Consultants Fly Higher with Client Relationship Management

The more frequently you fly, the better the airlines treat you. And so it should be with consulting firms and their clients, according to the latest issue of The Guerrilla Consultant.

Consultants have embraced the concept of client relationship management, yet many consultants struggle with execution. Client relationship management is based on the premise that a subset of your clients will purchase the majority of your services, and that you should manage them differently. All clients are important, but some are more so than others.

“A client relationship strategy that differentiates your clients can reduce your cost of sales, simplify your approach to complex relationships, help you deliver services to clients more efficiently, and increase the profitability of your practice,” says Michael W. McLaughlin, co-author of Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants.

Consultants should examine clients’ relationship potential, compatibility, and profitability when deciding which relationships need to be formally managed. They then need to develop client marketing plans that contain the following elements:
1. The top five issues your client faces
2. How you can help with those problems
3. How your practice stands out from others in meeting the client’s challenges
4. The status of your relationships with key decision makers
5. Which relationships you’ll build and which you’ll shore up
6. The marketing tactics you’ll use to position your practice in the minds of key client decision makers and influencers
7. Your marketing budget for the client in terms of time and money
8. How you will measure the success of each client relationship.

Key client marketing should encompass 60% of consultants’ marketing resources, with the rest going to filling their pipelines. Marketing consistently to the right group of key clients will help consultants nurture long-term profitable relationships and gain referrals for new business.

More information on choosing optimal clients and managing their relationships are in the October issue of The Guerrilla Consultant, available at http://www.guerrillaconsulting.com/newsletter/issue12-oct-05.html.

About The Guerrilla Consultant – a complementary, online newsletter dedicated to applying the principles of Guerrilla Marketing to the work and lives of professional consultants. Editor Michael W. McLaughlin is coauthor, with Jay Conrad Levinson, of the book Guerrilla Marketing for Consultants (Wiley, 2005). For more information, see http://www.guerrillaconsulting.com.