The Dark Arts of Client Management
It was the king of management consulting, Peter Drucker, who famously said, "The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer (or client)." In the context of business planning this universal truth links back to two of the 24HR Business Plan’s eight executional pillars of excellence:
New business is where you win and acquire new clients,
And client relationships is where you keep and grow your relationships with existing clients.
Having completed over 140 business plans, mostly for B2B organisations, we regularly see their goal setting skew towards winning new clients, with a strong focus on lead generation. But what if we told you that it’s actually cheaper to retain an existing client than to go out and find a new one. In fact, according to Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company and inventor of the NPS score, increasing client retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.
The bottom line is that good B2B businesses are built on good relationships, and it pays to pay attention to your existing clients. So here’s five simple steps that our team of former-CEOs recommend you take to keep your clients happy. We like to joke and call this ‘The Dark Arts of Client Management’ because there’s a little bit of secret sauce in them.
Earn Their Respect
Respect is earned, not given. An easy way to earn your clients’ respect is to take a keen interest in their business. You can do store checks, ask for an induction, learn the language of the market, interact with a cross-section of their team or simply try their product. One of our favourite ways is to share timely and relevant resources with them. A tip for doing this is to set up a separate email address, subscribe to publications that are relevant to their business and spend 5 minutes every morning checking that inbox and forwarding relevant resources to them with a personalised note.
Be their Friend
The benefits of being friends with your client are endless. Friends forgive mistakes, warn of problems, trust recommendations, and when push comes to shove, find it difficult to fire you. But the perks aren’t just for them. The average person spends one third of their life at work, wouldn’t it be nice if you were surrounded by friends?
Encourage Enthusiasm
It's easy for work to feel like an endless list of tasks. Part of your role is to remind clients that work isn't just about getting things done; it's about doing things better. You can do this by encouraging them to always pursue good work, showing them examples from different categories, and making them feel excited about new business opportunities. It’s also a great idea to have quarterly or annual review sessions to reflect on all of the work you’ve done together, and what learnings have come from it. This also helps with our next step.
Make them Look Good
Making your clients look good is a surefire way to build trust. Simple ways to do this are to give them access to your resources, help them solve problems, and sing their praises to the higher-ups.
Forge Meaningful Connections
This is one we picked up from Marketer Wendy Evans in her book 'How to Get New Business in 90 Days and Keep it Forever.' It only takes four meaningful connections to maintain a good relationship.
And by meaningful, we mean things like:
Remembering and celebrating your client's birthday
Inviting them to a relevant industry event
Inviting them to a social event if you know it’s of interest to them
Celebrating their achievements, and the list goes on.
Anything to show you're thinking of them and to make them feel valued. You can even put some rigour around this by setting up a calendar of connections for each client.
And there you have it. By following these five simple steps you can establish a solid foundation of client relationships for your business to thrive on.
