Keep A Long-Lasting Business Relationship In Mind And Attempt To Achieve It

A long-lasting business relationship is imperative for any business to succeed. Repeat business must outpace customer turnover to sustain business growth. Clues to establishing successful long-lasting business relationships can be seen in everyday relationships (think friendships, a spouse etc), but is unique and should be treated differently.

A great business relationship often begins with a combination of attraction and communication. This form of attraction is the compelling reason someone should work with you. In sales 101, it is called your “Benefits Statement.” If benefits are equal, be the better relationship option, people buy from those they like, or like the most. The life cycle to a mature, long-lasting business relationship follows these tips:

Long Term Goals

Our long-term goal is to expand our service achieving a 10% market penetration and operate ten mobile car wash trucks in our exclusive territory.

We also plan to renew our Franchise Agreement for two terms. At the end of five years we plan to operate these trucks without physically doing the labor. We will occasionally wash cars, attend community events and fundraisers. We will at that point be providing more of a managerial role. After the second renewal in ten years, we plan to have a general manager running our company, go into semi-retirement and possibly do a little traveling.

Be a real person

Have a personality, a good hand shake and eye contact in person, or be great on the phone. Humor is like fire, a tremendous tool if used correctly.

Be discoverable with positive results – Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Googleable.

When appropriate, share a bit about your life. Maybe your kids are your passion, maybe you’re both avid golfers - people enjoy working with people who are real.

Be engaging

Ask great questions.

Be a consultant, not just a “yes or no” person & help prevent hurdles they haven’t considered yet.

Help them to feel comfortable, provide references who also think the world of you

Applaud them when they’re doing something great, guide them when they are not.

Build Your Credibility & Trust

Clients like to do business with people they believe are credible and with whom they trust. Did you know that credibility follows credential in the dictionary? This is ironic because an effective way of presenting yourself as a credible person is to talk about your credentials. However, most people feel uneasy about “tooting their horn” because we’ve all learned not to brag. This is usually true, except when it comes to establishing your personal credibility when meeting new people, tooting you own horn is necessary. If you have 10 years of industry experience, let your clients and prospects know. If you’ve been a top salesperson or a member of an important account support team, find ways to share these honors. Do your clients and prospects know about your credentials?

No matter how good your product/service is, customers still won’t buy if they don’t trust you. If your product/service is at all innovative (eg if it involves technology), then new customers will perceive risk in doing business with you. You can reduce the customers’ perception of risk by using the market networks: whom do the customers go to for advice, when coming to their purchase decisions? If you can identify the networks and engage with the opinion-leaders, you can strongly reduce the risks perceived by customers, and get automatic, free-of-charge, business advantage for yourself.

Don’t try to please everybody all the time. That way, you risk ending up being everybody’s second choice. Recognise that different customers may want different things, so choose the types of customers that you can serve best and can reach most easily. Also, different customers use different networks of influence, so you should take this into account as well: which parts of the market can you reach effectively and economically?