Every year around Christmas time, you get that one stupid gift. A ball of yarn. A ticket to an event you care nothing about, or an ugly sweater. And every year, rather than say what you WANT to say about the item, you accept that the person did their best, and give your thanks.
Have you ever stopped to ask yourself why you bother to do this? Why not just cast off your filter and say how you really feel? The answer is relationship management. And while it may seem obvious how important this is in our personal lives, it never ceases to amaze me at how few businesses really understand how important this is in business as well.
Make no mistake. Relationship marketing is the future.
I know that because the future in marketing is social media, and social media is all about relationships.
If anyone would have told you that a coffee shop would be able to generate enough business that the average lifetime value of one of their customers was over $14,000.00 dollars, you probably wouldn’t believe them.
But that’s exactly what the valuation of a Starbucks customer is.
How did they do it? By forging relationships.
In the 1980’s, the wildly popular sitcom Cheers featured a theme song which proudly proclaimed, “I want to go where everybody knows my name!” It didn’t say, “I want to go where the Stella Artois tastes better off the tap!”
Here are the top 5 strategies small businesses can use to harness the power of relationship marketing today.
1. Re-define Your Space
Most companies like to think of themselves as working in the Business to Business (B2B) space or the Business to Consumer (B2C) space. And while this is a very popular categorization, and while it might be tempting to lump yourself in this category, if this your model of doing business, then I can guarantee you that your marketing isn’t as effective as it could be. Frankly, you’re doing it wrong.
That’s because you’re looking at your business model from the top down, rather than from the bottom up.
Let me give you an example. If you were an entrepreneur with an idea to start a new car company, and you approached investors with the notion that the key to success with your new car company concept was to focus on the tires… what do you think your investors would say? I imagine aside from laughter, if you could even get someone to take you seriously, the response might be something like this: “That’s absurd! Tires can be replaced almost anywhere in the market. Why on earth would you focus on that?”
A great question indeed.
If your focus is on offering products to consumers, products to businesses, or services to consumers or service to businesses, I’ve got bad news for you. You’re absolutely replaceable.
Here’s how to change that. Shift to a P2P model.
Before you are a business, you are a person. You can’t forget that.
Sounds obvious right?
But if it’s so obvious, how come so few businesses have even clarified their brand voice? Their tone? Where is the personality? People love other people and things because of the relationship they have with them. Not because they’re a person or thing.
Traditional marketing puts a focus on the transaction that takes place between the consumer and the business. Relationship marketing puts the focus on fostering and nurturing the relationships between people.
Once you understand this, you will be miles ahead of your competition who don’t.
Second, you have to understand that no matter what business you’re in, you’re in the people business. Treat your customers like they are just customers, and you either a.) won’t last long or b.) will lose massive market share to your competitors who treat their customers like real people. This involves managing relationships with them. Like a bored spouse, your customers need to be engaged. Failing to keep them engaged will damage your relationship and ultimately lead to the unthinkable – brand alienation and divorce.
2. Listen
In his best-selling book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” Stephen Covey talked about the importance of being able to “Seek first to understand… then to be understood.” It went on to be one of the 25 best selling business management books of time. And while corporations, and business moguls can undoubtedly count the advice as some of the most important to their business, surprisingly, most small businesses pay no attention to it.
If you don’t understand who your customers are, how can you satisfy them? If you can’t satisfy your customers, how can your business thrive?
You may be a master chef who runs a restaurant based off of a menu that means the world to you. Fantastic! But if your upscale Italian menu is in Small-ville, CA where they just want, good, down-home classic American, what is it exactly that you’re trying to accomplish? There have been countless restaurants who have had amazing cuisine that just didn’t sit well with their diners, and the reviews reflected that. Those businesses are no longer operational. Was the chef bad? Not at all. He just didn’t know how to listen.
3. Get To Know Them
People need relevant information. And there is nothing more relevant to someone than their identity. In modern culture, one of the biggest parts of one’s identity is their own name.
When we hear our own name, the Reticular Activating System (or RAS) goes to work, waking us up and alerting us that something important has just happened. It’s the same thing that makes us pay attention to the guy in the room juggling objects set on fire, instead of the 100 other people sitting down quietly doing nothing. Technically, you have the power to filter out the fire juggler – but who’s going to? The same thing happens to our brains when we hear our name.
According to the peer reviewed journal “Brain Research”, hearing your own name triggers greater brain activation, especially in the mid frontal cortex, (associated with social behavior), and the middle and superior temporal cortex (associated with long-term memory and auditory processing).
Dale Carnegie said it best in his seminal work, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”:
“Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
Starbucks put this to use in great effect by writing people’s names on their cups when they are served coffee. And Starbucks customers as mentioned earlier are incredibly loyal.
In addition to just knowing their name, try to really get to know your customers. Sure, you’re not going to remember every single one of them. But if you have people that come in on a somewhat regular basis, get to know them on a first name basis. Know what they like and don’t like. You could even use Beacon technology to que songs in your business’ playlist based on which customers are currently present in or nearby your business. All of these things are extensions to your relationship building efforts
4. Nurture The Relationship
Relationships are only as strong as their management.
Period.
Relationships are like houses: you can have the most elegant and sophisticated house in the world, but if poorly managed, it will break down and look like trash. The foundation must be strong, but that’s only half the battle. The real key to success in relationships is management. Cracks are inevitable. Fix them! Leaks will happen. Patch them! By managing relationships, you give them the best chance to succeed. But how can we do this in the age of social media?
It all starts with communication.
Anyone who’s been marriage for any measurable amount of time will tell you that the #1 key to success in their relationship is effective communication. By communicating effectively with your audience, you ensure that you are able to nurture the relationships that you have forged with them, and by doing this, you communicate to them that you value them and the relationship that you have with them.
Keeping them engaged and entertained is also important. You want to make sure that your customers feel that you care about them, and their interests. Post things that matter most to them. By doing this, you can make sure they are seeing content that they really want to see, and that is key.
5. Clarify Your Values
I could tell you to care about your customers and treat them as real people until I’m blue in the face. But none of that matters if caring about people doesn’t fall in alignment with your core principles and company values.
You’d be surprised how many small businesses don’t even have a mission statement. They fail to clarify who they are, who the business is, and who their ideal customers are. That’s why every single one of my consulting clients is asked to clarify these things during the onboarding process.
By clarifying your purpose and mission within the company, you begin to justify the reasons for why you are taking all of these steps in the first place. Few people get into the hospitality business because they don’t enjoy taking care of others in some form or fashion, but if that message isn’t clear, your customer may not get the message. It may get lost in translation somehow or worse, you may not even be communicating it at all.
Do you love animals? Do you donate money to charitable organizations on their behalf? Do you care about fair trade? Do you ethically source your coffee beans? Do you only use organic produce in your sandwiches? Do you only offer clothes not made in sweatshops? Whatever it is that matters to you, whatever principles you live by, make sure you clarify those and communicate them to your customers.
My entire company was built upon my values. Trinhoval stands for Trust, integrity, honesty and values. I also wrote a book, ‘Where in the World is my Woosah?!’, about gratitude, compassion, and helping people reduce stress in an increasingly stressful world. These things are important to me and they come first before any transaction, and they always will. I built the company around that value system and around that ethos.
Finally, if you absolutely feel as though you aren’t in a position to deal with people quite so delicately, just aren’t a people person, or, as is the case with many business owners, just simply don’t have the time to manage that many relationships with people in a realistic way, be sure that you work with a someone who is. You want to make sure that your message is delivered as authentically as possible, and that starts by making sure you believe in and stand behind every word you say, especially to your customers.
When you put people first, people will think of you first. And that is the foundation upon which you build a successful business.