Eights ways to make your clients love you (BB Volume 2, Issue 11)
It is true to say that people own their own emotions and in that sense are free to respond to you however they wish - you can however, make life easier for them - and when you're making a sale it's really important to make the whole process as easy as possible.
Here're some things you can do which will enhance your reputation with your clients:
1) Know your stuff
There are two sides to this particular coin. There's straight-forward, factual knowledge and secondly, knowing how to apply it. In today's super-connected, internet-driven, totally-online world, the former has never been easier to obtain. Ignorance never has been a reason for not knowing and nowadays it's the weakest of all excuses. Having the wisdom to know how to apply your knowledge is an increasingly valuable commodity. As the amount of information in the world expands, the value of people who really know how to apply it increases dramatically. Become one of these people in your chosen field.
2) Talk for just long enough
Now that you are that expert who really knows his or her stuff, you want to tell everybody about it. Please don't. People don't want to know all that you know. They don't want the full A-Z index of your brain. What they want is answers to their questions in terms they can understand. Just that, no more. When you've answered the question, stop talking and revert to the next action on the list.
3) Listen intently
Listening very carefully to how a prospect (or client) presents their problem will give you clues as to how detailed an answer they want and what sort of vocabulary you ought to use. I've never really understood sales people who pitch in with a "general introduction to our company presentation". Your client's time is his or her most precious commodity. It is irreplaceable and far more valuable than money. Don't squander it. Seek first to understand, if you want to be understood. Ask questions, listen carefully and compose an answer according to the second point on this list.
4) Remain faithful to the client's requirement
If the client wants to know about downloading information from your web site into a spreadsheet, don't come back with a solution for printing stuff out. That's not what he or she wants to do - you're simply going to make the client think that you weren't listening, (see above). As crazy as this example may seem, it is a real one and it happened to me last week!
5) Say "thank you" and stay in touch
Thanking people for their business is easy and cheap. Do it. Lots of companies, especially big ones, don't do enough of it. Smaller companies are often a lot better at saying "thank you" and I believe this is because they are much more finely tuned to the value of money. Business is not a right and it is not a given. Even if you believe the money has your name on it, the fact is that it belongs to the client and it's up to him or her as to how it is disposed of. Where smaller organisations are often weaker is 'staying in touch'. There's simply too much on, too many projects, too much admin, too many blah, blah. That's no excuse. Remember past clients - they're the easiest to sell to.
6) Do what you say you're going to do, when you said you were going to do it
If you say, "I'll call you tomorrow", then do just that. It's easy nowadays to keep in touch, so just do it. For important situations always have a back-stop, for example, "I'll e-mail you that at some point this afternoon and I'll call you again at 1730, just to make sure you've got it and check whether there's anything else I can do to help."
7) Tell the truth
Liars will always be found out. Always. Their credibility - and that of the organisation for which they work - are destroyed. I once had a supplier tell me that my order hadn't been dispatched because the courier company hadn't show up. Frankly, that's a difficult story to believe. Courier companies (and taxis) survive on their ability to find even the most remote addresses, and satellite navigation systems have made this easier in recent years. What the supplier didn't know was that the courier company was owned by a friend of mine. I asked him if it was true, did his driver get lost? It turned out to be partially true. There was a new driver on the route. He did get lost and phone in for directions. When he arrived at the suppliers to pick up my order, he discovered it wasn't ready. My order had been 'bumped' to make way for a rush job - which he was given to deliver in place of mine. The supplier had taken the facts of the matter, (a lost driver) and gilded the lily to suit his purposes. Naughty boy.
8) Respect a client's right to say, "no"
Not everybody in the world will want to buy everything you have to sell. Get over it and move on. If the prospect says "no", then you're quite a liberty to reframe that as "not yet" and have another go by remaining alert to future opportunities. Most reasonable people will accept this as part of the ebb and flow of good commerce. What really upsets clients is suppliers who won't take "no" as an answer at all, and just keep banging on like there's no tomorrow. You're asking for the door to be so firmly shut, it'll never be reopened.
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