When working with finishing prospects, your ability to influence them into becoming customers will depend entirely on your relationship-building skills and your capacity for dealing with individual style differences.

You may have the best product or service in the finishing industry, but if you can't effectively develop a relationship and influence your prospects to do business with you, your finishing product or service is worthless. By taking the time to learn effective influence-building skills, you'll not only gain more customers, but you'll also discover the power that influencing others can have on every aspect of your life.

Build Relationships

In order for prospects to do business with you, they first must know, like and trust you. It involves getting to know your prospects personally and maintaining friendly communication on a regular basis.

Make Your Prospects Feel Important

Whenever you meet new prospects, find out as much as you can about the people and record the information, being sure to note interesting points or facts about them and how and where you met and their individual business needs. When you see and speak to your prospects again, you can easily pick up where you left off.

Your prospects will be impressed with your ability to recall small details about them and they'll want to do business with you.

Keep in Touch

Once you have established the contact, keep in touch and continue to build the relationship on a regular basis. Socialize with the people you want to influence with a followup phone call, a mailing that pertains to something your prospect needs, or a personal visit if appropriate.

This followup system lets them know exactly how you, your finishing product or your service is going to help them. Your prospects want the answer to one key question: What's in it for me?" (WIIFM?) In order to answer that question, you need to stay in touch and give them the information they need to make a buying decision.

The more contact you have with your prospects, the more they know you care and the more you can influence them to do business with you. Don't rely on your initial contact as the basis for the entire business deal and then wonder why prospects never call back. Your prospects meet with many business owners and salespeople every day.

It's up to you to build the relationship through followup and conversation and make yourself and your company stand out. When you do, you'll be influencing your prospects to do their finishing business with you.

Overcome Style Differences

We all have different learning styles, personality styles and so forth. These style differences can get in the way of effective influencing.

It can seem as though you and your prospects are speaking a different language. To increase your influencing effectiveness and convert more prospects into customers, recognize that everyone communicates differently, and then adjust to those differences accordingly.

The first step to building better relationships and overcoming style differences is to immediately create a climate that encourages open communication. You can do this by using body language that says, "I want to listen to you," smiling when you speak with your prospects, allowing your natural warmth to show through and realizing that you may need to adjust your personal style to reflect your prospect's style.

Read these style differences and practice adjusting your style to the situation and the other person in order to connect and be understood. Observe the other person carefully and encourage further communication by clarifying and confirming what you think you heard and choosing words and nonverbal behaviors that allow you to connect.

If you sense your prospect is an action-oriented person, give all the necessary information in a straightforward manner. Even if you prefer to make small talk during conversations, this prospect may not appreciate it. In order to build the relationship and influence your prospect to do business with you, you need to curb your own communication style and adjust to your prospect's style.

When you build the relationship from the other person's perspective, you'll show that you can connect with her or him and understand her or his individual needs. This technique can help build the relationship and influence your prospect to do business with you.

Benefit from the Power of Influence

Karen Lawson, speaker, author, consultant and president of Lawson Consulting Group, reinforces that building relationships and influencing your prospects to become customers takes time, practice and a willingness to try new behaviors and modify old ones. It is a labor-intensive process that many business people overlook. As a result, they lose the business deals they need to succeed.

People who implement relationship-building and style difference skills become more effective in both business and personal dealings, and will discover the power influencing others can have on their daily lives.

MARALAH ROSE-ASCH, CBC
Contributing Editor
roseasch@gardnerweb.com