Photo: Jason Gulledge

Last week, I had a long-overdue chat with a former colleague, a marketing director. We met in her office, and as I sat down at her work table, she scooped up piles of papers to make space for my coffee.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m in major overwhelm mode here. Juggling too many writing projects and a new product launch.”

Well, I know that feeling, so I jumped right in.

“What are the writing projects? Is there anything you could hand off to a freelancer?” I asked.

“Well, there’s a white paper that needs writing, and we have no sales collateral for the new product launch,” she responded. “Why, do you know someone?”

“Sure.” I rattled off the name of a writer who specializes in writing white papers for the IT industry and another who would be a good fit for the sales collateral.

My friend was thrilled. I was happy to be able to help. And, importantly, those two writers each just received a referral. And, not just a generic “I need a writer referral.” I didn’t simply offer my friend the names of some “writers;” I gave her the names of an “IT industry white paper writer” and a “sales collateral writer.” Professionals who specialize in solving the exact problems she was facing.

Despite the growing number of ways to generate leads for professional services, e.g., direct mail, cold calling, email, online, webinars, and more, research shows that referrals are still the top way professionals generate leads.

Yet many professionals I speak with wonder why they don’t get more referrals. They wonder what they’re doing wrong—Not doing enough networking? Not going to the right events? Not asking for referrals? And often, those are indeed real problems. However, in many cases the lack of referrals stems from something else.

How did I know whom to refer to my friend the marketing director? Well, each of the professionals I referred did the groundwork for me.

Each has a tightly defined niche. They describe the work they perform in terms of the types of writing they specialize in, as well as the industries and clients they serve. Not only have they clearly defined their niche, but they communicate and reinforce that message.

• One is a frequent speaker at events that showcase her white paper expertise and industry experience. She reinforces her niche on her website and in her tweets. She writes blog posts and articles about white papers on related industry sites.
• One keeps in close contact with me, with phone calls and email updates. She lets me know about projects she’s working on, recent successes, and her availability to take on new work. Her email signature includes her special focus, a link to her blog and website, and association awards she’s received.

Unlike some professionals who try to be all things to all people, neither is afraid to define the niche they serve and devote all their energy to cultivating that niche.

They make it easy for me to refer them.

How do you make it easy for your contacts to refer you?

(Photo by Microstock Photography)

It would be nice if we could say someone or something else is the reason for our not succeeding. The burden would be off of us. Someone else is making us do something, so blame them. It’s kind of like when you were a kid and everyone else controlled what you did—your parents, your teachers, your coach, etc. “It’s not my fault. Dad said to do that,” as my 13-year-old daughter is fond of saying.

She may be right in a certain sense. But it’s those guidelines and restrictions that enable us to eventually make our own decisions. As an adult, you cannot say, “Blame my mother. She told me to do that.” As an employee, you cannot say, “It didn’t work because my boss didn’t tell me I had to do that.” As a business owner, you cannot say, “It’s not my fault we don’t have clients. It’s because of the economy [or the weather or the holidays or the full moon].” You are the only person who can determine your success and your business’s success. It’s up to you to take ownership of it and do all that you can to make it work.

Consider professional services sales. Are you doing all that you can to generate leads and keep the pipeline full? Are you in contact with prospects, making sure they understand the value you offer over others in your field? Are you maintaining and even building on existing relationships with clients? As Rob Benson writes in his article, How to Deal with Lost Sales: A Lesson from the Links, you have to “work the system. Do the basics, and do them well.”

Yes, you will lose sales and clients may walk away, but those misses won’t cause you or your business to fail if you have a strong sales system, Benson says. If you work the system effectively—clarify your value proposition, establish credibility, and put yourself in a place to meet those who might need your services—you will generate enough leads so that a lost sale doesn’t hurt so much.

Get to the Decision Makers

Working the system effectively also means figuring out how to get to the decision makers and get them to listen to you. There’s no doubt that they’re insanely busy and that many firms are vying for their attention, but you cannot let that be an excuse. You must find a way to stand out among all the others, Larry Stybel and Maryanne Peabody write in their article, Selling Services to Time-Starved Executives Who Desperately Need to Ignore You.

“You are seeking to get noticed by leaders who have too many responsibilities and too little time. If they pay equal attention to all stimuli, they will surely be ineffective. Cognitive guidelines that allow them to avoid paying attention can be an important leadership mechanism for success,” they write. “This is The Spiro Agnew Framework. And it is both crude and necessary for leaders to be successful.”

It is up to you to break the Spiro Agnew Framework, and you can do it if you follow Stybel and Peabody’s suggestions: create a new category and dominate it and focus on your services as an answer to a management dilemma.

Blogs can help you achieve that, as The Search Agency discovered. Until recently, the online search marketing firm had a relatively low industry profile. It decided it had to change that if it wanted buyers to not only find it but recognize it as the online search marketing firm. It turned to blogging as a way to establish itself as a thought leader and trusted resource, and as a result has grown revenues by 37%.

“Our company is engaged in dialogue that shows our depth and breadth of expertise. And with our team members in India and the UK contributing, the blog helps position us as a global agency with the talent and technology to optimize search marketing campaigns in many different markets,” says Alec Green, vice president of marketing for the agency.

Communication is Key

Your sales success also depends on your non-verbal communication skills, says Sharon Sayler in her podcast interview, Is Your Body Language Hurting Your Sales Efforts? You can have the best website with all of the SEO tactics in place, the most creative blog, and the most dynamic sales collateral, but if you give off negative signals during meetings with prospects or during presentations none of that will matter.

Your body movement, voice, and eye contact all play a role in drawing people toward you—or pushing them away, Sayler says. For example, breathing quickly can cause prospects to think there’s something wrong and being too friendly too quickly can cause them to think you’re ingenuous.

You might think that those are your personality traits and that’s just the way you are, but then you would be pointing the finger again instead of taking responsibility if the deal falls through. You can change these things. All it takes is practice, Sayler says.

When you win the deal and sign the new client, you’re not off the hook. The success of that business relationship depends on you making it work. Be up front about what your new client can expect from you, initiate dialogue so that you both understand each other, and encourage them to be a part of the process so you can better help them.

In Michael W. McLaughlin’s recent article, A Letter to Your Client: Help Me Help You, he has written an open letter to a new client about how to make the project a success. While I don’t suggest sending this letter to your new clients, I do think you need to address the issues included in it and make sure you and your client are on the same page. Your initiative will help you deliver what you promised and help you retain the client for future work. You, and only you, are responsible for its—and your—success.

(Photo by Athena Workman)

Focus on your clients and prospects. You’ve probably heard those words many times, and know you should do it, but are you actually doing it? These days, when all buyers are busy and seemingly more providers than ever are vying for their business, this client-centric focus can make the difference between winning a deal and losing it.

As C.J. Hayden says in her article, Prospects Are People, Too, “Successful selling is not a power struggle between two opposing sides; it’s a friendly conversation between peers.”

You cannot make the mistake of thinking that the perfect sales letter or phone script will guarantee you new clients, she says. Treat your prospects like humans, not robots, and focus on personal exchanges of useful and targeted information.

Matt Heinz, author of the new book Successful Selling, agrees with Hayden. In his podcast interview, How to Avoid Becoming a Commodity in a Buyer-Centric World, Heinz says, “Sales has changed significantly over the past years. No longer can firms have the same approach for every prospect.”

And if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition and avoid becoming a commodity where buyers make a decision based simply on price, take the time to analyze your prospect’s problem and explain how you can solve it for them, he says.

“Take their problem and ask them questions to identify and quantify the problem in a way they might not have been able to do themselves,” Heinz says. “Too often when they can’t do that, they find the easiest thing that they can understand, which is price. And you don’t want to have to compete on price.”

One company who has seen great success with a client-centric approach is On Your Mark. In M. Sharon Baker’s case study on the firm, Market Research Firm’s Client-Centric Approach Leads to Many Cross-Selling Opportunities, co-founder Brenda Laguarta says she knew they needed to focus on their current clients if they were going to weather the economic storm.

By focusing on existing clients and increasing their visibility, On Your Mark found new opportunities in different divisions of their current clients. And to keep the pipeline full, the team started looking and thinking ahead about new opportunities.

“We’re intensely involved in our clients’ businesses, with projects going all the time,” says partner Jeanne Corrigan. “We started to take a look at what we were doing now, what we still needed to learn, and what could help our clients based upon what we were already doing.”

Laurie Young and Bev Burgess further state that the development of new services should focus on buyers’ unique needs. Using a process they call New Service Design (NSD), “allows marketers to create a new perception of value for the core service. They can create different versions of the core service for different segments of buyers and introduce innovations, both large and small, that enhance the existing service and improve its perceived value over time,” they write in their article, How to Develop Innovative and Profitable Services.

In general, services that are high-volume, low-margin, and easily reproducible can more easily be developed using a rigorous design plan than those that are highly customized (like consultancy or other professional services). But it is possible to apply the rigorous innovation process to professional services using their NSD approach, Young and Burgess say. Doing so will enable firms to produce much more lucrative services that are distinct and different from others.

How you communicate with clients and prospects also makes a huge difference. When you communicate using jargon and “corporatese” you alienate them. How can they possibly understand how you can help them when they can’t figure out what you do,” asserts Ernest Nicastro in his article, Is Your Writing Driving Away Clients?

Consider this real-world example from a firm’s website:

“Leader Coaching leverages a proprietary coaching framework, proven over years of practical application and success, to collaborate with clients in pursuit of shared goals.”

Such writing is “flat out bad communication, and bad communication is bad for you, bad for your reader, and, if you’re communicating in a commercial way, bad for business,” Nicastro says.

Fortunately such writing can be easily fixed using a simple tool in Microsoft word—Spelling & Grammar Check. It provides four important results that can make the difference between good writing and bad writing. Businesses would be well-advised to use it before sending out or publishing anything.

Now that you know how some firms are benefiting from a client-centric focus, tell us what you’re doing—or plan to do. What results have you seen?

Are you letting leads fall through the cracks? (Photo by Ti.mo)

In conversation after conversation with services firm leaders, I hear the common lament:

“We need more leads!”

However when I start asking them about their lead management and nurturing process and what happens when they have a new lead, I quickly learn that it may not be new leads they need, but a better process to handle the leads they already have.

In my experience, services firms are particularly bad at staying in touch with leads over the long term. They attend to short-term leads and work them hard only to let their long-term leads fall through the cracks. There are a number of ways to stay in touch with these leads and nurture them (read this blog post I wrote on the topic: Your No-Nonsense Lead Nurturing Plan).

There are also a number of places to look where you can find a whole slew of leads that you already have. So, you may not need new leads; you may just need to do a better job of handling the leads you already have.

5 Places to Find Leads

1. Lost proposals: A lost proposal is not the end of a relationship. Even when you lose a proposal, you should make a point to stay in touch with the prospect. Every three months or so check in and see how the project is going. Just because they didn’t choose you for phase one doesn’t mean they will not choose you for later phases of the project or other projects. If you keep in touch and remain up-to-date with what is going on and with the new challenges they are facing, you will have the inside track.

2. Leads that aren’t ready to close right now: These are the most common leads to get lost in the shuffle. On our priority list, these long-term leads fall to the bottom and receive little, if any, attention. The relationship is damaged and future opportunities disappear.

3. Current clients: Don’t neglect your current client base. They are the ones that, through repeat business, are going to make up a large portion of your business. (That is unless you are a turnaround consulting firm—in that case, you hope not to see any repeat business.) Just because you work with a firm doesn’t mean they know all about you and the various ways you can help. Often your client knows very little about your firm past the people and projects they are directly engaged in.

Tapping your current (and past) client base, introducing them to other services, and networking your way through the client firm are all ways to grow and get new projects. Your direct contact can act as an internal champion for you and your services to introduce you to other decision makers within their organization. Plus they can refer you to other businesses that may need your services.

4. Prospects that may not have been the perfect fit (two years ago): Businesses change at an amazingly fast clip. Maybe you had a conversation with a business two years ago that at the time was not ready to make the investment for your services, or was not the right size, or didn’t have the urgency to act right away. That doesn’t mean that they are in the same position today. Unless you stay in touch with these folks, you have no idea if their situation changes.

5. Web leads: What’s your firm’s process and policy for handling web leads? Does every lead that comes in over the web—every download, contact us form, email inquiry—get a response and get added to your database? If there are any gaps in the integration between your website and contact management system, you can be sure that leads are dropping out through them.

Long-term nurturing programs help you stay in touch with these leads on a regular basis. It keeps your message and brand in front of your prospects. Email, direct mail, and periodic phone calls are all great ways to keep the relationship alive so when the need does arise, you are the first ones they think of.

So, go run a report on your contact management system searching for lost proposals, old leads, current and past clients, and web leads. I’m sure you’ll find leads that have been sitting right beneath your nose this entire time.

Ignore the voice you hear that says to advance sales quickly (Photo by Don Fulano)

If you’re involved in sales in any way, shape, or form, I’m sure you feel constant pressure to close deals—and close them quickly. You probably feel it from managers who tell you the prospect will slip away if you let them sit. The worst culprit, however, is the voice inside your head that says you need to act quickly.

But if you’re involved in selling professional services and you try to put a long-term sale into a short-term cycle, you will, as Charles H. Green says, shoot yourself in the foot. You will destroy any chance you had at winning over that prospect.

“Short-term selling comes from a mismatch between the pace of a client’s decision-making, and our desired pace of the client’s decision-making. Typically, of course, we want the pace to be faster than that which the client appears to desire,” writes Green in his article, Don’t Be a Short-Term Seller. “Our unfortunate response is to attack the client’s pace as too slow. The client’s equally unfortunate (but entirely predictable) response is to dig in their heels and push back. Paradox. Stalemate. Short-termism kills another deal.”

You will similarly lose prospects and leads if your sales conversations center on you, your firm, and your services, says Jill Konrath, author of the new book SNAP Selling, in her podcast interview, How to Get Prospects to Sit Up, Pay Attention, and Buy Your Services.

Prospects, who are busier than ever, don’t want to hear about those things.

“The most typical [mistake] I see is the gracious call where the person calls a prospect and leaves a message in which they introduce themselves and say they’d love to meet with them to explain what they can do. But those messages are deleted in a nanosecond because they have no meaning to the prospect,” Konrath says. “A SNAP seller starts entirely with the client in mind. They try to get inside their head and understand the business issues and challenges they’re facing, the goals they’re trying to reach, they problems they’ll have if they remain status quo, and why they won’t change.”

Similar tactics apply if you want to grow your client relationship. If you want to retain that client and continue to have them buy from you, try doing joint account planning in which you solicit the client’s ideas in your plans for them, writes Andrew Sobel in his article, How to Grow Client Relationships—and Grow Your Business, Part 2. Doing so sends a powerful message that you put their concerns and challenges first.

Other suggestions from Sobel include making targeted investments, creating a new relationship environment, and bringing new players into the relationship.

The main ingredient in client relationships is trust—without it you have nothing, but with it you can have clients for life. If it’s new prospects you’re trying to win over, webinars are a great way to begin developing that trust. They allow you to showcase your expertise and personality, and they allow you to interact with people—basically give a taste of what it’s like to work with you.

To have a successful webinar, however, you must make sure your target audience knows about it. Take a page from Kendra Lee’s playbook and put notices about it on all the social media networks possible. No one market segment prefers one particular network, so you need to hit them all, she says in her article, 6 Ways to Increase Attendance at Your Webinars.

“Once your content is perfected, [webinars] are a numbers game,” writes Lee.” The more interested people from your target market that you can attract to your event, the greater the number of leads. Social networking can get your message out, bringing participants and leads to you.”

What growing up at a motel taught me about running a service business. (Photo by Will V.)

The 4th of July has always signaled the beginning of summer to me. Fireworks, parades, barbecues, picnics, and baseball games—what better ways to celebrate the kickoff of the short-lived, New England heat?

The holiday also brings back memories of my childhood. I grew up in a small tourist town in southern Maine where my parents owned and managed a motel. Growing up living at a motel made for a pretty interesting childhood where I got to meet new people every day and make friends all over the world.

It wasn’t all fun and games. Growing up in a family business also meant that I had to work every summer. I’d do everything from housekeeping to running the front office to painting to cleaning the pool. But I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything. In fact, I learned a number of lessons that have stuck with me throughout my life.

Here are five of those lessons that have really become guiding principles for me in running a service business.

1. Always put the people first. Staff, clients, prospects—if you put the people first, everything else will fall in line.

My parents always put an emphasis on personal relationships. They built strong relationships with guests where they’d stay in touch throughout the year, sending Christmas cards, letters, and emails to guests just to see how they were doing and fill them in on what was going on in our lives. Every Friday night my parents would take one of the repeat guests out to dinner, and they would host small cocktail parties. These relationships kept folks coming back year after year.

They also built strong bonds with the staff. They genuinely cared about (and sometimes for) the employees, and in turn, the employees would regularly go above and beyond the call of duty.

Professional services marketing, selling, and management are all about relationships. If you put people first and allow this philosophy to drive the rest of your decisions, everything else will fall in line. Go above and beyond for your staff, and you will have a group of people working with you who go above and beyond for you, one another, and your clients.

2. The price of entry gets you only so far. The cleanliness of the rooms at the motel, having amenities guests want, and our location got us only so far. In the hospitality business, such things are the price of entry. If you don’t have them, you won’t survive for very long. But having them only gets you to the starting gate.

Your clients expect excellent service and technical competence. What can you do above and beyond “doing good work” that will help you compete?

3. Ask for referrals. More than 65% of the reservations at the motel came from customers who came back year after year. And the number one source of new customers was through referrals. As my parents built a relationship with each guest, they got know their extended families and friends, and they were not shy about asking for a referral.

It’s as easy as saying, “Wouldn’t it be nice if you all vacationed together next year?” Or, “Why doesn’t your cousin Joe who is staying down the road, stay here? It would be much more convenient for you all, and it would be wonderful to have him.”

It’s nice when clients make referrals on their own, but as a rule you can’t expect them to connect the dots between the people they know who might need your services and you. Ask questions, and ask for referrals.

4. Everyone needs to pitch in. On any given day you would find my mother making beds to help out the housekeeping team, painting a wall in a room, or fielding calls during the busy hours in the office. As the owner/manager, she set an example for me and the rest of the staff that everyone needs to pitch in and help out to get things done.

Helping your teammates goes a long way, no matter what your job description is. It may involve staying late or working on the weekends to get a project done, or proofreading that big proposal, or helping a colleague with a mundane task. As a leader at a professional services organization (or aspiring leader), you set the example that all others will follow. Provide support and help out any way possible.

5. Be genuine. None of this works if you are not genuine. People can tell when you care, are serious about building relationships, and give your all to be the best you can be.

These lessons are among the many I’ve learned from my parents. I hope that in sharing them, they will help you grow as an individual and a business leader as much as they have helped me.

Slay the dragons that are preventing your firm from growing (Photo by Paul Kemp)

Over the past several months, or even couple of years, many of us have been in survival mode. We’ve been doing what we can to avoid hazards, hold on to current clients, and seek out new prospects with the hope of simply making it through the economic downturn intact.

Being among those who survive is a worthy accomplishment, but now it’s time to plan your real attack against those obstacles that prevent you from growing, as Lisa Nirell says in her article, 2 Surefire Steps to Slay the Dragons Preventing You from Growing. There are actually only two things that prevent firms from growing: lack of a practical growth plan and limited beliefs in you and your staff. The good news is both are within your control to overcome.

When it comes to a growth plan, consider whether the services you provide offer real value. Are you in danger of looking and sounding like many others in your industry? Do you truly understand your prospects’ needs and concerns?

You also want to look at your marketing strategy. Is it on target for your audience? Are your prospects using different channels these days? If you sell technology services, you need a systematic approach that allows you to demonstrate their value, says Laurie Young, author of Marketing Technology as a Service: Proven Techniques that Create Value in his podcast interview, The Right Way to Market Technology Services. Again, plan your approach; don’t follow an erratic and tactical method that prospects will never respond to.

That planned approach starts with understanding where prospects get their business information and how they seek out service providers. When it comes to social media channels, Business.com’s Business Social Media Benchmarking Study shows that webinars and podcasts are the number one social media research that North American business professionals use. That’s good news for service professionals, as those resources provide an opportunity to showcase your expertise, share client stories and experiences, and give buyers a taste of what it’s like to work with you.

Working with Buyers and Clients

As you put your growth plan in motion, you will still come across buyers who object to certain aspects, the most common being price. Many of your prospects are still struggling to do more with less. But before you cut your prices, follow some of the ideas Kelley Robertson suggests in his article, How to Deal with the Dreaded Price Objection. And remember, the fact that the buyer raised the objection means they have an interest. Talk it out with them and try to get to the heart of the matter. You very well can come to an agreement that works for both of you.

Once you win the client, you must continue to nurture the relationship. Yes, you beat out many others to get the job and your expertise is valued, but that doesn’t give you the right to go in with a huge ego and treat others as if they’re beneath you, writes Michael W. McLaughlin in his article, What Your New Client Really Thinks. Heed the advice in McLaughlin’s article, and you will not only have a good working experience, but chances are high the client will want to work with you again.

Dragon-Slaying Success

Crisis Prevention Institute is one firm that knew it had to take the offense and stop playing defense if it wanted to continue growing, writes M. Sharon Baker in her case study, Crisis Averted: Proactive Sales Effort Stops Training Organization’s Revenue Loss. The bad economy, misdirected energies, and poor management put the organization in danger of losing revenue. It had to do something fast if it wanted to prevent that.

The previous management “took their eyes off the core business, and growth didn’t occur,” says CEO Tony Jace. “What I did was simplify the whole thing. We paired down initiatives, reoriented some of the workload between the senior management team, and put the focus back on our customers and our core products.”

Thanks to those actions, the organization stopped the losses and posted revenue growth that was 4% higher than expectations.

So, what are you doing to slay the dragons that are preventing you from growing? What success have you seen? What hasn’t worked as well as you hoped?

The word kill takes on many meanings in the sales and marketing world. You don’t want to do anything that could “kill” a deal or client relationship, but at the same time you want a “killer” marketing campaign or sales presentation.

When it comes to things that are “killer,” you can add email databases to the list. Developing one, especially one with targeted quality email addresses, is challenging, but it isn’t impossible, says Eric Rudolf in his article, How to Grow a Killer Email Database. All you need is time, hard work, and dedication, and the five strategies in his article get you well on your way.

As for “killing” things, you do not want to do anything to “harm” sales conversations with prospects or leads. Make a mistake here, and you could render the conversation and any relationship lifeless. One sure way to derail a sales conversation is to ask about a prospect’s budget right off the bat, writes Jill Konrath in her article, The One Question That Can Kill Any Sales Conversation.

Traditional sales training tells you to make sure prospects have enough money in their budget to afford your services, Konrath says. But asking “what’s your budget” would be the wrong thing to do when your prospect is interested but hasn’t committed to taking action. Instead get your prospect to see the value in what you offer and allocate money for your service, she says.

Konrath’s advice is just one thing older staff can teach young rainmakers, who need mentoring if they’re going to become talented rainmakers and help the firm grow. Derrick Smith has more suggestions in his article, 3 Simple Lessons to Help Junior Staff Become Rainmakers. Smith’s plan calls for starting with three main concepts, and then add time and practice.

“In this challenging economic climate, it’s important that everyone understands the need to nurture client relationships,” writes Smith. “As firm leaders, we can leverage our staff’s talents by mentoring them to assist with business development efforts. For many, it may take years to develop the skills to successfully foster client relationships. However, the following three concepts can help young professionals begin to develop the necessary skills.”

Such leadership practices are what make or break a firm, says Danita Bye, author of Leadership Shift: Paradoxical Wisdom for Transformational Leaders in These Times of Change, in her podcast interview, Are Your Sales Lagging? Poor Leadership Principles May Be the Cause. If the core leadership principles are faulty, then the organization will fail. Firms must examine what they’re doing and adjust accordingly.

When it comes to selling services, however, it all boils down to the buyer’s emotion, according to research from Enquiro. Do they trust you? Do they consider you a risky venture? Do you connect with them on an emotional level to show how their lives would be better if they worked with you—or would be worse if they didn’t work with you?

Buyers are risk-averse. Show them you’re the safest option, and you’ll win their business. And once you have them as a client, continue to offer good reliable service, and they’ll remain clients over the years.

Do buyers see you as trustworthy or as a snake oil salesman?

Trust—there are countless articles, books, videos, and webinars about the importance of trust when selling professional services. You might think, “OK, OK—I get it. I need to get buyers to trust me.” But are you doing what it takes to establish that trust? Do you really understand what can happen if you don’t have a buyer’s trust? You could see a sale slip away even when you think you’re doing everything right.

That’s exactly what Colleen Francis was seeing when she wrote her article, The Sale That Slipped Away: What Went Wrong? The thing that went wrong is sellers pushed too hard—they oversold their service. And by doing so, they raised doubt in the buyers’ minds. They made them question whether they were genuine and trustworthy.

Charles H. Green, one of the masters of establishing trust in business relationships, has developed a plan to help you increase your business’s trust. In his article, 3 Strategies for Increasing Your Business’s Trust he says there are three dimensions by which you should measure your business’s performance on trust: Are your people trustworthy? Does your organization promote trustworthiness? Do you trust others appropriately? If you want to increase your business’s trust, you must have a strategy for all three.

In this day and age when people have little trust for most things—the government, Wall Street, big banks, car makers, Facebook, etc.—firms must show that they’re trustworthy and perform amazing work that keeps clients coming back for more. It isn’t enough to simply outline your services.

Change is Needed

Firms must also realize that a couple rainmakers are not enough to help a firm grow or even survive, says Lisa Nirell in her podcast interview, What Firms Must Do to Achieve Sustainable Growth. A firm’s success depends on everyone in the organization working together to attract and retain clients, and you need a plan for doing that.

Marketing plays a key role in that plan. Increasingly firms are turning to inbound marketing tactics such as blogs, search engine optimization, and social networks. One attraction is the lower cost per lead compared with outbound marketing tactics. But with so much online activity from firms, you must develop a plan that helps you stand out and you must test various tactics, says Jasmine Sandler in her article, The Secret to Online Marketing Success.

Firms are also thinking creatively when it comes to networking to develop new business partners and generate referrals. Doing so has become a necessity when traditional golf games and mixers fail to produce results. CPA firm Piercy Bowler Taylor & Kern followed this path and created Table for Four marketing lunches. The lunches were a big success, immediately leading to referrals and a six-figure deal. And what helps you get referrals? Trust. The events gave the firm’s partners an opportunity to develop relationships and build trust.

So, what are you doing to build your business’s trust?

How do your client relationships grow? (Photo by straymuse)

All service professionals face sticky situations and cranky clients. You miss a milestone, people get upset with one another, and there are misunderstandings about scope. All of those situations can lead to tough client situations. But if you have a good relationship with the client, a healthy mindset, and a willingness to talk about the situation, not only will you get through the issues but you will have a healthier relationship as a result, says Michael W. McLaughlin in his article, When Clients Put You on the Hot Seat.

How well you interact with clients is key, he stresses.

“The success of the services you deliver and the results you achieve depend in large part on the quality of the personal interactions you have with others along the way,” McLaughlin says. “Keep that in mind, and you’ll be able to tackle any problem clients throw your way.”

Investing in client relationships goes a long way toward helping you grow your business. That’s because you become more referable and prospects are drawn to you, says Joseph Jaffe, author Flip the Funnel: How to Use Existing Customers to Gain New Ones in his podcast interview, Why You Must Invest in Existing Clients.

Avoid doing what many firms do: ignore a client after a project is complete. Instead, stay in touch with the client and keep the relationship going. “If you invest in your clients down the road, they will return that investment tenfold,” Jaffe says.

How do you nurture and grow client relationships? Andrew Sobel, a leading authority on client relationships, has several ideas. In his article, How to Grow Client Relationships—and Grow Your Business, Sobel shares 10 events and opportunities that “can all serve to fuel relationship growth—if and only if you recognize them and capitalize on them effectively.”

Opportunities include a company crisis, a new executive, reorganization within the company, and mistakes by current providers.

Lori Richardson, of Score More Sales, turned to book publishing as a way to nurture client relationships. In this week’s case study, Book Publishing Helps Consultant ‘Score More Sales’, she says she uses her book as a calling card to get back in touch with past clients.

“I sent a copy of my latest book to a former client I had lost touch with for a couple of years as a way to rekindle a conversation,” she says. “And he thought it was great and rehired me for another training gig.”

Some firms also turn to automated lead management tools to identify, track, and nurture new revenue opportunities. And the investment in such tools is paying off, according to Aberdeen Group. Research conducted by the firm shows 63% best-in-class companies that use those tools are seeing a return on the investment. They say they are better able to measure and account for their marketing efforts, learn more about clients, manage multi-channel activities from one application, and prioritize leads for sales.

Before you can begin the nurturing process and build relationships with clients, however, you must start with a lead. And your website is an ideal place to get those leads, says Todd Miechiels in his article, 5 Ways to Get More Sales Leads from Your Website. If you don’t think so, then your website probably isn’t set up properly.

“If your website generates sales leads today, it’s entirely possible that, with a few modifications, you could enjoy a 2X (or even 5X) increase in leads,” Miechiels says.

The modifications are not terribly difficult, but you need to make them now before your competition does and starts to get all of your business.