Customer Relationships

3 Proactive Ways to Retain Your Customers

By Tom on December 1, 2023

Most industries today are fiercely competitive and attracting new customers is undoubtedly crucial. However, retaining existing customers is equally, if not more, important. Remember, mine the gold you already have! Customer retention not only ensures a stable revenue stream but can also lead to organic growth through word-of-mouth referrals. Proactive strategies to retain your customers can make all the difference, and here are three effective ways to achieve just that:

Nurturing relationships

Building strong, lasting relationships with your customers is at the heart of business development and any successful retention strategy. When customers feel valued and appreciated, they’re more likely to remain loyal to your brand. Here’s how you can nurture these relationships:

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Personalized communication

Invest in personalized communication with your customers. Contact individuals by name and make sure all communications are relevant. This personalization shows that you care about their individual needs and preferences.

Exceptional customer service

Exceptional customer service is a key differentiator for every business. Unfortunately everyone remembers bad service. Train your staff to be responsive, empathetic, and solution-oriented. Make it easy for customers to reach out for support, whether through phone, email, or face to face. As a leader or business developer make sure that you keep an eye on the service your business provides.

Meet face to face

There is no better way to foster customer relationships than meeting face to face. Take time to sit down with key stakeholders from your customer organizations. Ask questions and really listen to the answers. Get to know the stakeholders on a personal level, understand their problems and tailor your solutions accordingly.

Regular feedback requests

Understanding your customers’ needs, concerns, and preferences is vital for building a strong retention strategy. Regular feedback requests help you gather valuable insights and demonstrate that you’re committed to improving their experience:

Surveys and feedback forms

Conduct regular surveys or feedback forms to collect input from your customers. Ask about their satisfaction levels, what they like or dislike about your products or services, and what improvements they’d like to see. Make sure to act on the feedback received. Additionally, tell your customers when you’ve had success responding to their feedback. What changes have you made and what were the outcomes.

Social media monitoring

Keep an eye on social media for mentions of your brand and engage with customers who share their experiences, whether positive or negative. Addressing issues publicly and promptly can demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction. It also gives you an opportunity to reach out to a dissatisfied customer and meet with them in person to discuss their concerns.

Face to face feedback

Of course asking customers for feedback is a great excuse to meet face to face. This lets you get the important feedback while creating an opportunity to develop that professional relationship. Additionally, asking for a meeting to get feedback removes any sales stigma from the request.

Consistent delivery

Consistency is key when it comes to retaining customers. Whether it’s the quality of your products or the reliability of your services, customers expect a consistent experience each time they interact with your brand:

Product/service quality assurance

Maintain rigorous quality control standards to ensure that your products consistently meet or exceed customer expectations. Consistency in quality builds trust and reliability.

Timely service delivery

If your business provides services, ensure that you consistently meet deadlines and provide services on time. Delays and missed commitments greatly erodes both trust and satisfaction.

Clear communication

Keep customers informed about any changes, updates, or issues that may affect their experience with your brand. Clear and transparent communication helps manage expectations and fosters trust. ultimately, helping you retain your customers.

Final thoughts

Proactively retaining customers requires a multi-faceted approach revolving around nurturing relationships, seeking regular feedback, and delivering a consistent experience. By implementing these strategies, you can increase customer loyalty, reduce churn, and ultimately drive long-term success for your business. Remember, happy customers are not just repeat buyers; they’re your brand advocates who can help you grow your customer base through positive word-of-mouth.

How do you proactively retain your customers?

Retain your customers

For more help with starting your business development journey download my quick start guide. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path in only 10 days.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

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If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 1on1 personalized coaching program, or you can sign up to my flagship course. To learn more click the button below.

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Three Essential Reasons to Meet Your Customers

By Tom on May 5, 2023

As a business developer, your primary goal is to create sustainable growth for your company. Attracting new customers and retaining existing ones is the primary method of achieving this. Understanding the needs and preferences of your target market is critical. Of course, the best way to gather this information to meet your customer in person.

Meeting with your customers provides valuable insights into their issues, expectations and the way they operate. Interacting with them face-to-face, gives a deeper understanding of their needs and preferences, as well as the reasons why they choose to do business with you. This information can be used to develop more effective marketing strategies, refine service delivery and improve customer engagement. It also helps you build rapport with your customers, showing them that they are important to you.

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Personal connection

Establishing a personal connection with your customers is essential. When customers feel that they are understood and valued, they are more likely to be loyal and supportive of your business. This can lead to increased customer satisfaction and higher levels of customer retention. Meaning that your recurring revenue is more secure. Additionally, meeting with your customers allows you to build trust and establish a positive reputation, which is a key factor in attracting new customers.

Imagine preparing to purchase a service for your business. You have two possible suppliers:

Supplier has sent an email detailing their service and pricing
Supplier has met you, understood your issues and tailored an appropriate response that solves your problem

The supplier who has taken the time to meet and understand your issue is obviously the front runner here.

Gaining feedback

Meeting with your customers also gives you the opportunity to get feedback (both good and bad) on your services. By listening to this feedback, you can identify areas for improvement and if required, adapt your business. This leads to increased customer satisfaction and a stronger, more resilient business that evolves with the market.

Feedback also let’s you know where your company is performing well. Sharing this with the wider team is good for morale. It also let’s you know which parts of your business your customers value most. There might also be opportunity to double down on these areas of strength.

Getting feedback when you meet your customer is critical

Relationships and trust

Finally, committing to meet your customers is an excellent way to build relationships with the people who matter most to your business. When you take the time to understand their needs and priorities, you can develop meaningful connections that will benefit you both. This fosters trust, establishing a loyal customer base.

The importance of trust cannot be underestimated. If a customer trusts you to solve their problems they will seek you out. Securing a place as trusted advisor for your customers is an enviable position to be in. Really this should be one of your business development goals.

Final thoughts

For a business developer, meeting with your customers is a critical step in building and growing your business. By understanding their needs and preferences, you can improve customer engagement, establish a personal connection, get meaningful feedback and establish professional trust. By making a concerted effort to meet with your customers, you can build strong, long-lasting relationships that will help you achieve sustainable long-term growth.

Starting with your existing customers is a simple way to start. They already know you and are more likely to meet. Use this as a way to take the first step before committing to meeting new people.

For more advice on customer meetings check out my blog post on how to host effective customer meetings.

So what are you waiting for? Contact your customers, get out and get meeting!

If you want a proactive approach to upskill your work winning check out my flagship course Business Development Academy. Set over 4 modules and 10 videos this course leads you through the business development process step by step. Giving you the skills, system and processes to be more purposeful in the market place. To learn more click the button below.

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Meet your customers.

Are looking to begin your Business Development journey but are not quite sure where to start? Download my quick start guide to business development. This gives a series of simple activities to quickly set you on the right path.

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

The Art of Customer Classification: Where to Spend Your Energy

By Tom on April 14, 2023

Customer classification is the act of identifying common traits within a group of customers. It answers the question: what is similar about these companies and their purchasing habits?

For any organisation to succeed, needs daily business development activity. Unfortunately we all suffer from a lack of time. Therefore, your precious time must be spent on activities that will yield the highest chance of success. Prioritizing your customers is key.

Over the Christmas holiday I read the excellent Undaunted by Ed Zier. This harrowing story tells the true experiences of a company embroiled in the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks. While a tragic tale the book also highlights the resilience of the survivors and the subsequent rebuilding of their company. I cant recommend it enough.

In amongst the bravery of the employees the book details the growth of Baseline an early financial analytics company. By doing so it includes gold nuggets of business development advice. In this instance the prioritization of your customer base.

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Why do we need to classify our customers?

As well as being an accomplished author Ed was the Head of Sales at Baseline during the attacks on the World Trade Center. He knows a thing or two about developing a business and running a sales team.

Without classification or clarification your team will spend their time across a range of customers. Ideally focus on those likely to produce the most recurring revenue. However, Ed found that in fact customers were being treated equally. Regardless of their real value to the company.

Consequently, there were instances of his team unwittingly prioritising lower value customers.

It’s easy to see that classifying your customers is important, letting you focus precious time on the highest yielding customers.

Without customer classification your platinum customers get lost in the crowd

How to classify your customers

Ed and his team measure their customers by the revenue volume as Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. This included recurring revenue and an interesting pattern emerged.

Bronze accounts cancelled 30% of time after year 1
Gold Accounts cancelled 10% of the time after year 1

As well as being higher revenue earners, their Gold and Platinum clients tended to cancel less.

Clearly focussing on Gold and Platinum customers yielded the best results. Ed had a large sales force under his control. He changed the sales commissions to favour gold and platinum accounts, getting him a marked improvement in revenue results. Overall the new structure provided long term revenue stability.

Now it’s your turn

Ed’s story is a great example of how classifying your customers can have a huge impact on your sustainable revenue growth. Think about your own business. Where does most of your revenue come from? Which customers provide long term revenue stability?

Firstly consider classifying your customers by revenue. Perhaps there are other classifications that align with your company purpose. Ultimately classify your customers to make sure effort is spent on the highest potential of revenue return. I write a bit more about segmenting your customer base in an older post.

What are you waiting for? Grab a pen and start classifying your customers. Who are you Platinum customers and how can you make sure your team focusses on them?

Customer Classification

For a definition of business development you can check out my take in this post here.

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Three Simple Tips for Adding Value to Customer Meetings

By Tom on September 9, 2022

I remember going to my first customer meeting as a business developer. It was terrifying. I didn’t know the prospect and the thought of meeting someone new and trying to develop a business relationship seemed an alien concept. But I reminded myself that they had agreed to meet because they were interested in the hydrogeology services that my company offered. I also had the mining experience that they desperately needed.

Once we’d sat down with a coffee I didn’t feel comfortable going on a rant about our services. I think perhaps my innate shyness got the better of me. I’m glad it did. Instead I asked about the customer about them. Their situation. Their problems. To my surprise they opened up. The conversation explored their needs and I could respond by explaining a deeper knowledge of the problem and how we could assist.

I left that meeting feeling like I had really added value. It felt great. From then on I kept adding more and more business development responsibility to my role.

Knowing how to behave and looking for ways to add value in you customer meetings and other interactions is a core part of being a business developer. In this post I’m going to describe a good and bad experience I’ve had before detailing three tips to add more value to your customer meetings.

A Bad Customer Meeting

Picture this—a business development manager from a large project tracking software company reached out to me via LinkedIn and asked to meet. The product he was selling would add benefit to the role I was in, so I was interested in learning more. He suggested meeting in a coffee shop near where I was working.

Firstly, he was ten minutes late, not a good start. Second, he didn’t offer to buy me a coffee; instead, he launched directly into his pitch. I had to stop him and go and buy my own coffee, politely offering to get him one also. I had to sit and be talked at for 20 minutes. To be honest, his product could have held the answers to all my project tracking needs, but I was no longer interested in listening to what he had to say. I drank my coffee as fast as I could before closing the meeting down.

A Good Customer Meeting

A better example was a business coach who I met through a board I was serving on. He was early. We grabbed a coffee, and he asked me about my leadership journey and any issues I was facing. After he learned about the problems I was tackling, he proceeded to explain how he could guide me through these challenges and what success might look like. I left the meeting feeling that I had learned something and, importantly, that I wanted to learn more. Needless to say, I became Greg’s customer for many years.

Tip 1: Listen Listen Listen

To get the most out of a customer meeting set yourself the goal of learning as much as possible about your customers situation. Stephen Covey’s Habit 5: Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood could not be more aligned to my message. Listen to your customer. Ask pertinent questions and understand the context around their issue. Only once you’ve understood them can you begin to start solving their problems.

Tip 2: Be the Guide, Not the Hero

In my bad example above I mention how I was talked at. The sales rep couldn’t wait to tell me about all the features and advantages of their software. They were the hero of their own story. Donald Millers’ Story Brand really encapsulates the idea that a company should act as a guide to their customers. Helping them to become the hero. By extension, the business developer should be the physical representation of that guide, leading the customer on the hero’s journey. Again, ask pertinent questions, listen, and advise. Don’t talk about yourself and how great your company is. Make the customer the centre of the conversation and react to that.

Once you understand their needs explain what their life will be like if they utilise your solution. Perhaps their productivity or their staff retention will improve. Whatever it is, don’t explain the process but describe how your customer will be the hero if they implement.

Always follow up after your customer meetings

Tip 3: Follow Up

Updating the tactical action plan after each customer meeting is essential. Adding a brief one-line summary is enough. Update the date for the next meeting in line with your predetermined priority cadence or based on the needs of the opportunity. Any immediate actions should be moved on to your daily task list.

Be sure to follow up the customer with any actions from the meeting itself as soon as you can. This shows them that you value them, while also striking while the iron is hot.

Finally, any interesting information about the state of the market or customer direction should be noted and fed back to the wider team.

Customer Meeting Action

That wraps up the three tips to add value to your customer meetings. My challenge for you is to think about incorporating Listen, Hero, & Follow up in to your future meetings.

As normal I’m ken to hear your thoughts. Drop a comment below or reach out through the normal channels.

Business development

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If you want a more proactive and personal approach to your business development I am available to help. Through face to face video calls I’ll set you on the right path and keep you accountable to future activity. I currently have space on my 13-week 1on1 personalized coaching program. To learn more click the button below.

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How to Cultivate Customer Relationships

By Tom on July 22, 2022

Learning how to cultivate customer relationships is a crucial part of business development. It also forms the first part of our Systematic Sales Path. This post discusses what to do once you’ve identified an organization that you want to do business with. How do you go from an unknown entity to connecting with your ideal customer. I’ve identified a number of actions required to get the ball rolling. Remember that this is cyclical. Even if you win work through this customer you must continue to practice these actions to develop the relationship and ensure you don’t get replaced by a competitor.

The Customer Development Model contains the sequence of actions to be undertaken to begin developing relationships with your target companies and future customers.

Customer Development Model. To help cultivate your customers. — Customer Development Model

Surf the Org Chart

This encapsulates the concept of identifying a who’s who of the stakeholders and decision makers within your target customer organizations. Getting hold of a customer organizational chart can be virtually impossible. LinkedIn is the ideal tool to identify a few key personnel to follow up with. Ideally, these are customers with a use for your company offering or leading the teams who would be using it. This will identify which customer relationships to cultivate.

You must connect with different levels within the customer organization—leaders, frontline workers, and budget holders. Having multiple roles aware of your offering makes their decision to buy that much easier. If the frontline workers request your services and the leaders and budget holders already understand the value, the funds are much easier to release.

Surf the Org Chart to find prospective leads

Don’t fall into the trap of having only a single contact within a customer organization. Once that contact leaves, the relationship can vanish. It becomes all too easy for that customer to seek your offering elsewhere.

Introduction

For existing customers, the introduction is pretty straightforward. Asking for a meeting to gain feedback on your company’s performance allows you to meet with a clear agenda that doesn’t feel salesy. Remember to listen to the feedback they provide and take notes for later.

Gaining a meaningful introduction to a new potential customer can be the hardest part of the entire process. How do you get them to talk to you, let alone to meet you in person? The answer may surprise you:

Don’t be a salesperson!!

What I mean by that is put yourself in your customers shoes. Their time is precious—why should they spend it in discussion with you? Have a deep understanding of your customer’s problem. Make sure that what your conversation is going to add value.

Let your customer know what it is you intend to discuss and how it will be of use.

One of the best ways to get an introduction is to get a referral from a mutual acquaintance who believes there is value in you meeting. Talk to your personal network and existing customers to see if they can help you get an introduction.

Contact Customer

Once an introduction is secured, make contact via email or phone. The latter is more personable. With emails, be careful that your tone doesn’t come over as spam-like. This isn’t the time for a hard sell. Keep phone calls and emails short and to the point. Brevity is key. Just say who you are, who recommended you meet, and what you want to discuss.

If they say no, don’t feel despondent. Perhaps they’re not yet ready for your services. Always be polite and professional; you may well be dealing with them in the future. Make a note on your tactical action plan or CRM and move on to the next one, remembering to place a date to loop back to that contact again in the future.

Face-to-Face

Now the contact has agreed to meet. Don’t be nervous—they are meeting because of an interest in the agenda from your previous communication. Make sure that you stick to that agenda. You don’t want your customer to feel ambushed. Ask questions and listen to the answers. Do not spend all your time talking about how great your offering and company are. Use the 80:20 rule:

80 percent listening and 20 percent talking.

Learn as much as you can from the contact. Tell them a little about what your company and how you believe it can help in relation to what you’ve heard them say. Be polite and ask permission to reach out to them again in the future.

Cultivate your customers through a face to face meeting like the two women in the picture. — The best way to develop a customer relationship is via a face-to-face meeting

It’s worth noting that in the current times a face-to-face meeting can also be conducted via video call.

Follow Up

Once the meeting is complete, make sure to follow up fast. A quick email thanking them for their time and providing any information they may have asked for is enough. Adjust the tactical action plan or CRM with relevant notes, and set a date for a follow-up based on priority and opportunity potential.

Trial/Proposal

Having learned from the meeting about where the customer needs help, consider a way to let them experience your offering with little risk or expense. Perhaps you could invite them to your factory for a tour or provide some free training.

Alternatively, provide them with existing customers who are willing to act as a reference. Allowing the customer to experience what you have to offer can help develop their sense of trust in your company and offering, which can go a long way in reducing any concerns they may have of taking a risk on a new company.

Customer happily trialing a new product on his laptop. — Giving the customer a free trial can really show them the benefits of your solution

If the customer has discussed a specific problem that you can solve, don’t just send a quote, prepare a proposal. Include the costs. But you also need to reassure the customer that you understand their problem; explain how you can solve it. Make sure to highlight what the benefits will be once your solution is engaged. The proposal can take the form of a letter, formal document, or email. This will very much depend on the customer’s expectations. Regardless, placing your offering into context is key.

I’ll be discussing proposals in more detail in a later post.

Feedback Loop

In addition to updating the tactical action plan or CRM, it is critical that the information learned in the meeting is fed back into the wider business. Taking time to share findings during the leadership or team meetings is important so the organization can adapt. Don’t forget to include your internal stakeholders and influencers as part of this communication.

Cultivating your Customer Relationships

The Customer Development Model is a simple process that can really help you cultivate those relationships. Remember it is intentionally cyclical. You will need to repeat this cycle over and over again for your existing and prospective customers. It all comes down to not thinking like a salesperson but rather where you can create the most value. That way customers will look forward to you getting in touch and your conversations will be useful.

How do you cultivate your customer relationships? Let me know in the comments below, on LinkedIn or via the usual channels.

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Customer Relationships

Nurturing relationships

Personalized communication

Exceptional customer service

Meet face to face

Regular feedback requests

Surveys and feedback forms

Social media monitoring

Face to face feedback

Consistent delivery

Product/service quality assurance

Timely service delivery

Clear communication

Final thoughts

Personal connection

Gaining feedback

Relationships and trust

Final thoughts

Why do we need to classify our customers?

How to classify your customers

Now it’s your turn

A Bad Customer Meeting

A Good Customer Meeting

Tip 1: Listen Listen Listen

Tip 2: Be the Guide, Not the Hero

Tip 3: Follow Up

Customer Meeting Action

Surf the Org Chart

Introduction

Contact Customer

Face-to-Face

Follow Up

Trial/Proposal

Feedback Loop

Cultivating your Customer Relationships

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