Are You Having More Meaningful Client Relationships?
Friday, September 5th, 2008

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to spend time with one of our clients. This client (who is a financial institution) has lots of research suppliers, but for this meeting they only invited their key research partners to a three day meeting. Thankfully, M/A/R/C Research was one of the three companies invited to attend.
The meeting was great. Our client and partner had presentation after presentation that was filled with strategy, open discussion and included all of the current challenges in the industry and they needed our help moving forward.
One of the most impactful things they said was
“WE WANT FEWER, DEEPER, MORE MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS WITH OUR RESEARCH PARTNERS”.
When they said this I almost jumped up and said YES! It took every ounce of strength not to scream how excited I was when I heard this.
The reason is, we have been discussing the exact same thing for a few months and have been working with our team through strategy sessions and constant communication to ensure that everyone not only is on the same page but knows how to achieve this goal.
With the current economy being very challenging, every company needs to listen to their clients–now MORE than ever. Client needs are changing very quickly; their needs are clearly different than a year ago or even different than three months ago. When they change their strategic direction, you need to be there.
The only way to do that is to be in constant contact with your clients, ask the right questions at the right time and react the right way in a timely fashion!
- What are you doing to develop deeper, more meaningful relationships with your clients?
- From a client perspective, how are you working with your research partners to develop stronger and more meaningful relationships?
I look forward to having you share your thoughts.

As you read this post there are less than 130 days to go in 2008–130 days until the clock strikes midnight and we all welcome in 2009–130 days to make something happen this year. Clearly the state of the economy is very challenging…maybe the most challenging readers have ever faced.
So there I am leaving a baseball game between the Texas Rangers and the Atlanta Braves. As I was walking to the car, I noticed that my cousin had just sent me an email. He thought I would enjoy the article (thanks AL) since it was about blogs. Since I hadn’t spoken to him in a few days, I thought I would give him a buzz and follow up on the article. During our conversation he mentioned that the list of blogs had a few cool stories and one of them was a company that actually bribes their new employees to quit. The company is Zappos. Since I don’t recall ever hearing of something like that I asked him to email me the article.
When you travel around, you see them all over the place. They are on every street corner, in lots of hotels and even in airports.
I have probably made every mistake you could imagine with regard to this topic.
Last week I was at a promotions conference In Las Vegas. Having never been to the conference I was looking forward to the speakers, networking and of course the gifts that you receive at a conference. This conference didn’t have an exhibit hall so most of the gifts or "chotchke" were in the conference bag that I received when I checked in.
We all know that the airline industry has tremendous challenges. With the rising fuel costs issue (anyone see an end in sight?) being dealt with every day, airlines are looking for additional revenue streams to stay afloat.
As you read this posting, the first quarter of 2008 is in the record books! Whatever you did or didn’t accomplish is over! You can’t get that time back! Here are nine questions that are going through my mind:
During the course of a month, I get plenty of sales calls. Frankly, I wish I had $1.00 for each one I receive. I think I could have retired five times already! I do meet with a number of salespeople during the course of the week and I still am amazed at some of the basic mistakes that salespeople make. Here are a quick five (in no particular order) that come to mind:
I tend to spend a lot of time thinking about M/A/R/C Research and ways to move the company forward. I do a lot of my best thinking while I am driving–just looking around and having my mind wander in lots of different directions.