The REAL reasons clients leave you.
In last week’s blog post, we explored why it’s so important to focus on keeping and growing your existing clients… that is, to minimize ‘churn.’ And, in fact, it ought to be your #1 priority when planning for revenue growth!
The question is, why do you have churn in the first place? That is, what are you doing – or not doing – that causes seemingly good clients to leave your firm and take their business elsewhere?
Sure, some clients will still send their projects out to bid and maybe you lose one to a lower-priced competitor. Or maybe you botched a project or said something to piss off a client… but both of those are pretty unlikely. Here are the three real reasons clients leave you:
You’re lazy! This is one of those (easily fixable) problems that I hear all the time. It goes like this, “Steve, we had a great relationship with [insert large, brand-name client here]. They loved us… and we loved them. But then our key contact left and we lost the business.”
What really happened here was that you got lazy. You were so comfortable with the good business you were receiving through that one contact that you never bothered to make and develop other relationships inside the client’s organization. “Yeah, Steve, but we followed him to his new company.” OK… maybe you did. And maybe you picked up some new business. But the fact is, because you were lazy, you lost a good, long-time, high-revenue client.
You’re arrogant! And you’re arrogant like this… You do good work. And you believe that your good work is so good that your clients will keep coming back to you again and again because of that work. That’s arrogance.
So, what happens? Because you’re sure your clients will come back, when their project is over, you move onto another client’s project. And for all intents and purposes, forget about the first client until their next project is due to roll around in five or six months.
No check-in calls, no emails, no sharing of article articles, no webinar invitations, no thank you notes… no nuthin’! And if you’re not talking to your clients between projects, guess who is? Your competition! So, your client leaves you for someone who show’s they care by spending a little bit of time and effort to stay in touch.
You’re all business! We’ve all heard the phrase, “People do business with people they like.” And that is absolutely the case when thinking about having long-term buyer-seller relationships. So, do your clients like you? Do you like them (as people, not just as buyers)? Do you “shoot the shit” with your clients when you’re on a zoom call… or is it all project talk?
If you want to build long-term, hard-to-break relationships with your clients… work to make them your friends, too. Talk about families, their weekends, their vacations, their favorite sports teams and so on. Just talk to them like you would with a friend over a cup of coffee or a glass of wine.
The added bonus: when you like the people you work with, every day becomes that much more enjoyable.
Conclusion
So, if you want to stop the churn, begin by taking better care of your existing clients:
- Get to know more people inside your clients’ organizations.
- Take a little time and effort to stay in touch with your clients between projects.
- And don’t just be a vendor and talk about the next project, become a friend and talk about their lives outside of work.
Good luck and good selling.