If you shop at Walmart, you are a customer. If you shop at a business where everyone knows your name and treats you like a friend, you are a client. To have a successful boutique business model, you need to build relationships and make friends with your customers and they will forever be clients.
How can you turn customers INTO clients? Here are a few suggestions:
1. MAKE FRIENDS. For one, learn the names of their family members of those who patronize your business. There is no better sales and relationship builder than simply calling people by name. I love shopping at my favorite boutique in town and everyone who works there knows my name (yes, I realize as much as I am there, they should). But, they always call me by name, acknowledge me and welcome me back. Over the years, we have become friends and whenever I hold workshops with others from around the globe, I often drag the entire workshop there to shop there.
2. GIVE PERSONAL ATTENTION. My mother got a young, new doctor and he has a tremendous desire to grow his practice. When my mother calls, she gets HIM on the phone. Seriously, in this day and age, when do you get to speak directly to a doctor? What do you do to give your clients personal attention?
3. CARE. Does Wal-mart care that they ran your wedding negatives through the machine with bleach instead of the correct chemicals (saw it happen). No. Do you care that your client’s child is having surgery or that they lost a close family member? People don’t do business with businesses, they do business with PEOPLE. People who care.