Chasing Client Loyalty: How to Turn the Hunt into Profitable Business

The client chase just got more interesting.  In a world of changing priorities, more government regulations and musical chairs’ change at the top, our search for client loyalty appears to be shifting once again. Are loyal clients an endangered species?  A training program I developed two years ago, “The Paradigm Shift is Selling Professional Services”, was a harbinger for these changes.

Now this reality is sinking in for most firms.  This is no longer a surprise attack. It can’t all be tied to the economy or social media.  It happens at most firms due to lack of comprehensive planning.  Firms with a “we have always done it this way” approach to business development and marketing are finding a shrinking client base and more difficulty in acquiring new business.   In other words, they are taking the “I want to be forgettable” approach to client acquisition.  Top of mind means you are unforgettable in the clients’ thinking. How do you get there?

What do business development professionals need today to navigate the swamp that is the marketplace? What role does the firm play in creating a navigation process that leads to success?

First, is your social media and web content acting like a magnet to attract clients?  Firing a shotgun out of a window is a difficult way to hunt tigers. There is a lot of sound and fury, but no results. Every hunter will tell you that it is always better to have the prey come towards you rather than trying to track it down in its territory.  The prey can play too many tricks when it stays within its comfort zone.  There is always a sweet spot when it comes to client acquisition. Understanding the sweet spot of every client is a good start. It is only a start.

It is one thing to get a prospective client out of its comfort zone but another altogether to get your firm out of its comfort zone when the hunt is on.  There are too many variables and behavior patterns that can cause us to chase the wrong client at the right time and the right client at the wrong time.  It can be about money, prestige, favors and so on. “Our most loyal client just fired us,” was the tagline for an airline ad a few years ago. The ad went on to show the CEO sending his top executives out on the road to show clients they cared about them. Has your firm ever been in this position?

Expanding your comfort zone during the hunt requires the following:

1. Absolute focus on why this opportunity makes sense for the firm both short term and long term.

2. Although fee is a consideration, the decision can’t be just about fee. Chasing a client solely for revenue doesn’t build enduring relationships, remarkable work or outstanding companies.

3. What will the experience be like, if the client hires you for this project? Is there team chemistry? What is the client’s performance history on other projects or with other firms?  Do you share the client’s vision or do you even know what the client’s vision is?

4. Can your team have fun and laugh with this client?

5. Risk and reward considerations. What resources will be needed? Do you have these in-house now or will you need to expand your services?

If management keeps saying, “show me the money,” your firm is not coming out of its comfort zone.

Client loyalty is a two-way street. It is like respect, it has to be earned. You can’t expect a client to be loyal, if you haven’t shown loyalty yourself.  If you haven’t gone the extra mile in servicing the client. With that being said, you can’t expect a quid pro quo just because you have serviced the client. 

When I headed up the national business development for an engineering/architecture firm, the CEO  at a corporate quality meeting responded to a question about recognizing employees for superior quality this way, “ Their recognition is their paycheck.” Firms and project teams that believe providing good service is enough to ensure client loyalty are treading on thin ice in today’s market reality.  Loyalty then is in the eyes of the beholder. 

Every industry is under attack from healthcare to corporate facilities to higher education and everywhere in between.  Client competitors seeking to expand their operations and start ups looking to create new opportunities which might make your client’s products obsolete, all put pressure on our clients and their loyalty to our teams. Throw in government regulations that impact the bottom line and client loyalty is tested even more. You need to look inside the industry dynamics your clients are facing and help them develop strategies for strengthening their positions.  A trusted advisor is not easily kicked out of the boardroom.

Always remember, if you don’t have a seat at the table, you are probably on the menu.  Every firm should take their business development and marketing staff through the proven steps toward improving client loyalty.  And, then don’t put baggage in their way as they move your existing clients into the client advocate categories.  Every CEO would agree that the world would be a better place if all their clients were client advocates. There is no magic wand or secret formula for securing client loyalty.  It is a mind set and attitude that pervades the organization from the top down.

The Seinfeld Rules of Business Development

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the wealthiest Hollywood stars mainly because he participated in a popular sitcom about nothing.  Every producer has a formula for making a profitable sitcom and none of them until Larry David, the producer/creator of Seinfeld, thought they could be successful doing a 30 minute weekly sitcom about nothing.

I am not saying that because business development in professional service firms is the most ambiguous business discipline your plan can be about nothing.  Business development at a very basic level must be defined in your firm and your people must know how it works. Since business development is different in scope from everything else your firm does, it is important to define it. For example, does everyone in your firm know the difference between marketing and business development?  Every firm in the country will benefit if they understand and employ the Seinfeld Rules of Business Development.

What are the Seinfeld  business development rules?

                1.  Just because it used to work doesn’t mean it will work in the future.

                2.  Every leader needs a committed team.

                3.  Skill alone can only take you so far.

                4.  Rely on bold ideas to separate yourself from the competition.

                5.  Sell a story people can relate to.

 

Successful firms in our industry have a deep understanding of all business functions and often try to put the square function of business development into the round hole of other business functions.  Inherent in successful business development is the ability to leverage all your firm’s capabilities so a client will see success in selecting your firm.  Not only a successful project, but also personal, team and organizational wins.

The reason business development efforts lose effectiveness over time is because most firms simply keep using the same tactics that worked in the past for the challenges they are facing today.  Although there is a need for old school thinking in a business development strategy, keeping tactics because your don’t need to “recreate the wheel”, is the first step to failure.  If you understand the concept of zero-based budgeting, you will understand my concept of zero-based business development planning.  Management has a hard time forgetting what has worked in the past.  Therefore, it takes a confident business development/marketing group to move management away from proven strategies to something new and different. When was the last time you took a bold business development idea to management?

This brings us to the second rule: Every leader needs a committed team.  Jerry Seinfeld had an above average stand up career before he took off with Seinfeld.  Suffice it to say that he would not be worth $800 million today, if he had relied on a touring standup comedy career. Although Seinfeld was about nothing, the characters had depth and had interesting interactions between each other.  The actors were grood comedians in their own right, but Jerry was the star.  When the leader starts out with humility and is not worried about who gets the credit, the team excels.  The team is committed.  The problem for firms with uncertain business development success is a management and/or a business development team that is not committed or a leader more interested in self-promotion.

 After Jerry Seinfeld was committed to the show, Larry David could have sought out other highly talented, established comedians to fill the roster.  However,he understood that skill alone can only take you so far.  There is a chemistry needed for success in business development as there is a chemistry needed for comedy to work.  Too much of any individual ingredient spoils the whole thing.  How is the chemistry working in your firm?

Does your firm promote project managers to business development because they are good with clients?  Many firms do this and are disappointed when goals are not achieved.  Skills can only take you so far, especially when the skills are not connected directly to business development or marketing.  This is where training can reap huge results.

In small firms, marketing and business development might be managed by one person.  It might be a firm principal rather than a marketing services professional.  Larger firms are capable of supporting separate departments.  These are the firms where team chemistry is extremely important.  However, even small firms need to look at the chemistry connection.

Can you imagine when Larry David pitched the network about a sitcom that was about nothing.  The executives knew David and Seinfeld, but a show about nothing, really.  One executive took a chance on 13 episodes and the rest is television history.  Do you have a bold idea that is just as big, but you are afraid to present it to your management.  There are four things that can happen to your idea: You sell it to management, it is successful and your firm profits.  You sell it to management and they don’t see your vision and vote against it. You decide not to sell it to management  and nothing happens ( I mean even what worked in the past no longer works).  A competitor comes up with the same idea, gets her management team to run with it and they win the big project.  Would you even tell your management team you had the same idea but you were afraid to tell them about it.  Of course, if they turned you down, you could say, “I told you so!”  The latter is probably not a good response if you plan to work for the firm for an extended period of time.  However, if they turned you down, they might have a better appreciation of your ideas and vision in the future.    Follow the advice of Daniel Burnham, “Make no little plans; They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work…”  Big ideas worked in Chicago.

Finally, the most important rule is to sell a story.  For Seinfeld it was a story that average people could relate to.  It wasn’t just New Yorkers who understood the relationship issues between Jerry, George, Kramer and Elaine, it was everybody. 

Your firm’s story is a little different. Your story must be one that a client will invest in.  If your firm has industry experts, use them to tell the story.  Tell project stories from the client’s perspective.  Understand market conditions, how well your firm is prepared for current conditions, your client’s industry and how the client’s history is connected to yours. Then, tell the story.Nothing made Seinfeld the most profitable sitcome in history.  The Seinfeld rules might be just what your firm needs to make its own history.  When you make the bold step, please let us know how we can help by contacting us at tryst@businessdevelopmentpros.org

How Design Professionals Learn to Sell Services

Do you know any architects who grew up wishing they could be used car salesmen?  How about any engineers or lawyers with a similar wish? As a rule, one reason people are drawn to professional services is because of their desire to be as far away from sales as possible.

As I was thinking about this dilemma in professional services, I remembered how Monster.com approached this subject. I was amused by their television commercial that showed children stating what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was a change from normal responses and included children who stated they wanted to become “Yes men and women,” “forced into early retirement”, and “avoid risk at all costs” to mention a few. The ad pointed out the reality of career choice decisions that often don’t turn out the way we planned.

I have delivered messages to people living in a homeless shelter that talk about how nobody ever thinks they will grow up to be an addict, homeless, or broken. When we are young, we aspire for greater things, noble professions, and careers with substance. Then life happens and we are forced to expand our comfort zone.

People who aspire to be engineers, architects, lawyers or CPAs have passion for the profession and talent for honing the skills that are required to succeed. Selling, however, is not one of the attributes on top of the minds of people seeking a career in professional services. Can you name a school of architeture that has an elective course on selling professional services? Many firms won’t even use the word “sales”. They prefer to use business development or marketing, as if these two disciplines were interchangeable. Management understands the need to maintain comfort zones, if the professionals are going to excel at what they do best. However, the bottom line and billable hours usually trump these good intentions.

Architecture, engineering, and law schools don’t teach classes in selling professional services or marketing professional services because it is not integral to the services they are teaching. It isn’t because professionals don’t sell. In fact, changes in all of these professions have caused many more professionals to spend time selling. They didn’t sign up for it. Many inherited it. For others it was a management decision because a person was “good with clients.” Selling isn't taught because it is not technically a needed skill to practice the profession.

Today, most firms need their professionals to be proactive in nurturing clients and acquiring new ones. Does your firm have a sales training program like the one I discovered at an architectural firm I was consulting with? It was client-centric. Meaning that management wanted its project managers to get the next job from the clients they were currently working with. It was a goal without tactics or tools to be used by project managers to move the next project forward. Another firm came up with a plan to boost profits by having project managers spend one extra day cold calling potential clients when they were in a town working on a project. In theory, it was fantastic. The people who know the firm’s services the best, including some industry experts, simply call on clients similar to the one who is being visited and the projects will roll in. Unfortunately, the project managers didn’t buy into the idea and no one ever scheduled an extra day to do the cold calling. Management took a lot of heat on that one.

This is an example of “give someone a fish and he eats for a day. Teach the person how to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.” Management thought by empowering project managers to stay an extra day, they were providing incentive for project managers to sell more work. Were they given a template showing how to make contact calls? Were they given instruction on how a cold call differs from a project meeting? Were they taught basic sales techniques and how to handle objections? Were they asked their opinion of the idea? The answers to these questions are no, no, no and are you kidding.

Some people have an advantage over the majority who lack selling skills. Charisma, outgoing personalities and life experiences that included selling make it easier for some professionals to accept a limited role in selling. However, even the project executive who can sell ice cubes to Eskimos and is totally at ease in a selling environment still needs to be given some other tools. When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. After all, the Eskimo who was sold ice cubes might have really needed the refrigerator/freezer.

Charisma, for example can go a long way, but might stall out when these selling issues come into play: psychological, personal, political, business outcomes, risk, reward, credibility and trust. My book, “Everything You Need in Selling Professional Services, You Learned in Youth Sports, describes the basics every professional needs to sell their services.

The economy, global markets, government regulations and increased competition have created a new paradigm for selling professional services. Since the hallowed halls of higher education aren’t teaching courses in these disciplines, where do you go? Trial and error or baptism by fire are two options.

Visit Business Development Professionals (www.businessdevelopmentpros.org ) and see another answer. For many firms it is THE answer because of the custom nature of its training programs. It might be your answer as well. The search is free and only takes a couple minutes of your time.

Marketing Rules You Should Depend On

I believe in the leaky bucket theory and 80/20 marketing rules in selling professional services. Many of the younger professionals believe this is “old school” and not important in today’s digital age.

 
If we lived in an ideal world, all of our clients would be loyal and stay with us forever. In addition, these clients would have new projects for us every year. Unfortunately, the market doesn’t work this way.

Clients leave us for a host of reasons. Sometimes it is our fault in the delivery of services or client’s perception that we should have done more. Competition is another reason. However, most clients don’t have a project for us every year. This dynamic is the basis for the leaky bucket theory.

We must be constantly pouring new clients and projects into the bucket in order to grow the business or at least maintain equilibrium with the clients that flow out through the holes. When we understand this dynamic, we can take a careful look at the 80/20 marketing rule. The bottom line is that we need to find 20% of our business each year in new clients. Since the cost of obtaining a new client is upwards of 6 times the cost of keeping an existing client, we devote 80% of our marketing resources to obtaining new clients. Although the percentages will not be the same for every firm, it is safe to say that there are no firms using a 100/0 marketing rule.

Even in the age of social media and technology these rules are still in play. If you disagree, please let me know. That gets me to the point of marketing process. We all want to work smarter not harder. Every firm needs to make effective client touches in order to be successful in obtaining new business and seeing a return on their marketing investment.

An SMPS LinkedIn group had an interesting discussion centered on the question of how many client touches are enough. One of the members questioned the need for client touches.

He implied they were something like window dressing that wasn’t needed if the client gave you his personal phone number or you asked the right questions. There is a big difference between maintaining continuity with an existing client and building a relationship with a new client. Is a tweet a touch?  How about liking something on a Facebook or LinkedIn page?

A county executive once asked me why I needed to know which local architects were in line for an important project. I represented Walker Parking Consultants at the time and was doing research on which architect we should team with. He said, “ You guys are the best in the country. Teaming with any local architect is like rolling the dice.” I replied, “If we don’t team, we won’t have any dice to roll.”

On one level touches are a lot like rolling the dice. I think the member who downplayed touches only saw them on this level. In practice touches are marketing tools like dice that allow us to stay in the game.

Outside of the context of a strategic marketing plan, a single touch doesn’t seem like an effective way to fill the leaky bucket. Combined with a comprehensive marketing plan, client research and a process, each touch brings you closer to top of mind with the client.

The magic number is simply whatever it takes to win the client’s business. It might be three or it might be 23. As you extend the number of touches there comes a point of diminishing returns. First, firms don’t have unlimited resources so decisions have to be made as to the value of pursuing a particular client. When in doubt, go back to the marketing plan. Don’t forget the residual value touches have on other clients you are chasing. Most client touches impact multiple potential and existing clients.

Second, there has to be a method to the madness of client touches. They aren’t something that sounded good at the time the annual marketing plan was being developed. For example, did you know all of the potential new clients and projects that were going forward prior to completing the annual marketing plan? Probably not. Yet, the plan is flexible enough to accommodate new entries. How many marketing plans changed when the “dot com” bubble burst or the real estate bubble burst? Are you prepared for the next bubble to burst?

In other words, if the mission is to keep the bucket filled, you shouldn’t spend resources chasing projects that aren’t going to happen.

This is why traditional marketing theories and rules are still in play today. Social media is the great connector of people. However, it is still what you do with the connection that counts. More importantly, as far as new business is concerned, it is what you do FOR the connection that makes all the difference in keeping buckets filled, maximizing marketing resources and improving your return on investment.

 

Getting Personal: Are You a Disciplined Marketing Services Professional?

Marketing services professionals have had a lot of experience leading or working on the creation of a strategic plan for their firms. The result, when implemented properly, is intended to help guide the firm’s business over a certain time period. Stating that this task requires discipline is an understatement.

This article is not about your  discipline in creating the firm’s strategic plan, it is about something personal!

 

It is January, 2014 Where is your personal strategic plan? Winston Churchill said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” That quote applies to any professional who fails to create a personal strategic plan at the beginning of each year. In addition to guiding your professional and personal life, the plan also acts as an anchor to connect you back to when things change or new opportunities appear on the horizon.  People don’t do it because it takes time and discipline.  Does this sound like planning to fail?

The best and most relevant, personal strategic plan is tailored to focus on what matters most to you. Typically, a plan encompasses career issues (i.e. ongoing development in your current role, raised visibility in your field, or a job change), finances, health, and key relationships. However, it is fine to include additional topics that are important to you, such as new adventures, travel, or spiritual development.

Here are six steps for creating your own personal strategic plan:

Step 1 – Find time: During the first few weeks of the New Year to break away from your day-to-day duties and responsibilities and dream about your year and what you want to accomplish.

Step 2 – Do a SWOT analysis on yourself: What are your personal strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? Who could provide you with honest feedback regarding your strengths and weaknesses? What is the forecast for the coming year’s economic realities, both the good and the bad, as they relate to your life and your work?

Step 3 – Clarify your values: What do you value most in your life? It is usually easy to identify the first few (e.g. family, health, happiness), but you need to dig deeper for the purposes of a personal strategic plan. Think carefully about what else you truly value and want to honor in the coming year. Consider leadership roles at your organization or your community, close relationships and connectivity at both personal and professional levels, recognition or greater influence, time, freedom and flexibility, life/work balance or integration, personal growth, new challenges, wealth, service, and meaningful work.

Step 4 – Create your mission statement: This is a brief written statement, just a sentence or two, which is based on the values you want to honor. It is not intended to redefine who you are. Rather, it serves as a reminder of your life’s purpose. Your statement is a valuable touchstone that you can reference throughout the year and use to help guide your behavior and inform your decisions.

Step 5 – Create your goals: As a last step, you should identify goals that align with the core values you identified earlier. For example, if you identified professional growth or leadership opportunities as values, you could include a career-related goal on your list. Under each goal, include specific action steps and a timeframe. Please note that your goals can be broad (i.e. grow my career), but your action steps must be specific and time-limited (i.e. get a new job in 1stQ 2014). I strongly recommend limiting the number of goals and action steps so you can take a realistic approach to what you will accomplish this year. Three to four goals with one to two actions steps under each is doable.

Step 6 – Determine what support you need to stay accountable to your plan: Identifying an accountability partner (perhaps a colleague or good friend) can help you stick to your plan. Agree on a time to check in (could be a 10-minute call every other Friday) or on your own schedule a time weekly, bi-weekly or monthly to review your personal strategic plan and allow for modifications.

Here are some final tips based on my observation of what my most successful clients do:

       A. Plan and focus on what is within your control, as opposed to focusing on things you cannot control, such as the economy or what your boss does or does not do.

       B. Highlight the positive outcomes change will bring as opposed to looking at what you will be giving up, such as moving towards good health versus losing weight.

       C. Reduce your plans rather than over-commit, and take daily actions, even if they are small, to make things happen.

When you take the time and have discipline, creating a personal strategic plan can be transformative. The key is to be patient with yourself and know you are moving in the right direction. Some changes happen quickly while other habits take a whole lot longer to stick.

Face-to-Face: Three Tips for Improved Client Communications

Only the fear of death is ranked higher than the fear of public speaking on the list of what people fear the most.  It is no different for professionals in our industry. I have developed a Communications Skills program for industry professionals and written about use of jargon and communication pitfalls to avoid in previous articles.  However, as we come to the end of another year, I thought it would be helpful to continue the dialogue on communications skills. 

Why are face-to-face communications skills important? Remember, there is no emotion, body language, tone or facial expression in a written communication.  Social networking is really about the written word and many in the industry have come to rely on this for their primary communication links.  Even communication on the telephone lacks many of the tools you use in face-to-face meetings.  Firms that use Skype, Microsoft Lync or Go To Meeting bridge many of the communication barriers but are in no way equal to a face-to-face encounter.  The fear factor is higher when we are asked to present to a group or even an individual.  Whether you are just starting out in the business deveopment arena or a seasoned professional who could benefit from improved client communications, this article is for you.

Today, I want to review the three skills that are essential for building trusting relationships with clients. 

The first skill is your voice.  I had an economics professor in college who made a boring class absolutely intolerable because of the tone of his voice.  He had a monotone cadence and would cough or clear his throat after every other sentence.  The pitch of some voices brings the same reaction as scratching on a chalk board.  If this is you, you need to practice voice control.  You could find a voice coach or simply contact your local Toastmaster club for assistance.  Improve your voice and you will see immediate results in client reaction to your presentations.

Are you an introvert, shy or quiet person?  None of these qualifies you to be a poor speaker.  You just need to expand your comfort zone.  Speaking with a client requires a clear and strong voice.  This is not to be confused with shouting.  Listen to great speakers and learn how they project their words.  A simple search of YouTube will get you on the right track. 

Confidence is the second skill you must master.  Why would your client give you a million dollar deal, if she doesn’t believe what you are telling her?  Are you afraid to look the client in the eyes when you are making your presentation?  The client is more likely to give you careful attention when you make it a point to make eye contact first.  However, you don’t want to get into a staring contest.  Look down to take a note or remove something from your briefcase.  This makes it easier for the client to pay attention to you because she has had a chance to check you out without having to do so while listening to you.  Are you excited about what your firm has to offer, or  does your facial expression remind the client of someone who has just gotten out of bed? 

Confidence in what you are presenting will make the client more interested in selecting your firm than you are in selling it.  Understanding the nuances of the client’s business, the industry, and market is the beginning of your homework.  How he thinks and reacts to pressure points is probably the hardest area to quantify.  However, when you have done all of the required homework, your confidence will soar.  Remember what legendary basketball coach Bob Knight has to say about preparation, “The key is not the "will to win" . . . everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”

Remember, you client likes you or you wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to stand in front of him or her to make the presentation.  The same is true when you have been asked to make a presentation in front of a group.

Finally, you don’t want your body language to betray you or sabotage your message. Experts tell us body language accounts for between 55% and 65% of our communication.  Just what is body language? It is carriage, facial expressions, and gestures. All go into establishing your presence and making a connection with the audience. Gestures can be made with your hands, arms, shoulder, torso, legs, feet or a combination of these but hand gestures are probably the most common. What does the client think of your message when you present it with your arms crossed against your chest?  If you are confident, why are you slouching and not standing tall? Many speakers worry about their hands and keep them in their pockets.  However, appropriate use of your hands can result in a marked increase in the understanding and retention of your message. Correctly used, hand gestures can help you say more in less time, show what you mean without having to resort to visuals, signal your conviction and confidence and add texture and dimension to your material and ideas.

This might seem simplistic but don’t forget to smile.  In fact, you should practice pleasant expressions in front of a mirror.  Try it until you see one you like and then hold it for 15 seconds and repeat it.  Remind yourself of this expression as you go about your daily business until it becomes a memory.  The conditions that surround you during a client presentation or speech in front of a large group can be uncertain and frightening.  But, this memory will keep your expression pleasant and positive.

Whether you are presenting to one person or a hundred, you still have to deal with nerves.  Everyone gets nervous before a major presentation.  My simple advice: Take a breath!

I went with my wife to a Lamaze class when we were expecting our first child.  I still remember the breathing exercises that were intended to calm the mother during childbirth.  Similar breathing exercises are used by public speakers because they release fear, lower stress levels and  enhance their speaking voice.

Incorporating these tips into your client presentations or speeches in front of groups will help you be more effective and enable your message to be understood clearly. The bottom line to clear client communications is the bottom line.

Fired: What Can You Do Before a Client Leaves

This is the time of year we start thinking about next year’s marketing, which leads us to a discussion

 of how many clients will leave us in 2014.  You don’t have that conversation?  You never lose clients?

 

Benjamin Franklin told us that “The only things certain in life are death and taxes.”  It is obvious he didn’t work in our industry.  We can add loss of clients to life’s certainties. 

Client loss doesn’t have to be a disaster.  In many cases you can do something before it happens.
Clients don’t leave us simply because we performed below expectations or the project went south.  There are four reasons why clients leave a firm:

1. You performed excellent work but the client doesn’t have another project.  We call this client evaporation.

2.  You performed acceptable work but the client thought you stopped caring about them and fired you.  We call this client dissatisfaction.

3. You performed acceptable work, but a competitor came in and won the client’s business. We call this competitive disadvantage.

4. Your made mistakes, the project went over budget and promises weren’t kept, and the client fired you.  We call this client outrage.

It should be noted that only one of the reasons had to do with poor work or project delivery. There is nothing you can do about client evaporation except to stay in touch with that company for the time when it does have another project.  The amount of resources spent on that will depend upon what your marketing research tells you about the company.  However, there is nothing you can do to save the client who is at the stage of outrage.  There is not time for grieving.

Obviously, there are things that should have been done before it got to that point.  Some of those things were out of your control.  The contractor might have slipped on a tight schedule or tried to make up some lost profit by sending in a pile of change orders.  Your project team might have changed and the new people needed time to get up to speed.  Team and client chemistry might have been out of balance. You might have made promises early on that were shaky at best and you never went back to the client to explain the reality of the project. Or, worse, your project manager might have made promises you didn’t know about that weren’t kept. Broken trust is the result of allowing any of these things to get between you and your client.  You were in control of more than you thought.  Communication is the critical success factor. Do you understand disaster communications?

An airline ran a commercial a few years ago that opened with a CEO in a conference room with his sales team.  He tells the gathered employees,” The first client we sold when I started this firm fired us today. I have plane tickets for everyone here and we are going to personally visit every key client to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

If you want to prevent reason 2, then you should do what the CEO in the commercial did.  Call it psychology 101, personal dynamics, or how to win friends, but the key to exceeding client expectations is letting them know how much you care.  Sometimes that is easier said than done.  This is especially true for the client that will evaporate next year.  Does management have a list?  The list of key clients along with staff assigned to maintain and build the relationship.  Does staff know what is expected and is there accountability?  Is it included in your marketing plan and part of performance reviews? Anything less than this means a valued client has a chance to fall through the cracks and into the hands of a competitor.

Starting with the premise that clients like you, how can competitors take clients from you?  It probably looks a lot like the way you take clients from your competitors.  We like to pull clients out of the cracks of our competitors. First, the client has to be open to change.  Are any of your existing clients open to change?  Perhaps the client is obligated to issue RFPs for all work.  Change, therefore, is part of the institution.  Yet, you have been their service provider on multiple projects.  Maybe it was because they trusted you to help write the RFP.  Although an RFP gives the impression of shopping around, we all know firms are often “wired” into projects.  You train your staff on quality projects, meeting delivery schedules, timely submittal of meeting minutes and other communications, including answering questions.  How much time do you spend on client service outside of the required project deliverables?

The amount of time spent on client service training is directly proportional to the number of clients lost to competitors in spite of your good work.

When it comes to servicing your client, it is good to remember this jungle saying:

Every morning when the sun comes up the lion knows he has to start running otherwise he will starve to death.

Every morning when the sun comes up the gazelle knows she has to start running otherwise she will get eaten by the lion.

Moral of the story: It doesn’t matter who you are, by the time the sun comes up you better be running.

The industry moral to this story is that without clients your firm will starve and your competitors are running not to be eaten by you.  Yet, you and your competitors play a dual role.  When your staff understands the daily importance of client service, your firm will do more eating than being eaten.  As we teach in our training programs, you also need to reassess the 80/20 rule when it comes to existing clients.  Since it costs at least 5 times as much to obtain a new client than keep an existing client, it makes economic sense to spend more on client retention.  How to do that is a question we can help you find the answer to.

In the meantime, get ready to fill your leaky bucket and develop a client-centric 2014 Marketing Plan.