Where would we be without our client base? And while we all know it’s essential to grow a client base by bringing in new business, it is also crucial to nurture your existing accounts to ensure current clients keep coming back for your services time and time again. mice.net asks five of the business event industry’s leading lights to share their top five tips on cultivating clients to generate repeat business.

1. Show clients your passion – Great events are produced by passionate people. If your client knows how fervent you are about their events, they will trust you to deliver engaging, effective and perfectly executed events each and every time.
2. Attract passionate clients – Seek out passionate individuals as your client, and connect with those who share your passion. They will become your allies on the inside, disseminating your vision and ideas as well as supporting your business in your absence.
3. Turn challenges into opportunities – Demonstrate your understanding of your clients’ challenges and opportunities. Even better, move them to see challenges as opportunities. Look at every difficulty as a chance for your company to prove itself. Excellence and resourcefulness will see clients returning.
4. Get balanced – Maintain the right professional and personal mix with your clients. Let them know you will help them understand and this will help them connect with you.
5. Know the formula – Base everything on ethics, values, trust and transparency. You will never regret it as they are the foundation of all business and personal relationships.

1. Know who you’re talking to – Understanding a business and its people is the foundation of a solid relationship. The internet is a wonderful tool to find out the history of a company before you make contact.
2. What your client wants – Understand what is important to your client. Stop and listen, develop a strategy based on what they have presented to you, and give your client exactly what they have asked for and not what you think they need.
3. Know your clients on a personal level – Entertain your clients, and if the opportunity arises invite their partners too. This is a great way to develop a rapport and loyalty with clients, while building on your relationship.
4. Be their resource – Forward on articles or emails that may be of interest to your clients and their company. This will let them know you’re thinking of them and are looking out for their company’s best interests.
5. Generate referrals – If your top clients understand what your company is capable of, you will not only get the most out of their business, but they will be able to sell your product on to their contacts.

1. Go for above and beyond – Ensure that the benefits and services you say you are going to deliver actually get delivered, and then try and go above and beyond to deliver something extra or unique. You will continue to remain an asset to your client.
2. Be flexible in your approach – Adjusting your services and approach as required to move with your clients is important. Showing that you will adjust in order to deliver on their goals leads to a great working relationship.
3. Take an interest in the bigger picture – Ensure you know your clients’ strengths, weaknesses and current challenges, and are familiar with the environment in which they are operating to ensure the best possible synergy.
4. Build relationships – Get to know both the individuals you deal with and those that matter to them. This assists you to understand them as best as possible and to work to make them look good in front of those that matter to them.
5. Ask for the business – Don’t be afraid to ask prospects about their ongoing plans and to suggest ways that events could be considered to fulfil some of their future desired outcomes that may not have been considered before.

1. Know your relationships – Understand your clients and their expectations. Qualify their budget against their expectations and no matter how minimal a budget always include high impact value.
2. Deliver the promise – In this business you’re only as good as your last job. Ensure that operations understand the clients’ expectations and those they deliver. Always follow the saying “under-promise and over-deliver”.
3. Provide value for money – Use only the best suppliers, materials, venues and operators to help you do your job. Continually challenge yourself to remain at the forefront of your competitor set and genuinely offer clients the best value for money.
4. Ask clients for feedback – It doesn’t matter how long you have been in the business, you should always take the time to evaluate your offer and the satisfaction of your clients.
5. Be involved with your clients – Get to know the CEO, the event manager, the key decision makers and the event planners. Give them opportunities to get to know your team. This bond will make it difficult for your competitors to create opportunities to attract your clients.

1. Listen from the beginning – This will ensure you understand the client’s objective and treat each client as an individual from the initial stages. Give them what they want, not simply a spiel. Work with their timeline, provide quick responses and be available.
2. Give them what they want – Ensure everyone involved with the client/event understands the bigger picture and the importance of the event and specifically the client’s requirements.
3. Pre-empt requirements and issues – You know your product so draw on history and your experience to ensure you can do what they ask and value-add wherever possible. Be open about anything that could become an issue.
4. Develop an honest and mutual relationship – Become an extension of their team offering assistance on all aspects of their business not necessarily concerning your destination or venue.
5. Follow up – This is the common thread throughout the event, at the conclusion and continuing the relationship forward. Even if this client will not return to your venue or destination in their current role, this can change and as we know referral business is just as good as repeat business.

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