Maintaining Solid Client Relationships More Important Now Than Ever

Maintaining a good relationship with your clients just seems like common sense. The funny thing is, many consultants (and other business owners) regularly fall into the trap of creating an adversarial relationship with a specific client from time to time. This can ruin an otherwise fruitful relationship for no good reason. Often, the reason boils down to simple pride. Now more than ever, maintaining or fixing damaged client relationships is critical. Here are a few tips:

The client is always right.

This is one of the more annoying truisms out there. Nonetheless, it should be a core part of your client relationship strategy. In the end, you are in business to serve the client. Even if the client is wrong about a specific point, if you really listen, what you will hear is what they really want now. In the end, isn’t our job to serve the client? Sometimes people change their minds and often they don’t like to admit it (especially if they believe it will increase billable hours). Find a way to accept the client’s position and be constructive about any differences. No matter how right you are, in the end it just doesn’t matter. So why worry about it?

Provide value beyond what was agreed to.

Most of us (unless you own a monopoly) have to compete at some level. Competition can be stiff, especially in service industries where the differentiating factors that separate one vendor from the others are so hard to see. One of the ways to make sure that your firm excels is to exceed expectations as a matter of policy. Now, sometimes you’re going to fall down. In the end, the client is much less concerned with you making a mistake as they are with how you handle it. If you make a mistake be honest about it and do your level best to make the client whole (and then some). The client will trust you even more and that is a good thing for everyone. If you don’t make a mistake, make sure that you provide services beyond what is called for in the contract. This can be as simple as advice or not billing for something that you could have. From time to time I get asked to deliver something that was not called for in the agreement. Sometimes we won’t bill for this to help keep the client on budget. Your client will be appreciative at your helping keep costs down and will be more likely to hire you again or recommend you to others.

Reach out to clients as often as you can.

Clients want to know that their vendors are thinking about their business. Besides, there is no better way to build a relationship with your clients than to talk to them frequently. In order to add value you should be truly engaged in your clients industry. That might include reading trade publications, researching what their competitors are doing, etc. This will provide you with opportunities to reach out and open non-project oriented discussions with your clients where you can not only add value, but will most likely learn what your client thinks about key issues. This may present an opportunity to up-sell other services as well. At the very least it presents an occasion to support your client and provide extra value.

These tips might seem obvious and easy to do. But the fact remains that most service providers fall down here as they are too busy chasing new revenue. Your existing client base is your core. Every day you should try to think of a way to add value for them. It will make your business more stable and your clients happy. These happy clients are the ones that will ultimately support your own company’s growth through recommendations and referrals.

Making things Happen: The Price of Being Idle

One of the most interesting comments that I get from people is that I must somehow “be different” from other people in order to be able to get as much done as I do. My partner and I always seem to have several new ventures in the hopper and we still need to serve our clients from our previous ventures in order to fund the new projects and pay our respective mortgages.
The fact of the matter is that my business partner and I are no different than anyone else. We do however have a couple of traits that make it seem like we are considerably different. I for one, try to live by these maxims in order to keep sane while getting more things done. They are:

Be fearless.

This one is important. If you stop reading after this, then I’ve made my key point. Most people who wish they could start their own business (but don’t) are all saddled with themselves as their biggest obstacle. Many very smart people have great ideas and can’t follow through because they are totally afraid of failing. In my experience these people spend way too much time worrying about what other people will think of them if they fail or have an over-inflated opinion of themselves and just can’t bear to shatter the image. Fact is that all entrepreneurs fail and fail often. It is those failures that often help us come up with the winning ideas.

Try first, research later.

From the time when we are little, people tell us that “you can only learn by trying.” Then we become adults and somewhat professional and we are totally paralyzed unless we analyze everything half a dozen times. In business, learning form experience is just as true now as it was when you were a toddler. I am not suggesting that you go off all half-cocked and spend your hard earned dollars on a venture that was not well thought out. I am suggesting however, that once you have a reasonable strategy and a good idea of what you are going to do that you develop a simple plan for a proof-of-concept. In most cases, a smaller product with more limited functionality can be built for less money. Getting this into the hands of key customers or friendly prospects will help you fine tune your idea based on real market feedback instead of an academic exercise. This is still directionally correct and will significantly reduce your overall business risk.

Always have something new in the works.

Markets change. New competitors come online. New opportunities arise when you least expect it. Even if your venture is already successful you should be looking for the next one. This can mean a new product under the same flag serving a different market, not necessarily a totally new venture. Having more than one idea in the hopper keeps you fresh and stimulates you intellectually. Even if you don’t execute on any of them, working on new ideas will always make you smarter at running your existing venture. Either way you can’t lose. My partner and I try to launch one new product or venture each year. Sometimes it is simply a new service line. We weigh our ideas based on the amount of capital required to get it off the ground, the reasonableness of the concept and the time to market. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. But in the end, we all become smarter for the effort and that helps our consulting practice.

Abandon what doesn’t work.

This one goes hand-in-hand with the first maxim. If you try a bunch of stuff, some won’t work. Unless you are King Midas and everything you touch turns to gold, you will come up with some ideas that fail. Even if they seem like a good idea but are just ahead of their time, or market conditions just aren’t quite right, you can’t hold onto a business that will not eventually self-fund. Let the bad ideas go. You may resurrect some later, but more than likely they will just fade away and become overshadowed by newer better ideas in the future.

Only worry about what you can control.

Once you decide to execute on an idea, you now have created a monster with more moving parts than you can reasonable control at once. Generally, the big things are obvious. Smart managers delegate or otherwise outsource non-core operations and focus their energies on what is most important to growing the business. When something is beyond your control, don’t worry about it. It is a waste of calories and always results in lost opportunities. Focus your energies on what you can control and do the best you can. When things go wrong, adjust. If you always focus on what is important and do your best, everything will generally fall into place.

In the end, nothing is more expensive than being idle. If you are not moving forward then you are moving backwards. There is no such thing as standing still because the world will move without you. My partner and I are not different from any other entrepreneur. We just don’t make excuses and if you don't eaither, you will find that it is never quite as hard as it looks.