To make your sales and revenue goals, you need clients. Increasing your client base is critical to those goals. Personalize your appreciation of your clients in simple and inexpensive ways to show you care about the people not just the dollars. When you make yourself invaluable to their business success, they won't ever look elsewhere because competing products can't provide all these services and goodwill.
1.
Write thank you notes. They are more powerful if handwritten; it shows you took the time to appreciate them. Templates of what to say make it quicker, but the key is in your own handwriting.
2.
Know your client's name and pronounce it correctly.
3.
Offer information you gleaned from a conference or workshop that hits an issue your client has experienced or has mentioned. Or pass on articles you've read relevant to their business or needs. It shows you're thinking about their success outside of the sales cycle.
4.
Provide small gifts. Remembering birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries personalizes the relationship and keeps clients tied to you.
5.
Send them a preview of new offerings or be sure they are the first to hear about your new products/services. It makes them feel special to be in the know, ahead of the field. Make them feel important - it builds trust that you will meet their needs.
6.
Send them clients - every business loves referrals.
7.
Call them regularly to check-in. It may be an annual face-to-face event, or a quarterly 15 minute briefing. With some clients it may be a ritual of tea or lunch or an excuse to walk in the park. If the business return is there, you can make the time.
8.
Hire them/Buy from them. Make it a reciprocal business arrangement.
9.
Compliment your client by using them as a model to other clients and prospects.
10.
Write a case history about their success-story with your product/service and publish it somewhere, as well as on your website (with permission).
About the Author: Kerri Salls offers the Breakthrough Business Results Program to train, consult and coach small business CEO's and entrepreneurs in 10 key strategies to make more profit in less time. Check out http://www.breakthrough-business-school.com/products.html or sign up for a free weekly newsletter at http://www.breakthrough-business-school.com.
Source: www.isnare.com