10 Feb 10 How to Have Lasting Relationships with Clients
Clients are the most precious assets for a meeting planning business. Without clients, there can be no business. With poor quality of clients, the business will be poor and if you manage to get very good clients and retain their loyalty, your business will only go up and up. This all sounds very exciting. But it is not easy to get very good clients and all the more difficult to retain them. After all, whatever you do, your competition is trying the same and may use better techniques to get business. Are there any innovative approaches to client relationships?
The first need is of course client satisfaction. If the client is satisfied with your response time, after sales service and can depend on you, pricing may become secondary. All clients do not buy from a supplier whose sales at the lowest price. If your product cost is a small percentage of clients total expense or if your product is essential for your clients, you are onto something good. How to retain such clients despite all the competition? What are the other factors than client satisfaction?
Relationship is one such other major factor. Do you relate with your clients only professionally, or are very good friends? Both these extremes can hurt. For a long-term business relationship, good friendship is not good for health of your business. Any problem in the personal friendship will directly affect your business. What if you relate to your meeting planning clients mechanically in a professional style totally devoid of personal touch? You know the answer yourself.
What is needed is a relationship that does not border on personal friendships, but crosses mechanical approach. A fine balance between personal and professional.
Tags: Client Relationships, Client Satisfaction, Extremes, Fine Balance, Good Friends, Health, Lasting Relationships, Loyalty, Mechanical Approach, Meeting Planning, Nbsp, Personal Friendship, Personal Friendships, Personal Touch, Poor Quality, Precious Assets, Professional Style, Response Time, Term Business Relationship
29 Jul 09 Lead Generation for the Self-Employed Meeting Planner
Whether you are a meeting planner or a freelance chicken coop cleaner, one thing is clear: you need to market your services, communicate with clients, and turn leads into sales. The first two are getting easier every day. The Internet and email has helped immensely with reach-out efforts of all businesses that use it. However, turning leads into sales is still done with the personal touch. Here are some ways to boost sales by what sales experts call lead nurturing.
Lead Quality
The first thing you need to do is determine if you lead is ready to buy–in your case, ready to book an event. If you get most of your leads through the internet, have a form available for your leads that ask when they think they will be ready to commit or if they are just shopping for ideas. Word it in a way that makes them feel comfortable telling you the truth. If you work by phone, have the questionnaire handy to ask them verbally. (more…)
Tags: Business Meetings, Chicken Coop, Freelance, Future Communications, Handy, Incentive Travel, Intensive Conference, Internet Email, Lead Generation, Lead Generator, Marketing Efforts, Meeting Planner, One Thing, Personal Touch, Questionnaire, Red Widgets, Sales Lead, Shopping, Truth, Voice Mail
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