- Retaining existing clients
and expanding relationships with them
is a huge source of sales for a consulting firm.
Place deliberate effort on building,
strengthening, and expanding relationships
with your existing clients.
This will lead to shorter sales cycles,
lower effort sales, more predictable business,
and more stable income.
But watch out, you risk having too much work
concentrated with a small customer base.
If that big customer goes away,
you've got a huge problem on your hands.
Over the years, I learned some great techniques
for expanding relationships with clients.
The first is ask for referrals
within the client organization.
I started working with a global pharmaceutical firm.
That first client I served, I sat down with her and said,
"Who else in the company would benefit from our services?"
She recommended five names off the top of her head.
You can include project team members
from other departments.
When you're running a project, ask what other
departments have people who should be on this project team.
What that does is it exposes people in other departments
to you and your services.
Conduct interviews with senior stakeholders
so they get to know you and your work.
We've worked with a large financial services firm.
One of the first things we did was sat down
with their C-suite and their SVPs and EVPs and said,
"What are the skill gaps in your organization?"
Once they told us what those gaps were,
we were able to explain to them
the training services we provided
and help them link that gap to our services.
We became really valuable, really fast to that organization,
and the business followed.
Look for ways to help your clients
with their recruiting efforts.
Every time I'm talking to a client and they tell me
they have an open rec on their team,
I ask them for the job spec.
I tell them, "I know a lot of great people.
"Maybe I can help you fill that role."
I become more valuable to the client in that situation.
Send your clients books and articles
that might be of interest to them.
I have one healthcare client where I've wanted
to get to meet the CEO for a long time.
So I asked one of the senior clients that I've
already served there to bring him a copy
of one of my books.
That got me in front of that individual
because now he knows the services we provide
and the perspectives that I have.
The better you know your clients and their agendas,
and the better they know you and the services you provide,
the higher the likelihood that you're going to be able to
build, strengthen, and expand
those great client relationships.