Clients: Invest in Them or Lose Them

BY Rachel Cagle
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The skills needed for B‑to‑B selling and client retention are often the same. The key to maintaining
your business relationship with your clients is to prove to them on a regular basis that you are still as invested in them as you were when you initially made your first sale. Howard Brown offers some helpful advice on how to accomplish this in his article, “The 5 Most Persuasive Skills for Selling to Executives.”

  1. Be Available

Being a good salesperson doesn’t stop after the initial sale. You need to make sure that you are available to your clients in the event that they have urgent questions. Being there for them will not only make your business relationship go smoother, it will show your clients that you are invested in them. That helpfulness will go a long way.

  1. Gain Knowledge

Being available goes hand in hand with your ability to accumulate information about your client. Don’t remain stagnant after the sale is complete. Their needs are constantly changing with their business. Staying in regular contact with your clients can alert you to new needs you should address.

  1. Involve Them in Objectives

Once you discover and understand the needs of your clients, focus on them. Your objective now is to be actively working toward satisfying any and all of your customers’ needs. While you’re doing that, keep them involved in the process. It will strengthen your business relationship in a number of ways. One, it will show them in the clearest possible way that they are a priority to you. Two, it will promote feedback between yourself and your client. Three, that feedback can enhance your ability to address needs efficiently. The collaborative effort toward problem solving will increase the possibilities of solutions, and you’ll earn a better business relationship from it. Three birds, one stone.

  1. Get Personal

Cover all your client priority bases by personalizing your business relationship. No one likes getting emails that seem copied and pasted or phone calls that sound like they’re being read off a script. Treat them like people, not a sale. Showing your clients that you’re invested in getting to know them personally and are retaining that information will make them feel important. And that is vital in any salesperson/​client relationship.


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