Adopt the Five Cs of selling and win customers

In my job I get the unique opportunity to see how contingent workforce programs work globally, across industries and categories. What I find most interesting is the striking commonality of factors that make the difference for suppliers wishing to participate in these programs. I believe that by just focusing on a few critical concepts, providers can make their sale strategy a successful one. I call it the “Five C” strategy.

Cost. Your cost structure needs to make sense in order to be considered a viable supplier in today’s marketplace. More specifically, your pricing must match client needs, expectations and approach. For example, don’t propose premium pricing to a commodity buyer. And if you are proposing premium pricing, be sure your value proposition truly merits that approach.

Culture. In cases of conflict, the provider or vendor’s culture often is at odds with the client’s. What does this look like? Take an industrial buyer that values speed, efficiency and cost to deliver its products. The organization uses complex production techniques like Six Sigma or Kaizen and expects its suppliers to participate in these events. It requires a very specific provider culture in order to build a successful partnership. A provider that is not familiar or does not have that expertise servicing that type of business should stay away.

You need to ensure your customer support culture matches the client’s expectations. Don’t rely on technology to handle customer service issues if your clients prefer talking to a human being.

Consistency. Do what you say you are going to do. Clients understand that competing priorities often make it difficult to hit every deadline, deliver against each expectation or respond to communication in a timely manner. But ours is a service business. Unreturned phone calls, missed SLAs and poor contract performance are just a few ways providers fall short. The single most critical element of successful selling is delivering against commitments. So you need to be very careful about the commitments you take on and how you manage them. Start by having an ironclad escalation process that is communicated and managed by your heavy-duty team. The most expensive clients are the ones that you lose due to your own ineffectiveness. It’s not just the lost revenue that will hurt you. You can create a “service terrorist” that can destroy your reputation.

Confidence. I’ve heard stories of supplier reps apologizing for nothing. Or acting contrite for the proposed pricing while trying to build a case for it. The most obvious expression of confidence is the ability to turn down business that doesn’t make economic or business sense. And providers need to do more of that. In conversations I have with provider leadership, a consistent theme I’ve noticed is their recognition that turning down business is a sign of provider maturity. I even recommend buyers include in their RFX process questions about the type of business providers have turned down and why.

Another sign of confidence is to share a mistake you have made. Consider talking about a particular customer fiasco in your next client presentation. Maybe it’s an invoice issue or a program rollout. Spend five to 10 minutes high-lighting your escalation process and your resolution process, playing close attention to steps you took to make sure such a mistake would never happen again. In doing so, you demonstrate a confidence in your organization’s ability to handle those inevitable client problems in a transparent but competent manner.

Creative. Staffing is a simple business in many ways. Your client needs additional help to get the job done. Your company identifies and supplies that help. So how can you create value for your clients? In addition to providing superior talent, in what other ways do you creatively source these candidates? How do you build walls around your proprietary client base? What creative solutions can you bring to every buyer relationship that helps set you apart? These are not easy questions to answer while we are all swimming in the same sea, especially in the eyes of the buyers. But it helps to take cues from other service businesses.

Selling in today’s competitive market- place is not easy. But by considering the five Cs you will be well on your way to setting yourself apart from the competition and signing on new clients.