In case you have been living under a rock for the last 10 years ‘The Sims’ is a computer game based around regular people doing regular things – it’s like a dolls house filled to the brim with some of the best artificial intelligence ever created.

In order to be successful at The Sims you need to be able to manage relationships. In this game your success in your career is directly correlated with 3 things.

• Your health/Wellbeing – Are you going to work tired from staying up all night? Are you hungry from not eating? – This will affect your success.
• Skill set – Do you have the right skills for the job? If you take the career path of being a Chef, a requirement for the job may be that you need 6 culinary points. If you only have four points, your Sim had better get cooking!
• Relationships – Finally and most importantly are relationships. Whilst skill set is specific to your career, your social currency will directly impact your ability to get a promotion – to hit the next level you may need 2 or 3 additional friends.

If being successful means maintaining relationships, and you want to be the CEO, you have a lot of relationships to maintain! It is important to note at this stage that Sims don’t differentiate between personal and professional relationships. However, as posted in The Theory of Relationship Management they still need to keep a hold on all of them.

So how does a Sim maintain a relationship? Ultimately they keep in touch with their friends. If they have similar interests, they can get deep in conversation and become close friends. If they don’t have much in common they’ll usually just shoot the breeze about the weather etc.. A Sim needs to call their friends on the phone consistently and chat away to keep things strong – they will throw parties or functions to get them all together and then party their way to a better relationship (kind of like a corporate lunch/dinner).

And at the end of the day if they neglect their friends… just like regular life, they lose them and their likelihood of a promotion becomes more difficult.

So how do you manage a relationship?

As a sales person, so much comes back to ‘how much I can sell,’ however I believe that this statement is redundant and belongs somewhere back in the 1940’s. The question today should be ‘how many relationships can I maintain?’

First off let’s define relationships – there are two kinds; personal and professional. Personal relationships are your family and friends. Professional relationships are those related to your career or investments, i.e. clients, staff, managers, suppliers etc.

The truth is, a person can only manage so many relationships before they start letting people down. Whether they are personal or professional is inconsequential. Someone who is a workaholic and works very hard to manage all of their internal and external business relationships will often let their personal relationships down by constantly canceling at the last minute or not answering messages. Similarly, those who place a higher value their personal relationships, will often have difficulty growing and maintaining their professional relationships, which may hinder their professional advancement.

Technology has certainly made it simpler to communicate with your contacts; however it has also created greater transparency and higher expectations for immediate responses. There are very few excuses you can use for not returning a phone call, or if a facebook post remains unanswered. With this in mind it is important to understand that the amount of relationships that you can manage will directly correlate with your success as a business person – that’s networking.

Over the coming weeks I will be discussing ways to better manage these relationships, and the great success that they can bring.

When someone calls you and they sound distant, as if they are reading from a screen, how do you react? No doubt, during the sales process, you’ve been courteous, useful, fun and energetic. It’s during the follow up call, more than ever, that you need to stay that way.

Now that you understand the benefits of the follow up and know how to effectively prepare your content, it’s time to deliver it.

The following points will greatly assist you in delivering a strong follow up:

Be energetic and enthusiastic – Have you ever noticed how when you greet someone they return the greeting in the same way. For example, when you say, ‘Hi, how are you today?’ the response is likely to be said in a similar ‘proper’ manner, “Good thank you, how are you?’ – ‘Very well thanks…’ Certain character types will like this, but if you want to be remembered, a greeting more in line with an energetic ‘Hey! How are you?’ will commonly be met with a similar energetic response. Remember that most people want to be happy, and “Positivity breeds Positivity.”
Be remembered for your energy, not forgotten for your professionalism!

Be confident. Be prepared. – Don’t call someone stumbling over your words. Prepare. Know your content and deliver it with conviction. As soon as someone conducts a follow up on me and stumbles over their words I immediately assume that they are just going through the motions as if someone else has told them to, and that they lack care.

Be diplomatic – If your clients are looking at going down a competitor’s path, keep your cool – the worst thing a sales person can do is get defensive about the prospects decision. For example:
“Are you crazy!?!?” “Have you listened to nothing that I have said???” – Losing your cool is like committing sales suicide.
“Oh, Ok, I see how that works, cool… Ours is similar in that respect but is a bit better rounded in the….” – If you argue with the client over why yours is better you will find them step into the shoes of your competitor and sell themselves on their solution.

Be concise – Rule Number One, they are not wasting your time, you are wasting theirs! It is impossible for a client to waste a salespersons time. With this in mind, don’t beat around the bush unless you have a relationship that allows it. Respect your clients time and they should respect your words.

Provide value – Can you offer the client any new valuable information? Has anything changed since your last interaction? Has the model been updated? Is a new promotion running? Did you learn a new feature?

These are a few useful tips that should assist you with conducting your follow ups. As always please post a comment if you have any tips on follow ups. Otherwise if you think that someone else might find it useless please forward it on.

Training yourself to appreciate the value of a follow up, and making them consistently, is the first part. The second is successfully delivering that follow up to achieve the best outcome. For the purposes of this blog entry I am going to use the example of a sales person following up a client on a quote that they have delivered.

You don’t run into battle with no armor; you can’t cook without ingredients; so why do so many people follow up without any preparation? Before you make the phone call there are a number of things to consider. What do you want to achieve? How can you become more ingrained in the customers buying process? How can you be seen as an irreplaceable resource as opposed to a sales person trying to make a sale? Why does the client care if you win the business? The answer to these questions can be summed up in one word… ‘Care.’ How much do you care about all of the above? Does the client see that? Do they know that you care about the outcome, and that your assistance is in their best interests? These are the questions that you need to consider when you are going to perform a follow up.

Some examples of this offering include:

• Drawing the client to specific parts of the quote which are key differentiators for your company.

• Further drilling down on their needs and cross referencing these against your proposal to show where they overlap.
• Offering more information on any aforementioned points.
• Relating their decision making process to an allied client in a relevant field and how they went about it…

You want to prepare your follow up so well that you can answer any questions confidently as well as be working in the clients best interests. Don’t follow up to say, ‘where’s the order?’ Follow up to say, ‘how’s the process going? Can I be of further assistance? What time frames are you running on? I firmly believe that we have the best product for your situation, and I will do anything to try to convince you to go with us, as it will ultimately serve you the least headaches and the most flexibility!’ Just be careful not go in with that last one unless you are oozing passion… Effective preparation will give you the outcome that you seek.

Next week, part three will discuss delivery.