Working with a PR firm recently, I came across a GREAT example of selling your value to your client at every opportunity.
We recently got press coverage for our solar panel installation and our PR company got the story on the front page of a local paper. This article, as per usual, appeared in the paper's online edition. We were concerned that the story would no longer be linked online, so we asked our PR person to contact the paper to see how long the link would stay active. The PR person sent us the following message:
"The producer of www.insidebayarea.com agreed to keep the link active for a year."
At first glance, that statement is innocuous. However, I am damned sure that links are kept active for a year by default. This PR person, this salesperson, turned a run-of-the-mill request into a situation where it looks like she really went to bat for us.
The simple re-wording of her answer made me think that she cares about our business so much that she grappled with the Editor to secure that year-long link. All she added was one word, "agreed". Otherwise, the sentence is that he will keep it active as matter of course. "Agreed" means that she had to convince him on our behalf.
Keep this simple story in mind when thinking about re-affirming your value to your clients. I bet you they don't know or understand half the things you and your company do for them, on a daily basis and probably for free.
Sell up, make yourself valuable and your service irreplaceable. All it may take is one word.
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