As part of the leaving process it is important to reflect and learn.  Could your organisation actually deliver what the client wanted? And is your branding and image in the market meeting clients’ expectations?

Quintessential Concierge is a relatively small business, we don’t speak at huge institutional gatherings, don’t do a lot of marketing, and don’t have a huge wining-and-dining budget. Our growth comes entirely from word-of-mouth and referrals. It’s always good to consider your branding and image in the market and whether this is meeting client’s expectations. But also consider that if you have a solid presence in your market segment, changing the way you do business could alienate your other clients.

If it’s only one client on occasion that has left, and you like your market niche and feel you’re meeting the goals of the vast majority of your clients – well, tell yourself you were lucky to have had the business “temporarily.” Losing a big client is never fun, and much less than ideal for your bottom line, but it’s as much a part of business as landing a dream client. And it’s sometimes the fallout of staying true to your style and strengths.

What to do next:

• Remain professional at all times
• Keep calm and stay focused
• Look for the positives
• Before finalising work ask your client the reason for leaving
• Ask yourself whether you understood their expectations, and if not, whether this was preventable
• Evaluate whether your organisation could or should even try to meet their expectations
• And ask yourself if this is part of a larger pattern, or just an isolated incident

Remember to also:

• Keep in contact with your client (if the relationship is amicable) – you never know whether their circumstances will change in the future
• Don’t take it personally
• Reflect, learn and move on

Sometimes having a client leave is a blessing in disguise – freeing up your time to take on someone new and you never know what and who’s just around the corner.  I recently had a client return after leaving due to a change in circumstances and it was lovely receiving these comments from her the other day: “Many thanks and good work again – we make a very good team”.
What doesn’t break you just makes you stronger!

Business is based on relationships.  Most relationships don’t last very long without any form of communication.  Communication is the true life source of any relationship.  Keep it going and do it effectively, and you will find a strong alliance will be the outcome.  An alliance that has potential to bring you more and more business.

So how often do you keep in touch with your clients?  What forms of communication do you use?  And what added value can you provide to keep your clients in your backyard?

Here are 11 tips that work for us:

• Catching up over Skype – some of our clients don’t live locally so we catch up with them over a weekly Skype meeting.  At the moment they have events being promoted on Facebook so we’ll throw in some complimentary advice on how to further promote the events and understand user interaction.
• Be a resource - no matter what your customer needs, try to find it for him, even if it has nothing to do with your business.
• Return their phone calls promptly – and if you haven’t spoken to them for a while pick up the phone and ask them how everything is going.
• Send an email – your client may have emailed you for advice or information on a service and you replied but you haven’t heard from them since.  Diarise a follow up.
• Send out a regular newsletter – keep your business in the forefront of your clients’ minds.  By sending a monthly newsletter you are reminding them you are there to help.  You never know, that client that remained on your database whilst they went away for a while, may just return.
• Be supportive of their projects – from time to time clients may engage you to give advice on projects they’re undertaking that are non business related i.e. writing a book.
• Be genuinely interested in their business – ask them about recent events or important meetings that have occurred.
• Be willing to help whenever – Show clients that you are available when they have a problem. Your business should be open to meet the convenience needs of your clients.
• Commit to achieving their business goals with them – whether the goal is short-term or long-term.  Be tenacious in helping them grow their business.
• Uphold the utmost discretion and confidentiality – your clients’ business is their business and nobody else’s.  Keep it that way.
• Speak less and listen more – make the effort to truly listen to your clients.  Take notes during the meeting so you can remember what was discussed and follow up on anything afterwards.  Take the time to hear and get to know clients on a human level.  This can be one of the easiest and most impactful ways to stay in touch.

The ideal would be to always surround yourself with clients that are positive, hold the same high standards as you, are happy and share the same emotional bandwidth, but this is not always possible when you first start out. If you do find yourself in an ideal situation, you will then find your days are much less destructive, you’ll love what you do more and you’ll have more time and energy to seek those opportunities out that you love.

So how do you recognise a good client over a bad one?

1. You love to work with them – You get excited when correspondence arrives from them about a prospective project or when you get a chance to visit their offices.
2. You believe in their organisation and what it stands for – if they are doing and saying things that don’t match your beliefs, it’s pretty hard to get excited about them or refer them to others.
3. They are open-minded - to new ideas and potential improvements.
4. You and your point of view are trusted and respected; your expertise is appreciated and valued – we all know those types that use you for your information and then move on thinking they can find a what they’re looking for elsewhere.  It’s a two way street and loyalty is a biggie.
5. They value your time and respect your terms of work - we all deserve some time out to spend with our families and recharge.  After hours and weekends may be non-negotiable to you.
6. They are very happy to shout out to others about your performance - if this is not the case you’ve got to question the relationship.  Why are they continuing to use your services but don’t see the benefit in telling other people about you?  By doing so can only bring both parties more opportunities, testimonials and referrals.
7. They know not to hold incessant meetings - they have a purpose for each meeting they hold and consider your time when inviting you along to contribute.
8. They don’t come with ‘horror stories’ – good clients don’t have a selection of stories about inadequacies, issues and struggles they’ve experienced with other suppliers/clients.
9. They stick to one idea at a time - we all juggle business ideas and that’s healthy, but having too many at a time can not be disastrous for them but hard for you to keep up with the constant goalpost shifting.

Remember, good clients are great to have so nurture each relationship and make sure they know they matter. A good relationship only works if both parties are on the same page. If you think the relationship is worth saving but it’s gone off track slightly, there may still be time to rectify the situation by sitting down and having a good old chat. If not, you may need to consider a client purge.

I believe one of the hardest thing for our culture to do is ask for help.  Us Kiwi’s are known for our ‘can do’ attitude and most times we would rather hold onto our pride than hire someone else to complete a job for us. We feel ashamed at the thought of needing help from others and most times it’s seen as a personal failure.

I’ve touched on the subject in a previous post Just Because You Can Do Something Doesn’t Mean You Should and felt it was timely coming into a new year to remind those that felt overwhelmed in 2016 it may be time to make some positive changes in 2017.

Do you find yourself having a hard time asking for help?  Here are some common reasons why people delay seeking help:

• You have a certain way of doing things
• You don’t want to pay for things when you can do it yourselves
• You don’t know who to ask for help and how to get started
• You don’t like change

If you insist on doing everything yourself, you will never have enough time to do everything properly and the quality of the work and your health will likely suffer.

Focus on your strengths and let others do the rest.

Remember change in not necessary a bad thing, we’ve helped many of our clients as they’ve taken their first steps into outsourcing their work to us.  Of course, those steps we take together and relationships are built along the way. We love being a part of our clients successes and seeing their lives and health change for the better.

What are you waiting for?  Contact Letitia NOW on 021 898 661 or email her on letitia@quintessentialconcierge.co.nz to book an appointment to discuss what you need help with and how she can make a positive difference in your life.

It’s so important to understand, to be successful in business you need to leverage your top strengths whilst being aware of your weaknesses and outsource tasks that you’re no good at.

You must focus more on what you and only you can do best.  Tasks where you add the most value to your business are the only tasks you should be doing.  Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should!

When you outsource to a Administrative Consultant you are delivering value to your business and just think about what you are saving from not having to hire a full-time employee with the benefits they’re entitled.

Yes, outsourcing your marketing and administration may cost you $500 per week, however by spending that $500 per week you’re freeing up your time so it can be spent on higher-value tasks.  Outsource the production of lower-value services, even if you can produce them more efficiently yourself. Even if your faster or better at getting a routine task done doesn’t mean it’s a good use of your time. Ditch the small tasks. Taking care of the details of running an office can hijack your day.

You may be brilliant at creating ideas, but your downfall is organisation and project management.  You know you must utilise social media and online marketing for your business but have no idea where to start and no time to think about it.  You want time to grow your business, get out and network and make sales but you’re bogged down by routine administration tasks.

By hiring a Administration Consultant you’ll save time, bring in expertise you may not have, get things done quicker and increase your revenue.  So…….is it an extravagant expense?  It sounds like an investment you can’t afford not to take.

What do you think?  Is hiring a Administrative Consultant something you’d like to explore?

Contact Letitia on 021 898 661 or email her on letitia@quintessentialconcierge.co.nz for a FREE introductory meeting to discuss your requirements.

These days, if your business hasn’t got a presence on the internet (an online presence), it can be hard to know you exist.

What is an “online presence”?  An online presence is any existence of an individual or business that can be found via an online search. An example is a business who has a LinkedIn profile, Facebook page and or Website.

In August 2016, Stuff published an article that referenced to MYOB data which showed 49% of small businesses in New Zealand are not online.  In 2014, 59% were not online and in 2013 66% were not online.

My question is WHY do 49% of business still not have a presence on the internet?  It is that they feel overwhelmed at the work that’s involved?  Do they feel their business are profitable enough without it?

Your audience is not just the people that are walking past your front door anymore. Having a website is just the start and only the beginning.  Once you’ve got the website, that is up to date and mobile-friendly then add to that social media to be noticed. There is a chance that someone will come across your Facebook page whilst scrolling through their posts because a friend of a friend has LIKED it. 

The benefits outweigh the negatives – experience more customer inquiries, customers will be able to do business with you easier, potential customers can contact you more efficiently and you may even notice an increase in revenue.

Make sure you are keeping up with the times!

If you don’t have time to set up or manage your online presence, Quintessential Concierge can help.  Contact Letitia on 021 898 661 or email her on letitia@quintessentialconcierge.co.nz for a FREE introductory meeting to discuss your requirements.

Stop!  Stop accepting the excuses as it may be affecting your business, hugely.  Are you writing off bad debt, receiving part payments, finding it difficult meeting your tax commitments on time and devoting time following up overdue accounts and even delaying your own payments to your own creditors because of it?

I learnt over the last week that a personal contact of mine is now bankrupt for the second time!  I am not privy of all the details, however it turns out this is due to struggling to collect outstanding debt.  Debt collection isn’t an easy task but it could either make or break a business and in this case the business owners clearly didn’t think to try something different and put steps in place to prevent the same situation happening again!

The sad reality is that there are people that seem to have no integrity or morales and will make every excuse under the sun as to why they’re unable to pay the bill or worse still, they’ll happily ignore phone calls, delete your emails and spend the money they owe you on something else.

What can you do to protect yourself?

Try the following suggestions and you’ll be on your way:

• Try to arrange up-front payments before commencing any work, when you can.  This is even more important if you haven’t built up a relationship with a client or the client has not come from a referral.
• STOP doing work for customers that haven’t paid their outstanding debt.
• Be prepared before contacting the customer about the debt.  Have copies of invoices and statements at your finger tips.
• Find out WHY your client won’t pay you – is it because they don’t have the money, isn’t happy with your service or do they wish to spend the money they owe you on something else.
• Keep all correspondence and note down detail of phone conversations.
• Offer a payment plan.
• Don’t get angry with your customers.  ALWAYS behave professionally.
• Monitor your debtors list and try not to have debt go outside 90 days.  The longer you leave the debt the tougher it is to get.
• Outsource the task of debt collection and have the pain taken away.  It’s not on the favourite job list of a business owner and sometimes it is better that some one else does it.  It may also protect the business relationship you have with your customer.
• When chasing the debt try an email first, if you don’t receive a response make a phone call.  Your making personal contact and this may maintain the relationship.
• Consider whether this customer is the RIGHT customer for you.  Are you spending time chasing their debt when you could be concentrating on finding a client that is a better fit for your business and pays on time.
• NEVER complain about a non-paying client to others — especially on social networks. It’s not professional and it is unlikely to result in a positive outcome.

If you need some assistance with your slow payers, please call Quintessential Concierge today on 021 898 661 or email on letitia@quintessentialconcierge.co.nz.

Lots has happened since Quintessential Concierge was launched and it seems like a good moment to look back at what we’ve learnt along the way.

Let’s start by going back in time.

It’s 2011 and New Zealand is still experiencing the economic recession which began in 2008. My twins are 10 months old and I’m super excited to start the business I’ve been exploring for many years but I’m very apprehensive about putting my babies into childcare and the prospect of paying for care with no work coming in.  At this point my husband and I made an agreement that if the business was unsuccessful once the twins turned five and went to school, the business would cease and I would return to full-time employment.

Well, forward flash to the present.  The twins are at school and we’re still in business – which is great!  We have a team of contractors that assist us from time to time and an extensive list of wonderful clients that we love working with every day.

Most business owners have heard this before…. 80% of businesses fail within the first couple of years.  You know you have made a dent in the business world when you celebrate your 5-year anniversary and we’re very proud to have achieved this.

So here’s what we’ve learnt during this time:

Listen to those that are willing to give you advice - you don’t need to put that advice into practice and you may not even agree with it at the time. You just never know when it may come in handy at a later date.

Attend networking groups and make connections – search and select a few networking groups to attend and do your utmost to make good connections with attendees.  You may find there’ll be a time that you’ll grow out of the group and you’ll move on to bigger and better things but those connections you’ve made will last a life time.

Make time on the weekends for family and friends – I started out believing the harder I worked the more successful the business would be.  I now work smarter not harder and weekends are all about time out with family and friends.

Hire people that are passionate about your business – these people are difficult to find but once you find them, look after them and never let them go!

Go with your instincts – not all clients are a good fit your business no matter what they’re prepared to pay you.  Stick with your values and never compromise on your ethics.  If you don’t feel right about the relationship, don’t go there!

Stay humble and always be professional – we don’t believe in the ‘hard sell’, spam advertising or direct marketing and prefer to make authentic long-lasting relationships with our clients.  The majority of our business comes through referrals from those clients that love our professionalism: our attention to detail, our clarity of communication and our dedication to their business.

Always be open to learn - we search for learning opportunities every day.  It may be something we’ve read online, a workshop or course we’ve attended or something someone has said to us in passing.  Never stop learning, otherwise you’ll find your clients are going down the road to your competitor.

Welcome constructive criticism – feedback is never a bad thing.  Embrace it with open arms and always thank the person who provided you with the feedback as it’s a way to improve something that may not be working well in your business.

Love what you do – and if it’s not, get out fast!  We love what we do as it provides us with a lifestyle second to none.  We work with people that are innovative and passionate about their lives and businesses, we have the flexibility to spend time with our children and see them grow and develop into wonderful human beings and we control our own destiny every day.  You can’t get any better than that.

If you’d like to know more about Quintessential Concierge’s services, contact Letitia on 021 898 661 or email her on letitia@quintessentialconcierge.co.nz for a FREE introductory meeting to discuss your requirements.

All to often meetings become an inefficient slog but this doesn’t have to be the case.  A well organised meeting needs a well-written agenda.  By sticking to a detailed, yet flexible agenda this can create a streamlined and focused meeting that meets your goals in an efficient amount of time.

We have seen some humdingers!!  For example, those agenda items no one really understands and never get discussed but remain on the agenda every month.  It is important to realise an agenda is an effective governance tool that should meet legislative compliance requirements.

Are you wondering what those legislative compliance requirements are?  Click here to be directed to the Companies Office where you’ll find a great resource that explains exactly what is required.

We sit on many board’s in the role of minute taker and have unfortunately seen directors making inconsistent decisions and discussing the same issues repeatedly.  Find some tips below that we’d suggest when trying to eliminate these issues:

• satisfy all legislative requirements – remember the link above to the Companies Office.
• provide constructive guidance for more effective meetings, and accountability of those responsible for progressing the actions and decisions made at meetings.
• set-up a Resolutions Register that can instantly improve your boards decision-making effectiveness and strategic perspective.
• set up templates that will improve board performance and satisfy mandatory requirements

My parents brought me up to use my manners.  To say please and thank you when required.  Now it’s my turn to teach my own children the same – sometimes I feel like a broken record but I will not give up!  I believe society has forgotten their manners. What do you think?

On a basic level, saying “thank you” communicates that you acknowledge the other person.  If we’re talking email correspondence there’s a lot of advice that discourages writing “thank you” emails because they contribute to email overload. I believe some emails require a “thank you” as it avoids the recipient wondering if you received their email and also completes the transaction.

But saying “thank you” is way more than that.  It’s an emotional act which connects one person to another.  Saying “thank you” doesn’t just acknowledge someone’s effort, thoughtfulness, intent, or action. It acknowledges the person with whom you’re interacting.

When a brand new client sent me a “thank you” email the other day after I sent him a reminder email to send me content for his blog I nearly fell off my chair, not from shock but from appreciation.

Acknowledging other people is critical and it’s something that can either make or break a relationship whether business or personal.

Don’t dear argue with me that we’re too busy or that it’s just not something you do to exchange a pleasantry. It doesn’t take long to say “thank you,” but it does take caring.  Saying “thank you” sincerely feels good. Not just to the person receiving it, but also to the person offering it. It’s sometimes forgotten after you’ve made a request that behind each request is a person.

Giving thanks for something you’ve received, whether it’s an object, an experience or something intangible, is something that just needs to be done with no excuses. The form, timing and details are rarely as important as the simple act.

Thank you to you all for taking the time to read my latest blog.  It is much appreciated.

If you’d like to know more about Quintessential Concierge’s services, contact Letitia on 021 898 661 or email her on letitia@quintessentialconcierge.co.nz for a FREE introductory meeting to discuss your requirements.