Are You “Top of Mind” with Your Clients?

Be “Top of Mind” with your Clients.

A big mistake is to assume that meeting with someone once or twice a year is adequate for them to keep you in mind when talking with friends about concerns and problems.   No matter how skilled and gregarious you may believe yourself to be, reality is that your clients have little or no thoughts about you between your occasional meetings.   Life is busy.   They are being bombarded with messages and demands from all corners.

You are not on their mind, and you are not on the tip of their tongue.  Most of the time they’re not thinking about you at all!

Not only does that mean you are missing out on their business, but it also means they are likely not talking about you to their friends, family, or colleagues either.    A relevant conversation may come up over lunch or during a golf game and you’re the last thing on their mind.  

However, if you were communicating with them CONSTANTLY they’d remember you exist.  If they had your book or “white paper” on the subject at hand it would give them something to remember and share.   If you had an upcoming meeting or webinar, they’d have something to invite their friend to attend.

Let me give you an example.

I’ve been a high level client and friend of marketing legend Dan Kennedy for many years now.  If I take a quick glance around my office I see the Dan Kennedy “No BS” clock on my wall.   Behind me there’s a Dan Kennedy section on my bookshelf.   On my desk there’s a Dan Kennedy on a long-horn steer bobble head.  Under my desk I have a couple of galley copies of books that I was sent for early review (testimonial.)  Stacked in the corner there are boxes and 3 ring notebooks of various programs that I’ve purchased over the years.  In my office upstairs there are more notebooks with CD’s and DVD’s of various programs.   I can’t go a day without seeing him throughout my office.  Add to that on my bookshelf there are the karate kicker bookends that he sent me for Christmas one year, and many other things.  It’s impossible to miss him.

As a client I’d get at least two packages in the mail every month including his monthly newsletter.  A fax every week.   And, many more “touches.”    By the way the company that now owns much of his material sold me access to their “life-time” of content online.   While it’s great stuff, mostly I forget that it exists.  That doesn’t lie around to remind me.

Another example    

In the 1980’s I bought a book by Joe Girard.   I believe the first one I read was “How to Close Every Sale.”   Pretty quickly I studied anything I could get my hands on from him.

If you don’t know who he is, then here’s from “google:” 

“Joe Girard laid claim to the title “The World’s Greatest Retail Salesman.” In fact, the Guinness Book of World Records bestowed that title on him for twelve consecutive years. The numbers speak for themselves. During his 13-year career (1963-1977) he sold more than 13,000 cars… averaging six cars per business day”

I’d highly recommend that you read all of his books.  What I remember specifically relevant here was that everyone that he ever made a sale to started to receive greeting cards from Joe Girard every month.    Each included “I like you, Joe Girard.”   I imagine prospects got put on the mailing list also, I don’t remember him mentioning specifically.

So each month they received a holiday card with whatever was interesting that month such as St. Patrick’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s or Father’s Day, Easter, Halloween, Independence Day, New Year’s, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and so on.   I’m sure with today’s technology they would have included birthday, wedding anniversary, anniversary of purchase and more.

Like clockwork eventually 13,000+ people were hearing from him EVERY month.   And, of course this was all before email or other cheap and easy methods.  I’m sure if he was doing it today he would still physically mail every month in addition to adding email, texts, broadcast voicemails, social media and more.

How often do your clients hear from you?

If you are not communicating with your clients, they are you missing out.  And, you’re not in their mind when referral opportunities show up.   Or, when they should reach out to you such as when an inheritance comes in or some other mile-stone that you should be involved in helping them through

The point that gets missed is that you need to remind your clients that you are working on their team daily, or at minimum every week.   That happens by creating any number of different ways to educate, entertain, appreciate, and query your clients.

A base minimum requirement to create a steady stream of referrals is constantly being in front of your clients. They should instantly associate your service with your name. Just like when you think of shopping, you think Amazon. When you think search engine, you think Google.

We once talked to the owners of a family business the founder, their father had retired and passed the practice to his kids. The business had around 600 clients on the books, but the kids were too scared to get into regular contact with them. After all, most of these clients had only ever dealt with their father, so they were worried they would take their business elsewhere after finding out he had retired.   

What they should have done was accelerate communications.  They could have newsletters, emails, and online meetings that still came in part from their father.  He could gradually have introduced them and then they would individually communicate more and more.   They could create content attributed to their father and create content attributed to them. That would have created both good will and maintained their confidence of their clients.

If a client does not remember who you are and if they don’t feel that constant connection to you, you are never going to come up in conversation. They will rarely, if ever refer you to friends or associates.