Less than 20 more days to make this year count, what a challenge it has been for everyone, for some more than others. It’s taken a mental toll on me and I assume you too, and while I strive to be optimistic, creative and consultative every day, I need to add value to my clients whenever they can benefit from creative suggestions, so they too stand out.
So I was intrigued I came across an video in inc.com titled “Six Ways to Innovate Mentally” which I urge you to watch for 1 minute 45 seconds, and I will be adding to each of its six concepts over the next few days. I hope you enjoy and can adapt them.
- Know your Customers; Authenticate Their Needs
There is no more lonely feeling than trying to market a service to clients who are not interested. Cue the chorus of crickets.
There is a warm feeling of camaraderie when you establish yourself as a trusted advisor to a client and become part of their “team.” When they call you for a round-robin conference call or Zoom meeting to listen to their newest idea and ask you to offer your ways of making it more realistic and successful, you know you have earned your stripes.
They are relying on you to add the accumulated experience you have earned, to offer your observations on the new things you have come across from colleagues, and interject the “Danger Will Robinson” alert you must sound when there is an impediment you feel they need to evaluate and address.
You know them; they know you. You know their strengths and weaknesses. Believe me, they know both of yours.
Make them aware of the value added that got you that visitor seat at their table, so that helps you celebrate milestones of 10- and 15- and (for some of my clients soon) 20-year anniversaries, toasting each other as you have both grown and weathered storms together. Make merry.
Some challenges can be laughed at after the fact, as they see how you rise to the occasion to help them through it. They will recall how you went to bat for them with the vendor, how you gained them a goal they never thought possible, how you are a “gem,” as you want to be called.
But don’t rest on your past laurels; every day is another test, authenticating your current skills. Being complacent and sloppy can tarnish that warm fuzzy feeling they have for you by any inference of a failure to deliver. Don’t even allow the situation to get close to that.
Think forward to discuss where you can take the client in the coming new year. Ask what their plans are and offer ways you can help them achieve them.
Feel confident to ask clients to recommend you on LinkedIn for specific situations and have them tell the story of how you rose above to deliver a skill you have.
Remind them to refer you to friends and colleagues. Ask or you will never receive more than that phone call or email and then it will dissipate into the ether. Memorialize their good feelings. It will cement them to you and you to them.
Tomorrow: part 6 “Test Early”