Out of all the different guides out there for success in business, a tremendous amount of attention is typically paid to effective marketing – and rightly so.
It’s worth keeping in mind, however, that “marketing” is only one facet of how you establish and nurture a relationship with your customers and clients. And the marketing which pays off the most over the time, is generally that which emphasises the client relationship, and not that which simply tries to land a quick sale.
Here are just a few suggestions for how you should think about your relationship with your clients.
Your job is always to be useful, and to make the client’s life easier
At its most basic level, every professional transaction that happens occurs between someone who needs to have a particular issue addressed, and someone who is proposing to help them address it.
As a professional, your job is always to be useful, and to make the client’s life easier. This is a well-accepted maxim in marketing, but it is the sort of thing you can lose track of, over the course of the day-to-day running of your business.
You should, in any case, keep reminding yourself of this point. A Forklift truck hire company makes their client’s life easier in a directly physical and tangible way, whereas an IT company makes their client’s life easier by handling abstract and technical computing issues that are difficult and time-consuming for most people to handle. You, whatever your particular niche is, are also essentially around in order to make your client’s life easier.
In keeping with this, avoid adding frustration and complexity to your process.
It’s about nurturing long-term working relationships, and not just about maximum sales volume here and now
In order for your business to thrive, and to become properly established, it’s not enough for you to just have an effective sales push right here and right now. Rather, you need to gain the trust of your customers, and to motivate them to keep coming back, down the line.
People with unscrupulous business practices often have an initial burst of financial success. But, as their reputations become tarnished and their customer base becomes increasingly dissatisfied, their professional lives are typically permanently compromised.
Emphasise reliability, quality, and trustworthiness, and you will be on the right track.
Integrity and quality should come first, and success should follow
As mentioned in the last point, integrity and quality should always be your first considerations when doing anything professionally, whatsoever.
There is no marketing campaign as powerful as having a high-quality product or service that people feel like recommending to their friends, of their own accord. And there is no greater guarantee of customer loyalty than developing a reputation for behaving in an upstanding and diligent manner.
There will often be temptations for a budding entrepreneur to cut corners, or to oversell themselves with catchy hyperbole. But it’s very important to avoid falling into any behaviour that compromises your professional integrity, or that might have a deleterious effect on your clientele.
- This post was written by an outside source – See Disclosure Policy
