One of the best ways to ensure long term success and sustainability for your business is to connect with the people who you are doing business with.
Your customers are your people, your tribe, your family even at times…
You need to build and nourish these relationships.
The problem is, how do you do this. You cannot be everyone’s best friend.
This is a business remember.
I am not saying in any way that if become good friends with some of your clients that it is a bad thing… that is awesome, good friends are hard to come by.
But in business, you are serving many, and cannot be good friends with them all.
But you do need to connect with them all, make them feel special, all the right communication to happen. That can only happen when they know and trust you.
So in a business situation, how do you do that, how do you effectively build your tribe, and have fun doing it.
It comes down to them getting to know that they can count on you, and also that they understand that you care about them.
You need to build up your credibility, your expertise, and finally the trust factor.
This happens through good communication and thoughtful dialogue.
There are so many tools available for you to do this. The best is to pick the ones that work for you.
A blog is a great tool to allow you to tell your personal story. You can also establish you as an expert and help you stand out from others. Blog articles are great for attracting new customers. And it allows you to keep in touch with your people on a regular basis. They can comment on your blog posts and a dialogue can commence.
Social media is another valuable tool for connecting with your tribe and building that relationship. It allows spontaneous conversations, allows personalization and flexibility. Social media is also great for adding to your group of people as sharing is so easy, when done the right way.
Email is probably one of the best, yet most overlooked method to build relationships, credibility and trust. Email allows the most direct communication path, and can also be the most personalized. Yes you can send one to one emails, that can be very powerful.
So take a look at your business, your life, and see where you can reach out to your people to enhance that relationship.