The "First-Date Effect": Are you treating new clients like a long-term relationship, or a one-night stand?
Business partnerships, like any other relationship, can be very exciting in the beginning. You meet someone new, and the two of you click. You're on the same page, you have the same vision...You just get one another. Contracts are signed, meetings are arranged and, for a while, the two of you work happily in sync.
Then, something happens. Maybe they're your financial planner, and they stop answering your emails in a timely manner. Or your IT services provider shows up to your office dressed a bit more casually than you're comfortable with. You ask your marketing representative whether you should re-design your logo or leave it as is and they respond with, "Oh, whatever you think is probably fine."
When you first met, you fell in love with their customer service. But now? The thrill is gone, baby.
You don't like being treated like a sure thing, so you know your customers don't either. Here are some ways you can keep the spark alive with your clients so you know they'll stay loyal to your business.
Stay in communication.
Let's say you go out to dinner on a romantic date. You have a nice time, and think the other person did, too. You call them the next day and leave a voicemail thanking them and asking if they'd like to go out again sometime.
Then you wait. And wait. Three days later, you just get a text reading, "sure sounds good".
You probably wouldn't be too impressed. You definitely would feel like they were not as invested in the relationship as you. It's the same way customers feel if you don't respond to communications from them in a timely and appropriate manner. Some general rules:
1.) Respond via an appropriate medium. In other words, unless specifically indicated in the voicemail, don't respond to a phone call with a text or email. If they consider an issue important enough to warrant a phone call, and you shoot back with a casual text or email, it implies that the problem isn't as important to you as it is to them.
2.) Be timely. Don't leave someone hanging, waiting for your response. Many business etiquette guides advise responding within 24 hours to all communications. Faster is even better. If you are trading emails with a client as the two of you collaborate on a project, don't just log off at 5:00 and drop them until the next afternoon. If you have to attend to other business (even if that "business" is really just "having a personal life"), let them know that you have to run for a bit, and then resume communication with them as soon as you can the next morning.
3.) Be professional. This shouldn't have to be said but, sadly, it still does. No matter how friendly your client is, no matter how much you like each other, your communication still has to be professional. Every email doesn't have to include an attached notarized PDF copy in triplicate, but it does need to be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Taking the time to make sure your communications are professional is a sign of respect for your client.
While we are on the subject of professionalism...
Stay attractive.
One of the cliches of romantic comedies is a couple experiencing tension because of complacency in the relationship. At the beginning of the movie, when they fall in love, they go out to five-star restaurants in formal wear. The second act features them eating take-out on the couch in sweats.
When your customer service starts slipping, it is the metaphorical equivalent of you showing up to the client site, wearing sweat pants and eating pizza. (Also, please don't literally show up wearing sweat pants and eating pizza, either.) If you don't provide the same quality of service you did at the beginning, it makes your customer feel taken-for-granted, and like you misled them with false advertising.
Your business should always strive to grow and improve, and your customer service along with that. If you want to really shock your customers, surprise them by providing exceptional service, even above-and-beyond the high level they've come to expect from you.
Stay 
interested.
Nothing makes people like you more than when you make them feel attractive. Just like you try to remember your significant other's birthday or favorite dessert, your clients will be flattered if you can remember the intimate details of their business. You do not want your client to have to remind you of items discussed at prior meetings, or current issues being faced. No matter the size of the company or how much income they bring you, you want each client to feel like they are at the forefront of your mind.
There are small things you can do to make your client feel significant. This could be something as small as tweeting them a relevant news article, or as large as arranging a referral meeting to help them earn new business. By going above-and-beyond the minimum which is required of you, you can help ensure a lasting client relationship to profit you both for the long-term.
Nice Guys Finish First
Anyone who knows us here at The Bookkeeper knows that we’re a pretty friendly bunch. That extends to all aspects of our lives, most notably in the way we do business. We do not care for the cynical “nice-guys-finish-last” mentality, which opines that success requires selfishness and back-stabbing. We firmly believe that kindness and goodness take you farther in business and in life.
Not buying it? Check out our tips on how to make niceness work for you.
1.) Be nice when you network.
You may have also heard this phrased before as, “Don’t be interesting; be interested.” People remember the people who make them feel important, much more than the people who are just trying to look important. Imagine that you’re out at a networking event and you meet two people in identical fields.
Person A bounces around the room like a ping pong ball, making his introduction (really more of a pitch) so fast he doesn’t hear your name when you respond. He’s already moved on to his next scripted paragraph, explaining why his company is the best and how you need him for your business. He shoves a business card in your hand and tells you he’ll see you at coffee next Tuesday morning. (Did you agree to an appointment? At this point you’re so overwhelmed you’re not even sure.) Before you can open your mouth to say that Tuesday isn’t a great day for you, he’s spotted another mark over your shoulder and is striding off.
You may meet Person B later in the night. He has the same profession as Person A, but never mind that; he really wants to hear about what you do. And he actually listens when you tell him about your business. In fact, he knows someone in a complementary field who could be a really good referral partner for you; would you mind if he introduced you two? At no point does he try to sell you on his business. If you express interest in enlisting his services, he’d certainly love to follow up with you, but he lets you make the first move. Overall, he seems like he is genuinely just there to help.
So, who would you rather do business with? The nice guy, right? And if you want to work with nice guys, then everyone else probably does, too. So be the nice guy.
2.) Be nice even without the potential of reward.
You really can’t fake niceness. People can smell insincerity a mile away and we’ve all known that “friend” who only seems to come around and be helpful when they want something. True kindness is a way of life.
Here’s a real-life example (and, I won’t name names, because he’d be embarrassed if he knew I wrote this about him): I know someone who is an expert with a certain type of software. (We can call him C.) A friend-of-a-friend he’d been introduced to a week or so earlier contacted him one day about a glitch he was experiencing with the program. This man wasn’t a client, nor even a close friend; just someone he’d met once. But he spent a good part of the day emailing with the guy and trying to find out the source of the problem. They found a solution, the problem got fixed, and C forgot all about it.
A month later, the man he’d helped shows up at a networking meeting. With no prompting, he spoke up and gave C a huge kudos, and encouraged anyone who was looking for those type of services to go to C. He even said, “This is the man you want to do business with.”
He didn’t have to do that. C never said, “Sure, I’ll help solve your problem, but you’d better get me some business out of it.” He did it just to be nice. And would do it again, even if the favor hadn’t been repaid.
Because, when you’re nice, you…
3.) Do it for you.
Legendary basketball coach John Wooden once stated, “You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.” This can be especially true for those of us who go into business for ourselves. Entrepreneurs and small business owners can get a bad rap, as being either bloodthirsty financial sharks or paranoid penny-pinchers. But cynics aren’t the ones who start new businesses. Optimists and dreamers are the ones who launch new ventures and, while everyone would enjoy making a lot of money and becoming very rich, it’s rarely the main goal. People go into business for themselves to do what they love, to create something new and exciting, and for the freedom of being their own boss.
To look at it in (literally) black-and-white, take perennial Christmas favorite “It’s a Wonderful Life”. You can take the role of one of two* important characters in that story: nice guy and town hero George Bailey, or the miserly Mr. Potter. Only one of them is happy at the end of the movie.
* Okay, three important characters if you count Clarence. But we’re just saying you should be a nice guy; no one is asking you to be an angel.
