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Any time the subject of relationships comes up and I ask how important they are in the overall sales and business process, I usually get the answer that they are the most important part.

I think we all know that the more a prospect or customer likes us, the more likely they are to conduct business with us regardless of most other factors and in fact, a prospect will buy a higher-priced, inferior product from someone they like vs. someone they don’t.

Make no mistake, building solid relationships takes time, effort, energy, and money and that’s precisely why most people continue to cop out with price and other excuses when they lose a sale as opposed to building the relationships necessary to retain customers and get new ones. That said, if you do decide you’d like to complete the hard work upfront in order to hang on to customers long-term, this article will give you the information to gather and use with each customer.

Gathering Information

You won’t gather and use this information on all your customers. Ideally you’ll be doing this to build relationships with the top 20 percent of customers that give you 80 percent of your business. In addition, you will be gathering and using this information on other good customers such as those giving you the most referrals. The goal is to reach out to these customers 14-18 times per year with a variety of methods, such as: birthday, holiday, and anniversary cards, thank-you notes, in-person calls, phone calls, e-mail (assuming they have agreed to be on your e-mail list), regular mail in which you can send hard-copy newsletters, gifts, and other items of interest, and via customer appreciation events.

While it’s not likely that you’ll get all this information from everyone, the more information you have about each customer and the better you know them, the better your relationship will most likely be. Specifically, you want to know about your best customers’ family, their hobbies and interests, and their history. To the left is an outline of the information you’re looking for.

1. Name: 
2. Title: 
3. Company: 
4. Address:
5. Phone number: 
6. Fax number: 
7. Cell phone number: 
8. Home phone number:
9. E-mail address: 
10. Birth date: (month and day) 
11. Where they live now: 
12. Where they grew up: 
13. Where they went to school (high school, college, other): 
    1. What degrees they have:
    2. If college, what was their major: 
14. Activities they were involved in growing up (sports, clubs, student government, fraternities, sororities, etc.): 
15. Military service, and at what level: 
16. Political or religious beliefs: 
17. What subjects they like to talk about and what, if any, subjects should you avoid: 
18. Where they were employed previously: 
19. What activities they are involved in now (sports, clubs, groups, trade associations, travel, hobbies): 
    1. What their level of involvement and proficiency is (board of directors, instructor, scratch golfer, etc.): 
20. Relation or connection to anyone else you know (someone’s sister, cousin, close friend, etc.): 
21. Most significant accomplishment(s): 
22. Planning on retiring someday, and what they would like to do: 
23. Where they vacation, where they would like to vacation: 
24. Married, single, divorced:
    1. If married now, how long: 
    2. Anniversary date:
    3. spouse’s name and birthday: 
    4. spouse’s occupation:
    5. spouse’s interests: 
25. Children:
    1. Names, ages, and birthdays:
    2. Activities they are involved in: 
26. Other information you’ve gathered on the customer:
    Examples: Have they had knee surgery? Do they have diabetes? Did they go to an Aerosmith concert last year? Have they climbed Mt. Fuji? Have they run the Boston Marathon? Do they have a famous uncle, aunt, cousin, etc.? Is their son the wrestling champion in the state of Iowa? 
27. Information on family members that doesn’t fall into the categories listed above:
28. Other personal information that will help you understand and relate better with your customer:

Once you have this information, again, use it. Ultimately you are looking to make customers both loyal customers as well as good friends. The more of this information you have, and the more you use it, the less likely it is that someone will leave you or buy from someone else.

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].