No faking - we REALLY do LOVE our customers!

Our customers here at The FRANK Team are everyone from teachers, to careers advisers, to school students, to uni students, to corporates, to other young entrepreneurs and even our staff (especially the newbies!); we work with many different people. Today I read a totally awesome piece of advice that had a lightbulb go off in my head that said "we do totally LOVE our customers, LOVE helping them, hanging out with them and building relationships". None of that love is fake, you know just cos they pay the bills you have to love them....none of that - we truly LOVE working with all of them and making amazing things happen! This totally shows in the work that we do, and wonderful feedback that we get - and is what attracts people to us.
How can you let your customers know you LOVE them today? For us, we are organising a little birthday surprise for one of them - we can't wait! And then putting together a FRANK welcome kit for our newest team member (think FRANK DVDs, chocolate, inspirational books and quotes!), I will then get to responding to some emails from some young people asking for advice on starting their businesses.....arhhhh life is good! And that is just the morning :)
Go and enjoy the LOVE!

That gem of advice I got, is here for you now: (and yes, it came from my dad the marketing genius, Michael Kiely!!)
I hit a big home run during an Ogilvy & Mather international training course when I was with the agency (when it was truly O&M). Ken Roman, the President, was interrogating the class in Socratic style (look it up) when he asked "What's the best thing you can do with your clients?" Without thinking I blurted out: "Hang around with them." Ken, who earned the role of President by his client handling skills, took the cigar out of his mouth (it was the mid 80's) and thundered his approval: "Hang around with them!" It was a defining moment in my career. I was marked for advancement after that and was made creative director within a year. Because building a strong personal relationship is the key to building a strong business relationship.
Trust is the essential ingredient. If a client doesn't trust you to always act in their best personal interests, you are going nowhere. Simply hanging out with them, and enjoying it, should come easy. If it doesn't, put someone else on the business. Faking it doesn't work, either. People know when they're being snowed.
€ ARCHIVES of "MICHAEL'S MARKETING-THOUGHT-A-DAY" can be found at http://marketingthoughtaday.blogspot.com

Cheers
Jessica Kiely