A common business challenge is generating a respectable ROI for the time, money and energy you invest in building your relationships with prospects, clients and centers-of-influence for your business or practice. Invest ‘too much’ with the ‘wrong’ people and your ROI will suffer.

A simple way to do avoid that is to practice the ABC’s of relationship marketing.

The Basic Idea . . . Unlike what President Washington said, all people are NOT created equal — for purposes of marketing your services.

A . . . these are people who have demonstrated their ability and willingness to either:

1. 1) buy what you offer, and/or
2. 2) refer people to you (or, vice versa). Preferably, BOTH

You want to maintain a relationship with these individuals and be their preferred provider whenever they (or, people they know) develop a need that you and your problem-solving expertise, product or service can address.  They are your ‘gold’!

B . . . these are people you feel could become an ‘A’ but, it just hasn’t happened. Not YET.

It may be just a matter of time (too little) or opportunity (not enough) to demonstrate their ability to buy and/or refer.  Regardless, you feel it’s likely to happen and you’re committed to cultivating the relationship until it does.  You definitely want to build your relationship with these individuals!  They are ‘near gold’.

C . . . You don’t know if they have the potential to become ‘A’s for your business.

Why?  You probably haven’t had an opportunity to determine their potential ability and willingness to either buy from you and/or refer others to you. You’ll want to assess these people as soon as possible and then ‘invest’ your resources accordingly. They may be ‘gold’ waiting to happen or ‘sludge’ you’ll want to clean out ASAP!

KEY POINT:
You have limited time, money, and energy to invest in building relationships that will help you build your business or practice.  It’s important to ‘invest wisely’ (and, appropriately!) in your business relationships.  Knowing who is ‘most’ deserving of your limited resources, based on their potential to buy and refer — will help you make the best ROI for the marketing resources you’ve got and get you what you ultimately want — profitable growth!