Articles
Explore over 350 articles that will help you grow your client relationships and improve your personal effectiveness.
Do You Treat Your Old Clients As If They Were Brand New Ones?
A marriage requires constant work and investment—just ask any couple that has successfully been together for 15 or 20 years. When a couple divorces, the partners will often look back and describe a long period of mutual neglect prior to the eruption of real acrimony. The basis for successful marriages and successful long-term client relationships […]
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Why You Must Increase Your “Live Performances” with Clients
Data and information are, by themselves, commodities. What matters is insight. And that’s why the live performance still reigns supreme. I recently asked a lawyer to draft a contract document for me. In truth, I was tempted to cut corners, and find something on the Internet that I could adapt. Or, to ask a recent […]
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The Secret to Turning Every Prospect into a Paying Client
One of my clients wanted to do business with a major prospect. It was an important company which would be seen as a valuable, marquis client. The company told my client point-blank, “We’re not going to do business with you. We are already well-served.” For one year they kept calling on this prospective account. They […]
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Does Money Make You Collaborate?
I once had a client whose leadership constantly talked about teamwork. They wanted professionals from disparate areas of the organization to work together in unison in the service of their customer base. They even installed monetary incentives for better “Teaming.” But, the same leadership group got along very poorly. They were rarely seen together. In […]
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Seven Ways to Connect With Someone Older Than You
It’s not uncommon to find yourself working with a client who is quite a bit older than you. You might be a 35 year-old woman, for example, who needs to build a relationship with a 60 year-old chief financial officer who is male. It may seem, on the surface at least, that you have very […]
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The Final and Most Important Step in any Relationship
In December, my father went to bed and did not get back out. He was 96—about to turn 97. He was in fairly good health and of sound mind. No, better than that: His mind was still razor sharp. He was a decorated WWII combat physician and a noted pioneer in 20th century psychiatry, his […]
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From Impossible to Loyal: Seven Types of Difficult Clients and How to Win Them Over
Early in my consulting career I had a client who slowly became downright abusive. When we first met he was relaxed, confident, professional, and even charming. But underneath that veneer he was a mean-spirited tyrant. As time passed, he became every-more demanding and even vicious. One day, I walked into his office with a three-page […]
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This Move Can Transform a Client Relationship
On November 26, 2008, Citigroup executive James Bardrick was having dinner with the CEO of a major client at the Royal Oberoi Hotel in Mumbai, India. At the time, Bardrick, an old client of mine, was one of the heads of Citi’s European and Middle Eastern banking business. He and the CEO had traveled there […]
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