By: Jim Cecil  www.nurtureinstitute.com

I am sure of this. When trust must go before commitment in a relationship, that relationship is always a multiple contact affair.  There have been many useful metaphors chosen to illustrate the intentional and careful cultivation of customer relationships. I have found growing friends like growing customers to be a lot like tending my garden. The right amount of thoughtful planning and preparation, intelligent nurturing and diligent cultivating — and, yes, intentional, even ruthless pruning sometimes nearly always pay huge dividends at harvest time.

Here are a few nurturing tips to help make your own customer garden positively blossom. Go ahead, play in the dirt, plant a few seeds and remember ‘as ye sow, so invariably shall ye also reap'.

1. Start with a plan. Make sure the taller plants don't block the light from smaller ones. Nurture the plants you love. Select carefully so the colors in your garden complement each other. Plan for harvest timing; are you sure you want everything to bloom all at once?
   You get to choose what you plant and what you harvest.  Identify, Individualize, and continuously Interact with ‘A' level prospects and clients. ‘A' clients force you to grow and serve.
   
2. Preparing your soil is half the battle.
   Databases put relevant information at everyone's fingertips. True knowledge management means knowing what matters to customer's most and true customer intimacy means managing their experience and creating WOWs at every point of contact.
3. Individualize your approach to nurturing.  Few plant species are truly alike. Peonies may thrive in drought-like conditions, but you'll get limp lily-of-the-valley and shrunken violets in such an arid clime. Some plants love full sun and others bloom happily only in dense shade.
   One to One marketing allows personalized, relevant, useful, and nurturing contacts to be managed as a process. Even the most inarticulate nurturer can be supported with on line menus of letters, memos, notes and other relevant expressions of true sentiments, and well stated messages.
4. Use precision tools. Never use a shovel when the job calls for a spade.
   Permission not interruption leads to long-term relationships. Mass advertising misses the mark in the complex sale. When dealing with high ticket, high tech, long sales cycle situations, one to one wins.
5.  To reap top-quality harvests,  plant first quality seeds.
   Mark Twain said,"When you need a friend, it's too late to make one". It is always the choice of the farmer to select which crops to cultivate. The laws of the harvest are inviolable and apply universally;"as ye sow, so shall ye reap".
6. When you talk to your plants, say only positive things.
   Use CRM technology to be responsible for making ‘touches that matter'.
   People remember people who intentionally create experiences that make them feel special. Audit your customer conversations for behavior, content.
7. Give stronger, healthier plants the ample room they'll need to flourish.
   Make room. Rip out dead seedlings and root out weeds. Remember; weeds  consume the same space, nutrients and energy but unlike ‘A' customers, yield virtually no salable harvest.
8. Tall, majestic plants need support to keep them from toppling over.
   Indifference is often interpreted as apathy and is deadly to both fledgling customers and top producers. Appreciation, Education and Communication are the antidotes for customer and employee defection.
9.  Fertilizing is a messy job, but always worth the effort.
   Drip-Irrigation marketing campaigns make cultivating customers and your team, light lifting. Maintaining professionally persistent contact demonstrates commitment and caring.
10. Poisons and pesticides make a quick fix, but usually cause more problems than they solve.
    Strong closing, pressure-tactics and bullying rarely influence long term growth.
11. Take pride in your flowers, but don't take all the credit.
    We reap much we did not sow. An attitude of gratitude with your team and clients shares the harvest with all your gardeners and encourages continued nurturing.
12. Wear gloves to keep calluses from forming.
    Nurturing is often hard work but keeping up a steady and anticipated"touch" pays off in an abundant harvest.
13. Don't rest on your shovel. Without a regular maintenance program, your garden will turn into a jungle.
     Weeds fill any open space. Plants, like customers and employees, interpret neglect as indifference and that behavior invariably suppresses vertical growth.  For isn't the best gardener usually the best at pruning?
14. Nurture generously, only weeds flourish in an environment of indifference.
    You always harvest more than you sow. Both the good and the bad.
    Have the patience to persist in your cultivation until the harvest is ready, not trying to gather only when you are ready to pick.
15. Never tramp mud into the house.
    We can do nothing about last year's harvest but can do much about this year's crop. Stop pondering the past and begin nurturing your future.

For a conversation and more tips on customer nurturing, contact     [email protected]