---
title: "Turning \"Face Projects\" into \"Genuine Recognition\" in Customer Relations"
description: "Customer relations (keqing) are useful, but they are only a sales aid, not the driving force. When they become the main work of salespeople, they backfire. Effective customer relations come from working together and achieving results, not from superficial visits."
author: "刘春雄"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
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published: "2017-08-06"
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# Turning "Face Projects" into "Genuine Recognition" in Customer Relations

> Customer relations (keqing) are useful, but they are only a sales aid, not the driving force. When they become the main work of salespeople, they backfire. Effective customer relations come from working together and achieving results, not from superficial visits.

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Author | Liu Chunxiong
Source | Teacher Liu's Forum (ID: liuchunxiong1964)
Customer relations are useful, but what's useful is not only customer relations. **Customer relations are only a sales aid, not the driving force of sales.** Good customer relations help sales, but when they become the main content of a salesperson's work, they go against their original intention.
01
Once, near noon, I visited a terminal store in Shenzhen.
I asked the store owner: How many people visited you today? The owner counted and told me 28, including salespeople from manufacturers and distributors.
I then asked: When salespeople visit, what's your first thought? He thought for a moment and said: Figure out how to get rid of them.
We both smiled knowingly.
This was the answer I expected. It's just that this store owner was quite capable, and the number of visiting salespeople was a bit higher than usual.
The store owner had no choice; if he spent all his time on customer relations with salespeople, how could he get his work done?
But from the salespeople's perspective, they had done their customer relations. Or rather, they thought they had done what they should. When sales didn't pick up, they might think they hadn't done enough customer relations.
02
This is the result of customer relations for most manufacturer and distributor salespeople.
You think you're building customer relations, but others are thinking of getting rid of you. Your customer relations are just "wishful thinking."
You spend a lot of time on the road to build customer relations, only to be 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 have customer relations, but others still don't sell your products.
03
Recently, we've noticed a phenomenon: in new product sales, the better the customer relations with a store, the worse the sales.
Because of good customer relations, new product distribution goes smoothly. With a few words, the customer agrees.
But smooth distribution doesn't lead to sell-through. Customer relations solve the distribution problem but not the sell-through problem.
Because of customer relations, the time spent negotiating and explaining is less. After all, distribution now means no burden on the store; unsold goods can be returned.
**Because of less negotiation and explanation, the customer doesn't understand the product well, making sell-through difficult.**
04
**Customer relations are not useless, but what kind of customer relations are useful?**
Having a meal together makes you friends, working together makes you friends, and fighting together makes you friends. However, the value of these friendships differs.
Similarly, customer relations have different values.
Customer relations for the sake of customer relations are just acquaintances, far from the level of "customer relations."
Customer relations formed by "doing customer relations" are just face. **When there's no problem, face works. When there's a real problem, face doesn't work at all, unless there's strength behind the face.**
I never oppose customer relations, but when "doing customer relations" itself becomes a job, customer relations lose their flavor and value.
05
Don't turn customer relations into work, but let the results of work add to customer relations.
Don't turn customer relations into flattery, but into mutual achievement.
Don't think that good customer relations make work easier. Instead, think: when work is done well, customer relations naturally improve.
Don't use customer relations to solve work problems, but use work to solve customer relations problems.
Don't think of building customer relations with words, but with actions.
Don't think that more interactions mean customer relations, but think of doing something memorable to build customer relations, moving customers with sincerity.
06
What is useful customer relations? Not selling face, but genuine recognition.
**How does genuine recognition come about? It must be achieved through working together.**
Comrades in the same trench have the deepest feelings, and those who achieve results together have the most recognition.
Instead of spending time every day visiting customers to maintain relationships, with most time on the road and 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, spend at least a day working on the market together. The customer relations from that one day exceed many visits where you only exchange a few words, purely lip service.
If you succeed this time, there will be recognition next time. That's genuine customer relations.
Customer relations are inner recognition, not the face of being familiar at first sight.
07
It's not that customer relations from being familiar at first sight are 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 customer relations, but that spending so much time on them is not acceptable. Enterprises need customer relations, but they need efficient ones.
Customer relations can drive work, and work can drive customer relations; it's a mutually influencing cycle. But the initial logic should be: in the first round, use effective work to drive customer relations, not spend a long time on customer relations to drive work.


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