Grow Your Business by Getting Closer to Your Existing Customers

I bet you all know the new clients rule. You know; the one that says that it takes couple more times more to win a new client than to get a reorder. Statistics for that usually range between 6 to 8 times more, and that’s some cost, don’t you think?

Most companies, especially at the startup stage of their development fall into the new clients trap. They think that the strength is in the numbers and thus set off to acquire as many new ones as possible.

I know that for a fact and I have made the same mistake at the beginning too. Naturally it didn’t cost me much in terms of losses but still, if I had only knew that there is an easier way to increase sales than to go around like mad searching for new clients I think my first years in business would have been much easier.

So what’s the easier way? Well, I kinda gave it away in the title of this post already. Rather than trying to develop new relationships all the time, work on the ones you have already built up with your existing clients (or past customers). They already know you and have trusted you with their projects. And unless you messed up completely, there is a chance that they will want to work with you again.

OK Pawel, it sounds great but how do you actually do that? What’s the secret formula?

Hah, I knew you’re going to ask that. And unlike many times in the past, when I had to tell you there isn’t an easy path, this time I can happily show you the magic formula to getting closer to your current clients.

Adrian Swinscoe, in his wonderful book, RARE Business states it this way:

Give your clients something that has a limited incremental cost to your business but offers high perceived value to them.

I used to say it in more plain English but the meaning is the same:

Make your clients feel special and spend as little as possible on achieving that.

In my old business, we got this idea quite late in our development however we have still successfully implemented it in a number of ways. Some of them worked better than others however the beauty of this rule is that you simply can’t go wrong. The worst thing that can happen is that what you do is not going to bring any effect. It is very unlikely that it will bring a negative one.

Below are some of the things I did to keep my clients close to my company plus a few that I would have done if I thought of them back then. They are obviously targeted at my old industry so you might have to think of something more appropriate for your clients. In case if you do, at the end of this post I am  listing few important things to remember when you set to create your own methods to get closer to your existing clients.

Anyway, here’s my list:

1. Send thank you cards. That was in fact the very first thing we tried. The cost was very little for us (we used to buy those cards in bulks which was cheaper and later designed and printed our own one, which made the whole operation cost even less.). We didn’t write any elaborate stuff on the card; ours contained only few words “Thank you for your business” along with a reminder that we are always available for support and help (plus our contact details of course). If you’re not comfortable with sending a card you could simply ring your clients to thank them personally and see if everything is OK. The result will be the same (actually thinking of it now, it may be even better as by calling you are giving your clients an opportunity to give you some feedback.)
2. Send a little (but unique) gift. I wasn’t a huge fan of thank you cards to be honest (although they do work and I would encourage you to try them). So instead of them I decided to start sending our clients lotto tickets. The cost for that was slightly higher but the effect was smashing. None of our clients have ever received a lotto ticket as a follow up from their supplier so they were all astonished. Few of our clients have won some money (no substantial sum though) which made this whole thing even more memorable experience. I eventually started bringing lotto tickets to initial meetings with a prospect too, to the same effect.
3. Offer a free monthly check up or something similar. This is a classic, yet highly overlooked method. Ring y our clients once a month to see if there aren’t any problems that you could help solving. There hardly ever are however most of your clients will feel more secure knowing that you care enough to call to check up on them. Another great outcome of this is more work. Almost every time I rang the client I would hear about more work needed or some new ideas they wanted to run by me. Many of them would later materialize into actual projects so yes, it’s worth a try. One of the dangers of this method, especially if you are keeping your company small is managing all this when your client base expands. We have found that a major problem which I am ashamed to say, we have never fully overcome.
4. Bring your clients to your office for workshops. I mentioned this few times when I was writing about getting your business ahead of competition but there is another aspect of offering free workshops. They keep you very close with your clients. Every month your clients are in your offices to improve their knowledge and learn more things that can only help them to grow their business. A result? Well, we used to get at least few thousand worth of work from every session. Out total cost for those meetings was $20 for coffee and scones for breakfast (they were morning meetings, again another deliberate decision – no one else was organizing anything for the morning so there would be no chance of clashing with our competitors events etc.) and few hours of my time. Not bad considering the outcome.
5. Offer free advice sessions. Something I mentioned before as well in a post about marketing. We used to offer free advice sessions (kind of like lecturers call-in-hours) where our clients could come in to the office with their problems relating to our specialty and I would be available for them to help. We ran those sessions every week for 2 hours and they turned out to be a great success too and what’s really great – at no cost (I was in the office anyway, right?).
6. Take your best clients to lunch from time to time. This has always worked well for us. Taking your best client to lunch (and most importantly, not talking about work, although some of it will creep into a conversation) is a great way to build a lasting relationship. Naturally you can’t take every single one of your clients but try it with the best ones. Use my system for grading customers to establish which clients you should be spending more time with and invite the best one to lunch. Spend an hour just chatting about anything, bond, and build relationship or friendship. I can guarantee you that you will leave such lunch with an order or an indication of new work that will be coming your way.
7. Remember about your clients’ personal occasions. Send them birthday card, flowers to their wedding and so on. Just show that you remember about them. Again, do it with your key customers only but do it. It does work.

Here are few more tips to make this work:

1. Always offer something that has a high perceived value. There is no point ringing your client if that’s not something they will appreciate. So always think what will make them go “WOW! These guys do really care!”
2. Be creative. The examples above are what I would do (or have done) in my old industry. But your niche might be different and most importantly your competition is different too. So always be creative. Try to think of ways not only to offer the highest perceived value but also of the most unusual ways to do so. Why? Because it will make it even easier for your clients to remember you (think of my lotto ticket, when was the last time you were sent a lotto ticket as a thank you gift? Probably never. And when was the last time you got a bottle of wine for Christmas? You probably get it every year.)
3. Start early. I didn’t realize that I should be getting closer to my customers until later in my self-employed career. As a result it was much more difficult for me to make it a habit. Instead, start straight away, even if you have only one customer. This way you will develop the habit and it will be natural for you even if you have 1000 customers. For me it was a real problem to implement this rule because of the amount of clients we had already at that time, and it was even more difficult to keep it when our customer base continued to grow.

Getting closer to your existing customers is not difficult (as you have seen above). It requires some time, creativity and most importantly, dedication to your client base. Your clients are the life blood of your company; they are the people who have helped you get to where you are now.

By showing them that you care you are making them believe in your company more, and as a result, want to give you more work and refer others to you too.

Is there anything you should be worrying about with this?

Not really. The beauty of this formula is that the worst outcome that can happen would be ignorance. Your actions simply didn’t have any effect on the client. But it is hardly possibly that by showing your clients that you care you could offend them or made them irritated at you.

Clients love to feel important, and in fairness, they are (at least some of them anyway, the Grade A and B for sure, just sayin…) and I doubt that anyone would reject if they were made feel important too. So I think you’re safe.

Image by flick user, PhillipC distributed under creative commons license.