Q. How do you balance maintaining frequent communication and not becoming a pest?
With the clients that we
already have a relationship with,
I have very regular meeting time
with the CMOs and CEOs, but I
only ask for 10-minute appointments. Then, make a point within those 10 minutes, if not five
minutes. You have to understand that when you hang up
the phone or walk out of that
office, you are not their priority.
So you have to take advantage
of that window of opportunity.
Q. How do you take the best
advantage of those 10 minutes?
We are extremely lucky in that
when we are called in for potential business, they are already
interested in our industry. So we
don’t have to go in and talk too
much about the industry in general but basically brag about
ourselves.
We go in and talk about ourselves first. Really home in on
who you are as a company
rather than the industry that
you’re in. Clients want to be
entertained with interesting
things — not the demographics,
not the nitty-gritty.
Nitty-gritty can come later,
when they become interested in
who you are. When all things
are equal, clients tend to hire
people that they like, and people like interesting people.
Q. How important is it to
maintain multiple contacts
within a client company?
Multilevel communication has
proven to be the most effective
way of communicating with the
client in general. Different levels
of managers and different levels
of executives have different
agendas that they have to push
in their capacity.
When there’s a breakdown of
communication at a certain
level, you have the opportunity
to call a different level and try to
understand the situation and
keep it on track.
We have seen day-to-day contacts that have a turnover every
six months sometimes — they
move on to other positions
within the company or move
on to another company. Not
having the multilevel relationship really disadvantages us in
that situation.
A lot of decisions are made in
different levels. … [Businesses]
approaching our company
always insist on only talking to
me, because they think that if
they make an impression upon
me, that the business is closed,
but it’s rarely the case.
I usually say, ‘Let’s involve
other people.’ But they’ll say, ‘No,
I only want to talk to you,’ which
I think is a big mistake.
— Megan Tackett contributed to this story.
HOW TO REACH: interTrend Communications Inc., (562) 733-1888 or www.intertrend.com
