Customer Relationships and Marketing In this topic: Listening to Customers (this section) I'm Not A Salesman, But I Sell Anyway: A Non-Sales Professional's Approach To Sales I'm Not A Salesman, But I Sell Anyway (Part 2) The Central Role of Listening in Sales For Service Providers IDEO and The Art of Innovation: The Role of Listening in Consumer Product Development The Role of Listening in Six Sigma Quality Management Systems

Listening to Customers

Successful marketing and customer satisfaction depend upon listening effectively to understand current customer needs, to demonstrate to customers that you understand, and to anticipate future needs. A listening-centered approach to selling can make business development fun, rich in learning, and extraordinarily rewarding.

I'm Not A Salesman, But I Sell Anyway: A Non-Sales Professional's Approach To Sales. In a positive departure from stereotypes about sales and selling, Coach for business professionals, executives and entrepreneurs Bruce Wilson explains how professionals are more likely to make a sale when they listen to facilitate potential customers' buying decisions instead of applying pressure. More....

In Part Two, Four Stages Of Sales Through Building Customer Rapport Bruce offers four basic assumptions and simple, intuitive actions which enable professionals to facilitate sales using their own "non-sales" professional expertise. More....

The Central Role of Listening in Selling For Service Providers. Performance consultant and leadership coach Tanja Parsley lays out a simple, effective framework for a service provider's first meeting with a potential client that encompasses getting to know each other, uncovering the explicit needs of the client, and mutually determining if there is a fit. More....

One-step-ahead product development at IDEO. The highly innovative, award winning product design firm IDEO, designers of the original Apple mouse and other revolutionary products, uses empathic listening to understand markets (they even call one of their people an "empath"), brainstorm ideas, and prototype products. More....

Six Sigma and Customer Listening. One of the more recent approaches to quality control, and perhaps the most powerful, is the process called "Six Sigma" which begins with listening to customers to determine the biggest quality issues that can be remedied to reduce costs and improve profits. More....

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