All businesses want/need customers that love us. Loving customers = more trust, more loyalty, more sales, and more MOOONEEEYYYY!

But loving customers don’t come easy.

You have to build a relationship with them, kinda like you did with your girlfriend/boyfriend/frog/car (hey…whatever floats your boat!)

Unfortunately for us, that isn’t come easy either I’m afraid.

It doesn’t require a whole bucket-load o’ money, but it does require time and that thing called effort. Buuuttt…. the results are PHENOMENAL – who doesn’t want more sales from the SAME customers (no customer recruitment costs, no advertising costs, no nothin’!) ?!?!

So let’s get down to it….

Imagine this example:

A random homeless guy shouts to you in the street as you walk by “any change sir?”. What are the chances you’ll actuallllly give any to him (although really, your conscience is telling you that you should)? Probably fairly low.

Now let’s take your mum, or best friend that you’ve known for yeeeaarrrsss. If they needed a tenner, would you give it to them? Chances are you would. Now why is that?

Because you know them, you like them and you trust them – all stemming from a solid relationship.

This relationship didn’t just happen overnight. It was developed, molly-cuddled, sweet-talked, laughed at, built, dragged through the mud, suffered endless ups and downs and still rides it all out strong!

That is precisely the kind of relationship you need to create with your customers. Trust, respect, loyalty, friendliness and a touch of good humour.

So now let’s take an example of a potential new customer;

1. Hears about your website, product, service from a friend/tweet/post/ad and decides to check out your site
2. Clicks the link to your website
3. Spends about 15 seconds trying to figure out what you actually do/sell
4. Browses an appealing section and reviews the products/services on it
5. Searches your company name + word “review” into Google to find any scam reports – nada.
6. Clicks back onto your site and decides whether or not your product is of value to them and if they can really need/can afford to buy it
7. Clicks off your website and goes to get something to eat/goes to Facebook and procrastinates for a bit
8. Something e.g. a friend, ad on the tele etc spurs them to go back to your site and buy your product/service
9. Evaluate whether or not it was worth the money.

This is OKAY, but what relationship/trust have you developed with that customer? None. Diddly-Squat. Nada. Nice one mate, now you have about a 0.00005% chance of them coming back and buying from you again. Well done (sic!)

So what can you do about this?

How can you build up this relationship from the very start?

• Connect with them. Offer Live-Chat on site, email addresses, phone numbers, snail mail, blog URL’s etc to answer any questions and start that all-important communication with prospects right away
• Add Value. Try to create VALUE to the customer for free, straight way (free eBook, video tutorial, free gift etc) just for browsing, enquiring or signing up to your mailing list
• Listen. You can learn an awful lot from customer feedback and it opens a fantastic gateway to peoples’ opinions and improvement strategies
• Be real. Speak to your customers at less of a “bureacratic” level and more of a “real” and “personal” level in your sales copywriting. This helps make the customer feel more at ease, connect/resonate with you better and builds loyalty and respect for you and your business. Remember, behind every business is a person, represent that person as someone you would want to do business with/befriend and you won’t go far wrong!

Hope this helped!

NJC XO

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Reputation and Credibility are two vital components of a successful business.

As I’ve said in a previous post- businesses are like people. People love people. So make yours likeable!

But how do we BUILD UP this reputation and credibility?

The most obvious way is to have a 10 year old company, 20 years experience, and oodles of testimonials and portfolio jobs under your belt..

However, in reality, hardly anyone has that (especially us start-ups and budding entrepreneurs!)

So how do we do this, fast, easily and with integrity?

I suggest 2 ways:

1. Boost your reputation by offering a selection/sample of your services for free to potential clients. Everyone loves free stuff, especially when it’s good! And customers are far more likely to let you play around and improve their current product/service/campaign if they know they won’t have to part with a penny for it i.e. they are getting something for nothing, and therefore have absolutely nothing to lose! So here you are satisfying a customer by giving them something for nothing (everyone loves free stuff remember!), adding to your client and job portfolio, and building reputation in your industry (people talk ya know!). And you can always charge for this service to the client later! But the main thing is – you’ve secured a job, built up your portfolio, and are building your reputation – all in one! Fabulous.
2. Create a blog. Blogs are essentially diaries and journals written by people on the web! They are thus excellent platforms to showcase your knowledge of your specialist subject/field (provided you update them regularly)! Increasing reputation, boosting credibility and adding to your exposure and potential client bases are all bi-products of this fantastic internet editorial tool! They can also complement your website quite substantially!
3. Generate press coverage and prove knowledge in editorials! Commenting on other peoples’ websites & blogs, and submitting content to journalists and the press extends your exposure, provides an excellent platform for new connections and potential customers and provides a fantastic tool for link-backs and expanded nice audiences of different fields to your own (fantastic for your website SEO!)
4. Participate in interviews and guest post articles on influential people’s websites in your field. Interviews are great for getting across really valuable information quickly, in a fun and engaging way. This information boosts your reputation and credibility because it shows people from different sources that you know your stuff and are willing to share! Similarly, guest posts allow you to post valuable content from your field to your potential customers directly. This is excellent for proving your worth to your customers! However be careful to only use influential people in your industry/field or you will just be wasting yours, and their time because no-one YOU care about will be listening!

Hope you learned something!

From Your Pal, Natalie XO

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