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Relationship Build

This is a advanced version of the build stage used in the 'Close' stage of the 7Cs framework.

Within any client engagement there should be a desire on your part to build an effective and efficient sales relationship. This build process can be driven by your ability to understand and manage the following four factors:

Build Levels - the level indicates the commercial nature of the relationship with the customer. This will range from a customer who is generally aware of your product and offering through to someone who is fully engaged in a profitable sales relationship.
Build Steps - the steps indicate the differing stages you need to take the customer through to progress them from the aware to engaged levels.
Build Dimensions - the dimensions indicate how you need to balance and integrate the cognitive and affective element to stimulate a positive shift in behavior. This is an integration of the Head, Heart and Hand factors covered in the book.
Build Drivers - The drivers indicate the specific action you can take to manage each step change and so help people move through each of the corresponding build levels.

1. Build Levels

In developing a sales relationships the customer must be encouraged to walk through a series of adaptive stages as seen below. In taking the client through these steps, you will take them along a number of platforms: from generic curiosity through to specific interest; and from cognitive awareness to behavioral action.

These might be described as:

Aware - By virtue of the fact that they are Anti, they must be aware of you product, the aim is to shift the aware from one of anti to one of agnostic.

Belief - the potential client believes in the need for this type of product and decides to meet this belief by making a single transaction purchase

Conviction - the customer has a conviction that your product is the right one and can be seen to believe that it is the only one.

Desire - at this level the customer is highly motivated to maintain a relationship and demonstrates this by defending your product and even aspiring to learn more about its application

Engaged - at the this stage the customer is fully engaged in the sales process and has become such an advocate of the product that they activity promote it and help others understand what value they might derive from it.

2. Build Steps

If your goal is to get the customer to progress effortless through these 5 levels, then it will help to understand the stages they need to go through during the journey. You might need to take them from a position where they might be fiercely opposed to your product through to a position where they are a keen market advocate and even taking on a sales role. So the journey might be one of a managed shift from 'Anti' to 'Educator'!

However, the journey from Anti to Educator, albeit a powerful one to make is rarely one taken in a single step. To help your customer make this shift they will often have to go through a number of key steps:

1	Anti to Agnostic - *Offer evidence* Like the consumer who is opposed to any use of your product near them, the first logical step may be to give them logical evidence to demonstrate that no harm will come to them from association with the product. Note, this is generic data not necessarily data specific about your product or idea.
2	Agnostic to Believe - *Reason to Believe* In the words of that great bard - Rod Stewart - we have to have a reason to believe. The emotional shift from agnostic to a believer is indicative that the person believe in the need for the benefits that you product can offer but have not bought into the need to buy your product. At this stage you might lose the sale to a competitor.
3	Believe to Buyer - *Offer value* The logical shift from a position where someone believes in the need for a product and actually buying your product is driven by the logical appreciation that they will derive a benefit. That there might be a financial, emotional or rational pay back resulting from the cost of sale. Interestingly, although it might be that the decision to buy is driven by an emotional pull, generally the customer will be able to rationalize the decision.
4	Buyer to Customer - *Make it Personal* The buyer might be viewed as a transactional position where there is a purchase, but the customer will go more for cost as the primary driver. The emotional shift to a customer relationship is once it becomes personal and relationship based. At this stage the buyer has to desire to come back to you rather than purchasing from one of your competitors. At this stage the cost becomes less of a decision criteria and the nature of the relationship becomes more dominant.
5	Customer to Champion - *Personal Payback* The logical shift from Customer to Champion is a subtle but important one. It is the point where your customer is prepared to tell others in their organisation about your product and its value. The benefit of this is that they help increase your market penetration and start to reduce the cost of sale. The customer will often do this because they see some form of personal payback from promoting your goods. This might be in the form of brand association or political power.
6	Champion to Defender - *Stake Holder* The emotional shift from Champion to Defender is indicated by the willingness of your customer to act as protector in cases where other people criticize your product. The drive for this will often be because they have a personal stake in the ideas associated with your service and view any attack as a personal criticism of their decision to support you.
7	Defender to Disciple - *Lead though Learning* At this level the customer sees sense in learning more about your ideas and so takes on a disciple or committed student role. Their goal in this case might be to acquire knowledge so that they can deploy it for personal or business gain.
8	Disciple to Expert - Re-Frame The step from Disciple to Expert is where the learner is able to take the ideas associated with the product and use it in a new way or direction. They do this by adding value through reframing the base concept or utilities and present it to the market in a different form.
9	Expert to Educator - Recognition The final stage from Expert to Educator is where the customer has acquired so much expertise that you are able to recognize their knowledge and value in the market, to the extent that you are happy to draw upon their knowledge and desire to help others learn about your product or service.

Anti	The awful Airline that flew me to Brussels recently!!!!!, Tattoo's.
Ambivilent	One day training seminars with hundreds of people, Body Piercing,
Believer	Expensive kitchen refits,
Buyer	DVD, Coffee bars
Customer	Fort Galaxy Diesel, Virgin, BA
Champion	Sony Vaio Laptops, Sony Minidisk and most stuff Sony, Sunday Business Newspaper,
Defender	London, New York, M&S,
Disciple	Mobile phones, PDA's, NLP, Being a parent
Expert	Hotel's for training venues
Educator	Seat belts, Further Education, Personal Capital,

	From Anti your product to an Agnostic position where they don't really have a strong belief either way.
	From Agnostic to Believer, where they accept that there is a need but not necessarily for your product
	From Believer to Buyer, where they are prepared to make a single transaction purchase.
	From Buyer to Customer, where an ongoing relationship has developed with the purchaser.
	From Customer to Champion, where the customer will happily promote you or you idea in their environment
	From Champion to Defender, where they are such a strong advocate that they will counter any criticism against you
	Form Defender to Disciple, where their belief is such that they want to learn more about the product
	From Disciple to Expert, where they new knowledge put them in a commanding position as an authority figure
	From Expert to Educator, where they have the capability and desire to help others make a similar journey.

Anti	When I first came across the model I really didn't buy into it at all. I found it grated for me and to be honest I didn't see the need for that type of product.
Ambivalent	After I considered the different ideas that were in the market, I started to see the personal development market as it existed and accepted that maybe some people found it of use - but it still wasn't really for me.
Believer	Then I found the benefit in having a personal mission. Not a mind blowing gut wringing see it all type realization, but a thought that 'arh' I see why this would help and how it might help me.
Buyer	I first became a buyer when I attended the 3 day course. At the time it was just a course and I also attend a number of NLP programs.
Customer	The emotional switch came when I came across some ideas in Stephen's book that made sense. Also, I really trusted Ed, the Covey account manager, a guy who really lived the model and I could see how it could help me.
Champion	At this point I could see the business benefit for the business and so started to advocate that we should adopt it as part of a large cultural change programme we had embarked upon.
Defender	In the process of kicking off this programme there were a lot of people who were anti the model. The attacked it from many sides, but I was prepared to take the flack, because I believed in my heart that it would help.
Disciple	The disciple stage came when I attended the trainer training event. I went to this because the three day course gave me the questions, but I wanted to find some answers.
Expert	At this stage I felt I had internalized the model and was able to do presentation without notes, talk to people in the corridor about the ideas without feeling nervous and even more describe its application to friends and family without taking their taught and jibes.
Educator	Finally, I started to run the internal 3 day programme. This was really the completion of the cycle as I was able to present Covey model, but more interesting to reframe and present in a way that made sense to me without following it slavishly.