Does Your Sales Team Need to Build Better Client Relationships?
Winning, retaining, and expanding major sales accounts isn’t just about closing deals — it’s about cultivating relationships that last. Sales managers understand that the strength of client relationships directly impacts revenue growth, customer loyalty, and long-term account success. These relationships thrive on trust, consistent communication, delivering real value, and demonstrating accountability. Each interaction reinforces a client’s confidence in your company, your team, and your brand promise.
Consider the data:
- A recent PwC study found that 73% of buyers consider customer experience a decisive factor in their purchasing decisions.
- NewVoiceMedia reports that 86% of customers with an emotional connection to a brand are more likely to maintain business, make sales referrals, and increase spending.
These numbers highlight a simple truth — relationships are a measurable driver of sales performance.
Yet many sales teams struggle with the “how.” The ability to build better client relationships requires more than friendly conversations or occasional check-ins. It demands a structured approach that combines deep client understanding, proactive problem-solving, and personalized engagement strategies. Teams that master this approach don’t just meet expectations — they:
- anticipate client needs
- address concerns before they escalate
- consistently reinforce value in ways that competitors cannot easily replicate
The impact is tangible. Strong client relationships:
- reduce client churn
- increase wallet share
- convert satisfied clients into brand advocates
The question is whether your sales team has the skills, tools, and mindset to strengthen client relationships systematically. Investing in relationship-building isn’t a soft skill initiative; it’s a revenue strategy that pays measurable dividends.
7 Steps to Build Better Client Relationships
Based upon feedback from business sales training here are seven proven, field-tested steps that solution sellers can use to strengthen client relationships and increase the likelihood of achieving positive outcomes.
- Exude Positive Confidence
Our microlearning experts point to research from Carnegie Mellon University showing that clients naturally gravitate toward partners who display genuine confidence. The more assured you appear, the more likely clients are to view you as a credible expert. But be careful — false or forced confidence can backfire. Sophisticated buyers quickly detect inauthenticity, which can erode trust and jeopardize the sale.
Building authentic confidence starts with sales call preparation and intention: conduct thorough pre-call sales planning, ask insightful sales questions, share relevant expertise, actively listen, and focus on helping your client succeed. When your confidence is grounded in competence and a genuine desire to add value, it radiates as positive energy that inspires and influences others.
Ask yourself: does your sales team demonstrate enough conviction to truly earn client trust?
- Develop Rapport and Intimacy
Rapport is the ability to make clients feel comfortable, understood, and connected with you. It begins at the very start of every interaction—with a warm smile, a friendly greeting, direct eye contact, and knowledge of their name, business priorities, and industry context. Every client interaction is an opportunity to strengthen trust and build better client relationships.
To cultivate genuine intimacy with clients, consider these practical strategies:
— Show authentic interest in what the client is saying or doing
— Invite their opinions and insights before offering recommendations
— Avoid judgment and demonstrate openness
— Mirror and match body language, tone, pace, dress, and communication style
— Identify common ground and create shared experiences
— Practice patience, letting clients finish their thoughts before responding
— Set aside your ego to prioritize the client’s needs
— Pay attention to emotions, concerns, and nonverbal cues
— Convey empathy, warmth, and understanding consistently
— Treat clients as trusted collaborators rather than transactional contacts
— Use active listening to ensure they feel fully heard
— Offer positive affirmations to reinforce trust and confidence
— Ask open-ended questions to encourage deeper dialogue
Strong rapport transforms client interactions from routine conversations into meaningful partnerships.
Ask yourself: does your sales team know how to consistently build this level of rapport?
- Be Client-Centered
Being client-centered means prioritizing your clients’ interests above your own desire to hit sales targets. Beyond being the ethical approach, it’s the foundation of trust — one of the most instinctive and powerful human feelings. We naturally know when someone is trustworthy, and when they’re not.
To earn the status of a trusted advisor, focus on three key behaviors:
1). Be credible: Know your clients, understand their business, and bring relevant expertise to every interaction.
2). Be reliable: Deliver on every promise, explicit or implied, consistently and without fail.
3.) Be responsive: Communicate promptly and follow up in a timely, thoughtful manner.
When clients feel understood, valued, and supported, relationships deepen, loyalty strengthens, and business outcomes improve.
Ask yourself: is your sales team truly client-centric — or just transaction-focused?
- Communicate Openly
Top-performing sales reps know that strong client relationships are built on transparent, two-way communication. When trust is established, open dialogue not only strengthens collaboration but also reinforces credibility and reliability. Without clear, consistent, and honest communication, it becomes nearly impossible to truly support a client’s success.
Ask yourself: is your sales team consistently sharing insights, updates, and information in a transparent, dependable, and client-focused way?
- Be Easy to Work With
Ask yourself: do your policies, processes, and business practices make it effortless for clients to get what they need — when they need it and how they want it — or do internal procedures create friction and frustration?
Remember, it only takes one negative experience for a client to walk away and share their disappointment, while it can take up to nine positive experiences just to create lasting goodwill. Being easy to do business with isn’t just convenient — it’s a critical driver of loyalty and long-term revenue.
Is your sales team genuinely making it simple and seamless for clients to work with you?
- Help Your Client Succeed
Clients engage with you to achieve results. Yet, amid the busyness of “doing the work,” it’s easy to lose sight of the outcomes that truly matter. The key is clarity: ask your clients for specifics. When you fully understand what success looks like from their perspective, you position yourself to deliver meaningful impact and help them achieve the results they care about most.
Ask yourself: is your sales team making a measurable, meaningful difference in your clients’ success?
- Be Passionate
How much energy and enthusiasm do you bring to client interactions? Are you genuinely excited about your work and the value you deliver, or do you carry stress and distractions into every meeting? Passion isn’t just attitude — it’s contagious. When you are truly passionate, you’re more willing to share ideas, collaborate, innovate, and give your best in every interaction.
A lack of visible passion sends a subtle — but powerful — signal to clients: something isn’t right. Clients want to engage with people who not only deliver results but also bring positivity, energy, and fresh ideas into their often hectic and pressured lives.
Ask yourself: is your sales team bringing the level of passion that inspires confidence, collaboration, and excitement in every client interaction?
The Bottom Line
If any of these steps have faded, become rusty, or slipped from practice over time, now is the moment to refresh them. These principles form the foundation of strong client relationships — neglect them, and you risk undermining your own success. Take a candid look in the mirror, recommit to these foundational behaviors, put them into action, and watch the impact on your clients — and your results — grow.
To learn more about how to build better client relationships, download The Importance of Attitude in Sales Conviction – Do You Have It?
Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.
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