Who is Following Up with Your Clients?

There are essentially 2 key factors in a successful business. Really, here's what it boils down to:

1. Acquiring new business (read: Customers/Clients)
2. Maintaining / Retaining that business (read: Customers/Clients)

Now, for the sake of this discussion, let's substitute the term 'relationship' for 'business'. I won't get into the reasons for that in this writing, suffice to say we have covered that elsewhere. (note: if you've attended one of my husband's courses on Relationship Marketing you already know why).

So, to clarify, we now have the following 2 key factors for successful business identified:

1. Acquiring new relationships
2. Maintaining / Retaining those relationships

Everything else is a an offshoot of these 2 key business practices. If you are dropping the ball in either of these, it will manifest itself in your business in a multitude of ways. For example, are your referrals down? Orders lagging? Average ticket price falling? Service levels decreasing? Complaints on the rise? Is walk-in traffic down?

ALL - and yes, that means 'All' - of these are due to one or both of the above factors.

Period.

Ok, so we could end this discussion here and the majority of us would be convicted enough to work on those items, activities, and opportunities that we've come up with in just these few paragraphs. Let us instead, for illustration purposes, take a look at a recent example, taken from a conversation with a successful business woman - let's call her Sarah (not her real name).

Sarah was a successful business owner with a 6 year history of serving her clients in her local market area. Her business, like others in her area, had experienced it's share of what she called 'ups and downs'... mostly due to 'the market and the fickle consumers' according to Sarah.

I worked with Sarah to help her better understand that her 'business' and her 'customers' were really just relationships - and that by focusing on the relationship rather than the sale or transaction, she could not only maintain her business and profitability, but also grow it substantially - and simply.

One exercise that helped Sarah understand this concept was when I posed the question to her: "Who is following up with your clients? Literally, who is actually following up with them today, tomorrow, next week, next month - this year... and How?"

As we worked through the response, Sarah realized that her competitors were doing a much better job of following up (reaching out to) her clients than she was. In fact, once she'd attained a customer, there was little she did to retain that relationship - short of 'being open for business' should they decide to return to her store. All the while her competition was out focusing on #1 above: Acquiring new relationships. Advertising, sponsored local events, tastings, open houses, and leveraging referrals were all taking their toll on Sarah's business. We determined that if she increased her focus on #2 (Maintaining / Retaining Relationships) she could thwart the efforts of her competitors and build customer loyalty and referrals for the long term.

As business owners, we all need to remember that relationships are KEY and critical to our business. If you aren't continually in front of your customers or database, ask yourself this important question: "Who is?"

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-Nikki!

Tim Mancuso is a speaker, trainer, and author working with business owners and real estate professionals throughout the US. He is the Co-Founder of the GLS, and is currently working on his upcoming book on relationship marketing for business owners.