What's next after someone becomes your client? What's next is to deliver on what you said you would, and more! As they say, "Under promise and over deliver." People expect you to deliver results. Surprise them by also going the extra mile over and over again.

As soon as you get a new client, thank them for doing business with you. Send them a thank you note, an extra report or something of value. Let them know that you appreciate their business and show them you care about them. One small act that shows how much you value your new client can create a client for life.

The formula for having your clients turn into raving fans is: good product + great service. Interestingly enough a good product + bad service gives you unhappy customers no matter how good your product is.

A study has shown that it takes 16 times the effort to get a new client as it does to sell to an existing one. So treasure them all and treat them like a $1m client.

When you have satisfied clients, they will buy more and more from you. They have already experienced you, your services/products and your quality of service so the decision process is so much easier for them.

When you have satisfied clients, they will become your walking, talking sales force. They believe in you and your services/products so much so that they voluntarily tell others about you.

Develop relationships with your clients so you can continue to discover what they want. Then provide offers that deliver what they want so they choose to do more business with you. This is another huge key to your success. It is the key to maximizing the lifetime value of a customer.

From time to time, do a customer satisfaction survey. Test to see if your clients are happy with your service and ask them for suggestions for improvement. Then act on these suggestions.

If you do ever have a dissatisfied client, you have an opportunity. People who are unhappy will tell about 10 other people and then those 10 people tell about 5 people and so on and so forth. Get the picture? So, when you have a dissatisfied client, you have an opportunity to get them to experience your excellent service and to build an even stronger relationship with you. So sort their problem out quickly and they will then tell others good things about you.

Treasure your clients and they will treasure you. Treasure your clients and more clients will be attracted to you, that is how it works!

(c) Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation, 2005 You are welcome to "reprint" this article online as long as it remains complete and unaltered (including the "about the author" info at the end).