In an industry as networking-heavy as PR, it’s easy to meet a lot of people, swap business cards and never come away with any valuable connections for your business. It’s even easier to see clients come and go and relationship fade along the way. While for some, it might be easier to forget people and move on, I’ve definitely learned that maintaining relationships is probably the single most important thing you can do in business.
Earlier this week, we announced that Articulate signed six new clients. While they are companies we’ve never worked with before, they aren’t all “new” – and none of them came out of thin air. A whopping 90 percent of those companies were clients we’d worked with previously, who changed companies, started new ones or were direct referrals from current Articulate clients and partners.
The best part is that it’s not an anomaly. It’s our business. We have an 80 percent client retention rate and we get more than 70 percent of our new business from referrals or standing relationships.
It’s well known that it’s cheaper to keep a customer than to get a new one. So pick up the phone. Send out an e-mail. Follow up with people you’ve worked with before. It goes beyond networking – it’s about smart business. I got an e-mail yesterday from someone who used to be a spokesperson for one of our clients. I stayed in touch with her while she was in between jobs, helped her network with folks, etc. Yesterday, she had her first day at a new company – and I was the first person she reached out to. Never underestimate the importance of relationships.
By Meghan Attreed
