Meetings can be like leeches that suck the very life out of us. How can we ensure we get the most out of our customer meetings and use the opportunity to enhance our relationships?Meetings can be the bane of our lives. When I was in the corporate world, my schedule was stacked with customer meetings [...]
We all know that building meaningful relationships with customers is based on providing value over time and establishing trust.By adding more value to our relationships we are able to look at ways of exploring more business opportunities together. But to do this we need a robust and repeatable process that can be measured, adapted and [...]
We have numerous contacts at our customer but have we ever invested time to really understand their roles and whether they are the people we should be investing our time with? In a previous article, I discussed why it is important to have a Customer Relationship Plan. Such a method considers the relationship roles, where [...]
Why having a Customer or Relationship Strategy Plan, based on evaluating our relationships, is critical to our success.We rely on Business Plans to drive our business direction, but why is it we rarely design and complete Business Plans for our customers?I have lost count of the number of Business Plans I have drafted, completed and [...]
There are situations where to keep our all- important relationships we need to resign our client.Have you ever felt trapped? Feeling like you are not delivering what you should be for a variety of reasons, and all your instincts and core values tell you this is wrong, but the income keeps you doing it?About two [...]
How To Understand The Needs of Your ClientHave you ever had problems with a client not believing you really understood their issues and needs?One of the biggest challenges I have faced with various clients over the years is being able to establish credibility and have them believe that I understand their problems thoroughly, so any [...]
Discover ways to build Trust, which is the number one element in building relationshipsCustomers don't buy from anyone. They buy from people they trust. Without trust, there is a barrier the minute somebody tries to sell them something! How can we ensure that our customer trusts us enough to be comfortable with what we suggest? [...]
During my time at Coca-Cola, I worked with our largest customer, McDonald’s. At one stage in the relationship with McDonald’s Germany, we were trying to get more Coca-Cola branding awareness in the restaurant. One method was to get the generic McDonald’s cups replaced on the translites (the lit menu boards behind the counter that show menu items) with Coca-Cola [...]
A few weeks ago I wrote an article entitled “How Do We Get A Decision.” In the post, I explored how we try and ensure we have the right people at the meeting so we can get a decision. Assuming we have done that, I now suggest to you that there are 6 ways you [...]