‘It’s 10 times easier to distribute, market, and sell your product if you’ve already built a relationship with the person.’
As simple as this tweet is, it had me nodding and ‘but-of-course-ing’ in agreement. It really helps to build a relationship with your ideal client before you start selling.
Big brands build the feeling of relationship through massive ad budgets and enough frequency or repetition that you might find yourself humming their jingle, or using their slogan to make a point in conversation. You feel like you know them. You know what their brand stands for, you know what to expect from them, and so you buy from them.
Easy when you have hundreds of millions in ad spend. How do we, the solopreneurs, entrepreneurs and small business owners get our ideal clients to know us, without a budget?
Here's the playbook.
There are three key elements to a good relationship, whether it’s a personal or a business relationship – TRUST, RESPECT, and CONNECTION.
Here’s how to authentically build relationships (and clients for life) through trust, respect, and connection. You got this!
Build TRUST
We don’t have time to interrogate everything coming at us in our worlds, so we often defer to ‘people like us’ and to ‘credible sources’ to help us make our minds up.
You can tap into this with:
- Reviews from satisfied clients
- If you don’t have clients yet, offer your product or service at no charge in exchange for honest reviews
- Display logos of credible publications that you’ve been featured in
- Incentivise your existing clients to refer you to people they know
- Every time a client expresses delight, ask for a short note or quick video review/testimonial.
Most people are tolerant of honest mistakes, especially from people or companies they like. For a while at least. Repeated glitches shift the dynamic to pity (if they like you) and frustrated impatience (if they don’t). Build trust through your consistency. Build trust through your un-grabby-hands generosity.
- Offer guarantees that are measurable, and stand by them
- Allow your clients to opt-out
- Be specific and measurable in your promises
- Over-deliver
- Apologise and over-deliver, even more, when you’ve messed up
- Keep the brand look and feel the same from social media through to your website
- Make sure your site works as it should, no dead ends or ‘this page does not exist’.
- Make sure your site has an SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer) which shows the lock in your search engine
- Use a credible payment gateway
Earn RESPECT
Again, with so much information coming at us all the time, we tap into deep-seated programming to help us make quick judgment calls on who to trust and who to respect.
- Share your knowledge generously – in webinars, workshops, articles, newsletters, making a quick call to help someone, in social media
- Have clear opinions
- Take the time to explain them
- Never assume that everyone knows everything that you know about your category
- Speak their language, slow down, explain the acronyms
You earn respect when you honor your promises – the same plays as building trust through delivery
- Offer guarantees that are measurable, and stand by them
- Allow your clients to opt-out
- Be specific and measurable in your promises
- And over-deliver
Create CONNECTION
Most especially since the extended times of lockdown, and with many people now working from home, personal connection is key to building relationships.
Show that you are human
- Show your face in images and videos (as scary as that can feel)
- Share your stories
- Be vulnerable, shed a tear, get the giggles, a human is far more appealing than an emotionless suit!
- Respond to social media posts, add comments, engage
- Write as if you are writing for an 8th grader
- Lose the fancy words, and Queen’s English
- Short sentences, short paragraphs, yes, even a few exclamation marks!
- Simple writing doesn’t mean simple ideas, it just makes your ideas accessible.
Most people are super grateful when you reach out to them, and make them feel included.
- Include shout-outs to people in your community, in your newsletters or other platforms of engagement
- If someone is struggling with something related to your offering, send a quick check-in and offer to help
- Share articles or relevant content if you think it will help someone in your community
