Your customers and prospects are not cash cows waiting to be milked. No matter how deeply you believe they rely on your services or how perfect your solutions may be, the road to successful sales begins with a relationship. No matter what you have heard about how “everyone else sells” or the results from the newest sales methodology, the grass is not greener on the other side of the order book, but your competitors may have new ideas that are helping them stay a step ahead.

To create an environment where the sales team operates at the highest levels, begin with your sales method. You should have a framework for how you sell, no matter the size of your company. Whether you have a by-the-bookteam or a group of free spirits, the business needs some discipline in the process. From Challenger to SPIN, SNAP to Sandler, or even some of the newer plans like Book Yourself Solid, the options for how to find people to sell to are vast. You might adopt one or pieces of several. Depending on how your sales team members came into your company, they may have built their own model that works for them and the business.

A methodology alone doesn’t guarantee success, but it provides tools to help sales approaches and relationship building. The Challenger Sales method is now over a decade old and is based on research into how and why people buy. One finding that informed the challenger method was that 53% of customer loyalty is driven by the sales experience, so as you look at your methods, remember that interacting with a customer or prospect is more than making a pitch. It extends into how the organization treats them.