Existing Customers are Your Best Future Customers

How much business is waiting for you in your customer files? Do you know how to get it? Or will you allow someone else to circumvent your relationship and take business that should have been yours away from you without even realizing it’s happening? Closing the sale is just the first step. After the sale your customer referral system should provide the needed contact to allow you to mine deeper for more business.

There’s no cold calling involved here. These people are already customers so they will take your call and they will talk to you. Develop a plan to contact a specific number of existing customers each month over and above the appointments you’re scheduling to secure new customers. There are lots of ways you can use automated systems to provide contact that builds value and your relationship, but at certain points you need to actually schedule a real contact. And I don’t mean inviting them to have an insurance or financial review. Even to your existing customers that equals sales call, and they will balk.

Don’t reach out unprepared. Target specific customers to contact, but don’t target them because you have a specific product you want to sell them. Rather target them because they’re one of your ideal customers. Before you call them make sure you have reviewed their files so you know as much about them as you can. If the person you’re contacting is a business person do your homework and find out as much about their business as you can. This is a pretty easy task as most businesses have a website these days that tells a lot of information about the business. Then make your call and let them know you appreciate their business and would like to get together with them. Perhaps you could invite them to coffee, lunch, breakfast or to an event you know they’d enjoy attending.

Even though this person is already a customer you still need to establish rapport. So, you want to put the person at ease and have an enjoyable conversation. A quick way to annoy a business owner is to ask them questions about their business that anyone could know. Instead you might ask them how they came to be in the business, or a question that expands on the information you were able to find. People enjoy talking about themselves so this is pretty easy.

Your meeting to learn more about them and strengthen your relationship. You aren’t meeting to sell them a product, but you are meeting to learn about areas of possible concerns that they have. When they bring something up that you have a solution for, don’t pounce on them and start to tell them all about this great product you have. Instead keep them talking because you might discover something even more important as you continue the conversation. Find out what areas of concern are important enough to them that they’d really like to make them go away. Clarify what you’ve heard and let them know that you may have a way to make this concern go away for them. Then schedule a follow-up appointment to share the solution you have with them.

What if you don’t discover any areas of concern? So what, you’ve deepened the relationship. You’ve verified you’re a quality person and someone they wouldn’t mind referring to others. At the end of the meeting as you get ready to leave you can also let them know a very specific person or type of person you’d like to meet and ask if they have a connection with that person. Never use vague questions like, “you know my business is built on referrals who do you know that needs my services”? Those rarely work. But if you asked how you could get introduced to the owner of XYZ company because you have some valuable information you’d like to share with them you’re much more likely to get an introduction.