Cafeteria Clients

Some of you may have "cafeteria employees" that I discussed last week. However, all of us have "cafeteria clients" whether we are willing to admit it or not. These are people who:

• Take what they like about your services for granted and seem to only remember what goes wrong
• Enjoy your free or low-cost services, but procrastinate with regards to engaging you fully to improve their company even though the return on that investment might be as much as 10X
• Spend some money with you, but do not understand the value of other products and/or services you could provide that would significantly help them achieve their objectives.

Just as you want to better engage cafeteria employees, the question is how do you more fully engage cafeteria clients, so they gain the most from the relationship and you increase the amount of money they spend with your company? The answer is similar to my recommendation for employees: We do it systematically.

Here are three quick ways to better engage less committed clients:

1. Exchange Expectations with clients and follow-up similar to the way described in our Expectations training document that is available in the Free Stuff area of SuccessWithPeople.com (Click to Register under Members section).

The key objectives of this exercise are first to fully comprehend your clients' most critical needs, and second, to clearly define the behaviors expected between your two organizations. Then follow-up regularly to confirm your people are meeting or exceeding those expectations.

2. Become An Expert. Identify the key industries you are serving and become an expert in how technology best applies to that industry. For instance, we have a client, Stemp Systems in Long Island City, New York who is recognized as one of the premier electronic health record technology experts on the East Coast. The distinction helps them close business with medical practices in the region. Identifying your key industry might be the key to your success.

3. Business Review Meetings. Meet with your key client reports monthly or quarterly to confirm:

• Work you have done for them and why
• Prepare questions in advance to ask them about their business objectives to improve your understanding of how to best serve them and identify areas where you can save them money/time and increase their ability to succeed
• Discuss new technology that has become available or is soon to be introduced that may benefit them
• Confirm expectations are being met, and
• Confirm objectives for the next quarter.

Be an Intentional Leader.

David Russell, CEO
Success With People, Inc.
MANAGEtoWIN, Inc.

MEETING IDEAS

CAFETERIA CLIENTS too common and if we just accept them as part of our business then we are holding them back from becoming the best they can be.

This is not totally the client's fault. It is a problem with our company culture because we need to improve our ability to communicate the full value we offer other companies. Here are some questions to consider this topic with your team:

1. What clients do we have that are not "cafeteria clients?"

2. If we follow the steps above how much additional revenue could we generate from these clients helping them better achieve their objectives?

3. What cafeteria clients can we engage as a pilot to implement the three steps above for six months and calculate at the end of that time how:

(a) Much better we have served them; and

(b) This has affected our revenue with them?

4. Who will take primary and secondary responsibility for this pilot project?

5. What are the milestones we can set weekly or biweekly to confirm this pilot is on track?