Current Newsletter

Build Strong Business Friendships with Clients, Consultants, and Prospects
October 2007

Building business friendships is a critical goal for both sales and client service professionals.

For sales professionals, business friendships translate into more and higher quality prospecting opportunities. A leading pension fund executive tells us that when determining which managers she will meet with, "I always find time to meet with my business friends."

For client service professionals, there is no substitute for strong business friendships. With a business friendship in place, if your investment performance deteriorates, the decision to retain or terminate you becomes more personal. You'll likely get more time to turn things around and lower the risk of loosing the account. Business friendships may also lead to better cross-selling success.

Yet building business friendships with prospects and clients is more challenging than ever. Impersonal contact methods like email and voice mail are replacing more personal contact methods such as meetings and traditional phone calls. And everyone has less time available for in-person contact...both formal and informal.

Against this backdrop, how do you break through and build strong business friendships? In this edition of Ideas, Eager, Davis & Holmes offers six simple ways for you to get closer to your prospects and clients. We suggest that you forward this to everyone at your firm who is involved in new business development, consultant marketing, or client relationship management.

Dale Carnegie concluded that a key to winning friends and influencing people is to know their interests. Practically every method for building strong business friendships depends on having good knowledge of your prospects' and your clients' interests.

Probe your prospects and clients over and over again about their interests. Make good notes on what you learn (spouse, children, college, hobbies, charitable sponsorships, vacation homes, business interests, reading habits, etc.) until you have a full profile. Over time, the richness of your prospect and client interactions will improve dramatically.

Once you know your prospects' and your clients' interests send them information that they appreciate seeing. For example, perhaps you know that a client is considering a 130/30 search. Even if you don't have an appropriate product in that area, research the topic. Find an interesting white paper on 130/30. Send it to your client along with a personal note. Follow up later with a phone call to make sure the client received your correspondence and to get an update.

Remember, being a valued information and advice source goes beyond business-related topics. For example, does your contact own a vacation home in a particular area? If so, it's easy to find and send information of high personal interest to the prospect or client.

A manager once told us that a large client came to them looking for specific information that the manager was subsequently able to provide. "That's great" we said. "No, it created a problem" replied the manager. "They began to call at least monthly with a similar request." When we asked what the client's annual fee was we were told $600,000. What was our message to this manager? The monthly request was a positive step toward building client loyalty and cementing a business friendship with a major client.

Organizational changes, changes in investment strategy, and new hires are all good things on which to keep clients up-to-date. Doing so gives you a reason for staying visible and in touch. When you are giving an update, ask them "what's new?" The answers you receive to that simple question will yield valuable information such as anticipated changes to their asset allocation.

There is no substitute for in-person contact. But, do you have prospect and client contact goals? Do you formally keep track of how often you see your prospects and clients in-person? Establishing goals and keeping track is a good discipline and is not difficult.

When you do see prospects and clients, try to arrange things so you spend time with them outside of a formal business environment. Lunch, golf, and sports events are just a few ideas.

Logistics often preclude in-person prospect and client entertainment. But your own participation, while best, is not a necessity. Complimentary tickets to the theatre, concerts, and sporting events are usually appreciated. But be careful to know and not violate their policies regarding gifts.

We encourage you to send us your ideas for building business friendships. What other methods and strategies have you used or observed that work?