Random musings: Relationship Marketing and What it Means to YOU!

Tuesday, June 26, 2018

Relationship Marketing and What it Means to YOU!

That's the name of the presentation we had yesterday at our A Leg Up Meetup group. The speaker was amazing and if you read yesterday's post, you'll know who it was...if not you can go here.

The speaker started out by talking about "The Hello Challenge" which is a weekly challenge to the group to talk to at least one new person every week, and he urged them to expand on that by following up with them to build a relationship...not to sell them anything.

Next he talked about what relationship marketing meant to Joe Girard, who is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for having sold the most cars in one year, 1,425...which comes out to a little more than 5 per business day! Joe was so busy that he had a receptionist so that people could make an appointment to buy a car from him! How did Joe do it? He sent a card to everyone he met while selling cars...customers, prospects, friends...EVERY month. He actually had a full time staff that did nothing but send out his 14,000 greeting cards every month. That's right...14,000!

The speaker then went on to say that even though you're not in the auto sales business, you can learn how to use relationship marketing in your business by signing up for his Relationship Marketing Weekly newsletter that interviews people in various industries and how they use relationship marketing to grow their businesses by 200 - 300% or more and how they get 100% of their business by referral.

He then talked about how business owners are busy trying to get new customers for their business but if they built relationships with their existing customers, they won't have to get as many new customers since new customers take more time. You have to convince them to buy your product or service, they need more hand holding because they don't know what to expect, etc. But most business owners move on to the next new customer once somebody purchases from them and that new customer begins to feel neglected. For each month that you're not in contact with your customers, you lose 10% of your influence with them. And after a few months they may be willing to do business with that other salesperson who has been trying to sign them up. Plus, existing customers tend to buy more than new customers through repeat sales and upselling.

He then wrapped up by asking everyone to make an appointment to talk to him about how they can use relationship marketing in their businesses.

And he offered a challenge to follow up with one new person that they meet during the coming week, either by email, phone, text, social media or greeting card and to do the same with somebody that they already know but haven't communicated with in a while.