I hear from many small business owners that they worry about what their competitors are doing. In my opinion, way too much. It’s not a business marketing strategy that will grow your small business.
The other day, I bought what I thought was a “better” contact solution at the store. When I squirted the lens cleaning solution into the little storage case, it was more like squeezing honey from the honey bear bottle. It was so thick and gooey! I proceeded to take out my contacts and put them in the swampy solution. The next morning, I could not get the goop off my hands to get my silly contacts to go into my eyes (can you sense my frustration). Something that was a routine task was now taking me way too much time. While we should all be striving to improve our products and services, better isn’t always the answer. Your clients come to you for certain reasons and if you continue to take care of them and thrill them, they won’t need to go out looking for change.
Here are a few thoughts to keep you focused on creating loyal clients who love you:
1. Keep your relationships with your clients as if they are your friends. Check in with them, send them notes and stay in their lives. I had someone tell me the other day that he loved his mortgage broker and hadn’t heard from her in years. Then one day a few weeks ago, she started an aggressive email campaign. This is not what I am talking about. One-to-one connections are the way to foster important relationships.
2. Listen to what your clients need. It is crazy how people will share so much about their needs on social media like Facebook. This can be a powerful listening tool to help you watch for opportunities to connect or reconnect with long lost clients.
3. Be an over-giver. Make sure to leave your clients feeling like they completely got their money’s worth, especially if they invested a significant amount of money. If people are thrilled with the benefits you offer them, they will be clients for life. Even if they accidentally try something else, the competition will suffer by comparison because it isn’t you.