Relationship building is useful, but what's useful is not only relationship building. Relationship building is only a sales aid, not the driving force of sales. Good relationships help sales, but when relationship building becomes the main work of salesmen, it goes against its original intention. -01- Once, near noon, I visited a terminal store in Shenzhen. I asked the store owner: How many people have visited you today? The owner counted and told me 28, including salesmen from manufacturers and distributors. I then asked: When salesmen visit, what is your first thought? He thought for a moment and said: Find a way to get rid of them. We both smiled knowingly. This was also the answer I expected. It's just that this store owner was quite capable, and the number of visiting salesmen was a bit more than usual. The store owner had no choice. If he spent all his time building relationships with salesmen, how could he get his own work done? But from the salesmen's perspective, they had done relationship building. Or rather, they thought they had done what they should do. When sales didn't pick up as expected, they might think the relationship building wasn't good enough. -02- This is the result of relationship building by most manufacturer and distributor salesmen. You think you're building relationships, but others are thinking of ways to get rid of you. Your relationship building is nothing but 'wishful thinking.' You spend a lot of time on the road to build relationships, but you're dismissed with a few words. You think others are enthusiastic, but you don't know they're just using 'enthusiasm' to send you off quickly. You think you've built a relationship, but others still don't sell your products. -03- Recently, we've noticed a phenomenon: in new product sales, the stores with better relationships tend to have worse sales. Because the relationship is good, new product distribution goes smoothly. With just a few words, the customer agrees. However, distribution order doesn't lead to sales. Relationship building solves the distribution problem but not the sales problem. Because of the relationship, there is less negotiation and explanation time with the customer. After all, distribution now has no burden on the store; if they don't sell, they can return the products. Because there is less negotiation and explanation, the customer doesn't understand the product well enough, making sales difficult. -04- Relationship building is not useless, but what kind of relationship building is useful? Having a meal together makes you friends, working together makes you friends, fighting together makes you friends. However, the value of these friendships is different. Similarly, relationship building has different values. Relationship building for the sake of relationship building is just acquaintance, far from the level of 'relationship.' The relationship formed by 'doing relationship building' is just face. When nothing is wrong, face works. When something really happens, face doesn't work at all, unless there is strength behind the face. I never oppose relationship building, but when 'doing relationship building' itself becomes a job, relationship building changes its nature and becomes worthless. -05- Don't turn relationship building into work, but let the results of work add to relationship building. Don't turn relationship building into flattery, but turn it into mutual achievement. Don't think that if relationships are good, work will be easy. Instead, think: if work is done well, relationships will naturally be good. Don't use relationship building to solve work problems, but use work to solve relationship problems. Don't think about building relationships with your mouth, but use your hands to build relationships. Don't think that more interactions mean a relationship, but think about doing an unforgettable thing to build a relationship, moving customers with sincerity to bring about a relationship. -06- What is useful relationship building? Not selling face, but sincere recognition. How does sincere recognition come about? It must be achieved together. Comrades in the same trench have the deepest feelings, and those who achieve results together have the most recognition. Instead of running around every day to connect with customers, spending most of your time on the road, with only a short time for real communication, it's better to spend time working together. You can meet a customer only once a month, but when you meet, you should spend at least one day working on the market together. The relationship built in that one day exceeds meeting many times, each time just saying a few words, purely lip service. If you succeed this time, there will be recognition next time. That is sincere relationship building. Relationship building is inner recognition, not the face of familiarity. -07- It's not that the relationship of familiarity is useless, but that when everyone does it, it becomes useless. Marketing is a competitive field; what everyone knows is useless. It's not that you shouldn't do relationship building, but that spending so much time on it is not acceptable. Enterprises need relationship building, but they need efficient relationship building. Relationship building can certainly drive work, and work can drive relationship building; this is a mutually influencing cycle. But the initial logic should be: in the first round, use effective work to drive relationship building, rather than spending a long time on relationship building to then drive work. Source: Teacher Liu's New Marketing If the tip is adopted, a reward of 400-2000 yuan will be paid.