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1. Regular Communication

You must communicate with clients and prospective clients regularly.

2. WIIFM - Referrals and more business (what’s in it for you)

You do this to show them you care, to improve your perceived service. You do this to get the lifeblood of any business - referrals.

3. Targeting = Success

To be successful you have to get the right information to the right people at the right time.

4. Your customer database is your Goldmine

The only way to feasibly do this for any small, medium, self employed or professional services company is to have customer information in a database. AND THEN WORK IT.

5. Latest software = automation

You don't have to be fancy schmancy, all you need is to have 'late model' software (anything from 2002 up) and staff that know how to use it. An example I used is the stunning email merging facility in Officewhere you can take any database information and weave it into personalised customised emails.

6. What info do you really have?

Information in your database should not only reflect what business they do with you - but also what is relevant to /about them. Categorising them solely by their product or service purchase isn't enough. Do you know who's an executive, a PA, a homemaker, an employee or business owner? Each will have different interests, won't they? And d epending on your business, you might want to send different information to them. A lack of information relevant to them, which allows you to successfully target right to their interests can be your area of greatest downfall.

7. Them. Not You

However your caveat. Them. Not You. Your communication goal should be to make them more successful. To educate them, help them, interest them, give them specials. It's NOT about you. It's not to solely sell your products. That should be a small incidental.

8. Give and ye shall receive

If you don't do the above, no one will value your communications over time. Full stop. And if they don't value them - they won't read them or share them with others. For example recently I wrote an article called The Agony Of A Website Revamp. I had to think twice. I was 1 - giving away real intellectual knowledge which I normally would be paid for and 2 - giving my secrets away to competition. But still I did it and after three months - even though the original readership of that version was 5800 individuals (that I could track), to date the newsletter has been looked at over 37,000 times. How's that for referrals?