The single most important strategy you can use to maximize the value of all the other strategies is to communicate regularly with anyone that contributes or will contribute in any way to your business success. You need to do this in order to maintain strong, positive relationships that can benefit all involved. It’s a simple strategy. It’s powerful, it’s incredibly enjoyable, yet its concept is not understood and practiced by many of the businesses and professionals I work with.
But before I explain how to do it, let me tell you why you must do it.
People are bombarded by more information today than at any other time in history. That causes you a real problem.
The moment they have transacted business with you, their minds immediately shift to some other concern, issue, challenge, problem or need and you drift out of their mind. Your challenge and your biggest opportunity, if you’re going to retain and sustain significant client transactions, are to keep those clients connected to you.
Keep clients constantly thinking, how good you are, how valuable you are, and how much you care about them and their wellbeing. Keep them thinking about how much they enjoy desire and value the products or services you provide and keep that connection alive and flowing. “Constantly” doesn’t work if it’s not strategic. And by strategic I mean it’s got to be ongoing and purposeful and it has to serve the client.
The more contact and communication you have with a person, the stronger and richer the relationship becomes. In business the secret is keeping and growing clients and developing a continual and meaningful communication with everyone important to you. This is a simple and very powerful method of getting the most out of your clients or key contacts.
Communicating with a client and telling them how great you are doesn’t do the client a lot of good. Communicating with clients and finding out how well your product or service is performing, offering them a free check-up or service review, offering advice that will help them get longer or better use from your product or service is a great benefit to them. So you
have to make certain that whatever strategy you use to communicate constantly with your clients is one that always puts the client’s interests ahead of your own.
And while we’re talking about constantly communicating with your clients, look at
your clients as dear and valued friends. The way I see it, I’m lucky to have clients who are so valued they’re old friends. I’m deeply connected to them. I care about them far beyond their capacity to spend money with me. I celebrate with them, I emphasise with them, and I’m there for the agony and the ecstasy.
If you share that feeling, you’ve got more motivation and desire to communicate, to keep in touch (just as you would with any good friends). If you look at your clients as friends with whom you have the opportunity and pleasure to stay connected with, it makes the process a lot more enjoyable, fulfilling and ultimately more profitable.
And don’t just communicate with clients. Open a dialogue with anyone and everyone who can help you reach your goals.
Develop relationships with colleagues, people in other businesses, employees’ even competitors.
Call, E-mail or write people who do what you do, who sell the product or service you sell, but in a market where you don’t compete. Share with them, find out what they’re doing and where they’re finding new avenues of success.
Find a mentor, someone who has been where you are and knows the pitfalls and opportunities you’re facing. This could be a person who has retired from your industry but has vast amounts of knowledge that you could benefit from.
I taught a dentist to contact her patients continually. She calls every patient after they’ve had a procedure. She calls to check how they’re doing and how the procedure worked. She does it right after the work has been done. And she programs her data management system to call again in a week’s time. She programs her D.M.S. to call again in a month’s time. Have you ever had a dentist do that?
What do you think would happen if your dentist called you two or three days after they’ve done a major filling? What do you think would happen if they called you a week later just to make sure the pain and discomfort were totally gone? … You’d be shocked. What do you think would happen if they called you thirty days later just to make absolutely sure there were no reoccurrence, no problem, no irritation, and no inflammation?
Do you think it would demonstrate that they cared about you at a level much deeper than any other dentist you’ve had? Do you think you’d be inclined to think about them often and tell your friends? Do you think you’d be inclined to keep your appointments and not break them with
this dentist? Do you think you’d want to take all your family members there and tell everybody you worked with or all your neighbours about this dentist? … Of course you would, and that’s what happens. This lady’s practice has boomed since she began this simple procedure.
When you do contact clients after they’ve done business with you, it’s a perfect time to gently remind them of why they chose to do business with you in the first place - Your unique selling proposition and your solid risk reversal policy.
People rarely understand the benefits you provide them – unless you carefully educate them to fully appreciate your efforts on their behalf. Teach your client why that U.S.P. and risk reversal advantage is so much more important than the benefits offered by your competitors.
A post purchase follow up expressing your U.S.P. and guarantees is vital, regardless of how frequently you back-end or resell to that client. You enhance your client’s loyalty and value to your business by following up after the sale. At the very least, a follow up call or letter drastically reduces or eliminates, cancellations, returns, complaints, adjustments and disputes. And it reassures the client of the prudence of their recent purchase from you.
Other businesses can use continual communication to have customers return more often. A chiropractor could send letters to his patients every four months. He could call patients personally twice a year. He could alert them to exercises and examinations they can do, he could tell them about new procedures he has and offer continual opportunities to come in for free services. Does it work? Well I can tell you that one chiropractor has a waiting list of people trying to get an appointment … because he’s booked four weeks in advance. This was not the case when I first met him.
Any business could use this method, send letters and actually go and visit their clients. The more people you network with develop relationships with, the more opportunities and insights you’ll have. Open one door leads to dozens of other doors - Opening dozens of doors leads to hundreds of others.
For further information on how your business can benefit from these and other exciting business and marketing tactics call Bob Lyon direct on 043 883 0937 or get your FREE report entitled “How To Sell Your Business At Your Price … And Cause A Stampede Of Prospective Buyers Literally Begging For Your Time” by simply going to www.betterbusinessreport.com/ab4s1.htm