Understanding Relationships in Sales

I run the risk of sounding less human/people focused in writing this blog and more business/outcomes oriented. The truth is I try to be all of those things as much as possible. As Michael Scott eloquently put it “Business is always personal. It’s the most personal thing in the world.” Success in sales is all about people. The people you lead, the counterparts you work with in your business, and the people in organizations that are evaluating your technology. Success is all about people and your ability to navigate the needs/motivations of people successfully in a genuine way. So when I advise people to be on high alert when a sales person tells them in an interview that their biggest differentiator is that they form great “relationships” it can sometimes sound counter-intuitive without additional context. I’ve had many conversations on this topic so I decided it was worth writing about and hopefully the content is helpful for both leaders and individual contributors.

Let’s start with the obvious. Having good relationships is a positive thing. Sales people who form good relationships with customers and prospects are going to be more successful than people who form poor relationships almost every time. I don’t want to suggest otherwise. However, I am suggesting that most sales people don’t understand what a good working relationship with a customer/prospect is actually built upon and generally don’t go about it the right way. Work relationships must be different than personal relationships. Great business leaders are able to weave the two together at times but never compromise the foundational needs of a productive business relationship. Being respected is more important then being liked with customers and prospects. Being trusted is more important then being liked by customers and prospects. When you’re hiring sales people, make sure they’re able to build credibility, trust, and respect with clients first and then ideally also build the relationship up to the point where they’re also liked without compromising those other critical areas.

There have been a few keys to the best relationships I’ve built in my career. None of them have been tied to discussing how the weather is in my current part of the country versus what the weather is in someone else’s part of the country. They have all been built on a foundation of respect that I work to gain from a prospect/customer by indexing towards understanding their problems/needs and committing myself to helping them solve those. While doing so, I always do my best to ensure a prospect/customers time is never wasted and always be truthful and transparent. In almost all cases the people I build relationships with get frustrated with me. That frustration never lasts and we overcome it but buying technology is not just a 1 to 1 decision. It’s one that impacts my entire business and their entire business. You get to experience the highs and the lows together. A trap you can fall into as a growth leader is if you over index towards friendship and can’t balance the task at hand you’ll never get an opportunity to partner with the other person to solve the lows together. You’ll find out about the highs but won’t get the bad news because the person is hesitant to share it. This is at times referred to as having “rose colored glasses” and is very dangerous. My strongest relationships were forged by sharing the bad news with each other and problem solving it together as a team. I believe that’s a big reason why I’ve gained the trust and respect of my strongest relationships.

One way to pressure test what kind of job you’ve done with the relationships you’re building is to gauge how intelligently the individual can speak about your product/business. Three relationships I’ve built during my time at Bamboo Health are with Kim Morris (VP of VBC and Care Management at Baylor Scott and White Health), Ryan Graham (Vice President Practice Operations and VBC at Privia Health), and Ryan Sommers (Senior Director, HIE and Data Interoperability at Banner Health). I’ve gone through different experiences and have different relationships with all three of them but one common thread across the group is that they were always able to speak about the solutions they were evaluating even better then I could. Part of this is because they’re all very intelligent and passionate people and the other part is how heavily we invested in our relationship and the trust we’ve built. The other common thread is that we worked to a point where we could always openly and proactively speak directly about the challenges we were facing and could problem solve them together. I’d like to think that although each of them would have a story to tell about an action I took that was a point of frustration (who doesn’t love texts asking for contract updates or insisting on 2 hour meetings with executive teams??) they’d all say that they knew they could trust me to be transparent and invested in solving problems with them. That was the kind of foundation we could build a relationship on.

These relationships are all different. Kim definitely gets the most pictures of Jack and Claire, Ryan Sommers and I are unfortunately spending more time talking about top 10 NFL draft picks then ever before, and Ryan Graham and I can’t go 2-3 texts without some kind comment that has us laughing (and of course his love of Taylor Swift concerts). I’m so proud that we were able to build that personal enjoyment and relationship in tandem with the necessary challenging dynamics that go into a productive working relationship that can help us collectively achieve our goals and build trust/respect. I’d like to think they believe when they put me in front of their coworkers that I’ll make them look good (ok ok, at least they think I won’t make them look horrible) and I know they’ll be truthful with me about the good, the bad, and the in between. These are three customers who have had such a massive positive impact on my life as friends and customers.

So if you’re interviewing for a new growth team member and they highlight their ability to build relationships or that they have a “rolodex of contacts” they bring with them to a job I’m not saying that’s a bad thing. However, drill a click deeper into scenarios where those relationships needed to be battle tested to better understand the true foundation of how they were built. Understand that just because someone bought a product from that person at one company, they absolutely will not buy from them at your company unless the ability to fulfill a need is present. The friendship without alignment to your solution solving their needs/driving impact and having a foundation of respect/trust will almost always end up without a partnership. If you can build the relationship on a foundation of trust/respect and focus on driving positive impact in a credible way, then the friendship (which is the best part in my opinion) will absolutely be available. If you need proof, I have references for you!