ERI LA Socio-Political Blog

Have you ever noticed that birds of a feather flock together? Folks usually hang out with like-minded people . In other words, a person’s center of influence usually has a fair amount of people in it that are just like them.

Here are 5 easy steps to leverage this phenomenon for adding more exemplary clients:

Step 1:

Choose which clients you already have that you would classify as being the exemplary customer . The easiest way to do this is to pick one customer that you (and your employees ) really enjoy having as a customer .

Step 2:

List the profile attributes that had you think of them as a exemplary customer . Examples could be:

They are timely with payment.
They are courteous to you and your employees .
They are loyal clients.
They are timely for appointments.
They refer other people to your company .

This is a mock list and your list would be unique to your company and the types of customer you like to serve. The benefit of this exercise is to set up a qualification , of sorts, so you acquire more of the model ones – not just grow the numbers of clients. After all, isn’t that what you would love to work towards – only serving clients you enjoy?

Step 3

List a few other ones that also share these profile attributes. This process is usually pretty eye-opening to see how many of your clients you really like serving versus the ones you would rather do without. (Using this process of gaining more clients will make room for you to get rid of the less than perfect ones down the road.)

Step 4:

Create a strategy of effortlessly and systematically letting the customer on the list you just created know you value them. For example, What is something you could do that would be so amazing they would be inclined to spread the word to all their center of influence and have a “Guess what just came in the mail …” phone call about an action you took. It could be a birthday or anniversary card (although in many niches , sending a card is old hat – and not falling in the remarkable category, which is required, for this to be powerful ).

However, sending a gift is not commonly done . How many of your customer are young families that are now having kids ? Sending newborn baby gifts would be so outrageously remarkable and it is sure to be worthy of lots of rants about considerate you are!

In fact, I would venture to guess if you did send a unique baby gift, you would be the highlight of the day every time they looked at the gift. You would have to work pretty hard at losing them as a customer after that thoughtful act. And they would be sure to sing your praises !

What competitor in your market is going to do this for those new parents ?

Actually, there is already a trend developing in this direction. Many entrepeneurs – physicians , lawyers , insurance agents, real estate agents, for example - are seeing the value in setting aside a small percentage of their customer appreciation program budget for customer relationship management. Customer loyalty and referrals abound when business owners thank their existing customer for doing business with them by sending a small token of congratulations for important events. The application of this strategy rewards handsomely in attracting new clients.

Step 5:

If you have completed the first four steps, get prepared for the thank you’s that will be streaming into your office. And celebrate what a caring and savvy business owner you are in implementing this new strategy for gaining new customer by appreciating the ones you already have.

About the author:
Pat Graham-Block has been coaching entrepreneurs in how to strategically expand their company with successful ideas that work. She is also owner of Simply Unique Baby Gifts, an online store that offers a large selection of newborn baby gift baskets ready to be delivered to the new happy parents on your behalf.