5 Ways To Boost Your Best Business Relationship

These days, relationships count more than ever. 

This is especially true with our best clients, the one's who pay the most and appreciate us for our work. They comprise the vast majority of our profit margins and give us the kind of feedback that keeps us motivated day to day. 

Of course, the best way to boost the relationship is to outperform against expectations.  But, again, that's harder than ever because clients expect more than ever for their precious cash.  How else can you improve the relationship?  

Based on my experience, here's five ways to boost the relationship: 

1.  Give great ROA (Return On Attention) - Tell your client that you appreciate her time, and moving forward, will protect it with shorter meetings, crisper reports and fewer emails.  You will not lob in calls, 'just to check in' - each one will have a reason and produce action items or understandings.  

2.  Network her to one of your nodes - Review previous conversations or tune into future ones for her needs (resources, community, etc.) and find a match within your personal network.  Introduce the two via a 3 way email or even better, stage a lunch.  (See The Elmer Letterman Story for more) 

3.  Drop some knowledge on her - Go to the book store and search out a book that speaks to your client's business challenges or personal development goals.  Find one that is great, read it thoughtfully, then give a copy of it to your client with a few suggested pages/ideas.  Otherwise, put together your own two page report of the times and send it.  (Do NOT pepper her with tons of forwarded emails and articles with the FYI tag, that just makes you a friendly spammer.) 

4.  Get involved at the cause level - If your client's company has a community or social outreach program, see if you can join and help.  If you have one, see if your client would like to participate.  Nothing glues two people or organizations together better than the experience of making-a-difference. 

5.  Surprise her with a unexpected service - If you have a new service or a low cost capability, bonus it to your client if you think it will add value.  Don't make up any special reason for it, just give it to her and say, "This is a token of my gratitude for your business." 

Comments

[Tim Bursch]

Tim,
Great ideas as usual. Love the "Share your Knowledge" advice. I've been thinking about trying this with social media for a client.

Couple possible ideas:
-Set up a tag in delicious or a folder in my reader- save relevant articles for that client (keeping them more top of mind too). Send the best link, resource, post of the week to her/him.
-Watch their social stream and make sure to give them recognition (RT, mentions, link love). In a non-cheesy-way of course...
Cheers,
Tim

[Frode H]

"Drop some knowledge" - I liked this one.
Sharing is caring. I like to share my books with other at work or in life.

Good post.