You hear it all the time: you must engage your prospect and clients. You need to create relationships with them and build their trust in you. One way to do that is through social networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn, but RainToday contributing editor Alan Weiss says in his recent article, Communities Key to Engaging Clients and Prospects, you can go a step further and create your own networking community.
Create an online community so you can interact with clients and build relationships with them. (Photo by William Hook)
Weiss, who started doing this a while ago with his forums, blog, workshops and other groups, says not only can you interact with clients but you give your clients get the community interaction they desire. And when you create your own community, you can focus on your value, services, and relationships. You eliminate the unrelated “noise” that’s found in public communities.
If you want to use these communities—or any platform, for that matter—as part of your marketing strategy, however, it’s imperative that your marketing and sales efforts are aligned, stresses Colleen Stanley in her article, Don’t Make These Sales and Marketing Mistakes. Fail to do so, and you’ll waste money and lose sales. But if you get them in sync, you’ll better engage clients and prospects and earn more money.
While you’re interacting with prospects and clients, make sure you tap into their emotions. Help them visualize what’s possible and what they can achieve, says RainToday Publisher Mike Schultz in his article, Tap into Buyers’ Emotions and You’ll Win More Clients.
Professional firms, with their antiseptic copy and business cases, are missing an opportunity. Missing an opportunity to paint a picture for potential buyers of what personal and professional success actually looks and feels like for clients of their firm, how they’ve helped others make it all happen, and how potential clients are risking it all if they choose not to work with them.
Once you’re interacting with prospects and clients, learning what their needs are, understanding their concerns, and offering suggestions to improve, what do you do with all of that data? Put it in a client relationship management (CRM) system, says David Taber, author of Salesforce.com Secrets of Success: Best Practices for Growth and Profitability, in his podcast interview, How a CRM System Can Improve Your Sales Efforts.
Using a CRM system will ensure that everyone in the firm has access to client information and can prevent inappropriate conversations that can derail a sale, Taber says. Yes, getting people to use the system can be challenging, but he has some tricks for making that happen.
