How to grow profitable relationships
Clients First
Customers, clients, consumers, whatever you want to label them, are the ones who the have the power in trading relationships. Let’s face it, without them there wouldn’t be any business.
Firms need clients as much as clients need firms.
They are wise to the selling tricks of the trade and to the strategies used to make them feel more valued, more likely to refer others and more inclined to purchase additional products and services from you. It is therefore increasingly important that you invest time and money to provide your clients with an excellent service.
Here are 10½ Top Tips to help you put your clients first.
1. Grade your clients
It was George Orwell who wrote “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”. The same is also true of all those who purchase your services.
Not all of your clientele will bring you equal amounts of turnover or profit so be ruthless and develop a grading system.
As a starting point use the following four categories as a guide:
A: Key Strategic Growth Clients,
B: Good Profitable Clients,
C: Clients to Maintain,
D: Unprofitable / Offload.
By grading individual clients you will be able to determine the amount of business development time you assign a particular client. Don’t confuse time allocated with the level of service you offer as you always give every client 100% service, right?!
2. Portrait painting
It is essential at every stage of the work carried out that you gather information that will enable you to paint a clear picture of your working association.
Sit down with your head of accounts and sketch what work your firm has done for your A list clients, which fee earners delivered the work, when, what fees were generated, profit etc. This should give you a picture of the hard facts of the relationship.
3. Sandwich time
Gathering information needn’t take long. Arrange a lunch meeting over a quick sandwich with all the fee earners in your team. Find out about the state of the relationships with your key clients. Make a point of finding out who are the movers and shakers within their firm. Who holds the purse strings, makes the decisions, has influence?
Make sure that these meetings become a regular occurrence enabling you to create a more complete picture over time.
4. Satisfaction guaranteed?
When you have finished a project for your clients, do you ever ask for their feedback?
Debriefings and feedback meetings are essential when you have finished working on a particular project. The client will be able to address any issues they had whilst working with you, or will be able to tell you how satisfied they are with the service they received.
If you did score a perfect 10, then it’s a great opportunity to ask for a couple of warm referrals and possibly a short testimonial for you to use on your marketing materials.
5. I just called...
How often do you pick up the phone to your clients just to see if they are ok?
Why don’t you make time on a Friday afternoon to do just this and have a quick chat to ensure that everything is going well? By keeping in touch, you can also keep up to speed with any changes in their firm and the market in which they operate. These changes may have a bearing on the work that you’re doing for them now and also in the future.
6. Be visible
As technology evolves it is becoming more and more common that you, the communicator, are invisible to your clientele.
On average you might spend 20% of your fee earning time face to face with the client, but research shows they value this time as much as 80% of the whole relationship.
For Size 10½ Boots the message is clear. Having seen the success of the ‘traditional methods’ we firmly believe that face-to-face is still the winner when it comes to ‘doing business’, so get out from behind your desk and into the limelight.
7. Put yourself in their shoes (or boots!)
What one client desires and requires won’t be the same for another. To make sure those aspirations are at the forefront of your product and service offering, put yourself in their shoes.
To do this you need to immerse yourself in their world. Keep up to date with their industry news, sign up for news feeds from their website, look at their competitor’s sites, attend one of their industry expos, and, if appropriate, become a customer of theirs by purchasing one of their products or services.
8. REALLY care
Do you really know your clients and not just their birthdays?
Make it your mission to find out about what makes them tick. Discover the true facts about their lives, their hopes, their goals and their desired outcomes be it at work or in a social setting. Keep asking questions to encourage a deeper sense of shared understanding.
Here is a quote from David Maister, one of the leading thinkers on business development "Clients don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care.' Need we say more?
9. Be open
When you meet with your clients the best way to keep a conversation flowing is to ask questions. By asking them questions (rather than simply bombarding them with information about you), you will demonstrate that you are taking an interest in them.
Delve deeper by asking more questions and listening intently and you will have the tools to frame the right questions. This will give you guidance as to where to take the conversation and what the next steps may be.
10. Be personal
If your clients are happy with the service they have received it stands to reason they won’t mind recommending you to their contacts. A small token of your thanks to this client is a great idea as it shows how much you value that introduction.If you have an established relationship with the client and know what their interests are why don’t you send them a gift that they will really value. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know exactly what they really, really want!
10½. Have a follow up system
The majority of your business development success will stem from having a simple, but systematic, approach to following up with your key clients throughout the year.
Plot out your appropriate 'touch points' of added value activity, which could include;
• In-house workshops
• Special reports
• White papers
• Corporate entertainment
• Email campaigns
• Articles
• Books
What our clients say about us
The sales training session went down really well and hit the right notes. I think what came across most of all was your credibility and believability. People want to know what works and then they will do it and I think you gave us some really good ideas. I shall certainly be taking them forward to take the service that I provide to my customers to a higher level.
Jordan Marshall, Commercial Finance Planning Manager, HSBC, Financial Services
Bernard designed and facilitated the afternoon session at our internal conference. The bespoke practical presentation inspired the team to view selling and networking in a different way, and encouraged the view that this is a key part of everyone’s role. Feedback from the team was extremely positive, and I certainly feel motivated to use some of the skills and techniques discussed.
James Money, Director, Restructuring & Recovery, Smith & Williamson
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