Sales training often concentrates on how to get new customers. A potentially more lucrative market is often over looked, which is selling to existing customers. This can be done either by up-selling them to a more expensive, and more profitable, product or service, or by cross selling them something else as well. This is known as relationship based selling. By building long term relationships, marketing costs will decrease as sales increase.

The simple fact is that people would always rather do business with people they know and trust. This can often result in sales even where there may be price or quality issues.

Some of the points to focus on when considering relationship based selling are as follows:

There needs to be regular communication with customers. This can take the form of newsletters, preferably sent by email. This is not expensive and the emails can either be based on latest offers and be strictly business or it can include more personal details such as employee profiles.

There has to be a very clear commitment to what the customer wants and notice needs to be taken of evolving needs. This is done by asking and listening to your customer’s feedback and acting upon it.