Tuesday
,
14
December 2021
Monday
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20
April 2020

The Communication Baton

External and internal customers and the information exchange explained.

What exactly do I mean? These are not dry concepts from a business school lecture room, they are dynamic drivers at the heart of sales.  Let’s take them one at a time.

‘External customers’ needs no explanation.  These, of course, are the people who buy your goods and services.  I call them ‘external’ to distinguish them from the rather less obvious ‘internal’ kind.

‘Internal customers’ have a very different transactional status within your business. They are no less important than their external counterparts but instead you’ll find them within your organisation.  They may work alongside you or in a separate department or branch.  Their job may be the same as yours or different, either subtly or substantially.  What makes you each other’s mutual internal customers is your reliance on each other to accomplish the tasks of the business. Every interaction with your colleagues is a transaction contributing to the wider success.

What is ‘information exchange’? Put simply, it’s communication, which is fundamental to the success of any enterprise.  Many employees have a vague notion that communication is a good thing, but know neither how or even why.  It’s often seen as a management buzzword – heavily used but lightly understood.  Yet without effective, consistent communication it is virtually impossible to make sound decisions, and sound decisions are the basis on which you sell your products or services and manage customer care. They also underpin the process your customers follow in choosing whether to buy.

This brings us to ‘the communication baton’.  Imagine the sales process as a relay race.  A relay team is an accurate analogy for an extended sales team.  Each member has a defined role, a position in the race.  Alone, each runner can achieve nothing.  Together, with careful planning and practice, they can win the race. Handing on the baton at the right moment with the right hand and in the right place mirrors each link in the internal chain that leads to a successful sale.

Common daily challenges can often be solved if you set about meeting them with a conversation that follows this simple structure:

1. This is what I want.

2. This is what I don’t want.

3. This is why.

Get this right and you’ll arrive at ‘How’.

Embed this technique into your working ethos and you’ll be rewarded with better decisions, better practices and better outcomes.

However, you need to be sure that your relay team has a full complement of members.  Occasionally you may need to look outside your organisation.  Your employees may excel in many familiar areas, but sometimes they may face new demands that make them uncomfortable or unsure.  That’s not what you want in a winning team.  So you should be able to recognise these potential weaknesses and the need to outsource the vital extra support.  This will help you keep the information exchange open and the communication baton moving right up to the moment when you take the customer across the finish line.

You can spend thousands on marketing to generate new enquiries but if you don’t have the structures, skills and tactics in place to follow up every opportunity the baton could be dropped at any point and the race lost.

Don’t take the risk.  Start training today.  Hire The Farm Process Management to coach your team and we will cross that line together for a podium finish.

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