Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
How to Prioritize Your Client Opportunities
All that glitters is not gold One of my clients proudly served a leading Fortune-500 company. It was part of their key account program and often mentioned as a success story. Viewed from afar, it was a showcase relationship that generated significant annual revenues. However, when I reviewed the account with them, I realized that […]
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Earning Clients for Life as a Trusted Advisor
Competition, commoditization, client sophistication, and transparent markets mean that few services can be truly differentiated in their own right. Strong, enduring client relationships, therefore, are the lifeblood of most organizations. Long term relationships serve another key function in today’s tumultuous markets: they reduce risk for both clients and service providers. It’s not easy, however, to […]
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Involve Your Clients in the Account Planning Process
In working with many client teams on account planning, I’ve learned that there really is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. The planning process and the tenor of your discussions for an existing multi-million-dollar, mature client relationship will be different from that for a relatively new client that is currently quite small. Broadly speaking, the following elements […]
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The Characteristics and Roles of Successful Client Relationship Managers
What are the essential roles of a client relationship manager? And what skills does he or she need to possess in order to fulfill these roles? Having studied tens of thousands of partners, managing directors, account executives, and other client-facing professionals in service firms around the world, I have identified six key roles for relationship […]
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Four Key Ways to Add Value for Time in Client Meetings
When you meet with a senior executive, there’s one factor that usually determine
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Jerry Panas and Thanksgiving Blessings
Read Jerry Panas’ encouraging Thanksgiving exhortation, below. It’s for every day, not just Thanksgiving. And, read about why he had such an impact in the world: My coauthor for two books (Power Questions and Power Relationships), Jerry was arguably the single most influential and successful consultant to philanthropy and the nonprofit world in the last […]
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Keep Your Clients for Life – It Starts With Clients Day 100
Why do some client relationships slowly diminish and die, while others thrive for years? A key secret to keeping clients for life has to do with treating old clients like brand-new clients. You can learn how to do this in the last chapter—Day 100—of my newest book, It Starts with Clients. Check it out here: https://amzn.to/2V7z0lG. […]
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Pithy Wisdom from Two World War II Veterans on Veterans Day
Today is Veterans Day, which honors military veterans who have served in the US armed forces. I want to especially honor the many members of my family who have served, notably: My father (see below), my mother, who was a nurse and Lieutenant in the US Army during WWII, our son (see below), and my […]
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Eight Cringeworthy Questions You Should Never Ask
I’ve heard this a hundred times: “There are no bad questions.” Sorry, but there are indeed bad questions. And, there are good questions that go bad when used at the wrong time. For example: “Why?” It can be a great question—or a critical, negative one if used improperly. Here are eight questions you should avoid: […]
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