Client Management and Your Role as Business Owner

As we are in the end of the first month of 2011, you should have already applied some client management techniques to your business. In this case I am referring to applying the 80/20 rule to see who your bottom of the barrel clients are and finding a way to pull them out of that position or politely drop them as a client to make room for better paying, pleasure to work with clientele.

At this time you should also be raising your time & materials/project prices accordingly or risk losing the chance as most will accept this as a given without much of a fight as the year turns (recurring revenue fee increases should be based on whatever the SLA states but as a side note don’t forget to have automatic increases or the opportunity to increase built into that as well).

You did do that already, right? If not, hop on it as the end/beginning of a year as well as at contract end time is when this should happen. And if everyone is not on some kind of contract/agreement regardless of the type of service/consulting work you do for them, then get them on one. It’s good for everyone to remove as much gray area as possible when working together to solve problems and avoid them as well. It’s also just a plain good business practice and adds value to your company.

But that’s not what this post is about. What I want to talk about are a couple of other important client management items that will ease your marketing pain and avoid the loss of a good client.

I’m sure that got your attention.
So here’s the quick version, as obvious as these points might be, many businesses of varying size do not do these or fail to do them on a regular basis:

Check the Happiness Meter: Of course when you are doing work for clients or doing a monthly report for recurring services you make contact. But that’s often not enough and often not from the right people if we are talking about techs and engineers. You would be surprised how well an email every month or a phone call every month or quarter just to say hello without any sales tones and take their happiness temperature will do for you. If you have account managers, sales people or even a service manager, they can make that call. Sometimes it’s good to also get that call from the head cheese though and for you to hear how things are first hand.

Keep them Educated: This is where your blog or Newsletter comes in. If you don’t do a newsletter, a blog and an email about new blog posts will do. Educate, Educate, Educate. They need to know what’s going on in the world that is affecting the technology they are using and you are their conduit. If not, then someone else will be.

Let Them Know What You Do: It may come as a shock for you that your clients might not know all the services and products you can provide for them. Or know other complimentary vendors you can put them in touch with. As the owner of your business, it’s your job to determine what things your typical clients may need and be able to deliver them.

Let me take a moment and say I am not advocating being everything to anyone. If you know me, that is a huge no-no in my advising. What I mean is that in your small group of niches/verticals, you should be able to deliver expert services covering all ground. Not cover all ground for every possible type of client out there as your company can’t possibly make that claim nor will anyone believe you.

Second to that is letting them know you handle those things or have the resources for them to get in touch with those that do. Anything you can do to make sure they ask your company before dealing with anything that uses technology is key. Otherwise you will see new items popping up here at the client site, possibly interfering with the work you do for them. It will also indicate there are new vendors knocking at your back door because you let them into your yard. You need to be the technology gatekeeper.

This is where you cut down on marketing costs by marketing, in a not-so -pushy manner using the old adage “it’s easier (and cheaper and faster) to sell to an existing client than to find and sell to new clients”. This is very crucial, like the other above points, regarding keeping current clients as current clients.
Taken From (http://www.georgesierchio.com/2011/01/client-management-and-your-role-as.html)