Most sales and marketing professionals understand that it can be much easier to keep and grow the business from a existing client relationships than it is to secure a new ones. Therefore, it simply makes sense to seek out opportunities to build loyalty among your existing customers.

It begins by building a foundation of confidence.

• Provide outstanding service – under-promise and over-deliver through every phase of the order or project, including estimating, approvals, production, delivery and billing.
• Show concern for their satisfaction after you’ve delivered. Find out how it’s going and what they liked or didn’t like. Were there any surprises?
• Did you meet the objective? Showcase your contribution to their growth.

Take the relationship to the next level by continually adding value.

Value is a journey – not a destination. There will always be new opportunities to add value – if you make it a practice to look for them. Remember that every win builds confidence but memory fades quickly.

• Be proactive and provide ideas to help your customers grow their business. Continually dig and listen to identify and understand their needs and to uncover new opportunities.
  • Apply what you’ve learned on previous projects and find ways to replicate or expand your winning solutions.
  • Keep your eyes open for news that affects them. Read the trade publications and business journals. Forward articles of interest that point to a new business opportunity or threat. Always include the implication and a solution.

• Understand your client’s job and find ways to make it easier and more pleasant. The more you understand their business and their job, the more opportunities you will find to add value.
  • Are processing invoices eating up much of their valuable time? Perhaps there is additional information you could show on the invoices, or you could submit them in a different format or on a different day of the month.
  • If you’re handling multiple projects for them, don’t bombard them with separate emails regarding each project. Summarize for them weekly (or daily if needed) to show status and next steps required.
  • Are they getting in trouble with their receiving department because they can’t figure out where deliveries should go? Doing something as simple as adding PO numbers to the attention line in your shipping labels versus just the packing lists can make a big difference.

• Help them overcome a problem. Roll up your sleeves, be a part of their team and fix things.  Own the situation – even if you didn’t create it.

• Build a personal relationship
  • Learn what motivates your client. Does he or she want to get promoted? Or does he or she want social recognition? Is their number-one goal to cut costs or do they want to drive revenue? Your ticket to loyalty is helping them achieve their goals.
  • Become their friend. Know what they love and show genuine interest. Knowing small details about their life gives you an opportunity to build a personal relationship. Remember that all things being equal, people prefer to buy from people they like.
  • Resist the temptation to let technology replace the human touch. Make time for personal meetings and conversations. Today, it’s much too easy to rely on email and text messaging to communicate. While it’s quick and provides the benefit of documentation, the convenience comes at a cost because it diminishes opportunities to develop the personal relationship that’s so crucial for learning and discovering more opportunities to build loyalty and sustainable business.

What are some of your favorite or special ways of continually providing value to your clients? Or as a client what is something you enjoy having and consider valuable?

Can an introvert working in solitude survive in today’s connected-24/7, share-everything social world?

Author Susan Cain contends in her recent New York Times opinion piece, “The Rise of the New Groupthink,” that can be the way to go even as today’s culture overlooks “the quiet part of the creative process.” According to Cain, the New Groupthink – continually collaborating in teams to think, learn, work and socialize without time to be alone – is transforming business, education, religious institutions and other areas to the detriment of creativity and innovation.

I’m a newbie at Canyon Communications but have more than 20 years’ experience in PR and journalism.

Even in my short time, I’m already impressed by the work environment that my fellow Canyonites have created here. It’s an ideal mix of having the room to work autonomously and develop top-flight B2B marketing communications resources coupled with the ability to have fun, exchange ideas and collaborate effectively within a team environment.

What that means for our clients is that they’re receiving the best of both worlds: talented individuals thinking and working on their own piece of the puzzle and then putting their collective expertise and creativity together to devise marcom solutions that deliver results.

Interestingly, Cain claims that brainstorming sessions are one of the worst possible ways to stimulate creativity. What’s your experience?

It’s great to know that there are some key leaders out there reading Canyon’s B2B Fishbowl. In fact, an ERP Analyst named Derek Singleton at Software Advice came to me with a great follow up from my most recent post on social media in B2B. He agrees that social media is an important part of any marketing strategy; however B2B companies have been apt to adapt this outlet, particularly manufacturing companies more so than B2C companies.

Derek informed me of an article he recently published on how manufacturers can use social media to win business. He found in Forrester’s report that only 30 percent of global manufacturers planned to increase social media spending in 2012. What about local manufacturers? He believes that small to

mid-sized manufacturers have the most benefit in building social media outlets compared to global manufacturers. Why? Read his article as he outlines tools to help small and mid-sized manufacturers generate brand awareness, engage/share information and gain more business:

• Think strategically when developing a social media plan
• Use Facebook and Twitter to brand your company and build an audience
• Promote your brand with YouTube or a blog (i.e. share a factory tour or customer testimonial)
  • Love this idea!!
• Expand your network to target sales prospects via LinkedIn

In response to my last post on the debate if social media works in B2B, I think this article proves that social media can be successful in B2B if you use the right tools in front of the right audience.

Big thanks to Derek for reading the Canyon B2B fishbowl and pointing out a helpful resource to our readers!

With the New Year comes the prime opportunity not only to make resolutions and goals of all kinds, but also to evaluate and assess all of those from the past year.  Somewhere on that list should be a review your website’s SEO campaign.  The internet marketing landscape can change fast, so taking the opportunity to revisit objectives, competitiveness, and performance for the coming year can pay huge dividends given that things have likely changed over the course of the year.

Performing an annual review of your SEO strategy is essential to the performance of your website(s), and there is no time like the New Year to do so. Inevitably through the course of the year, you’ve added to your site, little by little. This is a good thing, because it obviously means you were adding new content to take advantage of new and potential SEO opportunities. But as new trends and opportunities emerge, you may find adding content a little at a time may leave your site and overall strategy looking a bit pieced together.

Image credit of SEObook.com

While additions are great, every now and again we need to evaluate and assess whether everything is working together to enhance the original goal and focus. In the SEO game it’s easy to be focused on the overall metrics, but it is equally as important to take a look back to clean up things that may have slipped past us. Things such as over- or under-usage of target keywords, proper linking, etc., can use a quality assurance check now and then as more and more content goes up on your site.

Think of it like decorating a room. Maybe you wanted to have a contemporary Southwestern-themed room in your home. You paint, add furniture and the basic artwork that sets the tone you want. Then your family gets you Southwestern décor for Christmas and your birthday, or the Southwestern section at the Black Friday sale was too good to pass up.

Next thing you know, your room is filled with, albeit cute and attractive, an array of Southwestern décor. What you now have are several items that may all fit the genre, but do they not alter the original image you set out to create? Does that bright-colored poncho your sister-in-law bought you really fit the theme without stretching it?

By revisiting your site (or your room) and evaluating its performance and attributes against the focus and message you wish to present, you create the opportunity to pursue the best changes and strategy into the coming year.

So with this New Year, make it a point not only to evaluate your website’s performance, but also make sure you’re doing your best to meet and exceed your SEO goals.