Seven Principles for Keeping Your Clients

By Andrew Sobel

Some business professionals throw up their hands and retreat from the marketplace when the going gets rough, while others seem to sail effortlessly through the same turbulence. Let’s look at some of the myths about managing clients in an economic downturn, and the principles that can help you to thrive uncertain times:

1. MYTH: “My clients just don’t want to see me – they have no money to spend.” Is this the only reason you spend time with clients? In uncertain times, they need you more than ever!
   
   **Principle 1: Get out into the marketplace–actively seek out your clients and try to help them with whatever issues they’re facing. Be patient and be prepared to invest extra time.
   
   
2. MYTH: “I need to cut my prices to attract business.” Clients would like a discount, but will they pay more when times are good? Of course not!
   
   **Principle 2: Don’t cut prices, but if necessary be willing to propose flexible, creative, and even unorthodox ways of structuring your work and invoicing for it (e.g., break a large project or order into small pieces, postpone invoicing, etc.).
   
   
3. MYTH: “Large companies are a safe port during storms.” In fact, large corporations can be the most disloyal clients of all, enacting blanket, across-the-board cuts that throw the baby–you–out with the bathwater.
   
   **Principle 3: Small and medium-size companies often have greater flexibility to retain and pay a professional who can really add value.
   
   
4. MYTH: “Now is the time to cut back across the board.” Not really. By investing more in sales and marketing, the strong can get stronger in a down market.
   
   **Principle 4: A recession is a good time to increase your market share through enhanced marketing efforts and more “feet on the street.”
   
   
5. MYTH: “It’s more important than ever to demonstrate my specific expertise–it’s the only thing clients will pay for when money is tight”
   
   **Principle 5: In a crisis, insight, judgment, wisdom, and plain level-headedness are often more important than expertise. Experts are commodities in good times and bad.
   
   
6. MYTH: “I need to take any business I can get in times like this.” Not a good idea. In good times and bad, the most successful professionals exercise client selectivity.
   
   **Principle 6: Accepting any and all business looks good now, but it will eventually drag you down and put you in a potentially worse position when things rebound later on.
   
   
7. MYTH: “I need to spend my time with paying clients.” If you help a client who is in-between jobs, unemployed, or otherwise down-and-out, he will never forget it.
   
   **Principle 7: A client in need is a client indeed.

Andrew Sobel is the leading authority on client relationships and the skills and strategies required to earn enduring client and customer loyalty. He is coauthor of Clients for Life: How Great Professionals Development Breakthrough Relationships (Simon & Schuster). He can be reached at (505) 982-0211 or by e-mail at andrew@andrewsobel.com www.andrewsobel.com

Published in Networking Today, February 2002.