Project Deep Dive
We spend a lot of time talking about how close you need to stay to your clients. Our message is pretty consistent….
“You can’t let too much grass grow beneath your feet when it comes to talking to your clients.”
- Letting them know how much you appreciate their business
- Discussing what their goals are this year
- Discussing the status of a project
- Finding out what they do in their business so you can see if they need any additional services from your firm
- Finding out if they are happy with your service
…and a host of other reasons.
WHERE DO YOU SPEND MOST OF YOUR TIME?
Let’s think about how you interact with your clients’ companies.
- Do you spend most of your time with your primary client contact, the one you send bills to?
- Is this the person you take to lunch to discuss the information I listed above?
- Are they the ones who get the holiday cards from you?
- Are they the ones who get your alerts, enewsletters and bulletins?
TAKE A DEEPER DIVE
I want you to think about diving deeper in to your clients’ organizations.
What does this mean?
This means that it’s very important for you get to know those who haven’t been on your radar, but who might be in the next 2, 5 or even 10 years. That might sounds like a lot of work, but it’s important, so it’s worth your time.
It’s important because:
- These people could soon be the ones you’d like to send bills to because they are responsible for hiring you.
- Something could happen to the client contact you’ve known for years, causing a snowball effect of promotions.
- This up-and-comer might leave one day, landing at a company with whom you’d love to do business.
- This person could become a great source for referrals when friends ask for recommendations.
HOW?
A few ways you can dive deeper, and get to know them, are:
- Invite them to events
- Include them in conversations
- Connect with them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Google+
- Offer to hold briefings on important topics for them
- Send them holiday cards
- Nominate them for boards and committees
- Introduce them to people who could help with their careers
Remember that it’s not always easy climbing the ladder in their companies or organizations. Being included, and invited to be a part of important discussions when they’re young, or early in their career, means a great deal to people.
BE DELIBERATE
As you’re thinking about the next quarter, or next year’s Marketing Plan, make sure you take a much deeper dive, okay?
Take the time to write steps in to your Marketing Plan that include the up-and-comers.
One word of caution: If you don’t have a prepared Marketing Plan, I don’t want you to become overwhelmed and not do this because you don’t have the perfect structure in place. That’s inconvenient, yes, but it’s never an excuse for not building your business.
HERE’S WHAT I WANT YOU TO DO
Open up a new Word document, or take out a piece of paper, it doesn’t matter, and create a one-page plan for how you’re going to include these up-and-comers as we’ve discussed above. Call it Project Deep Dive, or whatever you’d like. Have some fun with it.
You’ll find when you commit it to paper (or document), the chances of it being accomplished will be much greater.
Actually, the chances of it being accomplished increase to 100% when you decide you’re just going to do it, right?!
Then what are you waiting for? Get outta here, and go do it!
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)