What makes up your business?

Sure you’ve got a public profile on social media and that’s your business.

You may have a marketing plan and do some content marketing and that’s your business.

Yet these aren’t the things that say the most about your business.

By-products

Have you ever called your cell phone provider and been put on hold? Do you remember the message that’s repeated over and over while you wait? It’s typically some version of:

We value you and want to serve you — please wait 9 hours for an operator.

Do we believe that? No, of course we don’t because making you wait for 9 hours is all the proof you need that the company doesn’t value you or your business.

Internet

My friend Ryan had a very similar circumstance with his internet provider. He called to get some support and was put on hold.

Then after 2 hours the line was disconnected on the provider’s end, and of course he called back.

[Tweet “Are you only valuable when you want to quit?”]

The second time he only waited for 20 minutes before he got hung up on.

The third time he went through the crazy phone tree and was finally able to state his reason for calling — that he was going to cancel his service. Guess what? Someone picked up the phone after the first ring.

Ryan was only valuable when he was going to drop their service.

It’s all marketing

Your business is a by-product of your actions. If you’re not getting referrals from past clients, you need to ask yourself if you’ve really marketed yourself well to those clients while you worked on their project.

Did you just check off tasks without actually accomplishing their goals?

During your exit process, did you wrap the client up in a little ball of warm love? Wait — do you have an exit process?

[Tweet “Every interaction with your business is marketing.”]

Did you communicate regularly with the client or did they have to follow up with you to get information?

Did you go back and measure the ROI with the client to make sure that your services were actually of benefit?

If you want an awesome business and great referrals then you need to realize that getting a client in the ‘door’ is only the first step in your marketing plan.

After that you need to remain awesome so that the client doesn’t feel hoodwinked, but instead wants to sing your praises to everyone around.

Your business is a by-product of every interaction that a client has with you.

Make sure the interactions are awesome.

photo credit: proudlove cc