The key to B2B lead generation and Customer Retention

Finding new and keeping existing clients

You can study all you want, learn every sales lead generation technique and install the most advanced client management and retention system and it will do you no good at all - until you learn the most valuable lesson of all. 

I meet so many people that do business at a "head" or business level and expect this to be enough to win and retain valued and loyal customers - WRONG! 

You do a good (or even great) job - but that is what your client expects. If you did NOT do a good job they would throw you out on your ear. After all, your competition does a good job and on the whole does pretty much everything you do. True? 

So what makes the difference?

You need to do business at the "heart" level. No, not some mushy gooey love story thing (thank heavens I hear you say).

It is simply getting to know your customer at a deeper level than the business level. You need to be genuinely interested in their personal goals and hopes. It is important that you know about their family and their passions and interests. This is why "fact finding" questionnaires should be "fact and feeling finders." Yes, you have heard it before but I bet you don't do it well enough!

Genuine interest makes you trusted and valued beyond the competition. It will lead to the trust that creates a relationship that in turn leads to recommendations to friends and family - future business!

It also ring fences your existing clients. The opposition may present cheaper products and glossy brochures but they simply will not be able to compete with the fact that you are a friend of the family.

There are eight recognized ways that you can build a long lasting relationship with clients - and there is not enough space to put them in here. You are welcome to have them - (Link to be installed soon)

In the mean time there is a powerful tip I can leave you with. Presents! It may not be applicable for all your clients but your category "A" clients deserves a little more effort.

It is not the doller value that counts - it is the thought and applicability to the client that matters. For example, I had a client that liked to help train his son to be a better goal keeper in soccer but the son progressed beyond his skill. I keep my eyes open for all my clients all the time and stumbled across a video on advanced goal keeper training for $2! Do you think the dad valued the extra time with his son more than a bottle of wine?

So you need to make the effort to know your clients at a deeper level and put a bit of thought into your relationship and they will stay with you forever and bring their friends!

The Specialist - The newsletter for insurance advisors and their clients. Autumn 2009

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