Step 1 – Outstanding Client Relationships

Outstanding Client Relationship means: You enjoy doing business with the client and the client enjoys doing business with you.

In order to quadruple your referral introductions, testimonials and sales without making one cold call you must make a list of clients that you “have or had” an outstanding client relationship with. “Have” means that you currently have an outstanding client relationship with and “Had” means that you have just lost touch with the outstanding client relationship – for whatever reason.

Make a list of all of your “A” clients and rate each one based upon the following criteria:

• You enjoy doing business with the client and the client enjoys doing business with you
• You provide excellent customer service to the client
• You look forward to meeting with and doing business with the client
• The client trusts you and you are looking after all or a substantial amount of the client’s business
• The client has a significant business and/or family network
• The client fits within two to three marketing niches that you have chosen to work with

Note that the above list does not include how profitable the client is or the client’s net worth.

The reason that profit and net worth are not included is that these are not going to matter in relationship to Referral Introductions, Testimonials and Sales if you don’t have an outstanding relationship with the client.

If you are having difficulty making a list of clients that you have an outstanding relationship with, you are likely behaving too much like a salesperson and not behaving like an advisor. The salesperson’s behavior is too impatient to develop deep customer relationships and the sales person is too busy selling to develop deep customer relationships.

Outstanding relationships take time to develop.

The first step towards this is you must have an outstanding relationship with yourself. This means that you know your values, you have identified and met your unmet needs and you have a vision, purpose and mission.

The second step is you must take the time to relate to your clients when you are communicating with them.

To help you to discover what may be preventing you from building outstanding relationships, please see the following points from “Being” An Advisor:

#5
The Advisor –
Leads with a profit generating product.
The Sales Person –Sells too many products.

#6
The Advisor –
Loves to talk with their clients about what their client wants to talk about. The client wants to know what you are going to do for them not so much about the product.
The Sales Person –
Loves to talk about their favorite subject, themselves and their “flavor of the month” product.

#7
The Advisor –
Seeks to serve.
The Sales Person –
Uses sales techniques.

#8
The Advisor –
Takes a genuine interest.
The Sales Person –
Builds rapport.

#9
The Advisor –
Is elegant and professional.
The Sales Person –
Tries to sell during the appointment.

#10
The Advisor –
Emphasizes deep client communication because of their emotional intelligence.
The Sales Person –
Insensitive and avoids deep client communication because they are under pressure.

#11
The Advisor –
Makes clients feel at ease and develops trust because the clients feel the advisor is at peace with who they are, that the advisor has adequate funds to be in business,and the advisor has ample time to be with the client.
The Sales Person –
Makes clients feel nervous because they sense a lack of energy, money and time.

#12
The Advisor –
Looks after people who have money.
The Sales Person –
Tries to look after people’s money.

#13
The Advisor –
Believes every client transaction must be profitable.
The Sales Person –
Does a lot of favors.

#14
The Advisor –
Feels fulfilled from the inside through the work that they do for clients.
The Sales Person –
Does not feel acknowledged by the work that they do for clients.

#15
The Advisor –
Educates clients that providing referrals is a part of their
business process.
The Sales Person –
Is afraid to ask for referrals because of fear of rejection
or they are afraid they will be questioned – “how can I give you a referral when you are not doing a good enough job”?

For the complete article on, "Being" An Advisor, CLICK HERE

Step 2 – Identify If You Are Complete With Your “A” Clients That You Have or Had An Outstanding Relationship With

Beside each name on your list of “A” clients that you have an outstanding relationship with write down either, “Complete or Incomplete”.

Complete means:

You can instantly pickup up the phone to communicate with your outstanding client relationship no matter how much time has passed by. If this is the case read on to Step 5.

Incomplete means:

Just that. There is something that you are incomplete about that is preventing you from instantly picking up the phone to communicate with your outstanding client relationship no matter how much time has passed by.

To gain a deeper understanding of “incomplete” let’s take a look at its meaning:

• Not complete or total; not completed; "an incomplete account of his life"; "political consequences of incomplete military success"; "an incomplete forward pass"
• Not yet finished; "his thesis is still incomplete"; "an uncompleted play"
• The grade assigned only if a student is temporarily unable to complete course requirements because of unusual circumstances.
• A grade in a course for work that has not been completed.

Step 3 – By Understanding Incompletions & Related Emotions, You Will Start To Clear The Path To Quadruple Your Referral Introductions, Testimonials & Sales

As you look at the above definitions of incomplete, and consider your past incompletions….

Do these bring up any emotions in you?

How about the emotions of:

• Anger
• Fear
• Guilt
• Shame

So as you look at the above definitions of incomplete, and consider your past incompletions with your clients…

Do these bring up any beliefs and emotions in you?

• Anger at yourself for not staying in touch?
• Fear that the client will be angry with you and just simply reject you?
• Guilt that you could have done a better job?
• Shame for not following through?

Let’s go back to; “instantly pickup up the phone to communicate with your outstanding client relationship no matter how much time has passed by”.

What is stopping you?

Two things.

Anger, fear, guilt and shame are one.

The second is you likely don’t know what to say, which I’ll cover in one of the forthcoming steps.

Step 4 – Get Rid Of The Anger, Fear, Guilt and Shame

Getting rid of or clearing emotions is a very simple process. It is not a silver bullet either. It must be done a number of times to really take affect and it is well worth it.

All it takes is a little time and the awareness that you are in charge of your emotions and that they are not in charge of you.

There is a saying; “Forgiveness clears limiting beliefs and emotions”.

All you have to do is repeat the following forgiveness process;

• Forgive me for feeling angry at myself for not staying in touch.
• Forgive me for feeling afraid that my client will be angry with me and just simply reject me.
• Forgive me for feeling guilty that I could have done a better job.
• Forgive me for feeling ashamed for not following through.

There is a saying; “Forgiveness reminds you of positive beliefs”.

Your next step is to repeat the following;

• Forgive me for forgetting that my clients will be very happy to hear from me
• Forgive me for forgetting that my clients receive / received outstanding value though working with me and my company
• Forgive me for forgetting that my clients will be happy to help their friends, associates and me to grow my business

To multiply the affect of this process by ten fold, I suggest writing the entire process out.

Step 5 – Make The Calls – Here Is The Script For Referral Introductions, Testimonials & Sales!

Question 1.
How are you? How is (business, car, family, health, hobbies, home or travel)?

Question 2.
Is there anything that I can do to improve my service to you?
If advised that service is required, record information, thank client that it will be done and that you will follow up in 1 week and confirm that progress is being made.

Question 3.
I am looking for ways to improve my service to best serve my clients …

Question 4.
To find ways to design my business around people like you, I would really like your help and input.

Question 5.
What do you like best about the work that we do together?
Be ready! Write down the answers the question.

Question 6.
What could I do to improve the way I work with you?
Be ready! Write down the answers the question.

Question 7.
Is there one thing that I do for you that you didn’t expect?
Be ready! Write down the answers the question.

Question 8.
______________, thank you very much for kind words. I would like to send you a copy of you comments you’re your edit and approval … I’ll get them out to you and follow up in a few days.

Question 9.
Who do you know that would appreciate the same kind of service that you could introduce me to?