Happy September everyone!

8 months gone in 2017! 4 more to go! Where does time fly?

I shared in my previous post (Here) how I flew out to see a prospect face to face with no guarantee that the firm would become a client, and they eventually did.

Football season is upon us and hopefully, most of your clients and prospects are back from summer and vacation mode and in full focus until the end of the year.

Another quick story:

I had a solid client for approximately two years out of Seattle but I had never met them in person.

A few months ago, one of the firm’s principals reached out to me via LinkedIn out of the blue and wanted to restart our relationship.

Obviously, with today’s technology landscape, you can conduct business with people around the country and the world and never meet them.

So I flew out on Memorial Day and met with the firm the next day. It was a productive strategy meeting on moving forward for the fall and future.

Long story short, they became a client again and all is well.

When you meet an out of town client in person, it’s beneficial for 3 main reasons:

1. You go from being a friendly stranger via email and phone to a real person and partner.
2. Assuming you do great work, you become more memorable and entrenched with your client.
3. There’s no substitution for face to face communication and interaction, where you can read their body language and facial expressions.

Should you go see every out town client? Maybe. Maybe not.

Disclaimer: I haven’t met every out of town client myself. I try to and some people I’ve had as clients, it’s like we are long time friends, without having met in person. I know about their lives, families and interests.

I have no scientific data, but my guess is that if you’re intentional with your clients, they’ll stay clients longer.

Happy Fall everyone!