Tools for Managing Client Relationships in Clients & Profits Don't neglect the details about your clients! Keeping up with the nuances of each client is crucial to good client relationships. With details centrally located, you can easily find -- and manage -- client information. Here are three powerful tools that help you manage and use the myriad of client details: Contact Manager Track details about various persons at your clients' offices, including office and home phone, fax, e-mail, an alternate street address, a place to track last and next call dates, as well as a place for your notes about a contact. Mark them as a "decision maker" and whether or not "sales e-mails" should be sent to them to further define their role at their office. Proposals Track potential work before it gets to the "creating a job ticket" stage. All possible work you suggest to current clients, all ideas for new work that clients come up with, and all new Biz pitches should be added as individual proposals. Proposals link to Contacts so those important details you added can be referred to as you're adding a proposal. Once a proposal is approved, generate a job ticket with one mouse-click and no rekeying! Meeting>Manager A complete meeting tracker, the built-in Meeting>Manager records when and where the meeting will happen, its topic, objective, and duration, and who will attend (all of a client's contacts are listed for easy selection). An e-mail message is automatically sent to all attendees with details on the upcoming meeting. After wrapping up the meeting, add a meeting summary to record what was discussed, add any new action items, and indicate whether a follow-up meeting is needed. The summary can be automatically e-mailed to all attendees.

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Let's put it in dollars and cents. Say your agency bills $8 million annually, and you retain 60% of your clients. With a 40% Biz loss annually, you've got to win $3.2 million in new billings every year just to maintain your current level. Those lost billings will need to come from somewhere (translation: thousands of dollars in spec work, pitches, and wooing new clients).

The key to getting more work -- and keeping revenue flowing -- is getting clients to come back to you again and again.

Do you want fries with that?

Clients also dump incumbents due to the perception that the agency isn't capable of providing full service or that the agency can't meet their growing needs. Your strategy should be to never stop selling.

Getting clients to buy into additional services is pivotal to increasing billings. It takes tenacity, attentiveness, and tact. Develop an empathetic partnership with clients so you can comfortably elaborate on needs that the client might not be aware of.

When you can, remind clients that your agency can provide more than whatever they've been getting from you. Drop notes, e-mail, and hints about successful jobs. Work in statistics and examples (e.g., a case study), and you've got a powerful pitch, delivered in seconds, that the client will remember.

In fact, clients confess that they develop their lists of potential agencies based on personal relationships, not unsolicited cold calls. So when a client needs that little extra something (an ad, postcard, or web site update, for example), the job will go to the agency that maintains the strongest personal relationship with them. Is that you?

A win-win-win situation

Take a look at internal and external teams to make sure you have a good mix of abilities. Getting additional work from existing clients -- especially if the work is different than what you normally provide them -- is dependent on having resources ready to assemble into crackerjack teams. Team members don't have to all be your own agency staffers. If needed, pull in freelancers or other trusted agencies. Remember, success isn't about doing what needs to be done. It's about doing what needs to be done right. If that means tapping external resources, then get the best ones you can find. You can assemble a group that functions well as a team with your agency in the starring role. After all, the client is your client, and your agency is the driving force behind the great new work underway.

The result is three-fold: you have a stronger relationship with the client, the client gets a better product, and your agency has a better rapport with external team members. It's a win-win-win situation.

Open your toolbox

Providing superior client services doesn't have to be hard, especially with a little help from Clients & Profits. You'll find sophisticated client management tools at your fingertips, along with the reporting you need to prove your value to your clients.

The newly redesigned client windows in Clients & Profits 5 lets you enter thousands of active clients, hot leads, and potential prospects along with all of the contacts who make the important decisions.

Each client contact contains useful marketing information that can be used by the Sales>Maker for developing customized follow-up sales campaigns involving sales e-mail, letters, and telephone calls. Use the tickler field for personal notes then refer to it just before phoning a client or stopping by for a meeting. You'll have a ready-made hook to start a comfortable conversation -- and it puts you miles ahead of the guy who can't remember a thing.

Reports to prove your point

Take along (or e-mail) any of the dozens of reports from Clients & Profits that show your clients you're on the ball. To win new jobs, for example, use the On-Time Performance report to show that your shop will indeed get the job done on time (of course, if your on-time performance isn't a source of pride, you might want to consider a different report.)

Another good report to share with your clients is the Job Timeline. This report is a graphical representation of what tasks will be performed at what time. The client will be able to see when your shop is working on tasks that require their input and approval so they can stay on track, too.

Whatever tools you use, the key is to build strong relationships with your clients. That strength will carry new jobs into your shop with very little effort, leaving you more time and energy to develop new associations with up-and-coming clients.