One firm’s quest for client hearts & minds

Thanks to my clients’ brutal feedback, the coffee served at Empire House is now beyond reproach!

Part 3 of 3 (Action)

Read Part 1 and Part 2 

Armed with a mother load of intelligence from my first client survey, I asked my trusty business coach, Winston Marsh    , what I should do with it.

Here’s what Winno said to me (in his uniquely forthright style):

Thank everyone for participating and give them a summary of the results.

All too rarely we ask people for their opinion. And then we don’t tell them what we find! They appreciate hearing back and often respond with even more valuable information.

And sometimes, just sometimes, they’ll add value … like some work.

Winno was dead right. Every respondent I got back to was grateful for the contact. Most did indeed give me more feedback. And two of them starting talking about new work projects!

Create something of value for yourself by creating something of value for them.

The survey comments tell me you haven’t been giving your clients reasons to use you. And they certainly haven’t been sitting around thinking, ‘Hmmm, how can I give Paul a job?’

You have to create something that’ll get them business, which will then mean work for you. You’ve gotta create a big fat WIIFM for them so that they say, ‘Hey, that’s a great idea! It’s worth investing in Paul to get a result for me.’ That’s leverage.

The question is, what can you do to help them and, in so doing, help yourself?

In response to this suggestion, I codified my new corporate blogging service into a two-page business case. I then emailed it to all my survey participants, other clients and prospects.

The response was staggering. Better than anything else I’ve ever tried. Thanks, ideas and leads came pouring in. I’m now preparing two blogging quotes, with many more nibbles on the line.

Stay in touch.

These people have been good enough to respond; they deserve a little extra thought and consideration from you.

If you stay in touch and ‘love them’, they’re gunna love you back – though you’re going to give without expecting return.

It’s the law of mutual reciprocity … do something for others and they’ll want to do something for you. And being in touch means you’re not outta sight, outta mind. When times do turn or a project comes up, you’re gunna be right at the forefront of their minds.

Wise words! Winno had been telling me for years that I needed to stay in touch with my clients. Yet as a reclusive writer, I thought I could get by with little or no contact.

I also thought that contacting my clients without an explicit, work-related reason was actually bothering them. How wrong I was!

After giving me his responses, Winston referred me to one of his articles: ‘Loving Your Clients’. I was going to provide a link to this article, but after my latest experience, I firmly believe it deserves a full reproduction here.

Think of it as your holiday reading. 

Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire 

Winston Marsh’s Theory of ‘Loving Your Clients’.

Stay in touch with your database at least six times each year. Now, that is sometimes a little daunting for most people because thinking of six reasons to contact people over the year and, more importantly, creating the contact letters or e-mails is difficult for many of us.

After all, many of us do find writing those letters and e-mails a challenging task; we’d rather do other things.

So, my suggestion is quite simple. Take a day off every year, and with your PA or the rest of your team members, think about the contacts you’d like to have with your client base and then spend the day putting them together, stealing letters from places, writing others, thinking of great things you can do, and then you’ll have them as and when needed, because the number one problem in contacting your database is that you don’t have anything readily available to use.

It’s got to be created, and I know there are other things you’d rather do. So, having them pre-planned and pre-written will make it a breeze.

My suggestions are very simple. Let’s give you an idea of the sort of things I would have you use to stay in touch with your clients.

First of all, the Happy Birthday or Happy Anniversary note. You know, it’s quite amazing, we’ve asked hundreds and hundreds of professionals if they send birthday or anniversary cards and guess what? Less than 6 in 100 do. Yeah, that’s right, 6 in a 100. Well, why not? Well, perhaps they think that everybody else does it so they’re not going to do it.

Be smart. Do what everybody else doesn’t do and remember those important days, birthdays and anniversaries. And that’s why your clients will be delighted to receive a note that says “I’d like to shout you dinner on your birthday”.

Remember, there’s a way you can get restaurants to give you free meals to gift to your clients. If you’d like further details, just let me know. Does it work? You betcha bippy. Gangbusters.

Next, you’ll want to wish them all the best in the festive and other seasons. “Have a Merry Christmas”, “Enjoy Easter”, “Have a great barbeque on Australia (or Waitangi) Day”.

You see, most of your clients celebrate these days and, obviously, you’d want them to enjoy the very best for them and their familles, so write and tell them that.  Maybe you can enclose a little gift, as well, not just a crummy calendar.

So, it’s a nice thought to write and say something like “Ho, ho, ho, it’s Christmas time again” or “What you up to Doc at Easter?” And remember, too, I’ve used Christian festivals as an example, and in our diverse society, you should take into account the special events in the lives of people with beliefs that are different to yours.

You sure as heck are going to get their attention when you remember these events, and you’ll be remembered positively. I love a note to clients that begins “What does this news mean?” From time to time, there’s going to be things in the media or mentions in Parliament about events or developments that may affect your products or services.

So, what you’ve got to do is anticipate that people, your clients, will be thinking about the implications of that news. So, wouldn’t it be great for them to receive a letter, or an e-mail, while the controversy is raging which says “You can sit back and relax because here’s what it means to you, and if there’s any other changes, I’ll be in touch”.

You’ll feel good knowing that your clients trust you to make sure that the real facts and implications are under control and that you’ve got a watching brief for them.

Another great contact is what I call the “just wanted to stay in touch”. You see, building a business relationship is like building a romantic relationship. You’ve got to stay in touch and tell them that you love them, just because you do.

That’s why it’s great to drop clients a line from time to time with no business motive in mind. Yes, that’s right, no business motive in mind other than to stay in touch. You might tell them about a great restaurant, a good book, a fabulous film or a terrific place, just as you would a friend. A letter that begins “I must tell you about this fantastic restaurant before I implode” will certainly be compulsive reading.

An invitation to a seminar or a workshop is a great, great contact. If you do want to build a meaningful relationship with your clients, you’ll want to invite them to a seminar or a workshop where you or an interesting speaker or two gives them the low-down on stuff they want to know.

And, of course, it doesn’t always have to be a workshop or a seminar, it could be an invitation to see a first release movie or a night at the local theatre company’s dramatic production.

Have your personal assistant organise the event, get the invitations out and make them compelling so that your clients will want to come. They’ll love you for it.

Another contact that works gangbusters is a postcard from overseas. Because you are good at what you do, you get to travel overseas, both on business and pleasure. And when you’re there, no doubt you’re going to see and hear things of interest to your clients, so why not send them a postcard?

You can pre-prepare it before you go actually, which says something like “I heard a couple of great ideas at this international conference” or “When I was in such and such, I saw this sensational way of doing this”.

Mail it to them with pretty stamps from the place you’re in and they’ll love you for it. Naturally, from time to time, you will need to write and tell them about a great new product, something that’s just come out that may be of advantage to them or their family.

Don’t just send them a boring, glossy brochure, make sure you accompany it with a letter that is down-to-earth, personal and highlights the benefits.

Another item in your staying in touch arsenal is the occasional review of where they’re at with your product or service. You’ll want to write to them and suggest that they pop in and see you or make an appointment with you, or you go and see them, to review where they’re at with your product or service to see if their circumstances or needs have changed.

It may not necessarily generate more business, but it’ll show them that you care.

And, naturally, from time to time you’ll want to send a referral seeking letter because you and I both know how important referrals are. You can ask them today and they know nobody, but sometime in the future, because life is a passing parade, there’s going to be somebody that they want to refer.

So, you need to write to them occasionally and say “It suddenly occurred to me that you might know somebody who …” or “How would you like a night at this plush hotel for you and your partner absolutely free?”

Stay in touch, too, by becoming a ferret for facts that will interest your clients. You see an article in a magazine or a newspaper or you hear something of interest, copy it or relate it in your letter and send it to them saying “I thought you may be interested in this”.

You know, when you think on behalf of your clients, you really are doing them a service because although you may have seen it in the newspaper or read it in a magazine or heard it on the news, they might have missed it. It just shows that you care.

And don’t forget, you’re going to send them your newsletter every so often or your e-zine on a regular basis. All part of being in touch.

And, finally, for those important clients, there’s one really great contact you have to have and that is the “How’s thing?” call. Yes, that’s right. Every day, pick up the phone and ring a client you don’t need to ring and simply say, “How’s things?” You’ll be amazed at how well that works in building the relationship.

But, of course, if you stay in touch with your database at least six times a year, you’ll build that relationship, and when you build relationships, you become a legend in other people’s minds.

Thank you very much, Winston; I couldn’t have said it better. What I can say, from experience, is that your theory works! Best regards, Paul.

One firm’s quest for client hearts & minds

Part 2 of 3 (Results)

Read Part 1

So there I was; proud owner of my first ever client survey results.

My deepest fears populated the response options; it was time to see if they were true.

Question 1 (Multiple Choice)

Scanning the chart below, I was instantly relieved at two findings:

• Only one client had a problem with my rate.
• Most clients were feeling the GFC pinch.

At first blush, this suggested I wasn’t directly responsible for my 20% fall in earnings.

However, as the primitive nature of my main question became evident in these sterile bars, I thanked my wife for suggesting a second, open-ended question.

This was where the real gold lay.  

Question 2 (Open Ended)

SurveyBob had a nifty function that let me download the data to a spreadsheet. My clients’ frank, open-ended responses mainlined me right into their brains.

I classified this generous feedback (modified where necessary to protect the innocent) into three categories:

A.  Reassurance

• Your work is great.
• You guys rock!
• Your approach is professional, comprehensive and timely.
• Our business comes in spikes. When we’re back, so are you.
• You’ll certainly hear from us when we have the need again.
• All our clients know who you are, by name.

B.  Home Truths / Suggestions

• You have not proposed a model of how you can add value to my business lately.
• A better understanding of who you are would allay concerns of the entity being dealt with.
• Do a special rate for Xmas!
• Try advertising in the technical writing space. People might look under those keywords for your service.
• Alert me to the services you offer, particularly when I am struggling with overload.
• A good idea to generate business for each other would be to introduce us to your client base.
• Please put me on your small business blog.
• You serve crap coffee at Empire House.

C.  Things beyond my control

• No new project on the horizon.
• We haven’t had any full-on copywriting jobs of late.
• We need to use internal staff copy writers first.
• Sorry, but our organisation doesn’t see the value of an external provider for such things.
• The potential client was an [EXPLETIVE DELETED].

Mistake!

I’d planned to make the survey attractive by revealing the results to all participants.

I didn’t think this would include their open-ended comments.

WRONG!

Two mortified clients reported this to me. Equally mortified, I killed the survey. My apologies were accepted, but the early halt probably cost me some late responses.

What to do?

Despite this glitch, I had an unprecedented mother lode of intelligence. Never in the history of Empire had so much been drawn from so many by so few!

I had to work out what to do with it all. But before I’d started, two clients signalled their intention to give me more work. Great news!

I’ve since had a good think, consulted my business coach, made some preliminary moves and laid plans.

Read all about these in our thrilling Part 3 conclusion!

Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire

One firm’s quest for client hearts & minds

Part 1 of 3

Every empire has its bad days. When my revenue dipped 20%, I wanted to know if it was the Global Financial Crisis or something I’d said.

My wife suggested an online client survey. This turned out to be a very good idea.

Research

I’d heard of SurveyMonkey, but worried that some clients might not dig the name. I did a quick search for ‘free online survey’ and found SurveyBob, which looked as simple as it sounded.

Structure

Aware that most surveys have poor participation, I decided to limit mine to just one question – multiple choice.

In addition to making it ridiculously easy, I injected a bit of fun by calling it:

The Feisty Empire Brutal Feedback Survey.

My sole question was the one thing I wanted to know more than anything:

Why hasn’t The Feisty Empire done more work for you lately?

In collating a list of possible responses, I combined my worst fears with educated guesses and shots in the dark:

• You cost too much!
• I’m using someone else.
• Your work isn’t good enough.
• You never call me for a chat.
• I can’t justify the expense.
• I’m pretty quiet myself.
• I haven’t had the need.
• I heard bad things about you.
• I’ve learned to do it myself.
• The recession is killing me.
• I’m too busy with other stuff.
• You never asked me!
• I thought you’d closed.
• I thought you were doing other things.
• I hate your small business blog.
• I’m giving someone else a try.
• I’m not allowed to use you.
• I know what you did last Thursday.
• You never give me any freebies.
• I want to pay for results, not time.
• It’s odd that we’ve never met.
• Change is good. I need a change.
• I’d rather not say.

Method

I made the response options informal and friendly, as if we were chatting on the phone. I overlapped to let people take their preferred approach to sensitive issues. I added ‘soft option’ escape hatches to tempt the twitchiest participants. And I included humour to keep it light.

SurveyBob’s interface was child’s play. Though the result wasn’t spectacular, it was quick, clean, robust and free.

At that point, my wife suggested that I add an open-ended question to garner feedback, so I did. Check the picture above to see what it looked like on the screen.

Distribution

I pasted the emails of every client who hadn’t used me for three months into SurveyBob’s database.

I could have pasted my survey’s URL into my own email or website, but the online tracking functionality was too tempting.

Invitation

In my covering email, I strove to neutralise participation barriers like time, complexity, confidentiality and general ‘heaviness’:

Hello!

As the recession ends, I’m taking a critical look at my business.

I’ve created a two-question survey that will literally take you one minute.

Though you’ll be able to see the aggregate results, nobody will ever know your identity except me.

I’d be very grateful if you could please click the link below and give your frank responses.

You can tick as many boxes as you like.

With best regards and many thanks for your time.

Paul.

One thing that makes me do online surveys is the chance to see the results. By offering this to my clients, I really laid myself open. What if all of them said I cost too much, then realised they all agreed?!

I then reasoned that if price weren’t an issue, such candour could be very good for my brand. So I bit the bullet and pressed SEND.

Response

Within 48 hours, 18 of 41 clients had responded (44%).

I waited a few more days, before sending a follow up email:

Hello again.

I’m sending this a second and last time, just in case it ended up your spam folder. Please forgive me for bothering you if you’ve already seen and deleted it. If you haven’t, I’d really appreciate your response.

Best regards,

Paul.

This took the response to 24 (59%).

I viewed summary data online, then downloaded a spreadsheet to see who’d said what.

The results were fascinating, gratifying and very, very useful. Read all about them in Part 2!

Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire

On snaring this blogging gig, my first instinct was to discredit every shonky supplier who’d ever crossed me. The question was, what to cover first:

1. The sturdy, black hair in my special fried rice?
2. The too-thin tin my builder used to gild my roof?
3. The gob of machine grease in my pack of sliced almonds?

On reflection, however, I realised these issues should be explored separately and in excruciating detail. To better provide lessons and warnings for you, the reader.

It’s therefore with a light heart that I showcase some of the most useful (free) stuff I’ve found over the years. And no, I don’t get anything from endorsing anything.

Winston Marsh is a dinky-di* marketing guru who’s been in the business-building game for decades. His website is a trove of gratis articles, newsletters and other resources that are immediately and practically useful. He is streetwise, prolific and generous.

Terry Brock is an American business coach and good guy (I’ll cover Seth Godin in another post). Many of Terry’s free, weekly articles come in written, video and audio form, so you can learn as you like. His insight, enthusiasm and flawless presentation make it easy to absorb useful ideas and information.

English is mutating way too fast for anyone to keep track of it all. When faced with a new, unfamiliar or difficult word, my favourite tool is OneLook. It gives free, instant access to 13 million words in 1000 dictionaries. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never touch a Concise Oxford again!

Twitter has generated more traffic to my websites than everything else I’ve tried, times ten! It therefore deserves its own post. Meanwhile, if you don’t know what I’m on about, watch this three-minute, introductory video. Mark my words: used correctly, Twitter is GOLD.

Most business coaches agree that in tricky times, the way to prevail and prosper is to learn and try new things. The above resources have helped me do all that and more. I commend them to you.

Next week: How to Sabotage a Nail Gun.

Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, www.thefeistyempire.com  

* See OneLook!