5 Things I learned from clients this week
We are in professional services and as such our job is to ensure that our clients always receive a "professional service" at the standard that they expect.
At Marketing Eye, we spend time training our team to be better at managing client expectations and delivering best-in-class marketing services on an ongoing basis.
Our model is simple; We provide an outsourced marketing department for small to medium sized businesses.
Our clients are predominantly entrepreneurs who once had an idea, developed it and then became successful in their pursuit to realize their dreams.
Here are 5 things I learned this week:
At Marketing Eye, we spend time training our team to be better at managing client expectations and delivering best-in-class marketing services on an ongoing basis.
Our model is simple; We provide an outsourced marketing department for small to medium sized businesses.
Our clients are predominantly entrepreneurs who once had an idea, developed it and then became successful in their pursuit to realize their dreams.
Here are 5 things I learned this week:
- All clients have one motive and that is to pass onto us their marketing problem, for us to solve. They don't come to us because they "know it all". They come because they have realized that they don't have the skills in-house to do their marketing at the level they would like to. Our job is to take that problem away from them and provide expert marketing knowledge and tactical execution, that is in line with their strategy, brand and company culture.
- No-one has time, and we need to always ensure that we are mindful of this. Clients cannot get back to you within an hour because they are busy doing what they do best and that is building their own businesses. If you are going to spend time with clients, make sure you have something worthwhile to say, and that you add value to their lives. This week, every client I spoke to valued the fact that I put thought into my communications and always gave them one piece of marketing advice that they were not expecting.
- Managing expectations is everything and ensuring that clients understand what it takes to design a logo, or a website, or to do search engine optimization for that matter. I don't work on client marketing campaigns, but every now and again I will do a pulse check to ensure that they are happy with our service and are benefiting from working with Marketing Eye. The number one issue is always understanding how long it takes to do something. I make a point of explaining that designing a website is not a couple of hours of work - it's a 2 to 3 day job. Developing it is another 2 to 3 days. A logo, a week. These things don't happen by accident and our marketing team don't necessarily wake up with this one great idea, and then go to work and develop it. When they do - it's a bonus, but don't bank on it!
- We all want to grow our businesses and our job is to ensure that we are doing everything in our power to make it easier to grow our clients businesses and in turn, grow our own. Our clients can teach us more about how to do our jobs better than our employees. If you listen and learn from both - it's a bonus!
- Always understand where the client is coming from, and while it is important to listen to your team, ultimately, it's the client who determines whether you have done a good job or not. Go out of your way to understand their personalities and work with it. Your ability to navigate different personality types will ultimately help you prosper in your business.
I honestly love my clients. They are all very interesting, kind, thought provoking people. I treat them like friends rather than clients and I always ensure that I give them more than what they pay for.
It's a tough job to run a company and as an entrepreneur we all know that it is cheaper to keep an existing client, than to find a new one.
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