Who are your best clients? You know the ones I’m talking about. The ones who pay more. The ones who cause the fewest problems. The ones who send you referrals and promote your practice. The ones you like being around.
You know, the clients you’d like to clone.
You can get more clients like your best clients. Here’s how:
DEFINE THEM
Who are your best clients? What attributes do they have in common?
Demographics: Industry, occupation, background, ethnicity.
Legal work: Most work, highest fees, bigger cases, repeat business.
Referrals: How many? How often? What quality?
Other factors:Â Who can they introduce you to? Do they have lists and are they willing to promote you? Are they influential on social media? Do they like you and want to help you?
PAY ATTENTION TO THEM
Give your best clients more time and attention than other clients. Call them, just to say hello. Write them, to share information. Spend time with them: coffee, lunch, networking events.
Thank them for their patronage, their referrals, and their friendship.
HELP THEMÂ
Business clients: Send them referrals. Help them find employees, suppliers and joint venture partners. Feature their business or practice in your blog or newsletter. Introduce them to people they might like to know.
Consumer clients: Help them find better deals. Â Introduce them to trusted advisers, reputable contractors, high quality service people. Help them get reliable information and advice.
In short, if you want more clients like your best clients, you should build relationships with them. They will lead you to people like themselves with similar needs and values.
We get what we focus on. Focus on your best clients and you’ll get more of them.
Need help identifying your “ideal client”? Click here.
I generally agree with many of the things you write about as I’ve come across your posts. But on this piece, I think that “Give your best clients more time and attention than other clients.” is not necessarily a good idea. I would like to assume (though you know how that goes) that you mean give them more attention besides what is necessary to help resolve their case from a marketing standpoint. But for some reason, the first thought that popped into my mind as I read that was “if the other clients somehow deserve less attention, they shouldn’t be your clients.” Not making the point from a purely egalitarian belief, so much as from an ethical viewpoint.
Vivian,
Thank you for your comment.
Of course I’m not suggesting you treat “regular” clients with anything less than the standard of care. But if someone is special, show them they are special: calls, cards, gifts, praise, promote their business, buy their kids’ cookies, give them special deals, priority seating at your events, call them just to say hello, go out to dinner with them, etc.
Perhaps I should have said, “Give more time and attention to THEM, not their case.”
David