Leslie Handmaker has a site which offers cool gifts for friends. She also is a freelancer providing marketing support and project management to small businesses.

Every company has various opinions of what makes their business successful. Some companies think that success is based on their staff, amount of money in the bank, quality of the product, advertising campaigns, future potential, or fill in the blank with anything else it takes to build a successful business. The truth is you can’t build any kind of company unless you have clients. The way to be successful is to have a base of loyal clients who help you grow. The best way to keep clients loyal is by staying in constant contact with them and by showing them your appreciation for their business.

When it comes to staying in contact this is more of an art than science. You have to balance out your conversations between business and personal. If you pick up the phone, call up every client, and try to sell him or her every service or product your company offers week after week that probably won’t work too well. Chances are they won’t remain clients very long. On the other hand you can’t become best friends with your clients because it takes away from the business side of things.

You’ve got to find that perfect balance, which means a bit of business and a bit of casual conversation. So give them a call once a month and ask them out to lunch or go out to dinner to chat about what’s going on. Tell them a bit about yourself and listen to what they have to say as well. Mix in some business chitchat from time to time. You’ll get a great understanding of their needs, problems, requirements, and what challenges you can help them with.

You can follow up every quarter, every six months, or annually with a gift of some kind to show your appreciation. Obviously don’t send them a present every week or every month because that’s just overdoing it and chances are your budget for client gifts is limited. A wonderful choice would be to send out fine wine gift baskets to all your clients once a year on a holiday like Christmas. These days you can add personalized greeting cards and other items to show creativity & effort. This will create massive appreciation, abundance, and will make them feel important.

Just by applying these easy methods you’ll set yourself apart from the hundreds of other companies that they work with. Odds are most of them have never stayed in touch on a monthly basis, sent gifts on an annual basis, and actually shown appreciation. If you do these properly you’ll quickly build up a base of loyal clients, get more referrals, and will have more business then you could possibly handle!

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