How to Show Appreciation to Your Clients and Prospects

Many years ago, a business mentor, Kody Bateman, shared with us a saying that has stuck with us and helped us keep focused on paying attention to clients. That mantra is “Appreciation wins out over self-promotion every single time.”

It makes instant and complete sense to show appreciation to your clients and prospects.

How you remember to focus on appreciating rather than sales is a constant struggle for many business owners because you were taught that sales are everything. We also teach our clients that every member of your team is part of your sales team. From the person who answers your phone, to the shipping department to your team members who are not your own W-2s (your banker, your accountant, your network group and all the people you rely on to share your message). Having an attitude of appreciation, along with that incredibly important attitude of gratitude, is a CONSTANT struggle.

Here are several ways to incorporate appreciation into your sales structure.

In other words, you are about to make appreciation part of your method to generate revenue.

The first way is a pretty easy way to show appreciation to your clients and prospects. You are going to do it while you do what you normally do. You should create referrals for your clients and your potential clients by highlighting them in your social media. Watch your news feeds and look for what people are asking for. We have gotten a LOT of business for our clients just by connecting them with the people in our social media feeds that are asking for things.

For example: a chamber of commerce needed a magician for an event. We connected them with Glenndalf the Magician. Another friend asked for a mechanic in Cottonwood and we connected them with Helaine Kurot at 360 Automotive. “Does anyone know a financial planner in Verde Valley?” Yep – talk to Cindy Crossett.

We also just listen during conversations at networking events.

The other day, we were talking to an insurance agent that was about to have surgery and was worried about pain. Instantly, Sharyn figuratively whipped out Don Berlyn’s info. He’s a hypnotherapist that specialized in pain management.

We also connected a banker (not ours) to our season ticket provider with the Diamondbacks (who sells US stuff). Why? Just because it’s a great thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. It will make both their lives better. This gets really easy when you practice.

Would you like an even easier way to show appreciation?

Here you go. When we go to a baseball game, around the 4th inning, we pull out our phones and text a few clients or prospects with this simple message: “Hey, I thought of you today. I hope you are doing great. Thank you for being a client.” You don’t have to wait for downtime. Simply pay attention to your thoughts and when you think of someone, send them a message. It’s a quick and easy way to show appreciation to your clients and prospects.

Your next way to show appreciation to your clients and prospects is a little harder because you are going to have to keep track of events. You can show appreciation to your clients and prospects by learning to recognize special occasions. It could be that you see they are celebrating a win in business, or winning an award, or one of their children had something awesome happen in their lives. If you are a realtor, car salesman or have any other service or product, you can send a card saying happy anniversary. The realtor can send the card to the house. A veterinarian can send birthday cards for their pets. If you want some other ideas on this one, go to FreeMarketingConsultation.com and we will talk about it.

The next way to show appreciation to your clients and prospects is that you can hold events and invite your clients and prospects. We have an old client, a dentist, who holds a yearly private showing of a movie and then holds an ice cream social in the lobby. That’s job security. When we hold events, we always invite clients to attend.

This fifth way to show appreciation to your clients and prospects is lots of fun.

You can provide an unexpected product or service upgrade. In French, this is called a Lagniappe. I learned it years ago from a hotel manager who wanted to open a restaurant. He said his restaurant would always have a lagniappe. A free mini version of one of their deserts or a mini version of one of their appetizers. I have used this concept many times in my business. When clients order logo’d t-shirts, sometimes we would add a sweatshirt with the same logo to the order. Same thing with embroidered polo shirts. We have added a jacket, too. We used this concept in our latest book, “The Marketing Checklist for Sales – 49 Easy Ways to Improve Your Sales for Professionals Who Don’t Like Selling.” At the end, you get to a page that offers you a Lagniappe surprise. It’s a link to a web page with the Basic 15 Marketing Tactics needed for every business.

The last example for this article to show appreciation to your clients and prospects is for you to use the United States postal service to promote yourself by putting cards and news articles in the mail. When we see interesting articles in the news, we print them and send them to clients and prospects with post-its attached that say “Thought you would find this interesting.”  We only add a business card and that’s about it. NEVER do we add a sales flyer. You can do that, too. Heck, we once got a magazine with Jimmy Buffett on the cover with a note that said “We were in your Small Business Breakthrough Bootcamp and remember you saying to find things that interested your prospects and send them information about it.” And that was how we got solar on our last house.

You can also do the same things with your books.

We do that almost daily. We will pick one of our books on marketing, social media, sales, or human resources, and send them to business owners we meet. By the way, if you would like to send our one of our business building books to any of your clients, let us know and we will send you an email with the book to forward to them.

If we can help you in any way to show appreciation to your clients and prospects, head to FreeMarketingConsultation.com or FreeHRConsultation.com. Answer the few easy questions, then follow the link provided to view our calendar and schedule 30 minutes with us. We will work together during your 30-minute Get Focused for Business Success call.

We look forward to helping you in every way we can!