Or "Why Joan isn’t seeing the rewards for her effort!"

One of the reasons people aren’t successful in building their business is they have no reason to call a customer.

You know the scene - call a customer back to just "stay in touch". And that ISN’T a reason at all.

I was speaking with my "Joan" the other day and she mentioned that she calls 3 customers per day. At first I thought "Wow! She is committed!"

Then I asked what she calls about. We pick up the conversation from there ...

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"Oh, nothing in particular, just to see how they are going." She knew as soon as she said it she was holding the wrong end of the stick.

"How long have you been doing this?" I asked.

"About 3 months."

"Won a lot of business?"

"Not really."

"So why are you doing it?"

"I have to. Directions from above." As she looked heavenward.
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I really can’t think of a WORSE reason to stay in touch with customers - just to say "Hi!" I would argue both we and they are way to busy to have a casual chat over the phone.

So what do you do? Have a REAL reason to call, write, email or drop in!

The reason many businesses struggle with this is that they don’t do their research. And that may be due to time (lack of), poor data capturing facilities or just a general lack of knowledge about the customer.

Whatever it is, it’s FIXABLE!

Research will tell you quite a few things:

1. whether the customer is in a position to purchase again
2. what their attitude is to growth or consolidation
3. what they may be looking to buy

A whole lot of information that will add value to your call. IF you do the research!