As a professional, have you ever felt that you are torn in two directions? Part of you wants to provide an exceptional level of service to your existing clients, but the other part of you wants to generate new business and grow your firm. But which is a priority? Service or sales?
The truth is that both existing and new clients are equally important and neglecting either of them could be catastrophic. If you invest all of your time into ongoing work, you will eventually run your pipeline dry and experience decreased profits. However, if all of your efforts are focused on generating new leads and revenue, your loyal client base will become disenfranchised and their dissatisfaction will push them straight through your competitor’s door.
So, what is the solution? Employ a sales team? Take on a team of service-based professionals to nurture your clients? If you work for a huge corporate firm, this is probably the exact solution you’d implement, but what is you don’t have the financial resources to fund such an expensive strategy? And, more importantly, what if your clients want to form a meaning relationship with you, rather than being passed from pillar to post?
It’s rare that anything in life can be achieved through using just one strategy or just one approach. Most successful people need the help of an accountant, a solicitor and a Financial Planner at different stages in their life. Historically, the client sat in the middle being given advice from the different sources, and whilst they are getting direction from the individual parties, there is no joined up approach, and no-one seems to be looking at whether one set of advice is conflicting with another’s, because they appear to have different priorities.
I saw this problem and used it to my advantage. What if we could all work together and provide a superior level of service to the client? Not only that, but what if we could refer each other business, whilst still being able to fully service our clients? These are the founding principles of what I call my ‘Trusted Team’.
