Developing and keeping clients.
What creates loyalty? Why are people loyal to one person and not another or loyal to one group and not another? At the root is a desire to feel safe. How do you convince clients to come back to you? Answer: you provide services that will help them meet their needs. This is a safety issue. If people feel safe with you, they will be loyal. This is basically no different from a gang mentality or a click at school. Others need to know you will keep your word. If you don’t, you have betrayed them. Children betray each other all the time. Children’s loyalties change with the wind because of trust. People need to know that you, as an adult, are emotionally safe. Entrusting their finances or hopes and dreams to you is an emotional trust. They are entrusting you with their personal security.
To be able to deserve trust means you must be enough of an adult yourself to be able to be dependable. If you know yourself, you will be able to inspire trust in others. This means you must be an adult in a world of children. Too many people don’t have the power of freedom, responsibility or work to pull this off.
Now, what do I mean by those three words? Let’s take freedom first. Freedom means the moral strength to rule yourself instead of letting others manipulate your ideas, opinions and actions. Responsibility takes credit for both successes and failures. Work is creating value in society.
Sometimes this means telling someone “No”. While you may occasionally loose a client or friend, those who stay will feel more secure than if you acquiesced to unreasonable demands. Word gets around if you can or cannot be trusted.
To quote an email friend of mine, Ah’Nay Satori:
‘No’
It’s very easy to say yes, but being able to say ‘no’ requires a person to know their worth. We integrate with people every day who live to appease others by agreeing.
This is not honorable; in fact, it’s denying oneself the right to live authentically. And when we are living superficially how then can we expect others to respect and value our worth.
Know your worth by having the courage to, sometimes, say no; it can be the difference between your joy, happiness and misery, pain.
Learn to say no when necessary; you’ll find that it feels good living authentically.
This will require you having the strength to look yourself in the face and ask, “Who am I”. This takes introspection, time and courage to see yourself for who you really are. Others know consciously or unconsciously who you are. Be brave enough to know yourself and in so doing strengthen yourself, your family, your community and your nation.
