Jack Hubbard is a sales guru for banks and wrote an interesting article in the September 2007 RMA Journal on “Small Business, Big Picture”.
- Lose them by losing touch. Keep them by face-to-face calls.
- Jack sites a survey done by Barlow Research showing that when business owners received no face-to-face calls from their relationship manager at their primary bank, they were only 44% likely to purchase their next product from that bank. With two visits during the year, that percentage jumped to 69%.
- To do:
- Plan a visit to your current customers in the next month.
- Find something in your reading in the next week (newspaper, magazine, blog) that you can cut out and send with a note. Make it a handwritten note.
- Lose them by pushing product. Keep them by becoming a true resource.
- Jack suggests a trip through your bank’s website from a customer point of view. While you personally may not have responsibility for the website, you certainly can assess how user-friendly — or not — it is. Where the bank website falls short, develop those resources yourself and share them with your customers. And make yourself a hero by recommending a feature for your banks website that will really help your business borrowers.
- To Do:
- Develop a list of resources. If they are books, buy some of each and have them to give to your business borrowers when you stop by.
- Consider starting a blog that is business-success focused.
- Lose them by being lender-focused. Keep them by being client-focused.
- How would your clients respond if someone asked them if you are helping them improve their business plan, sharing marketing ideas, passing along technology tips, referring business and helping them grow their business?
- To Do:Back to the list you developed in the step above.
- Send them in the mail.
- Blog about them.
- Put them in your newsletter.
Other ideas?
