[00:00:00] Welcome to another fabulous episode of the B2B Sales Trends Podcast, my lovely people. Now, every company wants to be customer-centric. We hear that all the time. I'm sure you're hearing that all the time too. But as organizations grow, they add new teams and evolve over time.
[00:00:19] It's easy to internal priorities or give eternal priorities, shall I say, and internal KPIs sort of the road to go and they take over. The challenge then becomes getting the entire business and not just the sales team, essentially. I know this is the B2B Sales Trends Podcast, but not just the sales team, my lovely people. To think about customer first again.
[00:00:46] On the B2B Sales Trends Podcast, we give you a sneak peek into the strategies of the world's best CROs and go-to-market leaders, the systems and the playbooks they are using so you don't have to figure it out. So if you're looking to increase win rates, shorten sales cycles and learn from the best in B2B selling, this podcast is for you. My guest today is Hasan Chan-Ozyurt. I hope I pronounced that right and forgive me if I don't.
[00:01:15] He's the director of Sales Americas at CHT Group. He's leading a customer-centric transformation across a global business that's focused on rebuilding a shared sense of urgency, aligning the wider organization around the customer and helping sales teams create value in a new way. Today, we're talking about how to bring a customer first culture back. Hasan Chan-Ozyurt, welcome to the show.
[00:01:44] Thank you, Harry. It's a real pleasure to be here. And by the way, you pronounce my surname very closely. Almost there. Özürüz. Almost right. I'm sure a lot of people have their challenges with it. Anyway, Hassan Chan, tell me, every organization has internal processes targeted and KPIs, as we know. How do you recognize when those internal priorities have started getting in the way of delivering the best customer outcomes?
[00:02:13] That's a great question. Every organization needs KPIs, processes and targets. It creates discipline. The problem begins when we become more loyal to our internal processes than our customers. And customers don't wake up thinking about our approval process or organizational charts. So I think when we try to push for our internal KPIs more than our customers' interests, there we have, I think that's the biggest challenge.
[00:02:43] Share with me an example around that from your real life, if you would, and put some context on that for our listeners. Sure. I would say, let's say, you know, we have a KPI to ship on time. Okay. And then you try to hit 100% remark point to ship on time. You know, they call it OTIF and everything.
[00:03:04] But if you try to, instead of, you know, improving your business, but, you know, instead of improving your business, you're trying to manipulate your KPIs to hit internal targets. So you can make organization happy. At the end of the day, your customer is not waking up thinking, oh, okay, let's check, you know, this company's KPIs. If they're hitting 100%, I'm happy customer. That's not happening.
[00:03:31] I will say when internally we are trying to push to, you know, our product portfolios, our lead times, our supply chain constraints, based on how we see it, instead of how customers or market perceives. I think there we have the struggle. There we need to put a stop.
[00:03:54] You know, I think you summed this up really nicely in your last statement. And it's a difference between how we see it or how they see it. Is this where customer centricity sort of, that's the issue with it? I'm always asking this question. I'm saying also one question that I ask my team.
[00:04:19] If I were sitting on the other side of the customer's side, on the customer's table, would this make sense? Right. If the answer is no, then we probably need to rethink the process. That's, I think, to me, customer centricity means thinking with the customer's eyes and putting yourself in their shoes. Not just, and it's not always saying yes to every request of the customers. To me, that's also dangerous. You know, like I hear this from the, you know, hospitality business a lot.
[00:04:49] Customer is always right. Customer is right, you know, and usually we need to prioritize and we need to be kind. But at the end of the day, we need to, if we promise something, we need to deliver. That's, to me, the customer centricity. Right, right. Now, I understand that one of the challenges that you face in your organization is that only a small part of the organization actually interacts with customers on a day-to-day basis.
[00:05:14] Now, how do you build the same sense of urgency across the rest of the business so everyone really understands what's happening in the market and gets that customer centricity mindset? Very well said. I think it's clearly one of the biggest challenges that is only a small part of the organization actually talks to the customers every day. Sales hears the customer frustrations. Operations may not. Finance may not. Engineering may not.
[00:05:43] So, I believe sales has another responsibility besides generating revenue. We have to become the storytellers, if you will, inside the organization. Don't just report that sales declined. Explain why and tell the story behind the numbers. So, I will say bring as much people as you can and bring the customer conversation into the leadership meetings. That's what I do on a day basis.
[00:06:10] I want to create this urgency in the higher level of the other counterparts, departments. And then we exchange because at the end of the day, we all know who is going to take us to the next level, customers. So, we need to have happy customers. And help people understand what keeps customers awake at night. Facts educate, but stories create urgency.
[00:06:34] And I think maybe the last point, customer centricity only becomes real when everybody, not just sales, you know, feels responsible for the customer experience. I like what you said around this idea of bring the customer conversation into leadership, into your own leadership team meetings and discussions. Do you have a tip there for the audience of how you do that?
[00:07:00] I would say in your weekly or bi-weekly meetings, it's just bringing up, it's not always forwarding the complaint emails. You know, sometimes we have seen that in the past. Hey, here is the customer complaint from X or Y customer.
[00:07:14] I think to me, it's more showing the impact of the business, showing the projects that are in the pipeline and your growth, you know, ambition in the next five years and how it aligns with your strategy and letting them answer. Okay, we have to be more careful with this customer because they play a huge role in our business.
[00:07:36] I will say bring the facts, bring the story, but, you know, when you bring that up in your weekly or bi-weekly meetings, just also select the stories as well. If you, you know, always be the boy who cries the wolf, you know, it's not going to work out. You need to select the stories as well. And what role should salespeople play in this?
[00:08:00] So let's say, you know, for many teams across the business, the sales organization is the closest connection, obviously, to the customer. We know that. Right. What role should sellers play in helping the wider organization stay connected to what the customers actually are looking for or need? I mean, I always tell my people, yes, you work for CHD, you know, my company. Right. At the end of the day, you know, they also work for the customer.
[00:08:29] So it's the role is between playing the bridge and coordination between customer and being customer advocate enough sometimes to take their side, you know, not the expense of your own company, obviously. But I think, you know, in a nutshell, we can call it sales as needs to be the voice of the customer because, you know, customer cannot come to your weekly leadership meetings and talk about the complaints. So you need to bring that up. You need to coordinate the people.
[00:08:58] You know, I always believe sales is more than just a commercial function. Sales is the listening, you know, system of the organization. Because think about this, you know, we are usually the first one in the front to hear about new regulations, sustainability initiatives, supply chain challenges, and competitor activities, you know, or changing customer expectations. That information shouldn't stay inside of the sales department. It should flow to the other parts of the department.
[00:09:28] It's just, we are the people who is, you know, gathering that information from the outside world. And let's drill down a little bit more into customer centricity here. It can mean different things to different people in different organizations, right? From your perspective, what does it actually look like when a sales team is genuinely putting the customer first? Is there a secret sauce to this? Yeah.
[00:09:58] I mean, maybe this is first time you're going to hear this principle. I actually think the customer centricity is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the business. And many people think it means saying yes to every customer request. I don't think so. I have a different philosophy here. I call it the club principle. You know, it's very American. Maybe at some point, it's just when someone becomes your customer, they shouldn't feel like they are simply buying or purchase a product.
[00:10:26] They should feel they have joined your club. Let's say Harry's club or, you know, Hasan Jan's club or CFT's club or X company's club. What does that membership include? You know, it's like a subscription. You know, your responsiveness. It includes your expertise. You know, you have a special line, a concierge line for this customer now. Your network, your experience, you know, your commitment. Sometimes customer needs chemicals, you know, in our case.
[00:10:55] But sometimes they need machinery. And because of your networking within the industry, you can get that information faster than they are, maybe. Sometimes they need logistic advice. You know, we have been through like this lots of logistic issues in the past couple of years. And I mean, with the, you know, lots of crises happening in different regions. Maybe sometimes they need a technical expert.
[00:11:20] Or sometimes they need someone who simply answered the phone on Sunday afternoon. I'm not saying that our salespeople should pick up the phone, you know, every minute. But, you know, it's just in, we're in the paper business, I would say. And paper business run paper mills running 24-7. So you need to be able to responsive. And sometimes they need an introduction to someone who you know can solve a problem.
[00:11:50] Even it's outside of your, what you're offering from your company. But obviously within the ethical and compliance boundaries, you know. I need to say that as a disclaimer. Because not at every, you know, not by all the means. To me, that's the customer centricity. Joining my club and feeling privileged and prioritized in many ways. And does it also have to do with, instead of, I like what you phrase, not saying yes to everything.
[00:12:20] And this terminal sort of service mentality. Customers right, I'm wrong. And my job is to give them what they're asking for. By really putting their outcomes, what they're looking for to drive as their business first. And everything else follows. Does that fit into your club? It does.
[00:12:48] I mean, I always tell my people, customers don't organize their problems around our product portfolio. Oh, right. So because sometimes, you have a product portfolio. And maybe your product fits, your product is not fitting their problems. Okay. To me, that means you need to re-look at your, you know, product portfolio or whatever you're offering. You know, it should be, it can be goods or services.
[00:13:15] But they organize their business, you know, they organize their, let's say, problems around their business. The more we understand that, the more valuable we become. Eventually, they stop asking, what do you sell? They start asking, what do you think about this problem? And I think it's just understanding their, you know, challenges, day-to-day challenges, understanding.
[00:13:38] And if you go into any meeting with the preparation of just trying to sell one product, that's not going to work out. You need to always ask, hey, what's your biggest challenge? Yeah. What can I, how can I help you to, you know, to be more sustainable? And today's world is very important, you know, lots of green initiatives and also in the chemical industry. So we need to ask, we need to be their, you know, improvement engineers, if you will.
[00:14:06] We need to be their, you know, sustainability chief officers sometimes. So you need to have always, you know, adapt yourself to wear different hats, if you will. It's interesting. Do you, when you talk about this, it sounds like the activities also from sellers should be shifting. If we want to put customer centricity first, the customer's outcomes first.
[00:14:38] Typically in a service sort of environment and the customer is always right. And yes, I'll give you what you're asking for. That has a very reactive approach. Does customer centricity come hand in hand with a proactive selling approach in your opinion? It does. Certainly it does. The role of sales, as you mentioned, has changed dramatically in the last 20 years, probably. 20 years ago, customers depended on salespeople for information.
[00:15:06] I think it's just, and it's, it would be, I remember we were bringing people who knows that machine, who knows that chemical. And the customers were a bit more, you know, not educated on that topics. And they were, they had to buy from, you know, that specific company to be able to manufacture those, you know, products. But today they have Google AI, cloud, you know, GPT, YouTube, technical papers, you know, information has become a commodity. You know, it's clear.
[00:15:35] To me, insight has become much more the differentiator. Before every important customer meeting, I encourage my team to ask these three questions to be more customer centric. You know, what is changing in this customer's industry? You know, what risks they are facing that they may not even realize. You know, energy crises, things like that.
[00:15:58] Not having enough to supply in, I will say in paper mill, you know, industries, water or in textile, water is a big consumption. So they need to, if they're not doing their own transformation, so you can be a transformator and helping them to get there. That will go a long way and you will not be talking about the price of the product. And the third question, how can we help them become more successful? That's how we are going to retain the customers.
[00:16:26] If we are only answering questions, as you said, we are reacting. But if we are helping customers to think differently, we are creating value. So, and maybe last thing, one thing I always tell my team is don't leave the meeting asking, did we sell something today? Because selling is a short-term activity. You know, leave asking, did we improve our customers' business today?
[00:16:51] So, to me, proactive sales means, you know, before every meeting, prepare yourself and read about their industry, read about their challenges. And when you, you know, when you show up in the customer's meeting room, just make sure one of your bullet points and that's going to be a differentiator for you. You know, and then they will look at you with a different perspective. I'm pretty sure. Love the term transformers, by the way.
[00:17:18] We should retitle salespeople transformers, which is a cool thing to do. And always get that mindset a little bit into that direction too. Hasan-chan, we had a pre-call to this recording and you shared some interesting lessons that you have acquired throughout your career before you went into B2B selling.
[00:17:45] You learned how to sell in Istanbul's Grand Bazaar. What lessons from that experience have stayed with you throughout your career and what can you share here with the audience? This question makes me smile. That's where many of my ideas about customer centricity actually began. I grew up in Istanbul, you know, born and raised in Istanbul. Imagine you're walking through the Grand Bazaar and you enter a jewelry store, you do your shopping, you know.
[00:18:13] And then after that, you're talking with your wife or your spouse and you're looking for a carpet as well. So, you bought the jewelry, gold. And in many places around the world, the jewelry will simply say, I'm sorry if we don't sell carpets here. Not in Grand Bazaar, not in Istanbul. And conversation is over. When that happens, you know, I'm sorry we don't sell carpets here. But that, now how it works in Grand Bazaar. Jewelers say, come with me.
[00:18:44] I know exactly who can help. And he personally walks you to the carpet merchant. You know, why? Because everyone understands something much bigger than their own shop. I think this is pretty much how I see the world as well. It's with the sales perspective. The goal isn't for one store to win. The goal is for the customer to leave Grand Bazaar or wherever you are, you know. Which is Grand Bazaar, you know, giving some context, is the oldest shopping mall in the world.
[00:19:13] So, the goal is for the customer to leave with a solution from that door. The carpet merchants make the sale. Jewelers strengthens the relationship. And the customer remembers both. So, everybody wins. And most of the time, they pass the customers to each other a lot. So, when you learn that even you don't have that day or even you don't have in your real house that service or goods,
[00:19:41] I think you need to be able to find a very quick solution. Or you have to be networked enough to keep that in your close circle, you know. Love the story. So, looking back, I realize I wasn't learning sales. I was learning ecosystems. Today, I think companies should work exactly the same way. Customers don't care how our organization is structured. They don't care what products we don't sell. They care whether somebody can solve their problems.
[00:20:08] You know, sometimes they just want that solution comes from us. I want to work with Harry. I want to work with Hasan-chan. You know, you can clearly see some people change their careers, but they keep the same momentum even though they go into the different industries because people buy from people. People work with people. All right. Great lessons from the Grand Bazaar. And it's interesting. Nowadays, they call them fancy partner ecosystems.
[00:20:36] It's done there already thousands of years ago. Interesting. My last question, Hasan-chan, on every single podcast is always the same. When you look at a B2B selling behavior, what are the top three skills and behaviors that sellers nowadays need to execute really well in order to live a customer-centric mindset and skill set? What are those top three skills and behaviors in your opinion? Yeah.
[00:21:02] I like to also reference the best leaders that I've worked with in the past. When I think about those three or four people, that the qualities that comes to my mind is first is curiosity. You know, they usually ask better questions than everybody else. And, you know, pop up the light bulb in the customers or even, you know, in their own organizations.
[00:21:29] So, you need to be curious about their business. It's not that you need to be sincerely interested to learn about their business. You know, sometimes asking, you know, even customers, hey, can I, if you have time, can I, you know, tour your facility to see if I can help with anything? Then you can, maybe, I'm pretty sure you're going to pick up some, you know, hey, I know this company who you guys work with, and maybe they have some problems, they have some issues that you can help, you know. So, asking the right questions and curiosity, I will say, the first one.
[00:22:00] Second one is humility. So, no matter how successful, you know, you became, you should never stop learning. And that's what I learned from this many leaders that I work with. You know, despite your, you know, age or how experienced you are, it's just, you know, lifelong learning, the 3L. So, I think we need to keep our radars open and mind open.
[00:22:28] And customers value, the third one comes to my mind is consistency. They built, you know, trust by doing exactly what they promised over and over again, the people that I work with in the past. So, you need to be consistent. Even when you deliver bad news, you know, you need to have, hey, this is the bad news. But, you know, we have a solution for you in place. And because, you know, virtual is not perfect.
[00:22:57] There are things happens, you know, and then you need to be able to adapt and respond. Products evolve. Markets evolve. Technology evolves. Trust doesn't trust is still built one conversation at a time, I will say. So, three, I said curiosity, humility, and lastly, consistency. Love it.
[00:23:22] Hassan-chan, we really appreciate your time and your contribution and your unique voice to the conversation of B2B selling. Thank you for taking the time. Sure. Harry, this has been a real pleasure. Thanks for having me. My lovely people's customer centricity isn't something that happens because a company puts it on a slide or on a fancy deck or includes it in some sort of strategy document.
[00:23:50] As Hassan-chan shared with us today, it comes from making sure the whole organization understands the customer, creating a shared sense of urgency, empowering sales teams to become the voice of the customer, and bringing ideas that help customers move their own business forward.
[00:24:13] If you like this episode, follow the show, share it with your team, and subscribe on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from. Download our latest white paper. There is a link in the show notes right now. Until the next time, take care of yourself and your loved ones and, of course, your B2B customers. Bye-bye.