Developing customers for life is about keeping your promises and maintaining the highest standards of respect, integrity and ethical standards in all of your dealings.

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Introduction to Customers

Introduction

Creating customers for life is the most profitable and important part of the sale. Mastering the Straight Line will help you to close sales, but if you’re not making efforts to keep the sales you have, or better yet, turn them into additional sales, you’re setting yourself up to work twice as hard. The way to put more money in your pocket and experience less stress is to retain and develop every customer you come into contact with.We all know about the high cost and effort to get new customers –everything you have to do to sift through leads, capture their attention, get in front of them and make your presentations before they say ‘yes’.In fact, for most companies, the cost of acquiring new customers is one of the most expensive aspects of doing business.The bottom line is that you can create a lot of initial success with the first sale, but the way to increase your results long term, with less effort, is by creating customers for life.

“Integrity is the essence of everything successful.”

Access the rest of this module to learn about:

Setting the stage to create long-term relationships.
How to build customers for life –strategies you must use as part of your sales process.
How to get referrals –the key to recurring income.

Setting the Stage

Setting the Stage

Immediately after closing the sale, it’s time to set the stage for creating a long-term relationship with your client.Remember, closing the sale is about getting the 5 Elements of the Straight Line to line up for a moment in time—building up the Three 10’s, using the Pain Threshold and getting them past their Action Threshold. However, once you close the sale, your job shifts to providing your client with certainty that they made the right decision.There are three things you can do immediately after the sale to help ‘wow’ your customers and create a superior customer experience that will bind them to you long-term.

Building Customers for Life

Building Long Term Relationship

Building Customers for Life

There are 6 strategies for building customers for life:

1. Never Duck a Phone Call

It takes just one ducked call to kill aclient relationship. Don’t duck calls when the going gets bad. Clients will always accept bad news, but what they will not accept is not being able to get in touch with you. When you duck a phone call you look bad and you make the company look bad.

2. Send Your Clients to Your Competitor

Sending a client to a competitor when you aren’t able to help them directly serves to build the relationship. In doing this, you will develop massive reciprocity, amazing good will and you will also start to be viewed as a resource.

3. Write Effective Thank-You Notes

You can move someone emotionally with a thank you. Get personal and specific. Tell the person why you liked it, using emotional trigger words. For example, “I really value this relationship” or “I absolutely love or adore....”

4. Use Gifts Correctly

Give gifts that have worth to the receiver. Find out what makes your client feel alive outside of work and fill that need with your gift. If your client loves fishing, send them a subscription to fishing magazine. It’s the gift that keeps on giving and will remind them of you for an entire year!

5. Always Give Away More Than You Pitch

Manage your client’s expectations. Under-promise and over-deliver and people will be thrilled! This can be accomplished by delivering what’s been promised in an elegant, effortless way or by throwing in a few genuine extras that no one else provides.

6. Always Leave Your Client in a Better Place

Only sell to your client when it’s in their best interest. Putting your client on the spot by selling them something they don’t need can ultimately destroy the relationship.TIP: Value is in the RELATIONSHIP with your list of prospects –the money is NOT in your list, it is in the RELATIONSHIP with your list.

Building Customers For Life

Intelligence gathering and follow up are keys to turning your clients into raving fans.As we discussed, your interactions may not always turn out as you envisioned, or you may not always be in a position to provide your client with what they need. In these cases, it’s important to still maintain your integrity, responding to phone calls (not ducking them) and maintaining your professionalism at every turn.You never know when a past client—turned raving fan—may deliver a beneficial referral. For this reason, keep track of your follow up interactions, including what competitor you ended up sending them to, and keep the following details on file for future referrals.

Referrals

Set Clear Targets

Referrals #1: Set Clear Targets and Measure

There are 6 steps to keep in mind when building your referral business:SET A CLEAR TARGET AND MEASURE YOUR REFERRAL RESULTSSales is a numbers game and referrals are part of that. You must have very specific targets, and a system for measuring your referrals.What proportion of your sales meetings are typically initiated from referrals? What actions you can take in order to improve this proportion

Know When to Ask for the Referral

Referrals #2: Know When to Ask for Referral

Instead of asking for the referral at the time you close the sale, wait a bit—but not too long—for the customer to get some results with the product or service. You can contact them to “check in and see how things are going” and then use that to transition into asking for the referral.Considering your own selling situation and environment. When would be the optimum time for you to ask your clients for a referral?

Give a Criteria for Prospects

Referrals #3: Give a Criteria to Prospects

Explain to your customers exactly what type of clients you are looking for. It saves you time and doesn’t waste the customer’s time.List the exact criteria that you would be looking for when asking customers for referrals.

Ask for an Introduction

Referrals #4: Ask for an Introduction

Once you have a referral, ask your customer for an introduction. This allows you to maintain control of the interaction. Having your client introduce you through a letter or a phone call will provide you with more credibility and power than if you just receive a phone number or email to follow up.Consider your current customer list. Write down the top 10 customers that you could ask for an introduction from.

Use the Power of Language

Referrals #5: Remember the Power of Language

Language creates meaning—it’s the most powerful tool you have (next to tonality –to control the conversation. Use “introduce” instead of “referral” or “help” instead of “service.”Tailored to your own sales situation, write down the exact sentence that you would use when asking the customer for an introduction, ensuring that you use the words, ‘introduce’ and ‘help’.

Reward and Thank Your Customers

Referrals #6: Reward and Thank Your Customers

If a referral program does not exist in your company or business, check with your manager and try to a get a program set up. It can be the difference between success and failure. Be sure that it is ethical.Draft a short thank-you note for an (imaginary) client that has given you a referral. What are the key things you would include?

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