I’m now privileged and humbled to have been in business for 10 years. April 5th 2019 sees 10 years since I set my company up.
This series of blog posts gives you my top 10 tips to surviving in business… This isn’t necessarily how you should do it, but it is how I did it!
Invest in technology
I appreciate that is not always possible to do this in every single industry and every single sector, however the principle remains.
A great example of using technology is that each month I wanted to report to my clients on where they were found in their Google search results.
I had multiple phrases for each client e.g.
- Dentist in -location
- teeth whitening – location
- dental implants – location
- and so it went on…
When I first started I simply took these phrases, typed them into Google and put where the client was in the search results into a spreadsheet.
But as I grew I realised this was taking SO much time.
So I invested in technology, I purchased some software which did this for me.
I now pay around over £10,000 per year on various pieces of software, all of them help me stay effective and deliver a service to clients which is not possible manually. I now regularly track over 50 words for each client and plot them against where they are with their competitors… A task which is simply not possible to do by hand.
Maintain your customer database
Since the word go I’ve also used Sage Act! It’s absolutely fabulous. I maintain my entire database of every single person that I’ve ever spoken to, I know what I said, who are said to, what was said and what the next steps are.
It’s shown me that sometimes it can take many years for a client to come to fruition… My record so far is 7 years!
So my advice is to look for ways to utilise technology to manage your clients, even if it’s just managing your relationship with your clients then do it… It will make you more efficient, help you deliver a better service and help you grow.