Digital has its place, but people still buy from people, according to Nigel Toplis.
Over the last 30+ years I have had the privilege of owning, running and managing several franchise businesses; some iconic brands, and others started from scratch: including Recognition Express, Kall Kwik, ComputerXplorers and Techclean.
My franchising background and experience is primarily in business-to-business and frankly, what makes B2B different from retail and B2C is that success in B2B relies entirely on one’s ability to create, build and retain relationships with customers.
A successful business therefore is built on strong and lasting relationships, a bit like a marriage!
Three little words
To build a successful business, you will go through three stages:
- Get customers
- Keep customers
- Grow customers
The franchisor supports franchisees (or licensees) to achieve these goals by providing intellect, tools and systems, just as a supplier supports a customer. It is a symbiotic relationship. The stronger and longer the relationships, the greater the level of success for franchisor, for franchisees and for customers.
Show your customers some love
Relationships do not just happen. For example, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, a psychological theory originally proposed by Abraham Maslow to show human motivation, uses a pyramid to place basic survival needs at the bottom and goes through five stages to complex personal growth needs at the top. People must meet lower needs before they can focus on the higher ones.
While I am a great advocate of Maslow and his hierarchy of needs I have replaced it with Nigel’s pyramid of business development. That is the five stages of building a successful business relationship.
Start from the bottom (prospect) and gradually work your way up (to lover).
A prospect is a new customer, a potential buyer that you have identified and targeted.
A customer is a person who buys from you now. Getting an initial sale and converting a prospect into a customer is a good step, but it is only the first step, and customers are often almost as cagey and wary as prospects.
A customer is not truly a customer until they have ordered more than once. A second order, however, gives you more time to impress them, to get to know more about them, to understand what makes them tick. More importantly, you want them to get to know you, to want to see you, to start to rely on you.
In short, you really do want (and need) to move the buyer from being a customer to a client.
Customers become clients when they see the supplier performing consistently well; when the supplier constantly exceeds expectations; when the supplier regularly takes away the hassle and provides solutions.
Customers become clients when the supplier provides more than just the right product at the right time for the right price, frankly in any relationship these three things should be de rigueur.
Taking the buyer to client level is often as far as most people can go. Going further can take many (majority) suppliers out of their comfort zone.
Successful businesses and salespeople simply do go a little further and they do make that move from professional business relationship to engaging personal relationship, from client to friend.
When you get to friend level, you know you are starting to develop and build a successful key account. You will have overcome barriers like price, delivery expectations and reliability. You are at the point of creating a higher level of understanding.
Of course, as with Maslow and his zenith of ‘self-actualisation’, my own pyramid has a peak relationship, that of lover.
At this level, you are fully inculcated within the company and its decision-making process. While you may be external, you are one of the business’s few truly trusted confidantes.
You may never achieve the relationship of lover and if you do it will be with a very small number of customers. The aim, however, is to achieve the highest level on the pyramid.
You could be just another supplier?
If you want to be just another supplier, competing with everybody else on price, with no compelling competitive advantage then you can do so, after all it is your business. But you will not last long and you will always be moaning about how ‘price competitive’ it is in your area, how customers are always looking for three competitive quotes and how they look to knock down your quote.
Are you surprised?
If you do not have a relationship, then what do you have?
If you do not have a level of intimacy with the customer, then what makes you special?
If you cannot share a joke, or a memory, or discuss the environment in which you both do business, then what are you?
Simply put, you are a commodity player, you may as well be selling spuds!
The oldest and most established businesses I have been involved in sell print and supply promotional products, business gifts and corporate branding solutions. Their success is built on decades of trust, personal service and the ability to anticipate client needs before they are voiced.
For franchisors, the lesson is clear: invest in people, not just platforms. Provide franchisees with the training, support and relationship-building tools they need to become trusted advisers to their own customers. When the whole network operates on the basis of genuine relationships, the brand grows stronger, the franchisees thrive and the end-consumer receives a service that no algorithm can replicate.
In the end, digital is a useful enabler, but it does not replace the human connection that underpins every successful franchise. Strong relationships remain the cornerstone of sustainable growth.
