Getting close to your customers is one of the most important business strategies you can master. Learn how to change your mindset to keep the customers you have—and get new ones!

As a sales professional, you live, die, and breathe for customers. Simply stating that customers are vital to your success would be a massive understatement—customers are everything!

Instilling a customer-focused mindset into your employees and salespeople will keep their eyes on the ball and lead to some seriously good results for your business. In fact, according to a study by the Institute for Corporate Productivity and the American Management Association, companies that don’t foster an environment and culture of pleasing customers fail to succeed.

The study found that the best organizations -understand and leverage customer-focused initiatives that require a blend of attraction, engagement, satisfaction, collaboration, and retention.

Have we convinced you to make a change within your own business? If so, here are a few ways to start manufacturing a customer-centric cultural shift in your business:

Find A Good Place To Start

Begin by benchmarking your current level of customer focus. By completing an audit of your ongoing efforts, you can actually determine where to begin and how your team could improve.

Know Your Audience

Naturally, you’ll need to know who your customers actually are if you want to serve them properly. Try customizing your approach for your customers at every opportunity. Learn from the past and the present to see what they like and dislike about your current strategy so that you can refine your efforts in the future!

Consistency Is Key

Creating a consistent standard that your customers can anticipate is crucial. Standardizing training and protocols for your customer-facing employees is essential for maintaining a consistent brand image.

Think Of The Big Picture

Help your employees see the actual impact that their work has on customers. Forging this relationship is incredibly important to getting your employees invested in the customers that they serve. Employees that can see the fruits of their labor tend to be more productive as well!

Communication Matters Most

Maintaining open communication with your customers at all times is another essential. There’s a reason large companies have 24/7 customer support—it pays always to be there when your customers need you. While it may not be possible for all businesses to have a dedicated 24/7 customer support team, do the best that you can with the resources available to you. Your customers will be able to tell that you’re working hard for them.

Hire Help

Are you having trouble making the shift happen? If all else fails, try making your next hire someone that already has a customer-focused mindset. This will help you fill your ranks with right-minded individuals!

For further reading about creating a customer-focused environment in your business, check out this insightful article from Forbes.

Constructive communication with your customers will help you close a sale today and let you know who to call tomorrow. What are your secrets for staying connected with your customers? Share the skills you’ve developed with us. Post your story on Twitter, follow us @Cydcor, and start a conversation with your network.

We are Cydcor, the recognized leader in outsourced sales services. From our humble beginnings as an independent sales company based in Canada, to garnering a reputation as the global leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor has come a long way. We’ve done this by having exceptional sales professionals and providing our clients with proven sales and marketing strategies that get results.

As a leader in outsourced sales, Cydcor knows how to create winning relationships with clients. Building trust is the foundation of a sales relationship. Trust takes time, effort, honesty and hard work for clients to feel comfortable with your delivery. Even in your career, moving up at work takes the ability to build trust and sell yourself to future managers or employers. Here are some tips from the experts at Cydcor for building trust in your professional life.

1. Get to know your prospect. Ask questions and take an interest in what they are up to.
2. Deliver on your promises. If something goes wrong, make up for it by offering a discount or added goods or services.
3. Remember names, birthdays and specific client needs. It shows that you are thoughtful and care about them as people rather than just a source of money.
4. Only offer what is good for your clients’ needs. Don’t sell anything just for the sake of selling.
5. Be persistent without being annoying. Check in periodically with clients and ask if they need anything from you.
6. Offer helpful advice to your clients. This will establish you as an expert and someone who is invested in their success.
7. Be honest and open. Boasting or pretending to know something when you are not sure will only be taken as disingenuous.
8. Think about the long term. Don’t focus on the instant gratification, but rather come up with plans and solutions that will make you and your prospects happy in the long run.
9. Throw out unnecessary adjectives. Don’t play up your product so much that it sounds too good to be true.
10. Respect the word no, and understand that it can also mean, “not right now.”

What are some ways that you build trust in the workplace? Tell Cydcor on Twitter!

When an entrepreneur gets an idea for a business, investments need to be made into the idea to make it a reality.  Investment is not only a reference to financial backing, but personal time, planning and energy.  At Cydcor, we believe today’s job seekers should look to entrepreneurship for inspiration on making career decisions.  Treating your resume like a business plan is the best way to create a career that is fulfilling.  Starting out can be overwhelming, so it is important to plan and build a winning resume that will get the attention of the employers you want to work for.

Start out by deciding on the job you want the most, then work your way backwards.  For example, if you want to be a chief executive officer of a sales and consulting company like Cydcor, then trace the step of the current CEO of the company you like and of its competitors.  Learn what skills you need, such as leadership, communication, finance and project management.  You can improve those skills through school or various projects.  Make a list of skills you need, and the various job titles that will get you the necessary experience, all the way back to the beginning.

Here are some tips on investing in your resume and creating the career you want:

1. Keep a record of every accomplishment.  Certificates, projects, volunteer work can all help you showcase any skills you develop along the way.
2. Join relevant professional groups.  Meetings of Young Professionals or other industry related associations can improve your network and give you more ideas about what career paths to pursue.
3. Take initiative.  Start a website or club, write a book or organize an event to get the experience you want.
4. Treat every job like it is the best job you’ve ever had.  Taking pride in your work will project reliability, good work ethic and capability to others.
5. Read plenty of books by people in your field, keep up with industry news, and become an expert in your industry.

Want more inspiration, support or advice?  Check out Cydcor on Pinterest for our all of our posts, reviews and other things we like to share to motivate our community.