When it comes to sales and marketing for your company, YOU are not the best person to be selling for your business. No need to panic; you have a database full of capable sales people. Your existing database is your gold mine to new prospects. If you know anything about panning for gold, you know that you have to sift through a lot of sand before you strike it rich. You’ve already done that. Your database is full of people who have already bought from you. They already like you and trust you – and you’ve set the foundation for creating loyal customers, but you’re not doing enough after the sale. Truly great customer service and loyal customers comes from following up after the sale. You’ve already sifted through all the no’s and found your yes’es. Rather than focus all of your marketing efforts on obtaining new customers and strangers, the smart way to market your business is to train your team to hold onto the customers you already have.

In a typical sales process, once a transaction is complete, the next step is to do a 180-degree turn to find your next sale. It’s exciting to nurture and court your customer when there’s hope of getting the deal, but before their signature is even dry, you’re already thinking about how to get to that next customer. Yet, the answer is standing in front of you, probably still with a pen in their hand.

Every customer interaction is a chance to create a memorable experience that will get your customers bragging about you. Most customers, even though satisfied, will not tell anyone. That means that you aren’t earning any referrals from them. This doesn’t mean that you forgot to ask for a list of ten names and numbers, it means that you left such an impression that your customer bragged about you.

Rather than focus all of your marketing efforts on obtaining new customers and strangers, train your team to hold onto the customers you already have. A car salesman tried this. He knew that his customers weren’t going to by another car from him the following month, so he was skeptical about following up so soon. He now makes phone calls to check in on his previous months customers. These phone calls aren’t sales calls. They are genuine phone calls of sincerity. More often than not, these conversations turn into more referrals, even though he doesn’t ask for them. They are willingly offered because this salesman takes time to say “thank you”. For most consumers, a genuine “thank you” is worth far more than gold. That’s smart marketing.