Back in another life, I had a boss who used to refer to things he called "Cheap sales tricks." These are simple, quick things that work. Here's one, thanks to The Selling Sherpa blog. Send your best clients a postcard from your vacation. I'm spending my vacation in my hometown of Pained Post, New York with my kids. I will send my clients postcards.
In honor of this concept I am, therefore, inaugurating a new category of blog posts here -- Cheap Sales Tricks. I LOVE these, because they're like widgets -- easy, fast, and they work. Here's why this one works.
One of the presentations I give regularly is called "Client Service: Above the Line and Below the Line." The basic concept n it is that there are two different kinds of clients. There are the ones who are focused on execution, who, within your client organization, are responsible for spending legal budgets. Then there are the more senior people, responsible for setting those budgets.
The contacts who set the budgets are the really important ones, because they have the ability to allocate money for your services, and they can also decide that if you deliver enough value, or the relationship is strong enough, that your rates don't matter. Relationships with these people are much more personal. They're less about day-to-day business execution, and more about "Hey, how is Linda?" or asking about his fly-fishing trip to New Zealand. I have a client, for example, with whom I meet in the smoking room at Holt's Cigars in Philadelphia.
And an excellent variation on this kind of cheap sales trick is simply to send them a vacation postacard. It's extremely personal, it's cheap, fast and easy, and it will definitely stand out from all the other business-related mail your clients receive. If you have talked to them about your vacation, just send 'em a postcard. It will be noticed, and your relationship will be strengthened.