Business is a Result of the Relationship

You’ve heard it a million times – “people do business with people they know, like and trust”. How does that happen if you’re not putting some effort into the development of that relationship?

The quality of the relationship is directly related to your sales success… yes I said that dirty word… sales! The professional sales person (and if you’re a business owner, you should be a professional sales person) looks at sales as helping someone get what they need, which is not always what you have and that’s A-OK!

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the “busy work”, that we miss doing the reeeeeaaallly important stuff that seems trivial but makes a huge difference.

Following are 15 ways to attract more clients each and every day:

1.     Join 3 organizations that your ideal clients are likely to be members of

2.     Be around colleagues that challenge and inspire you to do your best work

3.     Send a monthly newsletter

4.     Send your clients notes, articles, magazines… all by snail mail (if they’re not on strike!)

5.     Invest in training, coaching and development

6.     Always be professional

7.     Give a referral and follow up with both parties

8.     Remember… it’s all about THEM… NOT YOU!!!

9.     Learn to sell the customer-focused way – serve, don’t sell

10.   Find joy each day and spread it around

11.   Don’t be a 'yes' person – there’s no value in that

12.   Be interested – not just interesting

13.   Meet people that scare you

14.   Devote 30 minutes a week to relationship-building (for dozens of ideas, email me and I’ll send them to you)

15.   Create a support team

As your colleague, I challenge you to actually DO some of these in the next week or at least get started (some take longer than a day). Let me know how it goes!

Originally published in Work Better, Not Harder on June 3, 2011