, I tip!). I’m currently not sure about buying the product.
Albeit, our intentions don’t match (nor should you always expect them to). But that is why he chooses to communicate with me using an insult. He appears to strive towards satisfy both intentions via conversation (preying on my ego) and lead to a successful sale. Although this is NOT what happened. While the sale is successful, the communication is not. Thus, I’m not likely to return (never again 😭).
In this case the execution of his conversation’s purpose is good enough to hook me in, but the striving towards our intentions (here, the lack of clear communication – to deceptively meet his end-goal) put us in a position where I don’t want to engage in future conversation.
Why does this matter? – Because you need a reason to communicate AND an end-goal that is satisfied for both parties to lead to future successful communications.
If I talk with a stranger or salesperson and I don’t feel good after the talk, I’m not likely to try and engage in conversation in the future.
Backing Up – Relating to ‘the process’
Using the example above, the salesman doesn’t have a great understanding of my ‘process’. In this case, my ‘process’ is me making a decision to consciously walk around with dirty shoes (after being made aware that OTHERS perceive my shoes as dirty). Further, how does he know that my ‘process’ relates to an intention to buy the product? Simple answer. He didn’t (shocker!).
The salesman doesn’t engage in conversation with an intent to understand my decision-making process. He doesn’t want to know if I have other dirty sneakers or an actual need for his product. He engages in conversation here, only to accomplish his objective in demonstrating and selling the product.
(I swear I’m not mad about this, it’s just the example)
Why ‘successful’ communications matter
PHEW. Finally.
Now, read those two sentence above my parenthetical grievance again. How many conversations do you engage in only to accomplish your intent and not understand the other? (I’m not getting into concepts like ‘active-listening’ today – Sorry, Not Sorry).
I’m not trying to make you feel selfish or ashamed.
The downside is: In relationships between salesperson and consumer , it’s extremely easy to fall into this trap. The trap of conversating to meet your end-goal without fully understanding the end-goal of the client.
You’re selling a product or service that fulfills a need with relative ease (to us, maybe). Our service or product can improve the quality of our customers’ life or career. I understand that the pitch is easy to get sucked into performing routinely. Sometimes it feels like you’re solving the same problem for people doing the same thing using the exact same method.
But, that’s the thing: The customer will almost always present some sort of difference within their business. It may be an operational difference. It may be an organizational or administrative difference. Trust me, there’s always a curveball or extra condition. Though the same concepts of engaging with purpose and striving towards a solution that meets both parties’ end goal still apply (at least to me).
In short, having an engaging discussion with your customer about their problem and learning what they go through BEFORE starting a hard sell of your product is a good thing to do.
Talk with them to learn about what they do AND talk with them to solve their problem rather than ‘sell’ a solution.
Using these concepts
When I’m talking about a service I can offer someone, I use these concepts myself. I converse with them with a purpose to understand their operational and organizational processes. I intend to discuss why and how my service can improve their business (rather than just closing a deal).
In doing so, I improve my relationship with that customer by showing them that I understand their problem. Additionally, I’m more likely to model my solution to resolve their problem.
In these cases, here’s what successful client communication looks like (to me).
- Explaining how my product, solution, or service can improve a customer’s life or business.
- Learning their operational and organizational processes.
- Explain again, with a plan to improve their business processes by using my service or product in a way that the client clearly understands.
- They should have an understanding of why my product is good for their business and how it solves their problem.
To improve the chance of future communication, my intention for communicating needs to be the last bullet point above. To close this deal (in my mind), I need the client to understand why my product is good for them and how it helps them. This understanding will win over their interest and dedication to my service or solution.
Of course, personality will factor into a lot of these interactions. That’s not what this post is about. I just believe that these concepts lead successful future interactions with new or potential customers. It’s not all about the money. If you lead businesses to success, you’ll get paid for it. (At least I hope you do)
Just don’t sell yourself too short. Know your worth. More on that later.
Closing
I’ll provide a more specific example of me improving client communication this in a business sense in the next part. Also, there will be some extra tips to help you ‘understand’ your client better. If you enjoyed this article, please share it with your friends, family, or colleagues!
