During the last call session of 10X Business Owners Mastermind Group, we touched on a topic of great interest to entrepreneurs: how to build a good client relationship that is true and, above all, lasting.
So, the purpose of this call is straightforward: We get together as business owners to talk about business, real-world business issues, and challenges we face right now. On this occasion, the biggest or most common business challenge that I went through this week was the customer relationship (how to build a client relationship, what happens when it is not done correctly, and many other things).
Client relationship: Stories
To warm up, I started by telling my personal story: a call I received a few days ago saying: Hey, someone has placed an order. And we are subsets. We suspect fraudulent activity. And so we’re calling you. There’s been a charge of $843 from New Jersey, and we want to verify that this is you. I knew right away it was spam, a fraud. I didn’t even press a button or take the call.
I knew immediately who it was—an employee who had been working with me for 20 years, to whom I had given my complete confidence. This is a grave mistake that many of us make without realizing it, and it is a lesson that we have had to learn.
On the other hand, as an IT service provider, Alan Reeves told us that (at least) his company provides third-party and higher levels of security on certain services than you usually find out of the box. You can subscribe to the services themselves or get them through his company. One of the things they do is provide an additional layer of security in addition to Office 365 being a great technology and security solution.
His story was pretty much the same as mine. A member of his client’s staff had created a rule within their email system to forward each work email to a personal email address and a couple of other rules to prioritize emails from some people. And this person was preparing to go ahead and take whatever he could.
However, this person could not do much, as the alarm system quickly made them realize. This is something hardly talked about, but it is latent in every business and is intellectual property.
We can often see what happens to someone we know, a friend of a friend, but we never think that this situation could knock on our door one day, so to build a client relationship, we must first get to know our employees.
As a consultant, I encounter these types of situations very often. For example, I had the opportunity to interview every employee of one of the last companies I worked with, ensuring that the right people were in the right seats on the bus and that they would maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
There, I met the owner’s right hand, who was in charge of accounting and payroll. And I said, “Hey, what are you doing?” Looking at her evaluation, she didn’t touch on her skills programs, which made me wonder if she was the right fit for the position. She did not feel comfortable in her job, so I designed a job for her when she was a 12-year employee, and soon after, she resigned.
We then discovered that over the past seven years, he had embezzled money from the capital, a gain of approximately $275,000, using the Office Depot and Staples cards. This is another case where, you know, by accident, we get an alert using a piece of technology.
Also, I want to alert you all, who knows how deep this can get, where employees are forwarding things to themselves because they are possibly going to start their own agency.
The Point
The reason for all this is the following: as a company, the person who owns the client relationship owns the customer. You cannot give free rein to your employees, that they are the ones who have a client relationship, as the owner of your business, you must take care of your clients yourself.
Your employees may be malicious and want to take away what you have achieved with so much effort. However, if you manage your own client relationships, you can keep your clients. Nobody can take that away from you.
Protect your intellectual property, be aware of who you hire for your services, and never let other people do your work. Your clients are your most valuable asset, so you must take care of and protect them the most.
