While securing a new account or losing weight takes a lot of time, planning, and effort, maintenance after achieving that goal is just as important. When you look at what you did to secure that account or reach your goal weight, you need to have just as strong a maintenance plan.
Maintain a Routine
For me, the key to maintenance is making it routine. After losing the 100 pounds, I couldn’t go back to the same routine as before. The secret to my success was measuring my weight and sugar every day and eating and exercising until I achieved my goal. Well, measuring today is even more important. As I mentioned in my first blog, “Build a bridge and get over it”, when you see your weight is going up, you need to watch the next thing you eat or do a few more minutes on the exercise machine. When you measure on a regular basis, the changes aren’t that drastic and you can correct that fluctuation much easier.
Keep in Touch With the Customer
Putting regularly scheduled follow up with any customer will insure that customer stays a happy customer. “Things happen”, and your reaction to those things are what will keep your customer satisfied. If you don’t keep in contact, you may not even know there is a problem and like those few extra pounds, before you know it, you are back to where you started.
It’s all About The Final Results
I know that operations or administrative types feel it is only the job of sales to bring new business. They feel the reason any customer stays is because of the level of service they receive. Many compensation packages for sales people only reward new business. I can’t think of anything that irritates me more. When you look at an income statement, I have never seen a line that says “New Revenue”, it’s just Revenue. That’s what counts.
When you are asked, “How much weight did you lose?”, do you answer, “I lost 25 lbs, but I gained 20 lbs back.” That’s like saying, “I gained $100,000 of new business but my total revenue dropped by $90,000.”
What’s Important To You?
Keep an eye on what’s important to you. It is better to react to small problems or setbacks than waiting to find out that the problem has escalated into the loss of what you worked so hard to obtain in the first place. Yes, a bird in the hand is just as important as the two in the bush. Keep one hand on the bird that you have while you still have one hand free to go after new opportunities.