On a scale from 1 to 5, one being extremely easy and five being extremely difficult, how easy is it for you to balance between new business development and servicing your current customers? 

It’s a standard dilemma for all salespeople. Finding new business is important for an organization to grow. And, servicing current customers is also essential because we want to ensure that we retain and grow that business as well.  

Cultivating New Business and Coddling Existing Customers  

If you answered a 3 or above to the question, there are two tips that you can apply to your daily routine right now that will help you cultivate new business and coddle existing customers.  

Prioritize responses to your current customers.  

Technology has set an expectation that we should be responding quickly - but not to every request. Identify what can wait and get back to them later. Live up to the promises that you’ve made and respond to those urgent matters.  

For extra support, CSS offers a free retention checklist that guides you through the critical areas you need to address to retain long-term clients by delivering value.  

Turn off technology and give yourself permission to prospect and plan your approach to business development.  

Giving yourself permission means setting an out of office email or voice mail saying you’ll get back to them as soon as you can. As long as you live up to your promises, then you’ll meet their expectations. This allows you the peace of mind to take that time to devote to new business development - which takes a lot of focus, time and effort. 

I recommend doing this daily!  

New business prospects are more likely to increase their engagement level when they know a seller truly cares about them and their business. Show a new business prospect you care by taking time to plan.   

Customer Life Cycle  

Applying these two simple tips will help balance the work you need to do for new business development while growing existing customers.  

The most important thing in sales is to attract and retain your most profitable business customers. That’s not to say new business development is not highly important. Customer selection and acquisition is just the beginning of the customer relationship life cycle. Successful salespeople and businesses capitalize on every stage of the customer life cycle—from customer selection to customer acquisition, customer retention, and customer growth.