How much do you really know about your customers…where they work, their job title, their past orders–the basics? Knowing their basics keeps your potential basic. Sustaining a strong relationship with your customers can often lead to greater things.

Obviously, not everyone is comfortable in sharing about themselves. Some people like to keep their professional lives professional and their personal lives personal. It’s easy to respect that, but a customer who openly shares information about their life outside of their job doesn’t mind sharing with you. These are the people who make it easy to get to know them.

Think about it. You have a good relationship with your customer and someone they know is looking for promotional swag. Chances are your customer is likely to recommend you to that person. Your customer is able to help their friend/acquaintance, that person gets what he/she is looking for and you get to help another person out, leading to another customer and another sale. It’s a win-win…win situation.

Now let’s say you know your customer well enough to not only know what’s going on in their business, but also some of the things that are going on in their personal life. Your customer is coaching his son’s little league team, you ask if he’s looking for team shirts. Your customer gets engaged and you show him/her some prices on a variety of wedding favors. Your customer volunteers for a local non-profit and has a fundraising event this summer. You’ve talked about this with her before and become the one she purchases event swag from.

Successful sales people don’t wait for their clients to always come to them with what they want, they provide ideas. They show their clients the items that they may not have even thought about before but are eager to have. Their customers get cool new swag, and the sales person helps another person get what he/she is looking for. It benefits both parties.