Successful entrepreneurs tell us that good relationships equals good results. It is always a good time to think about how you can improve and expand your relationships for business. In these tough economic times, it is imperative!
First ask yourself, do you spend time developing relationships? Some times, it is easy to forget the importance of good relationships after you have been in business for some time or you worked for someone else and now you are on your own.
Then ask yourself how do you spend time developing these relationships? Is there one area where you gained the best return on your investment of time? How can you repeat and increase your successes?
Here are a few tips for maintaining and expanding good relationships. Keep in mind that every thing you do or say to your clients and personal resources determine how they evaluate whether you deserve referrals. You need to be thinking about and executing these common sense strategies for solid business relationships.
First be on time or early if you can. Whether you show up for a group or a one on one meeting and you are late, you send a message that you are not well organized. You are also telling that they are not as important as what you were doing before the meeting. When you get to the meeting early, on the other hand, you send a strong message that you are in control of what you do with your time and you are meeting with someone important: your prospect.
Always follow up after your meeting. This is so simple but often overlooked because of the busy lives we lead. If you receive a referral from a client follow up with that client to give them an update about what took place. When you give a referral to a business colleague, follow up on that too.
Set a goal to meet with 2 prospects and 2 clients weekly. Maintaining good relations is an ongoing process, requiring a commitment and investment. Relationships are based on trust. You give and get referrals from people you know who like and trust you but it does take time.
Successful entrepreneurs will also tell you that an effective strategy for building good relationships is giving testimonials to other people.
It is amazing that something as simple as telling someone else about the benefits you received from a service or product can have such a major impact and generate more referral sources for you.
First you need to be giving testimonials about others because it makes them feel good. If these referrals are for your customers or clients or business resources think how good they are going to feel about you. Testimonials also create credibility for the person you have spotlighted. Anything you say about her always outweighs anything she can say about herself. Sometimes, one good testimonial can generate several new clients.
You can give more testimonials to your clients by getting to know them better, visiting their office, talking to their customers and clients and asking them what they think. Of course, you could also do business with them.
The key to a good testimonial is keeping it brief and focusing on real life success stories. For example, what did they do, how much money or time did they save you, and how was their customer service.
Support others and they will support you. Take your client with you to a networking event or a civic group meeting and introduce them. Place a link to them in your blog to their website. Introduce them in your newsletter.
When you give a testimonial about someone, you do not guarantee they will get a new client. You have, however, created a starting point for a dialogue that can result in new business for your client or for yourself. Time invested in giving testimonials can lead to a better bottom line return on relationships.
Author Resource:-
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