5 Ways Olympics Training is Like Customer Relationship Management

In Olympic preparation and in business you need the best tools to help you win. A simple CRM, like Base, is an important tool to help you manage your customer relationships and sales process.

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It takes a lot of skill and hard work to win the Olympics.? It also takes a lot to win in the game of customer relationship management, too. In both areas your goal is to over come trials and tribulations to become the best you can be and win over your competition.

Here are 5 ways training for the Olympics can be a lot like managing relationships with new and existing customers:

#1 ? It Takes Talent

Just like not everyone is born to be an Olympic swimmer or runner, not everyone is a born relationship manager or business owner.? It takes a certain personality type to build and nurture relationships.

But beyond having a good personality and good sales skills, you also need a to offer a product or service.? There?s a sales saying about someone having the ability to sell ice to Eskimos, but that?s a rare quality.

The best approach to developing meaningful relationships with customers is to provide value and give them what they want. Just like an Olympic athlete, you need to be better than the competition to win the gold. Offer a better product or service and the best possible customer service and value that you can.

#2 ? You Need to Strive to be Better

Just like Olympic athletes strive to beat their competitor?s best time or best score, a person who relies on business relationships to help them succeed needs to continually strive to be better.

You may not always be able to be the lowest priced around but you can show that dealing with you is advantageous over dealing with your competitors. If you provide your customers with value and good customer service, you may not need to be the lowest priced.? Unlike crossing the finish line first in the Olympics, being the perceived as the best in customer relationship management can come from a combination of things that you do for your customers.

#3 ? They Both Take Time

Training for the Olympics takes years.? It?s no wonder the Olympics only happen very four years!?Building meaningful relationships with your customers can take time too.

It can take time to win that first deal and take additional time for you to court a new customer to become a named or preferred supplier. ?Like improving your training for any Olympic sport, it takes time to reap the rewards of customer relationship.

While the Olympics takes a lot of time to train for the prize, in business you need to watch your relationships closely so you don?t wait around too long. You have to be ready to walk away from customer relationships and fire clients that don?t appear to be going anywhere.

#4 ? It Takes Persistence

Training for the gold takes persistence. You have to try and then try harder.

In business persistence is required when you?re cold calling new prospects. It may also take persistence, on your part, to hang onto a relationship with a customer when they are being wooed by one of your competitors. Managing a customer relationship isn?t always going to be easy but persistence and hard work can really pay off.

#5 ? You Don?t Always Win

Despite your best efforts in sports and in business, it?s not always possible to win the top prize.? When you don?t win a race or a deal or when you come in last place and lose completely, you need to pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move on with pride in knowing that you did your best.

If you work hard and do your best, you can sleep tight at night knowing that you put your 100% into it. If possible, learn from mistakes and try again at the next opportunity.

Dana Prince writes for Future Simple?s Growth University. Dana blends her passion for entrepreneurship with experience in software licensing sales, product management, online marketing, and SEO writing to run Dana Prince Writing, a web writing agency that creates optimized content that helps websites succeed.

Source: http://www.futuresimple.com/blog/olympics-customer-relationship-management/

natalie wood van halen