How good are we as small businesses at building relationships?
To me, strong relationships in business are everything. I set up my business in 1987 and sold it in 2016 and a big part of the reason I was able to sell the business was down to the strength of the relationships I had with my clients, my suppliers and my team. Strong relationships are vital to the success and longevity of your business. People buy from people. They do not buy from companies. Building strong relationships and doing what you say you are going to do will build trust and respect, and will help you to keep clients.
When I first started in business, someone very successful said to me not to worry about making money and not to have this as my driving force. I was told to focus on building relationships, and so long as I have a product or service in demand, money will flow. I have done this since 1987 and have no reason at all to change my mindset. This mindset has served me well since I set up my business in 1987.
I always said to my wife when our 2 daughters were born in 1988 and 1991, that the most valuable thing we could leave them when we left this planet were strong values, morals and ethics and to show and teach them how to build strong lasting relationships. They are now 32 and 29 and while we were all on holiday over the last week – the reason this article is late in being posted – Gemma (our youngest daughter) read us a testimonial she has had from one of her immediate boss and I wanted to share this with you to show the importance of building strong relationships. This was an email from her manager at John Lewis.
Hi Gemma,
I just had to share the experience I have just had on counter. As walking past counter today I acknowledged a mother and daughter having a look at the VM. I began to help them as much as I could; and the daughter told me about her amazing experience with Gemma last week and how helpful she was, so much so that she brought her mother in to have a look (unfortunately Gemma wasn’t here, but I still managed to sell a Zero Foundation and a new launch lip balm). The daughter also purchased a highlighter based on the samples Gemma gave her last week. Immediately after, another lady started speaking to me about wanting a new lipstick and about the fun experience she had with Gemma the other week trying some new bits and how much of a laugh they had together, also resulting in another sale today.
Gemma is quite clearly building a very loyal and strong customer base, that are experiencing the most outstanding customer service so much so that they are desperate to return. Thank you Gemma, I’m so thankful that I got to witness that today, it has made my day.
Keep it up, you are doing an amazing job!
This really makes me proud to see that people really appreciate Gemma and how good she is at building relationships, and I thought showing the appreciation that someone else has on the value of building relationships would further endorse this article, as it is someone else’s words and not mine.
This is all part of building a better business and if you need help with your business, I would welcome an opportunity to speak with you so I can show you how I can help
To fix up a free no obligation Zoom call, please email richard@lionheartmanagement.co.uk
This article was first published on LinkedIn by Richard Knight on 18/09/2020