Who Is After Your Clients?
In this part of the series: “How Small & Mid Sized Firms Grow” we will discuss finding out who is after your clients before it is too late.
Be assured that your clients are on some one else’s prospect list if they even have the possible worth of doing business with. The more visible they are, the larger they are, the greater a target they make. So how do you find out who may be after your clients and how to you defend your turf? In blog #14 we discussed retaining your clients. In this blog we will look at this from a different perspective, that of finding out specifically who is on the hunt and setting up a proactive defense specifically for that competitor.
The first step in finding out who is going after your clients is to stay in touch with them and ask them a variety of questions such as: if they are still very satisfied with your services, do they feel that they are missing out on anything, do they feel that they are receiving a fair value for what they are paying for, and most importantly has anyone offered them something that you are not, or at a lower apparent price? If you ask this of a those people in the organization you will likely find out if you are under threat. This should be done periodically, as things change. If you are safe, that is great as your client knows that you are continuously looking to make sure they are fully satisfied with your service. If not, you now need to prod them as to who it is that is seeking to replace you. Someone at the company will share this with you if have a good relationship with them and ask the question in the right way.
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, it then becomes your job to determine the weaknesses of your adversary and counter them with your strengths to ward off any potential penetration before it starts. We can start with what might appear to be lower prices. You can hopefully demonstrate that given your in depth knowledge of your client, your prices are not only fair, but once someone else comes in there are all sorts of risks to the client by having someone unfamiliar with the account service them. And the cost of these mistakes far outweigh some fractional front end low ball price. There are dozens of other such counters you can make once you know who is going after your business and do a bit of research about them and how to best defend yourself.
Companies do not grow by ignoring the competition. It makes the best companies stronger as they must become more competitive to survive. Those who are complacent, stagnate.
In our next blog we will discuss how to prospect and increase your market share.
To see all articles in this series please go to http://optimal-mgt.com/blog.
Optimal Management is the premier management consulting company to the staffing industry. We act as mentors to owners and managers to maximize their sales, profits and value of their company. We become an extension of our clients operations and are there for all of their staffing and business needs, from sales, marketing and compensation plans, to finance, M&A, general management and everything in between.
We welcome your questions as to personal and business challenges you face in order to grow.
