I’ve been driving a Porsche Cayenne for more than two years, yet my leasing company keeps sending me letters imploring me to trade in my Mercedes SUV.

They should know the Mercedes is long gone because they bought it from me!

That’s how I got into the Porsche to begin with.

I’m a reasonable customer so I cut vendors a certain amount of slack, but I don’t need to keep receiving special service coupons for that Benz. By the way, if it hadn’t been a service nightmare, I might be driving it still.

Getting these mailers not only tells me that my leasing company is sloppy, but that their special, supposedly customized offers are anything, but. I’m just one of many contented sheep grazing in their fields, and when they want to clip me again, they can more or less do so, at will.

When I contact my inactive accounts I search the Internet to see if I can find anything that’s new about them. Recently, I did this with a Florida insurance company client.

I found they had grown, and they were starting to do some publicity which discussed how consumers can better understand the soaring homeowner rates that have blighted the state in the wake of recent storms and hurricanes.

By the time I spoke with them, I was up to speed with their issues, knowing it was a different company in many ways than it was a couple of years ago. That knowledge helped me to earn more business from them.

To me, this is stuff that belongs in Selling or Marketing 101.

Do your homework. Treat customers as individuals, and profit.

Make a point of updating your database, and by the way, this is a perfect excuse to call your clients NOW.

You’ll be amazed at what you’ll learn, and they’ll probably teach you exactly what you need to know to sell them again!