Relationships and Problems
The headline does not say “relationship problems.” This is an industry magazine, not Dr. Drew and Adam on Loveline. I said relationships and problems. In the new norm, are relationships still important?
Last month one of our longtime clients and a close friend was disappointed in us due to some deadline issues. I will leave all parties unnamed and just give you a 30,000-foot view of the problem. We write two blogs a month for this organization. Like many of you reading this, they have strict legal guidelines that must be met before they publish anything. Therefore, we set up an editorial calendar with deadlines in order to deliver on our promise of two blogs a month. For various reasons we missed a few deadlines. As you can imagine, the client was not happy due to this problem we created for them.
Here’s where relationships come in and save the day. Our client could have fired us and outsourced their blog to someone else. Instead, she texted me and asked if I had 10 minutes for a call. During those 10 minutes she laid out the problem, we came up with a plan, and I went to work figuring out where the bottle neck was so we could fix it.
Due to our relationship, we were able to take a problem and solve it, while at the same time, show the customer they are priority No. 1. The moral of this story is you bet your bum relationships are important. Thanks to my relationship with this person, we avoided losing one of our top clients.
My challenge to you this month is what are you doing to grow your client relationships and your manufacturer relationships? Stop selling for a week and just do relationship-building activities and watch your sales grow overnight.
Dedicated to the Industry,
R. Scott Adams