Are you tight with your co-op agents, group providers, and vendors? (I am, they’re annoyed by me just like you.) Business relationships make doing business a pleasure. Why are we talking about business relationships in a marketing blog? WELLL, it’s because marketing IS relationships. (Feel free to click away if you just had your EUREKA! (Just don’t splash too much water.)

Business relationships are similar to lead generation – in fact, it might be your PRIMARY lead generation technique if you do it right.

Deepening a business relationship is about getting focused on their lives, not just what function they play in the scheme of your business dealings. And if you do it right, more business (and referrals) happen naturally. Plus, they’re a lot more fun this way.

What are business relationship milestones?

Milestones can be routine, ordinary events or more significant to the individual. Milestones can be anything really:

  • Birthdays
  • Holidays
  • Anniversaries (personal and business)
  • Sharing achieved goals, etc.

The most important part is that the instance is repeatable or incremental! (For instance you can’t celebrate someone’s birthday twice in a year but you can celebrate both their first counseling session and their fiftieth!)

How do I celebrate business relationships?

  1. Cards: small cards from sites like AMCards, Vistaprint, or Postable make a great add along (or stand alone) celebration of any milestone. Plus, a great place to add in a special offer!
  2. Small gifts and pop bys: Someone just moved in? Get them a Ring doorbell! Someone’s “graduating” therapy (or actually graduating) could do with a cheeky “here’s to the rest of your life” swag. 1-800 Flowers and Edible Arrangements make great bigger gifts to strengthen your business relationships.
  3. Calls and texts: as simple as it is, just sending a text or giving someone a quick call is an easy way to celebrate, especially if you’re tight on marketing funds.
  4. Automated emails: quite frankly I left these last because they’re not all that personal. But with the right tools and personalization settings, these can be a nice cherry on top for celebrating smaller milestones.

It’s crazy to think about where to start, but if you want to get a full business relationships activation plan worked out for you, contact us!

 

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