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.
