POSTS TAGGED : business relationship

How New Entrepreneurs Can Use Connections to Build an Early Client Base

In the early days of entrepreneurship, every client gained is a step toward momentum. For new entrepreneurs, established connections offer a unique advantage that’s often overlooked.

New entrepreneur

photo credit: Freepik

Friends, former colleagues, and acquaintances aren’t just passive contacts; they can be a springboard for building trust, credibility, and a foundation of loyal clients. By strategically tapping into these relationships, you can gain your first ten clients more easily than you’d expect, setting the stage for sustainable growth and an expanding network.

Partner with a Local Business

Collaborating with a nearby business can significantly increase your local visibility, as it allows you to tap into an established audience that’s already engaged in the area.…

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Building Relationship Capital Through Personalized Service 

With the rise in competition, endless shopping options both online and in-person, and evolving customer expectations, the value of having customer relationship capital cannot be overstated. These relationships transcend immediate transactional exchanges with customers. They focus on nurturing long-term connections and customer relationships that cultivate long-term brand loyalty and awareness.

Listening to customer

In discerning relationship-building interactions from day-to-day communications with customers, the defining factor lies in the overarching aim of the interaction. For example, day-to-day communication typically lacks the forward-looking mindset essential for true relationship-building. Rather than investing time to understand the customer and their unique interests, day-to-day interactions are often narrowly focused on addressing immediate needs and finalizing transactions.…

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5 Ways to Build a Relationship With Your Customers

A strong relationship with your customers is the key to customer retention. In person, you can build a relationship with someone by listening, helping, and engaging them. But how do you do this in business, particularly in an online business?

Customer relationship

Here are five ways to build customer relationships online.

1. Build Rapport Through the Written Word

Copywriting and content writing allow you to adopt a conversational style of writing. Since a casual style is like talking to a good friend, it builds engagement. If this style of writing serves your audience well, then you’re good to go. Most readers resonate with persuasive or expository writing that simulates a one-on-one interaction.…

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4 Things Companies Can Do to Let Their Employees Know They Care

If 2020 did nothing else, it let many employees know how their company truly felt about them. Some businesses bent over backward to help their employees in light of the pandemic and the pandemonium it caused. Others thought of nothing but their top executives, leaving those on the bottom rungs struggling to survive.

Conversation with employee

photo credit: Gustavo Fring / Pexels

Multiple vaccines will soon be widely available, and America and the world should move on from this coronavirus-fueled nightmare. However, many workers will have to find new jobs, even the ones who their companies did not terminate. They’ll want to move on because of their companies’ atrocious behavior.…

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Planning for the Future: Top Suggestions for Building a Meaningful Supplier Relationship

For those working in the hospitality industry, reliable supplier relationships are everything. Event planners, venue owners, and others who provide food services can benefit substantially from working with a reliable caterer.

Catering business owner

Finding the right supplier is just the first step, though. Read on to find some suggestions for building a meaningful supplier relationship with the right caterer.…

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3 Ways to Smooth the Friction Between Sales and Marketing

Of all the departments within a small business, perhaps no two have a more dysfunctional relationship than sales and marketing. Different surveys reveal different reasons for this, but the most common culprit is poor communication. The sales team might believe marketing should provide better leads, while marketing might think sales should do a better job closing the leads it does generate.

Fostering sales and marketing department relationship

To the customer, however, sales and marketing are one and the same. Breaking down the departmental silos that often separate these teams is the first step to improving communication and aligning goals. As a result, sales will better understand how to appeal to leads, and marketing will understand what’s needed to convert those leads into customers further down the sales funnel.…

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3 Times When an SMB Needs a Lawyer

Small business owners should build a relationship with a local attorney and have someone they can call if a legal problem arises. The problem that a lot of small businesses face is that they don’t have the finances to hire a lawyer for all of their needs.

Meeting with a business lawyer

A lot of businesses need to pick and choose when it’s appropriate to hire a lawyer.

1. Large-Dollar Contracts

If you’re making a deal of a lifetime, you’ll need a lawyer to make sure that the contract you provide or must sign is legally sound. At the very least, you’ll want a lawyer to read through the contract for you.…

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7 Steps to Being a Better Client (or, How to Make Sure The Job’s Done Well)

As the client, you’re paying for a service (in our case PR, video or integrated comms) because you either don’t have the time or the expertise to carry it out internally. And since you’re the one footing the bill, it’s understandable that you might think your job is simply to sign the contract and then wait for the agency to deliver.

Business relationship

They’re the experts after all, so there’s no reason to expect that they wouldn’t just get on with it. There’s a caveat to that approach, however. Because while you may well be paying for services rendered, it’s still a relationship.…

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3 Ways Technology Can Improve your Online Customer Service

Customer service plays a huge role in the satisfaction and return of your customers. However, many online companies have forgotten that having good customer service for an online business is just as important as for a brick and mortar business—maybe even more so. And because many other companies understand this, there are a plenty of different technologies available to help you improve your customer services as well as your overall relationship with your customers or clients.

Caring customer service

To show you how, here are three types of technologies you can use to improve your customer service with online visitors.

Finding Weaknesses with Analytics

Before you can know how to improve, you first need to know where you should be improving.…

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The Dangers of Stereotyping in the Workplace

It’s often thought that diversity in the workplace only involves race and gender, but in actual fact, diversity in the workplace is much broader than that. Your colleagues or employees differ in a number of ways, such as age, relationship status, education, and even their role in the business. It’s illegal to discriminate on a number of number of factors, such as race, gender, and age and although much has been done to tackle discrimination, stereotypes are still prevalent.

Diversity in the workplace

Stereotyping or labelling people is the result of making general assumptions about someone without finding out anything about them. It’s something we have no doubt all done, with several very common ones – such as baby boomers can’t adapt to new technology and changes, and that people who drive a van for a living are rude and unhelpful.…

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