The goal of many businesses just starting out is to reach the point where they are profitable. Far too many businesses just concentrate on the profits at the end of the day then neglect their clients that helped them become profitable. This is a recipe for disaster as businesses that have long term success to not burn bridges with clients but rather work with them for years. Building a client base too quickly can be a negative thing though if it causes deadlines to be missed or employees to be overworked due to taking on too much work. The following are tips to help a business grow their customer base then retain these customers for the extended future.
Rank For Your Specific Keyword Terms
If you run a cable company in Texas you would want to rank for the phrase “best internet providers San Antonio” to maximize the number of leads coming in daily. This is going to take a marketing campaign that is going to be large as cable companies can have large budgets with millions of customers at one time. People rarely are going to search passed the first page on a search engine if they find what they are looking for in the first few results. Create a marketing campaign to help boost your rankings and watch the traffic to the company website skyrocket.
Optimize The Sales Process
Optimizing the sales process is going to take work from a variety of departments. The marketing department needs to be bringing in qualified leads while the sales team needs as much information on the leads as possible. Having a lead fill out a client questionnaire where they can list their pain points in business and what products they are interested is important. This can help the salesperson focus on the pain points rather than pitching products the prospect has no need for. This will also help qualify a prospect if a question about monthly budget is incorporated.
Attend Tradeshows and Conferences
Finding the right tradeshows and conferences to build a client base is not difficult. There are a few things that you should not do though that is constantly pitch if you are at dinner with a prospective client. Business can be talked but do not make it the only thing that is spoken about. Building a relationship over the course of a conference can lead to a deal being signed right in the conference hall or with a follow up in the days following the conference. Nowhere in the world will people find as many potential customers under one roof as they will at a conference.
Focus On Your CRM And Note Nearly EVERYTHING
Keeping clients means delivering work by the deadline and making them feel valued. Noting everything in a CRM is important as you do not want to pitch the same client the same product time after time. They will feel like they are just being passed from person to person rather than building personal rapport. Things like avoiding certain topics can be important as well as there will be clients that go off on tangents that are simply a waste of time. Try to keep the same account manager if possible as the longer they work with the client, the more leeway the company might have if they need to deliver less than stellar news.
