Be marketing minded
Being marketing minded means investing energy and a small amount of time in doing the “little extras” which, over the long run:
- increase client satisfaction
- encourage more work
- yield referrals
- cement valuable and satisfying relationships.
Here are a few ideas to get you started:
You’ve just concluded a major project, transaction, or case…
- immediately send out an appropriately-crafted client satisfaction survey
- suggest a project review
- list key issues, their potential ramifications, and learnings from the project
- jot down some ideas to avoid angst and do it (even) better next time – email to your client and other selected key advisors
- send a card with a small gift – a bottle of wine, small hamper, business book, bunch of flowers – as a tangible “thank you”
- follow-up on any offers/promises you’ve made along the way – introductions to other experts, copies of articles, etcetera
- identify useful documents and materials for the future, burn a CD for the client, and send it with a friendly note
- put a reminder into your calendar to follow up in a couple of months to see how things are going.
Total marketing time: two to three hours.
Likely return on investment: excellent.
This is just one situation which illustrates marketing mindedness in action. There are countless others.
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Feature article
Tender readability – tips to improve your tender presentation and some tender presentation no-nos
Tender readability remains a problem for some in the 21st century. I still see submission documents that cling to a handful of really old hat tender presentation and formatting techniques. I suspect this is because some of these ‘rules’ are viewed as being more appropriate to a ‘formal’ style of document such as a tender. […]