So today I want to talk to you about clients. I believe that clients are oxygen to each business and each client needs to be treated like royalty and I don’t care if the client spends €10 or €1million. Why am I so passionate about clients you might ask? To make money? To grow? Yes & Yes! I’m passionate about people because I believe that we all need to help people when they are looking to solve a problem. When you genuinely want to help clients you win a client and clients are oxygen that keep you and your business breathing. Making money is not a bad thing, it’s great because your company grows, it’s good for the economy and it’s good for other people because you can help others as well.  In today’s world we have more experts and fewer solutions, which means we need to focus on being solution oriented people.

A month ago I wrote a comment on one of my favorite brand’s Instagram page about a complaint I had. They never replied to me and I was disappointed because it wasn’t a negative comment that I wrote. I said that I like the brand on a global scale but locally they made me dislike them. You might say it’s common sense to reply to someone online and I agree with you.  One thing I learn everyday is that common sense is not always common practice. So the mindset that some people have is that if it’s online we don’t need to reply. What we all can learn is that we all need to reply to every single comment and review online. It helps us to connect with our customers, it builds a bond. These brands spend millions on advertising to tell us how great they are, but don’t invest in customer service at all. Just by improving your customer service you can increase your sales by 50% because people always remember great experiences. Would you tell your friends that you went to get a coffee today? No, I don’t think so. Imagine going to a coffee shop and getting a mind blowing customer service and seeing something different in the store or engaging in a short interesting conversation with a barista. I’m sure that you would remember that.

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Around 2 weeks ago I asked another question on Instagram  about a campaign they were running and nobody responded to me. They had a campaign that included two hashtags. Basically you needed to post one picture with two hashtags and I didn’t understand if I needed to include two hashtags or one hashtag. It wasn’t clear and if it was, if it required two hashtags,  it didn’t make sense for a user to use them but that’s another topic. Maybe I will create a YouTube video on that subject. So now, why on earth wouldn’t they reply to their client? I understand that we all see the world in a different way and especially in digital marketing. If you know that not replying to clients is not a good strategy, that’s just rude and you will probably be out of business soon. If you don’t know this, I hope you understand how important it is to reply to clients because with social media you build loyalty, you build a business.

Look, social media is great. Having 200 likes is nothing to me unless 200 people bought that product. I care about social engagement but I care about selling first. If a post or a tweet has 1 like and made two sales that’s great, or if that post influenced another person, or changed  the way the other person thinks it’s great as well. To make myself clear, not all clients are right and not every single client is a great client so when you feel that the client is not a good fit for your business, you can always fire them (always in a nice way of course).

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Without profitable clients we can’t grow a business. If one client is not satisfied he will tell his friends, family and even post on social media. What all this brings is losing market share and business. There is data that shows us that it’s 10x the cost to acquire a new client rather than sell to current clients. To create loyal clients we need to build trust – we need to care for our clients. The company’s cash flow can be fine now, but what will happen in 2,3,4 or 5 years down the line? There are so many start ups that start operating every single day and everybody is trying to get your and my clients, so the best strategy is to acquire clients and treat them like royalty. We live in a world where people don’t believe ads and more importantly don’t even care about advertising. Let’s say that you are selling    shoes – if you put an advert out there saying that you have the best shoes buy them today with 50%, maybe one or two people will buy them. If an influencer posts a picture on Instagram wearing them saying that they are great, the shoes will sell out. Why is that? Because people trust people and people trust people they like.

So let’s all remind ourselves that clients are oxygen and treat them like gold. At end of the day we are human beings and we should all inspire and educate one another.