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Maybe you can attract high-paying clients. But can you keep high-paying clients?
To attract high-paying clients, it pays to divide your database into five segments: suspects you hope might become prospects, prospects who know about you that you hope will become clients, past clients that worked with you over a year ago, current clients, and referral sources.
Don’t lump those five segments in one MS Outlook or Constant Contact file and call it a database.
Finding, building and managing relationships with your prospects and key referral sources requires effort. More personal and consistent one-to-one relationships are a must in achieving your mutual goals.
“It is more than simply having them on your mailing list or emailing them newsletters or updates,” says author and speaker Jill J. Johnson.
Johnson is author of the bestselling book Compounding Your Confidence, a highly accomplished speaker, and an award-winning management consultant. Her consulting work has impacted more than $4 billion worth of decisions.
“You have to move from passive order-taking to developing a customer relationship focused on knowing their interests and requirements,” says Johnson. “This is a game you win over time. Take the long-term view and stay connected through the years.”
Case in point: Johnson recently sold a high-fee speaking engagement because of a young professional she stayed in contact with for eight years. His positive comments to the event organizers helped make the difference.
Years ago, consultants and professionals tracked client information on index cards or something called a Rolodex. Today, robust customer relationship management (CRM) software has been a game changer in managing interactions with current and potential clients. CRM integration with email marketing applications can enhance sales productivity and offer options for customer personalization.
“Once you get over 100 connections you can’t hold on to the nuances mentally,” says Johnson. For small business CRM, check out options like Hubspot, Zoho, Salesforce, Insightly, and Teamgate. If you are still using Act!, that is fine; just use something and take the time to keep it updated.
Once you determine the best CRM fit for your world, here are tips from Johnson to build client relationships:
Leverage Your CRM. Leveraging your CRM tools helps you stay on top of customer follow-up. This requires an investment of time in capturing information into the system. Once you do this, you can take advantage of opportunities to use its robust capability for data capture and market segmentation options.
Review CRM Effectiveness. “Take time to review the effectiveness of your approach to customer relationship management. Don’t take your client relationships for granted. Just like any relationship, they need to be nurtured to be preserved and grown.”
Manage Your Interactions. “Actively managing your customer and prospect interactions creates more opportunities for engagement. Each engagement takes you one step closer to closing another sale or selling a bigger deal than you can currently imagine.”
Improve Clients’ Experience. “Being your clients’ subject matter expert, anticipating their needs before they do and doing their homework for them is essential to successful and lasting client relationships. Improving your clients’ experience will build word of mouth about your effectiveness as a true sales professional – rather than just someone who manages transactions.”
Communicating with suspects, prospects, clients and advocates is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. Quit blasting the same messages out to everyone. This is simple segmentation, but the future is hyper segmentation. Best to start getting on that.
