Episode 128 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The money’s already in your phone. You’ve got to remember that the people you know, the contacts you’ve got, the relationships you’ve seen and built and had over the years, they’re already there. Sometimes you’ve just got to find that spark again with the people that you already know in your contacts list. G’day everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Good to be back. Thank you, Rob. Feel like we’re into a very topical session today. We’ve got an episode all around account management and relationships and I think at this time it’s more important than ever that we do look at this. Really important stuff.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
Yeah, it is. And I’m really looking forward to getting into today. It’s probably going to be quite content teaching heavy and very strategy heavy today. So bear with us in today’s episode because we’re going to probably deep dive into this topic called account management, but I think there’s a lot we want to be able to get through, but it’s such an important thing you’ve got to do when it comes to business development and filling pipeline. It’s a really big strategy that really every business owner should be working hard on at the moment, shouldn’t they?
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Yeah. Referral relationships that built your business traditionally didn’t happen by accident. You worked hard on those that were built. You had to show up, you had to follow through. You had to make people feel like they really mattered. And that has to keep happening. It has to be deliberate and ongoing even when you can keep telling yourself that you’re flat out. I think it’s important. And the good news is that as we get into this today, there’s a lot to learn, but it doesn’t take a lot of effort. It’s more the intention of it. So today we’re going to cover off three things. We’re going to cover off what account management actually is and really make it crystal clear why it matters at your level and then how to audit your key relationships, where they are right now, and three modes you can go into to actually move things along and improve the situation with the relationships you’ve got.
(02:00):
So let’s start with what account management really is and what it isn’t. And I think that the big part of this is that a lot of business owners, Rob, think that account management’s something you do when things go wrong. It’s something that you do when you need something from someone else. It’s sort of answering calls, make sure you’re doing good work, it’s customer service, but it’s something different to that. And let’s start with the difference even at a higher level between maybe account management in B2B versus B2C.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah. B2C is business to consumer, B2B is business to business. And you’re right, when a lot of people think that account management is just solving problems or fixing an issue as they arise for that customer. And sure, there is account management at the operational level, but today we’re going to talk around account management at the sales level in the B2C world. I don’t want to say it’s transactional, but it kind of is transactional in that nature where you can still be a builder doing business to consumer work or you could be a tradie who you’re more of a home services or a service and maintenance type of business. The nature of that is that lead source in particular is a transactional relationship, whether you’ve got it off Google or you’ve got it off Facebook or it’s one job that you’re often doing for that customer and then you’re moving on to the next job for a very next customer.
(03:24):
So in the B2C world, there’s not a lot of, I suppose, repeat business from the same old lead source. And that’s probably why it’s more of a transactional lead source rather than a relationship style lead source that a lot of B2B businesses have.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah. A transactional sort of got a bit of a rough reputation out there at the moment, but all we’re talking of, if you think a homeowner that needs a bathroom done, you do the work, you invoice it, the job’s done. You might get a nice little referral, you might get your Google review. They might say, “Hey, you so – and-so. He was great. Go use them.” That would be good, but it’s not an ongoing relationship that you have to keep managing. B2B though, business to business is entirely different.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
It is. B2B is very much a relationship game. That’s where a plumber works very hard working with a builder or a strata manager or real estate or it’s a builder doing work for getting leads repeat business from interior designers or from an architect or a designer or something or a developer. So it’s really about understanding what style of business that you have. And we speak to tradies all the time and they’re like, “Well, Rob, I’ve built my whole business off the back of referrals.” And that might be true, but you can still be a B2C tradie built off the back of referrals, but they’re once off referrals. They’re very rarely repeat business. So in today we’re talking a lot about tradies or builders who their lead source or their work that they generate is off the back of repeat business of people who give them work over and over and over again.
(05:05):
And that’s where account management is critical to nurture those relationships that you’ve got over a period of time.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Yeah, there’s a lot more. I think it’s intensified the relationship. There’s a lot more, you’ve got to keep earning that. You’ve got to be actively managing that relationship. If it dries up, it goes away. It’s not like there’s a path of people beating down your door or a set of leads coming through that might be in a B2C environment.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Correct. When you’re in a B2C environment, for example, you’ve got to spend a lot of money on marketing and sales because you’ve got to be consistently generating new leads to be able to bring work in the door. But when you’re generally in that B2B space or that relationship style marketing, it’s probably less margin because you might be a plumber doing work for a builder and you might be targeting 30% margin rather than someone in the service space, which is 50% or 55% margin. But you do work for a builder and they pass you two or three or $400,000 of work a year and you spend zero money on marketing, but you might spend money on going to the footy or going to lunches or going to coffee or going to the box at the cricket or whatever it is. So the nature of the marketing spend is different, especially in repeat business style marketing.
(06:30):
It’s more relationship. It’s spending time with someone so that you have good rapport rather than spending money on Facebook or Instagram or something.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
Yeah, good distinction. So that’s the B2B, B2C. You’ve got to know what game you’re in because that’ll temper as we go through this how it applies to you. Let’s talk then about what account management is or probably more about what it isn’t. The what it is piece is that account management is something that’s deliberate and it’s ongoing. If I could get one thing across people, it’s not a thing you do when. It’s something you should be doing all the time. You’re not reacting in terms of, we’ve got to go into account management mode when the work dries up or there’s a big issue and we’ve got to try and save face. That’s not account management. The account management we’re talking about is really deliberate ongoing and it’s not just for the customer. There’s different people in the account management sphere that you’ve got to look after.
(07:23):
It’s never just one person.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
You’re right. There’s a clear distinction between account management from a sales perspective and account management from an operational point of view. And what you were talking around there is more around where guys get bogged down in the operational level where they talk about the job and what’s happening and where are we up to with this and what’s happening on site here? And that’s more project management, not account management at that level where you’re building on the relationship, the connection, the partnership that you’ve got to be able to build the rapport. Because you got to remember in sales, people do business with those that they know they like and those they trust. And that’s the essence of account management is your ability to build that rapport, build that connection, build that friendship, build that business relationship where they’ve got the confidence to keep giving you work or the confidence to keep passing quotes or the confidence to refer you to one of their friends or the confidence to enable you to get a foot back at the negotiation table when someone else might be more expensive for you.
(08:28):
So today we are really focusing on that sales account management, aren’t we Dan? Because that’s the account management, which in the end of the day is critical for winning more ongoing work.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It really is. And again, as you think through this, you might be like, where am I applying it? Sales is the focus, but things like decision makers, the people that say yes to nos, to handing out the work, that actually sign off and give you the work. The gatekeepers that are just running the offices, they trust you, used that word before. They trust you enough to put the call through to make sure that you’re someone that is worth talking to. And then there’s the ground crew on the ground. So all of these are people that make up the overall account. As we go forward here then, let’s talk about then how account management works. I think we’ve clarified that piece up, but how does it work? And on two fronts, and I’ve heard you talk about this before, so keen to hear it here, offence and defence.
(09:20):
It gives us the opportunity to play offence and defence at the same time. What do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (09:25):
When I think around defence is obviously you’ve built a relationship with someone. So you might be a plumber who does work for a builder, for example, and you’ve got half a dozen really good builders that you want to be able to do work for and you’ve got that ongoing relationship. Now you know you had to bust your ass to be able to get that relationship and build it over a period of time. The problem is a lot of people start to take that relationship for granted and they stop doing the things that made that relationship great. Now when you’re in account management phase, you’ve got to defend that relationship because someone out there is just as hungry as you used to be to be able to get their foot in the door with that builder as well. And so once you get that foot in that door and cement that relationship, it’s not a once and done type of arrangement.
(10:17):
You’ve got to defend that relationship and defend your position and continue to build and grow and expand on that relationship over a period of time. So it’s almost like you keep the competition out rather than giving them the opportunity to squeeze their foot in the door. So once you’ve won it, that relationship, you have to defend it at all costs. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
Most people, they forget. They think that the relationship or the account that they’re working with started the minute they walked in the door. But the chances are you won the work, got in the door because someone else dropped the ball. They didn’t defend their position well enough, which opened up an opportunity for you to seemingly waltz into. You wouldn’t believe the timing you hear, or I’m so glad you are here. We’re having all kinds of troubles. That’s something we hear all the time when we start putting some of these strategies together.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
It is, especially when someone’s pretty hungry to get in there. They’ll drop their pants in terms of a price that they put in. And then if you are not doing great quality or the communication’s poor or jobs are blowing out or there’s been a safety issue or whatever it is, someone dropping their pants and putting that quote in there will all of a sudden cast that seed of doubt to be able to go, “Well, maybe we do start looking somewhere else.” And then all of a sudden they start winning a little bit of work and instead of you being the preferred contractor, then you become the second preferred and then all of a sudden you get squeezed out. So again, account management is you’ve got to do great work.You’ve got to deliver on what you say you’re going to do. You’ve got to have high levels of quality, good communication, have integrity and all those types of things from a delivery point of view.
(11:56):
So there is that side of it, but you’ve really got to work hard on building and maintaining that ongoing relationship and not taking it for granted.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
Yeah, this is the offensive side of what we’re talking about. When you talk about build, maintain, keep it healthy, being on the offens there means that you’re always looking out for more. And it’s such an untapped area of sales, this whole idea of being able to grow or expand and we’ll talk about that, but the best work comes from your relationships. It’s the best sales you’re probably going to get and they don’t happen by accident.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
No, you’ve got to push hard in there. And it’s using the example of dealing with a… I was talking to a tradie just the other day and when I was exploring opportunities with him after he booked in for a strategy call, I’m like, “Where are your opportunities?” And he’s like, “Well, I’m doing work for all these builders.” I’m like, “Well, great. Where are the opportunities in those existing builders?” And he’s like, “Well, Rob, these builders here, I do work in their resi arm, but not their commercial. And then I do work in these builders in their commercial arm and not their resi.” I’m like, “Mate, you’ve cemented yourself into those builders. Now’s your opportunity to muscle your way through and push into those different departments within that builder to be able to go and tap into those areas. In the short term, you don’t need to go and find an extra two or three or four builders to be able to grow your revenue.
(13:18):
You’ve just got to get on the offensive with your current builders that you’ve got and explore opportunities and move into those departments and ask the question, why aren’t we doing work with those people? ” So that’s what we mean by offensive. You’re already in there, expand on it so you don’t have to keep doing new business development because remember, it’s always easier to do business with those you know you like and you’ve already got trust with.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Nice. So there’s some clarity about what it is, what it isn’t and just sort of setting the scene for this. We’re going to turn the corner now and get into more of the practical side, what we’re talking about at the top. But the idea of where do we start and where do your relationships actually stand? And we’ve got a really neat little exercise for this. It doesn’t take long, but before you can fix anything, you’ve got to know exactly where your account relationship stands. And most business owners assume that things are good because I’m not hearing anything bad. And it’s a real passive sort of thing. But when you do this little audit, the story often changes. And we want to be really specific here. You can do this really cleanly and clinically if you take your time and you run reports and do the right things.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
It’s one of those things that we hit home to clients all the time is that they don’t have a, especially those in the relationship game of winning work is they don’t have a pipeline issue. They’ve got an account management issue. And the great little activity that we get clients to do, and you listening here today can go away and do it yourself, is you open up your accounting package or your job management system and run a report of your customers. And you probably do that over a time horizons to be able to look for a 12 to 24 month period. Because what we’re looking for is we’re looking for the holes, you’re looking for the trends, and you’re looking for the opportunities. Because there may have been work that you did for a strata manager, for example, where you were getting 20 or 30 grand a month out of that strata manager.
(15:14):
Then all of a sudden, six months ago, it phased back down to five grand and you didn’t notice that. You knew that they probably didn’t give you as much work as they used to, but maybe they’ve just stopped passing work. And this is an opportunity for you to look at it because we’ve done this with clients where all of a sudden they realise that that strata manager’s either moved on or there was an issue with a job site and they actually didn’t talk about it. They just stopped pushing work through because they went to another tradie. And so this is what we mean by running the report and looking at the data because as we say, Dan, numbers tell a story, don’t they?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Yeah, they do. So when you’re looking at different revenue trends, you can look at that if you like. You can look at, well, just by looking at the list and thinking about, well, the last time I contacted this person, the last invoice date we had was. It’s not until you look at the data and look for the opportunities and then try and marry that up that you really find out that there’s some holes that you’ve got. By holes, there’s a relationship that needs to be repaired. There’s something that needs to be built upon. There’s an opportunity that we’ve launched something in our business that they would never even know about and we’ve never gone and spoken to them about. And I think about, there’s that story we had the other week with Ben. He had this exact same thing when he really did this audit.
(16:32):
It was like, holy shit, I don’t have a pipeline problem, which is what you were talking about before.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, correct. He ran that report. We did this on a group call the other day and Ben ran the report out of his accounting package and the business that Ben runs been around for a very long time. He’s taken it over from his dad and he’s realised that the trends were alarming a little bit where he’s just like, “We need more work. We need more work.” And it wasn’t until he ran the report and it smacked him in the face where he’s like, “Holy shit, we haven’t done work for that builder in a long time. We’re actually winding down with that builder. Oh, we’re on the up for that one. Okay, what are we doing really well there?” So you’re not just looking for the bad, you’re looking for the trends in the good, the bad, and the ugly. And it really hit home to Ben to be able to go, “Hang on a second.
(17:21):
We’re doing some really good work with these builders here, but look at these ones that are trending downwards and what’s going on? ” And he’s like, “Hang on a second. I haven’t spoken to that guy in 12 months. I haven’t spoken to that guy in six months. So we haven’t got a quote for them in like nine months. What’s going on there?” So it wasn’t until he really underpacked his customer list and spend per customer over a 12 to 24 month period where he really realised what was going on. And then boom, he was able to create an account management plan to go forward to be able to really work on building, repairing, or expanding on those relationships.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Yeah. And this can start to sound really… Once you do that audit, it can start to feel a little bit overwhelming. You get to that point where you think, well, now what do I do? I’ve got a heap of customers. They’re all over the place. Where do I go next? And this is where we start to say, well, how am I going to fill these gaps? How am I going to transfer and take what I now know into a move to make? So what we’re going to do now is break this down. So I assume you’ve done the audit. What you’re going to do next is break it down into three sort of key areas, build, repair, and grow. That’s really the only options you’re going to have to think about. Once you can identify that, you’re off to the races. But starting off with build, what we’re talking about, a build is at some point where you’ve got some room to move and it’s a genuine, are you using all of our services?
(18:43):
Can we build within the existing relationship we’ve got where our capabilities aren’t being tapped? So that idea where you’ve got multiple streams of revenue, you’ve got different services you offer, whatever it might be, is that client being exposed to all of that? That’s where we start with build.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
The story I love to say around this is Anthony, he runs an electrical business and he had multiple service offerings. He had electrical, he had heating and cooling, and he also did security as well. And so what we did was by looking at the capabilities of who he’s doing work for, we ran the report of who all the builders were that he did work for builders. Now he did do a lot of work for moms and dads in the B2C space, but we just ignored that in this instance. And then went, okay, builders down the left-hand side along the top, electrical, heating and cooling, security. And we just started plugging, putting Xs in the box. And that was a real eye-opener for him to be able to go, hang on a second. For this builder here, we only do electrical. For that builder there, we do security and electrical, but we don’t do heating and cooling.
(19:46):
For that builder there, we do electrical and security, but not heating and cooling. And so what that did is really opened his eyes to be able to go, actually, we don’t need to go out there and find more builders to do work for. We’ve just got to work with them and build on the relationship and educate them and see if we can get the foot in the door with the people we already know, like and trust to be able to offer these services. So yeah, sometimes you don’t need to go out there and build more relationships and do new business development, which is going to be a lot of effort and low reward to begin with. Maybe you’ve got the ability to go half again as big or twice as big just by expanding on and building on the relationships you’ve already got.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah. The key point here when you start to talk about, well, what’s the move I make if I identify that? Then like you said, it’s not even with this existing person going, well, I’ll just have to sell that new service to them. It’s leveraging the relationship you’ve already got, which is why it’s account management. So what you’re really looking for is just a genuine check-in with that person to say, “Hey, I’d love to catch up with you. We’ll let this happen over the conversation when we get to it, but would you have 10 minutes for a coffee in the next two or three weeks? I’d love to just catch up. I’ve got something worth chatting about. There’s no agenda to it, but it’d be great to catch up anyway.” And then you go and have your conversation. So it unfolds naturally. So it’s not like you’ve got to do a whole nother sales pitch.
(21:09):
And I think this is where people go wrong. They get that commercial gap. And by that we mean the service that’s missing. And they think, well, let’s run a campaign and just go down the list and fire more shit at the client or whatever it is. And that doesn’t work because the client’s not after more selling. They want to deepen the relationship. That’s what you’re going to be actually working on. So that’s why it’s called the build stage.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, you’re building on the relationship you’ve got. That’s what we’ve got to remember. You’ve already got a relationship. Let’s build on it more, whether it’s doing more of the same work for them or doing other work that you’ve already got in that existing relationship. But in the end of the day, you’re building on what you’ve got. So instead of doing $200,000 a year for that one person, maybe you’ve got the ability to do $300 or $400,000 just by building on that relationship to be able to get your foot in the door more through that existing relationship.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
Yeah. Now that’s if the relationship’s going well and you’ve got that there. The next thing you’ll identify as you go through your list in the audit is where it’s slipped, where the relationship’s not where it needs to be. This is what we call the next mode you’re going to go into is repair. So this is when work’s gone quiet, you haven’t heard from them, communication’s out. This is something you just haven’t addressed and it’s something that you can either continue to avoid or you deal with it. And this is one I think that people underestimate all the time because it feels weird. It feels like you don’t want to do it. It’s uncomfortable to do that. But repair, I’ve seen some amazing turnarounds with clients just because someone put their hand up and tried to repair a relationship.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
A relationship can fall over for a numerous number of things. Maybe all of a sudden you started to get to know your numbers a little bit more and your prices started to going up because you actually started charging or what you’re worth. Or maybe just a job went pear-shaped or maybe someone was just hungrier into that relationship and kind of squeezed you out. Or maybe you’re doing work for a builder or a strata manager and they thought the grass was greener on the other side and they though they’d try someone else out. So I think, Dan, relationships fall over, but I think there’s a little bit of an awkwardness or funniness in the middle, isn’t there? But sometimes you just got to put your big boy pants on and want to have the ability to put the ego aside and go, “You know what? Let’s get back on track and let’s get back to what we were, but even go even better.”
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Yeah, the idea of having an honest reset and you can have that conversation. Same thing again, you’re looking for a conversation. You’re not trying to resell, you’re not doing any sort of hard, uncomfortable thing when you get together. And what have you got to lose? I mean, you ring up, the person really doesn’t want to repair it because it’s that far gone, nothing going to happen. But if they’ve got any inkling and you can get to a point where you can talk through what’s good, actually have a conversation about what slipped up, and then ask them directly about how do we get back on track, that goes a hell of a long way. It says a lot about you and your business and where you’ve come to and reminding them of what you’ve done in the past. I think that ability to really step into that and own it is a big part of it.
(24:13):
We haven’t spoken properly for a while using language like that. You’re saying that, “Hey, this is on me. Can I just shout your coffee?” You’ll know straight away it’s very low pressure and it’s very low risk. As I said, you’re not going to really lose anything, but the honesty brings with it a whole level of trust and vulnerability that you’re going to know exactly where you stand with that person from then on.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
And you don’t need a funny written pitch or a script or anything for it. It’s literally giving that person a buzz or shooting them off a text message and just going, “Hey mate, I haven’t spoken to you in age. It’d be great to catch up.” Or jump on the phone and just go, “Hey mate, we haven’t spoken. I was looking back through something the other day. We haven’t spoken in like six or 12 months. And yeah, that’s on me. I’ve been a bit slack.” And you can have a bit of a laugh around it and then you go, “Hey, let’s catch up. Let’s go and have a lunch or let’s go and have a coffee.” Or, “Hey, I’ve got tickets to the footy on Saturday night. Do you want to come?” Kind of thing. You just talk person to person, man to man, human to human, and you just find that spark again.
(25:17):
And it can go a long way to really rebuilding something that was amazing.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Yeah, I know we love this story. Andy did this recently. He’s a client of ours, a cabinet maker. And after he did his audit, he realised that that relationship had slipped. There was something that had slipped in it, but he did that. He had the balls to reach out, put his hand up and say, “Hey, I’m going to see if we can catch up.” And he did, and he got the opportunity to re-quote, but it was a huge win that he had. I think it was something like he ended up winning the cabinetry for six townhouses off the back of just being able to put his hand up and repair a relationship. It’s huge.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah, cracker job. And yeah, it’s a good opportunity to be able to get that back in there and do great work again together. And it’s awesome. It’s great. It’s so good to see. And it’s just so good that he could get out there and quote that job and get it across the line and then they’ll go on and do more work again together. So it’s amazing. Sometimes you just don’t have to keep hunting for more and more people to be able to get work and quotes or plans across your desk. You just got to work on those relationships that you’ve already got. The money’s already in your phone. You’ve got to remember that the people you know, the contacts you’ve got, the relationships you’ve seen and built and had over the years, they’re already there. Sometimes you’ve just got to find that spark again with the people that you already know on your contacts list.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Yeah. Now we’ve got one more to go, and I think this is your favourite, so I’m going to get in and out of here quickly and leave it to you. But this one’s all around expand. And this is leveraging the network, the community, the relationships that exist across multiple people. Even though you’re only dealing with one stakeholder or one account, there’s always an opportunity to leverage a network and expand through that.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Yeah, this is a big one. For example, I’ll throw an example around that. Maybe you’re doing work for maintenance work for a strata manager, for example, or a real estate office kind of thing. And you know you’re dealing with one strata manager who manages a number of buildings, but you’re only on five out of the 10 buildings that you’ve got. And it’s like, mate, come on, what’s it got to take for me to get onto the other five kind of thing? So there’s an example where you’re expanding on that relationship or you’re leveraging on… So that kind of borderlines on build or you are then leveraging on that relationship to be able to go, “Hey, who else do you know in your office that you can introduce me to that I can also manage their work? Because we do great work together and you kind of sell the benefits of the relationship. “Who else can you introduce me to? ” Or maybe you don’t work for a real estate office and you do work with one property manager, but you know that there’s a whole office with five other property managers sitting over there that you don’t tap into their list. And so that’s what you’re doing by leveraging the relationships and expanding into that network where they become an advocate for you and refer you into their close networks. And it’s a low cost way of generating more work just by leveraging the relationships you’ve got.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Yeah, I love this one because it also works both ways. If you’ve got the mindset around you that it’s not all about me getting what I can out of here, but it’s about expanding for everyone that’s involved in the circle, if you like, your ability to say, “Hey, who else are you needing or what else is not working great in your world? And maybe I’ve got someone. I do a lot of work in this space. I know a lot of guys. Is there anyone I could introduce you to? ” That is just as good when it comes to the value of the relationship, the level of trust, the level of communication. That’s just as good to give into expanding it from your side as opposed to just thinking, “I’ve got to take out of it all the time.”
Speaker 1 (28:58):
Yeah, for sure. It goes a long way. It’s that give as gain kind of mentality, give and take from the relationship yeah?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
It’s way more valuable to have that warm intro, “Oh yeah, I was talking to so – and-so. Oh yeah, how do you know him? Oh, we do some work.” It just goes so much smoother and it probably is so much more effective than a dozen sort of cold calls that you might make out of the blue to someone trying to get through on a single opportunity.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
A great example around this on the expand one is Dion, one of our clients went through this process recently where he was doing work for one arm of the business and he really looked to deploy this expand strategy, got a foot into the door from a recommendation into the commercial sector of that arm of the person that they were doing work with. He had the ability to be able to tender and quote $140,000 job. And then by building on that relationship, it’s also then opened up more doors to be able to get more plans and quotes across his desk to be able to quote going forward. So it just shows that a Warm referral is always going to be better than a cold lead all day long. And so by leveraging off that relationship and expanding into different arms of different businesses is going to pay dividends all day long.
(30:12):
So yeah, shout out to Dion who put in the work and his ability to open up those doors is going to be great. Just got to remember, you don’t have a pipeline problem for those of you who are business to business generally in a relationship style business. You don’t have a pipeline problem, you’ve got an account management problem and you’re just not maximising what you’ve got out of the relationships that you already have.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yeah, for sure. Let’s just wrap this up then and summarise where we’ve gotten to. There’s a lot that we’ve covered off today in terms of the different types and things you’re looking for, but really you’ve only got two actions. You’ve got to look at where your current relationships stand. So have a look at it and go through that report, be it off Xero, your JMS, whatever it is for you that you’ve got all your customers in, have a good think about it. And then as you do that, work out how am I going to fill the gaps? So are you in build mode, repair mode, or grow mode? Put that next to each of the names and then decide on the top action you can take. If you go back and listen to this, you’ll hear some of those prompts we used in terms of how you’d speak to a customer in each of those phases.
(31:18):
So really that’s the, if you like, the challenge of the week, but that’s a body of work where you can really start to reignite relationships no matter where they are or what state they’re in. You’ve just got to know what mode you’re in and match it up to the action you’re going to take.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
Yeah. And I think we’ve got to take away time as being his excuse because the reality is, Dan, time is the worst excuse. And for those of you who get work from repeat business from these relationships, there’s probably nothing more, Dan, important than nurturing and building on those relationships. Because if that relationship falls over, there can be a pretty large percentage of your business that falls over very quickly, can’t it?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Yeah. I’d much rather invest into that sort of nurturing of existing rather than trying to go out and find cold any day of the week. I think the payback’s better. I think the conversion’s better. The long-term prospects are better and the continuity of the business for you, your team, your numbers, all of it comes off the back of it, like you’ve said today.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
What a great episode. If you’ve enjoyed today and you know that there’s opportunities sitting under your nose that you just do not know how to capitalise and you do want to be able to take your business and life to the next level, then jump across to strategysession.com.au, fill out the application form, book at a time that suits, and let’s have a bit of a chat about where you’re at, where you’re trying to go, and let’s talk about some of these opportunities there and how you can capitalise on them.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Yeah, well said. Something to definitely not be underestimated, that’s for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:46):
What a great episode. There’s going to be a lot of action you can take out of this and looking forward to hearing some good stories circled back from you from some of the wins that you’ve been able to had, like we’ve been able to share some great stories to today. So get off your butt, get into action and get out there and really build or repair or expand on the relationships you’ve already got. Until next time, take care.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
See you soon.