3 Ways To Rethink Customer Relationships In The Age Of The Consumer

I think we can all agree that the world of buying and selling today looks drastically different than it did as little as 10 or 15 years ago. With the advent of the internet and the proliferation of content, consumers are more informed than ever. And the byproduct of this easily accessible information? A shift in the balance of power in the brand-consumer relationship.

Early in my book, “Top of Mind,” I talk about how this shift has necessitated the transition from “Me Marketing” to “You Marketing.” Instead of only considering their brand, their product, and their pitch, businesses are building trust with audiences by taking a more customer-centric approach — essentially shifting their messages from being all about them to being all about the audience.

These days, pushing a message out will only get you so far. Instead, companies must focus on all the ways they can help customers, drawing prospects in when they’re ready to convert and retaining them once they do.

It sounds intuitive because it reflects the way most of us prefer to interact with brands. But actually implementing a plan to act on it is another story. Below are three tips to help you rethink your relationships with your audience members and succeed in the age of the consumer.

1. Prioritize the post-sale experience.

A lot of companies have an obsession with landing sales. This mindset is understandable, given that even the best product or service will completely flop without customers. The problem arises when companies become obsessed with always trying to get more new customers and fail to invest in the experiences of the customers they already have.

Growth and success are about more than landing new clients; they’re also about retaining current ones. According to McKinsey, “even small differences in net-revenue churn have very real implications for a company’s top line.” In fact, a 5 percent increase in customer retention rates can increase profits by 25 to 95 percent.

Taking care of the customers you already have is a win-win. By improving retention rates, you’re simultaneously driving new business.

2. Focus on customer success over customer service.

It’s mind-blowing how many companies resort to a reactive customer service approach. This traditional method of customer support naturally highlights problem areas because customers don’t interact with your brand until they’re having an issue.

No business is perfect, but if you spend all your time putting out fires, you'll have a hard time demonstrating how easy it is for your customers to work with you to reach their goals. A proactive approach focused on truly helping your customers succeed and adding value to your relationships with them can turn an entire business around.

When interactions with customers focus on helping them achieve as much as possible — as opposed to quickly fixing a problem to quell a complaint — they’re bound to be much more positive. In the long term, this can strengthen your relationships and highlight opportunities for revenue growth.

3. Use the right tools and resources.

Hopefully, you’re starting to understand the value of a customer success methodology over one centered around customer service, but if you think you’re going to clap your hands and simply proclaim the change in your organization, you’re mistaken. To really make the shift, you’re going to need the right tools.

One place to start is by taking advantage of customer success platforms such as Gainsight that leverage predictive analytics to monitor customer health. Managing relationships effectively is incredibly valuable, and using the right tools can help you maximize customer lifetime value.

Your company content is another essential tool, so consider updating your content marketing strategy to align with a customer success mentality. This means retiring those traditional Me Marketing tactics that put you ahead of your customers and focusing on providing authentic, educational resources to your audience. This kind of content not only helps you continue to attract new customers, but it also helps your current customers get the most value out of working with you — effectively killing two birds with one stone.


In business and in life, we tend to follow tried-and-true approaches, but sometimes this limits our growth potential by enforcing certain boundaries. The most common interpretation of customer service has been around for years, but it’s time for a change. By making a commitment to put customers first and ensure that they know how to take full advantage of what you have to offer, you’re making an investment that will ultimately benefit your business.

Source: https://www.forbes.com
Image Credit: Pixabay




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How Warren Buffett And Steven Spielberg Used Strategic Relationships To Launch Their Careers

For the past seven years, Alex Banayan has been studying success obsessively. He has spent thousands of hours poring over hundreds of biographies and sitting down one-on-one with the people from whom he was eager to learn. Banayan interviewed Bill Gates, Lady Gaga, Steve Wozniak, Maya Angelou, Larry King, Jessica Alba, and many more.

He began this journey as a college student, with no access to his heroes. So, he did what no one would suggest and chased Larry King through a grocery store, hacked Warren Buffett’s shareholders meeting, and crouched in a bathroom to get to Tim Ferriss.

In Banayan’s new book: The Third Door: The Wild Quest to Uncover How the World’s Most Successful People Launched Their Careers, he illuminates the power of relationships to achieve your career goals.

Here are two of the best relationship lessons he learned during his celebrity interviews:

1. Find Your Inside (Wo)man.

Steven Spielberg got his start when he was about nineteen years old. According to Banayan’s recounting of Spielberg, he boarded a tour bus at Universal Studios Hollywood, rode around the lot, and then jumped off, sneaking into a bathroom and disappearing behind a building. He watched the tour bus drive away, and then spent the rest of the day on the Universal lot.

Wandering around, he bumped into a man named Chuck Silvers who worked for Universal TV. They spoke for a while. When Silvers found out Spielberg was an aspiring director, he wrote him a three-day pass.

Spielberg went there for the next three days, and on the fourth, he showed up again, this time dressed in a suit and carrying his dad’s briefcase. Spielberg walked up to the gate, threw a hand in the air, and said, “Hey Scotty”, and the guard simply waved back.

For the next three months, Spielberg arrived at the gate, waved, and walked right through.

On the lot, he would approach Hollywood stars and studio executives and ask them to lunch. Spielberg snuck onto soundstages and sat in editing rooms, soaking up as much information as he could. Some days he’d smuggle an extra suit in his briefcase, sleep overnight in an office, and change into the fresh clothes the next morning and walk back onto the lot.

Eventually Chuck Silvers became Spielberg’s mentor. He advised him to stop schmoozing, and come back when he had a high-quality short film to show. As he had been making short films since he was twelve, Spielberg began writing a twenty-six-minute film called "Amblin'". After months of directing and grueling editing, finally he showed it to Chuck Silvers. It was so good that when Silvers saw it, a tear ran down his cheek.

Silvers reached for the phone and called Sid Sheinberg, Universal TV’s vice president of production.

After Sid Sheinberg watched Amblin’, he asked to meet Spielberg immediately.

Spielberg rushed over to the Universal lot, and Sheinberg offered him a seven-year contract on the spot. And that’s how Steven Spielberg became the youngest major studio director in Hollywood history.

Now pause, and recognize what Spielberg did that was a game-changer. He found his ‘inside (wo)man’: someone inside the organization willing to put his or her reputation on the line for you.

If Chuck Silvers hadn’t offered Spielberg a three-day pass, or called the VP of production and demanded he watch the film, Spielberg never would have gotten the contract.

“Of course, Spielberg had incredible talent, but so do other aspiring directors. There was a reason he got that contract when so many others didn’t,” explains Banayan.

What’s your biggest career goal right now? Who could be your ‘inside (wo)man’ to help you break through?

Banayan interviewing Larry King.

2. Work For Free.

When Warren Buffett was working as a stockbroker, he decided he wanted to hone his skills and go to business school. He applied to Columbia University because he knew that Benjamin Graham, the Wall Street legend known as the father of value investing, taught there. Buffett got into Columbia, took Graham’s class, and eventually Graham became his mentor.

When Buffett was about to graduate, he decided not to take a high-paying corporate job, which most MBAs did, but to try to work directly for Graham instead. Buffett asked Graham for a job, but Graham said no. Buffett then offered to work for free. Graham still said no.

So Buffett went back to Omaha and worked as a stockbroker again. But he continued writing letters to Graham, visiting him in New York, and in Buffett’s own words, after two years of “pestering him”, finally Graham gave him a job.

Buffett was married and had a child by this point, but he still flew to New York as soon as possible to begin working. Buffett didn’t even ask if there was a salary. He worked at a desk outside of Graham’s office, learning first-hand from him.

Two years later, when Graham retired and closed down his firm, Buffett moved back to Omaha to start his own fund. And when Graham’s former clients were looking for a new place to invest their money, Graham referred them to Buffett.

He could’ve gotten a high-paying job right out of school and made far more money in the short-term. But, by offering to work for free under Graham, he set himself up to make much more in the long-term. Instead of trying to get paid as much as possible in dollars, Buffett chose to get paid in mentorship, expertise, and relationships.

Have you had opportunities where you had to choose between getting paid in money versus in relationship currency? What can you do today to ensure you invest in your long-term future and get paid in relationships?

Over the past seven years, Banayan learned, “...that everyone has the power to make little choices that can alter their lives forever. When Warren Buffett asked to work for free, that was a choice. When Steven Spielberg jumped off the Universal Studios tour bus at age nineteen so he could roam the lot and meet film executives, that was a choice.”

Banayan continues, “You can choose either to wait around and hope life gives you what you want, or you can choose to jump up, make strategic relationships, and start putting in the work to make your dreams come true.”

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Source: https://www.forbes.com
Image Credit: Zach Allen



ABOUT WNFP
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How Reverting to 'Old School' Ways Helped Me Build Strategic Relationships

When I was in college, I was eager and hungry to make connections. At 21 years old, as a dorm resident at Westmont College, I founded my business advisory firm, Avant Global. The company has since grown into a global business with well-known, successful clients, including the founding family of the world's largest brick-and-mortar retailer, and one of the largest holding companies in the world.

I credit this to many things, including the people I've surrounded myself with along the way. But I've realized that many of the same tactics and techniques I used on campus in my early dealings are still relevant today. Though technology has paved the way for quicker and more efficient communication, going back to old school ways can help you progress in the competitive business world.

Pick up the phone

My company helps high-profile clients build strategic relationships that drive company growth, investments, funding and more. There are many make-or-break details involved in the day-to-day business within our ecosystem. Email chains and group texts between business associates might be convenient, but calling to speak with colleagues is more effective than a "reply all" exchange.

This is especially true when you've got a global business that's building bridges between Silicon Valley and executives, investors and even successors across the globe. With clients and partners in countries ranging from the Philippines to the United Kingdom, I've learned that the voice lends a human connection that a computer screen cannot compete with.

Write it down

I'm on the road, and often out of the country, much of the year. A digital calendar and iPhone notes just don't cut it sometimes. For many, including myself, taking handwritten notes can help to retain information. It’s also valuable to print itineraries and organize them in folders. You never know when a phone battery will die, or a signal will be lost.

Think outside the boardroom

Deeper connections can be made when you're thinking out of the box and meeting outside of the office or conference call. I've found that nurturing relationships with clients by welcoming them to your home or out for coffee can be valuable to all parties, especially when "shop talk" is off the record.

I often host groups that integrate both personal and professional relationships; you can take a hike, offer a feast or go to lunch with business partners or potential clients. Deeper connections are made when you go beyond the white lights of a corporate space.
Get back to your roots

Digging into your roots and acknowledging your heritage can be fruitful on both a personal and professional level. As a Greek-American, I have a community of support domestically and globally that is bound by a cultural thread. Many of my personal contacts are also passionate about philanthropy, investing and other areas I'm immersed in.

It's through these groups that I could connect Amed Khan, a young, successful investment banker who has been building refugee camps for displaced Syrians in Greece, with an influential Greek-Orthodox priest, Father Alex Karloutsos of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America (Father Alex has offices in New York City and conducts liturgies at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons in Long Island). Father Alex then introduced Khan to a Bishop in Athens who helped Khan to navigate the country's bureaucracy. Khan's Elpida Home has since become more successful, hosting hundreds of refugees who otherwise would have no roof over their heads.

These types of unique connections happen when you find ways to relate on a more personal and engaging level that goes beyond a glass screen. By reverting to “old school” tactics, you too can have a competitive edge in building and nurturing strategic relationships.

Source: http://www.businessnewsdaily.com
Image source: Demetri Argyropoulos

ABOUT WNFP
Westchester Networking for Professionals (WNFP) is a business organization focused on providing our members and guests with an extraordinary networking experience, bringing business professionals together for the sole purpose of generating new relationships and developing new business opportunities. Not a member, learn how you can become a member and join this awesome group of professionals to connect and grow your business.

Stay Connected with WNFP!