To be a successful consultative seller, you need to grow and maintain a broad base of client contacts. Before you know it, you have hundreds, even thousands of people on your contact list. Obviously it's impossible to maintain personal contact, yet personal contact is a key to building and strengthening your client relationships.
How do you maintain and strengthen relationships with all of these people so you will be among the first - if not the first - person they remember when they have a business issue that requires your expertise?
I pride myself on my follow-up skills and strive to maintain relationships with clients long after projects have been completed. But, the longer I'm in sales, or working with a particular account, the more contacts I have. Suddenly my simple approach to calling when someone comes to mind, or when my CRM system says I should, no longer works. This is the dilemma facing many of us as successful sellers. What to do? The answer: a two-pronged strategy leveraging today's technology.
Begin with a “divide and conquer” approach, categorizing your contacts into tiers. The ‘A' tier can include top contacts or recommenders you stay in touch with regularly. These are the people least likely to slip from our sights because they will probably buy from you soon. It's the ‘B' and ‘C' tiers that are the challenge.
The ‘B' tier are contacts that don't have an immediate need, but may have one in the next 12 months. You may have done work for them before, or discussed places you can assist, but frequent communication at this point is not required.
The ‘C' tier are contacts that may someday appreciate your services, but not in the foreseeable future.
While both ‘B' and ‘C' tier clients know you are there, you don't want to count on them to remember to call when a need arises that you can assist with. Yet our schedules are busy and often we don't have the luxury of calling every ‘B' and ‘C' client regularly to check in.
Some sellers feel it is enough to hope that their paths will cross again in the future. That's not definitive enough for me. As I look at it, there are two prongs to a strategy for staying connected and strengthening relationships with our legion of client contacts.
1. Keep our clients current on what we are focused on
2. Provide our clients with new ideas
The first prong is easy. LinkedIn, the online business networking site, shows your network “what you are working on”, updating it every week, even emailing it out to your whole network of contacts you have registered. Make sure all your ‘B' contacts are linked to you, and they can follow your activities every week as long as you keep it updated. As you speak with or think of them, link to your ‘C' contacts.
Client relationship manager and email database technologies can help with the second prong. Use the tools in your CRM to create a nearly automated communication strategy. Queue emails to connect with ‘B' contacts every 60, 90 or 120 days. Write an email that shares a new thought, a related issue a client had and solved that would be of interest, a return on investment another client achieved and how. As your ‘B' contacts reply, call to connect voice-to-voice.
The ‘C' tier shouldn't require a lot of time and effort. Add them to your newsletter list, or emails you might send out regarding updates in their industry. Plan to communicate with them every 4 - 6 months. Periodically send a personal email, checking in on their summer plans, how the job is going. The email queue feature is great for these because you can be sure to connect no matter how busy you are.
By dividing your contact list into tiers, and determining what you can do to effectively - and time efficiently - stay in front of them you will strengthen relationships and stay top of their mind whenever they have a need.
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312
Date Published :
Jun 15 2009