Kathy:  How do you think that your skills and ability in handling business relationships have evolved over your career?

Todd: I think that from where I started to where I am now I have a better appreciation and understanding of my customers’ business.  And I think that by that evolution I’m able to talk more of their talk, obviously bring more value because I do understand their business.  And by virtue of bringing that value, I believe that creates a better relationship.  There is trust, there’s experience, there’s information flow, all those things.

In turn, again, I think that understanding your customers’ business builds a whole foundation for a relationship and things go along with that.

Kathy: So is it just your maturity or your experience of understanding the business?

Todd: Understanding through time, their business, and all the intricacies of their business and what they believe is value, what their issues are as they go about their day-to-day.  Of course understanding what we do for them and put it together.  These processes build relationships that are pretty much invaluable as you get to the end of the day.

I really believe when it comes to selling and the art of building relationships some of this is just inherent.  I think you either have it or you don’t.  I don’t think there is an in between.

So yes, you can get a better foundation, a better baseline, but when it comes down to it, to answer your question—I had somebody to show me the door, but when the door was open I inherently knew the things necessary to take those relationships and build on them.

Kathy: Do you look for that in hiring? 

Todd: We sure try.

Kathy: It’s easier to teach them product than it is to teach them inherent skills.

Todd: It really is.  And unfortunately we’ve hired people and we’ve had to let people go, not because they are not good people, but because when what we are trying to do in the market somebody can be very technically based and understand products. 

But when the day is done if they can’t make a connection with somebody and build on that, then it’s not going to work.  So unfortunately we’ve hired and let people go simply because they got to a certain point where they had all the technical skills in the world but that inherent piece, relating to a customer, couldn’t be met.

Kathy: Do you think it can be taught?

Todd: I don’t think it can, I really don’t.  Some people are better than others in terms of how well they are able to get in there and connect. 

One of the conversations I had, Kathy, you know this, is we had a regional meeting a few months ago.  We were talking about our staffing and the people.  We really tried to assess our competitors.  We know what we are about.  We know the things we are doing.  But we really tried to put our shoe on the other foot of our competitors and figure out what they do better.

One of the things that came up from one of our formidable competitors is that they are just “guys guys,” as we put it.  They put a team together that people want to be around.  This is the stuff we are talking about—the inherent ability that they hire the people who have the innate ability to get in and make things happen, to build relationships.

We have better technical people, I’m convinced.  But at the end of the day a lot of our customers want to be around people they want to be around.  I don’t think you can teach that, I think you know it.

Kathy: All the inside sales people that I’ve listened to, the relationships that they have with their customers, is amazing.  How do you measure it?  How do you know if they are developing good business relationships?

Todd: How I gauge it today is far different than how I used to gauge it.  Today, as I look at it is, are we able to use this relationship to make money?  Because their—our customers’—job, and I don’t begrudge anybody, everybody is doing the job.  But their job is to buy the best they possibly can.  Our job is to sell the highest price we possibly can.

Relationships give you the opportunity to negotiate or give you an opportunity to do the work.  I’m gauging the relationship today as, ‘Can you do all that and at the end of the day you are making money?’

We want better relationships.  We don’t have a training program for that because, again, it is right back to what I said.  We know inherently people either have it or don’t.  We put them in the position.  We want them to get to know people.  We want them to do the things that they are doing.

But our managers now are really trying to use relationships.  At the end of the day, are we able to use those relationships to make money? 

It is not any more or any less just trying to be equitable with our customers.  We are just trying to find that equitable approach where we are both winning in that situation.

Kathy:  What advice would you give people, be it in sales or finance or operations, who really want to develop their business relationship skills?

Todd:  Unfortunately you tend to live in the snapshot of where you are today.  Things are changing so fast that you can’t assume anything anymore.

You can’t assume you have the relationship.  You can’t assume you have the share.  You can’t assume that you are doing great on service. 

Make sure you understand what is in front of you because in some cases we are assuming a lot of things out there that just aren’t the case.  Again, the economy has forced people to really do things they wouldn’t even consider doing a year or two years ago.  That’s the assumption piece I was talking about.  We just can’t assume much. 

But I still believe on the relationship side of things, that at the end of the day it’s still what is keeping us in the game.

Price is big, but that same survey I mentioned, price was 3^rd out of whatever category.  It was still about trust and still about the product, the value and then of course price was there.  It’s not the end all be all. But I think relationships are still giving us that opportunity to succeed to the best of our ability in the market today.