On a conference call today with a great group of pareto platform clients, I was reminded of the power of the Client Advisory Council. On the call, our client recounted how just last week - after following our turnkey process - he enjoyed a dinner meeting with a group of 13 clients and significant others that lasted close to 4 hours. Total cost: $700; outcome: priceless. Actually, truth be told, within a couple of days, one his clients walked into his office with a cheque for $850,000.00!

If you are thinking about doing a CAC, keep these simple parameters in mind:

* Only invite AAA and AA clients with attitude with a significant emphasis on attitude.
* Keep it to 15 people or less.
* Have an agenda to follow
* Send an executive summary of what was covered to all in attendance

If you’ve heard the idea of a CAC before but never got around to doing one, contrast the cost of time and money of your current business development efforts that the CAC. I remember one client explaining why he was doing seminars for prospects and that didn’t allow him the time to do a CAC. Remember the mantra, “It’s more important to reach people who count than it is to count the number of people you are reaching.” Sure a seminar or trade show will put you in front of more people but they can’t possibly have as much influence or impact on your business as your top 10 clients.

In short, the CAC along with a call rotation, FORM and other core activities within your service matrix ensures that you are investing 80% of your time on the 20% of your clients who generate 80% of your business. These activities are proven to be the most important when it comes to competitor proofing clients, gaining their full empowerment and stimulating a higher quality and quantity of referrals. So take action now, you can conduct a CAC within 30 days from today and within 30 days of that be quantifiably measuring the impact it has had on your business.

The complete process is in our book and on our proven strategies dashboard.

We have been saying for a long time how important trust is in any business relationship–at least any business relationship that you wish to endure over several years. I would take that one step further and suggest that we could define a professional relationship as one that is long term and based on trust. A professional realtionship is one that starts with rappport, moves to trust and then motivation to determine if there is a fit to do business together. If the fit is positive you can continue to build trust and of course have a long term fulfilling realtionship for both individuals.So yesterday someone asked me what makes the better entrepreneur a professional or a salesperson?
Sales relationships have four componenets. You start out with an individual trying to gain rapport, then you move to trying to gain a little bit of trust. So you could say that a sales relationship also is centered around trust. However, it doesn’t strive for fit, longevity and constant enhancement of the trust component. On the contrary, a sales relationship moves to motivation–not for fit but for a product sale. At the conclusion there is little done to ensure the long term relationship. The only time a salesperson is intersted in you is when he or she thinks they may be able to sell you an additional product. In most cases this actually erodes any trust that you built with the cusotmer.
So to answer the question-what makes the better entrepreneur , a professional or a salesperson?- I think you have to ask  what your long term intent is, and what will serve you and your clients over time.