Two weeks ago, I penned 20 Must Do Business Boosters for 2012. Being a big believer in acting on your own advice, I took it upon myself to implement the first two points.
To refresh you, they were:
- Call one of your biggest clients and wish them a happy new year. No catch, no sales spiel, simply call and thank them for their business and wish them a happy new year. This will be genuine and a great way to reinforce your relationship.
- Run a report in your accounting package to determine who spent what with you last calendar year. Print out the top 10 clients and ensure you give them extra special treatment.
Rather than do these individually, I combined the concept, found my top 10 clients by spend last year, and wrote an individual, personalized email to each of them. From running the report to sending the emails took a touch over two hours.
The response? Eight of them wrote back, and two are still on leave. Out of those eight, three of them asked me to meet with them over some new work. That meant three proposals out the door a few days later.
So far, I’ve won one of these, and it is very likely I’ll win the other two too. So, for just over two hours work, I’ve sold three new solutions, and I never made any hints towards a sale in that first email.
I urge you to do the same if you haven’t already – this is a real example of why this advice works.
Imagine if you acted on even just your favorite 5 points out of my list: where that would take you?
Good luck!
Miles BurkeAs Director of Bam Creative, and Chairperson of the Australian Web Industry Association, Miles spends his time managing his business or speaking about managing businesses. Recently awarded as one of the top Western Australian entrepreneurs under 40 years old, Miles can also be found writing at his blog.
