One strategy is to focus on the knowledge and experience of the firm’s employees. I recently wrote about the importance of selling what you know (your smarts), not what you do (your services) to effectively market a professional services business.

There’s another factor that can help differentiate your company in a competitive market: How your employees make your customers feel. Case in point: My UPS delivery guy, Tom.

What can smart marketers learn about marketplace differentiation and customer retention from a UPS driver in Cleveland, Ohio? Here are some tips for your smart marketing strategy.

Delivering Packages and Much More

I opened a UPS account almost 20 years ago when I started a marketing consulting business from my home near Cleveland. A driver named Tom was assigned to my area. Later, when I moved the business to a nearby office building, Tom’s route covered my home and business.

Tom’s been serving us in both locations for many years. Like most UPS drivers, he’s smart, courteous, and efficient.

But Tom delivers much more than packages. He provides an exceptional level of personal service that you won’t find in a job description for a delivery truck driver. As the competent, caring face of the company, Tom helps ensure our loyalty to UPS.

Here are five principles of customer loyalty and retention that Tom practices every day:

1. Know the customer. Tom figured out quickly that my home was also my business. From the very beginning, he treated me like an executive, even when my office was 10 feet from the kitchen. As we grew, he came to know our whole team and what our business is about.
2. Value the customer. Though ours is a small business, Tom gives us the same respect as a large client. Our packages seem to be just as important as the ones he’s delivering to the biggest tenants in the building.
3. Anticipate the customer’s needs. If there’s no one available to sign for a package, Tom will deliver home-bound shipments to our office and vice versa. That may not be in the UPS rule book, but it gets important packages to us without delay and we love it.
4. Know your own business. Tom can answer almost any question about shipping via UPS. We can consult the UPS website (and we do), but it’s nice to get the right answer from a real person.
5. Delight the customer. When my business was home-based, my children helped answer the door. Tom brought them Dum-Dum lollipops and Tootsie Rolls. All these years later, he still leaves treats for my dog. Is this a corporate strategy to protect UPS drivers from dog bites? I doubt it. I think he’s just a genuinely nice guy who cares about the people he serves.

Lessons for Your Smart Marketing Strategy

If you’re marketing professional services, you’re selling what your people deliver. Promoting their expertise is essential, but so is promoting how they exemplify your commitment to great customer service.

Here’s how to make customer service excellence a core part of your brand and your marketing:

• Hire and train employees who make your customers feel so good about your company that they wouldn’t consider switching vendors because they place so much value on your team.
• Ask customers to help you tell your story in marketing campaigns through testimonials and case studies. Feature employees alongside customers in your advertising.
• Never forget that business is about relationships. Building great relationships with customers – who have the power to refer you to new prospects – is the smartest marketing strategy of all.

That’s why so many smart marketers, especially companies that sell business-to-business (B2B) professional services, use client testimonials in their advertising, sales presentations, brochures, and websites.

So how do you get customers to give you great testimonials for your marketing campaigns? Follow these 10 tips:

1. Select the right customers. Choose clients who best represent the kinds of companies you serve and the prospects you want to attract — and who can speak credibly about your work.

2. Focus the message. Decide what you want to ask clients to say about you. Think about your core value proposition and the most important factors that set you apart from competitors.

3. Keep it simple. Unless you’re developing a case study, you don’t need a lot of content from a client—just a paragraph or two about the value you deliver. Clients should not feel burdened by your request.

4. Make it easy to say yes. Offer to write the testimonial for the client or suggest points you’d like them to make in what they write. Interview the client by phone, then send a draft of their comments for approval.

5. Get specific. Ask clients to go beyond general praise for your capabilities and refer to a specific aspect of what you do or how you’ve served them. The more specific the testimonial is, the more believable it will be.

6. Tell clients how you’ll use their comments. Clients will be more likely to agree to your request if you spell out how you plan to use their comments – in marketing campaigns, sales presentations, on the web, etc.

7. Ask advocates for more. The most enthusiastic clients, those true advocates who are delighted to tell the world how great you are, may be willing to give you more than a written quote. Ask to use their logo and personal photo with the testimonial. See if they’d be willing to give you a testimonial on video. You may surprised how many people say yes.

8. Reach for the stars. If you’re lucky enough to serve well-known companies your prospects will recognize, ask for their support. One of the best testimonials I ever received as a marketing consultant came from my biggest client at the time, IBM.

9. Thank clients who help you. Once a testimonial appears in your marketing campaigns, share it with the client and thank them for their endorsement. This is an ideal opportunity to send a small gift or make a donation to a charity on the client’s behalf as a gesture of your appreciation.

10. Most important: Don’t be afraid to ask. You deliver a valuable product or service to your clients and it’s perfectly acceptable to ask people who value what you do to go on the record about it. LinkedIn has helped many people become accustomed to providing recommendations for colleagues.

Why You Want Your Clients to Help Tell Your Story

Getting clients to publicly endorse your company is a smart marketing strategy because it gives you tremendous credibility. Testimonials can be especially powerful for differentiating your brand if you’re a B2B services provider.

A final tip: Sometimes clients would like to say nice things about you but their legal department or boss won’t let them go on the record. Ask if you can refer to them by title and type of company instead of individual or company name. Such testimonials aren’t as strong as ones with attribution, but they’re better than no testimonials at all, especially if the client has good things to say about you and your business.

The Next Great American Consumer by Brian Braiker provides a fascinating look at this development. Braiker says branding at birth is “a trend—fueled in part by the growth of digital devices—toward aggressively targeting a demographic that didn’t exist, in marketers’ eyes, until recently: infants to 3-year-olds. By getting their logos and iconic characters in front of babies—even those with still-blurry eyesight—they hope to establish brand-name preference before she or he has uttered a word.”

Is this a smart marketing strategy? Or is this the scariest thing you’ve seen all week? The answer to both questions is yes. Here’s why.

The Brilliance of Early Marketing

Establishing brand awareness and brand preference is the goal of every smart marketer, and as a marketing consultant, I have to acknowledge the brilliance of this strategy. The article cites plenty of research to prove the impact of early marketing on infants and toddlers, including studies which show that an American child can recognize an average of 100 brand logos by age 3. If you’re marketing products to kids and parents, you certainly want your logo on that list.

The real power of this marketing strategy may be its influence on parents. I bought Disney-themed baby toys for my kids and if Kate Spade had made designer baby bags when my daughter was born, I’d have been first in line to buy one.

I probably also would have let my young children play with my iPhone or iPad if I’d had one back then, as many parents do today. That’s why so many marketers like Fisher-Price and Nick Jr. are creating branded apps and online games for the very youngest technology users and why Dora the Explorer has a Facebook page (supposedly for parents) with over 770,000 followers.

But How Young is Too Young?

Of course, licensed characters on clothing, toys, and other products for babies and toddlers are nothing new.

But I wonder if marketers are beginning to take this too far. The level of marketing to infants and toddlers is clearly on the rise, as Braiker’s article illustrates, and the idea of marketing to someone too young and vulnerable to perceive the difference between reality and fantasy makes me queasy. In my experience as a marketing advisor, when it feels like you may be crossing the line of what’s appropriate, you probably are – and the negative fallout usually outweighs the marketing benefit when you do.

Is This Really a Branding Strategy?

From a marketing strategy standpoint, I also wonder whether this approach really can be called “branding.”

Branding is making a promise to a customer about the value you deliver and the experience the customer will have when they choose to do business with you. Is that what these marketers are achieving by targeting consumers far too young to understand product value and differentiate between products? Or are they just cementing an image of an icon in a young child’s mind without attaching any meaning to it?

If that’s the case, I think it’s an open question whether this will pay off as a branding strategy in the long run. Brand recognition doesn’t automatically translate into sales; sales are driven by value.  Even if a young child can recognize and name a brand logo or character, that’s not the same as achieving true brand loyalty among children and parents because of the quality of your products. And marketers who go too far by targeting infants could find themselves facing a backlash from society and parents.

What do you think? Where should marketers draw the line when it comes to targeting images and messages to babies and toddlers? When does a smart marketing strategy become a societal concern?

These aren’t just idle comments. Misconceptions about social media can hurt your brand and hamper your ability to compete in your marketplace by limiting your company’s participation in the social media dialogue.  And if the people who hold those misconceptions also control the marketing budget, alarm bells should be ringing in the marketing department.

Here’s how to get your company onboard with social media marketing and help everyone understand why social media is a powerful element of a smart marketing strategy.

• Educate. Create training sessions to help others at your company understand how social media works and why your company should be part of the social media conversation. You may need to begin with the basics for those who are unfamiliar with social media. Profile social media use in your industry, especially by your competitors. Share examples of effective social media marketing campaigns by organizations like yours.
• Ask for ideas. Encourage everyone, from the CEO on down, to suggest ideas for social media content and customer engagement and to follow your company on social media. Create an easy way for people to share ideas with the marketing team. If you have a company blog, ask for help with content.
• Partner with other departments. Reach out to customer service, tech support, product development, and other units for help in preparing prompt, accurate responses to product-based comments and questions on your social media pages.
• Keep score. Create and distribute a regular social media “scorecard” to report the results of your social media marketing and track competitors’ social media efforts. Keep it simple, straightforward, fact-based, and user-friendly.
• Equip your sales team. Everyone who has direct contact with customers and prospects should have easy-to-use tools, such as branded premiums or sales collateral, to share your company’s social media addresses.
• Keep social media visible. Ongoing high visibility for your company’s social media efforts will help others recognize how much emphasis you are placing on social media in your marketing plan. Put your social media links and information on all your marketing materials and company communications.
• Plan for negative comments. Develop a plan for rapid response to any negative comments that are posted on your social media pages. Share the plan widely to reassure those who worry that social media will expose your company to criticism.
• Establish a company policy on social media. Employees should know your company’s views on appropriate social media behavior and understand who can and cannot speak for your company in social media, especially in response to a complaint.

Help Your Company Succeed with Social Media

As a marketing consultant, I believe that social media marketing should be among your top marketing priorities, whether you sell to businesses or consumers.

Get your company excited about social media so you can become a visible, active, and engaging participant in the social media conversation in your industry and connect more effectively with your customers and prospects.

Here are my top 10 recommendations for developing a smart business-to-business (B2B) marketing strategy, based on the tried-and-true principles of B2B marketing and my experience as a marketing strategy consultant:

1. Position your company as the preferred vendor in your industry, offering capabilities and value no one else can match. Your brand should stand for the industry’s best.
2. Demonstrate your expertise and results. Show what you know – and what only you know. Use case studies, testimonials, and real-life examples to prove that yours is the company that delivers successful outcomes for its customers.
3. Build your industry’s best, most complete database of targeted prospects. Keep it constantly current and use it as the foundation of your lead generation efforts.
4. Use mass communication like advertising, web marketing, and public relations to build awareness.
5. Use direct marketing to generate leads for new sales opportunities.
6. Use one-to-one communication, email, and social media to cross-sell, up-sell, and build relationships.
7. Use trade shows and conferences to meet face-to-face with customers and prospects and stay current on industry issues.
8. Use every customer contact to tell your story. From call center CSRs to product packaging, every interaction with a prospect or customer is an opportunity to demonstrate your company’s superiority.
9. Communicate regularly via Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, an e-newsletter, email, direct mail, or sales calls. You need to constantly remind customers and prospects of who you are and what sets you apart from competitors.
10. Give sales representatives effective tools to demonstrate your products and services and capitalize on the opportunities your smart marketing strategy has helped create.

What are your best tips for B2B marketing? Do these recommendations make your top 10 list?

But having permission to market to someone isn’t a license to bombard them with marketing messages. In fact, not knowing when to shut up is a classic marketing mistake.

Here’s how over-marketing can kill a customer or prospect relationship and 7 ways to avoid this costly error in your smart marketing strategy.

We’re Not Friends Any More

If marketing is about building relationships with customers, over-marketing is the best way to kill the relationship and send the customer or prospect heading for the door.

The Social Break-Up, a fascinating study by ExactTarget, provides clear evidence of what happens to customer relationships when the marketer comes on too strong:

• 91% of consumers have unsubscribed from permission-based marketing emails;
• 81% of consumers have either “unliked” or removed a company’s posts from their Facebook news feed.

The biggest reason people break up with companies? Too much marketing. The study showed that:

• 54% of consumers unsubscribe when emails come too frequently;
• 63% of customers have “unliked” a company on Facebook due to excessive postings.

The Cookies are Great, But Enough

I often send gifts to colleagues and clients of my marketing consulting business in Cleveland, including Cheryl’s Cookies. Cheryl’s is an Ohio firm and their cookies are great, so I’ve been a repeat, though not a frequent, customer.

But last week, I blocked their emails. I was fed up with receiving promotional emails multiple times a week, even though I only order a few times a year. The messaging was out of proportion with the relationship.

7 Ways to Avoid Over-Marketing in Your Smart Marketing Strategy

How do you know when you’re marketing too much? It can be a fine line, but here are some principles to guide your marketing planning:

1. Ask your customers. The best way to understand how customers and prospects feel about the frequency of your promotions is to ask them. If most tell you the frequency is “about right,” you’re on target.
2. Measure your opt-outs. Count the number of people who are cutting off their dialogue with you by unsubscribing to emails, unfollowing you on Twitter, and unliking you on Facebook. If the numbers are escalating, over-marketing could be why.
3. Understand your customer relationships. A customer who orders rarely or sporadically has a different relationship with your business than one who orders all the time. Regular customers might welcome frequent promotional emails with special deals, but sporadic customers are more likely to be turned off by too much marketing.
4. Follow your own firm and see how it feels. Opt-in to your own promotions to put yourself in the customer’s or prospect’s shoes and find out what it’s like to be on the receiving end of your promotional messages. If even you get tired of hearing from your company, you’ll know it’s time to turn down the volume.
5. Deliver more value and less promotion. People may opt-in in hopes of getting deals from you, but a lasting relationship between a brand and a customer goes beyond special promotions. When you deliver content, insights, access, and other exclusive advantages that only those who have opted-in can receive, you create real reasons for the relationship to flourish.
6. Coordinate your efforts. If you have multiple units in your company sending emails, Tweets, and Facebook posts to customers and prospects, lack of internal coordination can create permission-based chaos. Set some boundaries and coordinate your efforts to avoid over-promoting.
7. Compare your permission-based marketing to your competitors’. Review the marketplace to gauge the pace of permission-based marketing in your industry. If you’re marketing much more frequently than your competitors, you could be the smartest marketer in the bunch or the one people hesitate to start a relationship with because you talk too much.

The Bottom Line: Treat Permission to Market as a Gift

People opt in because they want to hear from you. But if you disrespect the relationship by coming on too strong, customers and prospects will flee. Treating your customers and prospects well is common courtesy; treating their permission to market to them as a gift is a smart marketing strategy.

But what’s most fascinating about this new research is the window it opens on the habits of the 46 million Americans who check social sites several times a day.

Who are these habitual social media users? And what can marketers learn from their extraordinary level of engagement with social networks?

Here’s what this important study shows and three takeaways about social media for your smart marketing strategy.

Facebook Dominates, Twitter Gains Ground

According to the research, which was presented at BlogWorld on May 25 by Edison’s Tom Webster, more than half of Americans ages 12+ have a profile on a social networking site and 51% of Americans are on Facebook.

Facebook is by far the dominant way people connect with brands and companies on social media. It also is the leading social network for influencing buying decisions.

Though Facebook’s supremacy is clear, awareness of Twitter is extremely high and the level of engagement with Twitter is growing rapidly. In 2010, 47% of Twitter users posted status updates daily; in 2011, 70% did.

The Mobile Phone as “First Screen”

The study showed that nearly all social network users – 91% – have mobile phones. Even more important, for frequent social networkers, a smart phone is their “first screen.” Sixty-four percent of those surveyed would keep their smart phone over their TV. Edison says that “for those with the social habit, the mobile phone is a true convergence device.”

On Social Media, All the Time

But what I found most interesting as a marketing strategist were insights into the millions of social media users who check social networking sites multiple times a day. According to this research, habitual social media users:

• Skew younger and more female, though about a third are aged 35 or older;
• Own smart phones and use their phones to update their status;
• Contribute more content through social media;
• Are more likely to connect to brands and companies on social networks;
• Are more likely to be activated by mobile promotions;
• Are three times more likely to use Twitter.

Here’s another important fact: The number of habitual users is climbing fast. Just two years ago, 18 million people reported using social media sites several times a day. Today, the number is over 46 million.

3 Takeaways for Smart Marketers

As a marketing consultant who helps clients develop marketing strategies, I see three key takeaways from this study:

1. Social media is where engagement is happening. The depth and frequency of engagement is what’s driving social media’s importance for marketers. Habitual users not only check social media sites more often, but they are more connected to brands, more responsive to promotions, and contributing more content.
2. Smart phones are the gateway to the most engaged social media users. If you’re targeting a demographic with high social media use, you need to be using mobile marketing. Your website and social media pages should be designed to deliver a great experience – and offer meaningful ways to interact with your brand – on a mobile device.
3. Social media belongs in every smart marketer’s strategy. The widespread use of social media and the growing number of habitual social media users proves without a doubt that every marketer needs to be using social media in their marketing plan.

Click here to see the full presentation  from BlogWorld.

But what’s the difference between a good brand and a truly great one? How do you create a brand identity that’s so powerful, it becomes one of your most valuable assets — and the centerpiece of a smart marketing strategy?

Here are six factors that separate the best brands from the rest, and examples of marketers who are using these factors to set the bar for branding success.

6 Factors Shared by Great Brands

1. A Clear Identity: The marketer’s brand stands for something unique to the customer, something clearly different from any other competitor in the company’s marketplace. What Apple and Mercedes-Benz represent, for example, is so distinctly different that no competitor can match them.
2. Trust: The customer trusts that what the marketer says is true, because the customer knows from experience they can believe what the marketer tells them. When you ship with FedEx, your package will arrive on time. When you buy from L.L. Bean, the product is guaranteed for your entire life.
3. Value: The brand delivers something the customer wants, needs, and appreciates, and the customer believes they get a fair deal for their money. Target sells consumer products of very high quality at modest prices. Tiffany customers pay top dollar for jewelry, but the value of a Tiffany’s piece, from the quality of the product to the beauty of the distinctive blue package, is perceived to be worth the investment.
4. Consistency: The customer’s experience is consistent every time they encounter the brand, whether it’s in advertising, a retail store, face-to-face with an employee, or using the product. Disney is the master of brand consistency in entertainment, Nordstrom in retailing. You know exactly what to expect from these marketers because you almost always receive it.
5. A Distinctive Voice: The brand has a point of view, attitude, or persona that comes through to the customer in everything the marketer does. This point of view is so well-defined that the customer can recognize it even when the brand logo isn’t present. You don’t need to see the logo to know you’re watching a Victoria’s Secret ad, reading their direct mail catalog, shopping in their store, or wearing their clothes.
6. Intimacy with the Customer: The customer feels they have a relationship with the marketer; the marketer knows them and knows what they like. Amazon.com customizes messaging and product selection at every step of online shopping to make you feel they actually know you. Starbucks customers and baristas share a private language where words like skinny, tall, and a double shot have a special meaning; baristas often remember customers’ favorite drinks.

Can Your Brand Do This?

You don’t have to be a FORTUNE® 500 company or a giant consumer marketer to do branding well.  Any company can use these same six factors to create a unique, memorable, and meaningful identity that establishes an effective presence in the marketplace.

For more tips on branding, see 10 Steps to Building a Great Brand.

Major marketers can choose agencies anywhere in the world, yet more and more are selecting marketing teams in Northeast Ohio.

Top executives from three regional agencies and a large Midwestern bank explained why global brands and other market leaders are “Choosing Cleveland” at a NOCA (Northeast Ohio Communications Advocates) Forum at the Cleveland Plain Dealer on April 27.

Here’s how these local firms are landing prestigious accounts and helping national and local clients create smart marketing strategies.

Start with Ideas, Build Relationships

Lisa Zone, Senior Vice President, Dix & Eaton and President, AAF Cleveland, led the discussion. Tim Brokaw, Managing Partner, Brokaw Inc., Joanne Kim, Partner/Chief Idea Officer, Marcus Thomas LLC, and Julie Clemo Tutkovics, Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, FirstMerit Corporation, were panelists.

Everyone agreed that the quality of an agency’s ideas trumps its location. “No one cares where you are,” said Kim. “The question is, ‘who has the best thinking, the best ideas,’ not ‘where are you?’

“Large agencies in bigger cities tend to be focused on brand, with some digital,” she continued. “Marcus Thomas has both brand DNA and digital DNA in-house, with more holistic thinking. Our clients like this.”

Brokaw said that new client Vitaminwater “appreciated our Midwestern values. We offered the same quality of ideas as big city agencies without the egos.”

Clients also value in-depth expertise more than location, said Zone. “Large clients often pick Dix & Eaton for a specialty practice area, like crisis communications or investor relations. We grow the relationship from there.”

Tutkovics said FirstMerit Bank wanted an agency in its Midwest footprint, but didn’t care where. The bank sent RFPs to 12 agencies in Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, and Akron and chose Cleveland-based Brokaw. “It’s not about location, it’s about relationships,” she noted.

Kim agreed: “Great work wins the business, but chemistry keeps the business.”

The Power of Midwestern Values

All panelists cited “Midwestern values” as a big advantage for Northeast Ohio marketing firms. “Having Midwestern values means you’re scrappy, humble, hardworking, with a roll-up-your-sleeves attitude,” Brokaw explained.

Kim stated that Cleveland-area firms were more approachable and collaborative. “Other agencies sometimes can have an attitude: ‘We know more than anyone else in the room, including the client.’ We like to tout our Midwestern sensibility.”

Tutkovics called Clevelanders “honest, candid, and direct. The issue is ego,” she said. “It’s just easier here; there’s no attitude, just great collaboration and partnerships.”

Silencing the “Little Clevelander” in All of Us

“We thought big, out-of-town clients cared that we were from Cleveland and we had to quiet the ‘little Clevelander’ in all of us that has an inferiority complex,” Brokaw recalled. “When we won Vitaminwater, it affirmed our self-belief: ‘We can do this.’

“We started embracing our location and our position as the underdog, especially when pitching against agencies three and four times our size.”

Tutkovics, who worked for several years in Boston, observed that “there’s a pride in being from Cleveland, like a best-kept secret. We tend to have a chip on our shoulder, but when you leave the area, you see how great it is to live here. Also, it’s fun to win with local people.”

Agency executives said that despite the great quality of life in Northeast Ohio, it can be hard to attract seasoned talent from other cities. “But young kids are hungry,” Brokaw noted, “and they want to do great work. Most of them don’t care where.”

Telling the Northeast Ohio Marketing Agency Story

Though there’s a great story to be told about the success and creativity of Northeast Ohio marketing agencies, Brokaw noted that one of the challenges is convincing major marketers in the Cleveland area to select local firms. “It’s like the ‘no one ever got fired for picking IBM’ syndrome,” he explained. “It’s the same with Madison Avenue or Michigan Avenue agencies. It appears to be more risky to pick a local firm. We have to prove that we’re worthy, that we can handle the large accounts.”

Kim said getting the word out was essential. Marcus Thomas uses public relations to generate press coverage in industry media and stay on prospects’ radar screens. Brokaw landed another large, national client that read about the agency’s work in Adweek. Dix & Eaton has eight bloggers who constantly publish content related to the firm’s expertise.

“We have the passion and we’re more nimble,” Brokaw concluded. “We need to celebrate the success and let local and national companies know the level of talent here. We need to build the buzz.”

“Some clients in New York or L.A. will never look at a Cleveland marketing agency,” Kim acknowledges, “but others will look for the best ideas. If you end up in the pitch with the best ideas, you will win.”

In my last post, I shared the story of how a new B2B sales rep nearly destroyed a 10-year client relationship with my marketing agency by making six crucial mistakes in the first meeting.

But transitioning a legacy client to a new sales rep doesn’t have to be a sales minefield.

In fact, when handled well, assigning a new rep to a key account can be an opportunity to increase the client’s satisfaction and boost sales.

Here are the top 10 things a new sales rep can do to ensure a successful transition and earn a long-time client’s trust:

1. Be timely. Meet the client as soon as possible after the transition is announced.
2. Get educated. Research the client’s relationship with your company before you meet. Be especially aware of any negative history that could still be fresh in the client’s mind.
3. Be empathetic. View the change through the client’s eyes. Is this transition a good or bad thing from their perspective? How do they feel about their old rep’s departure? They might be eager for a new account manager and welcome you with open arms.
4. Be credible. You’ve been assigned this account because you’re qualified to handle it. Show the client why (without bragging) by demonstrating your knowledge of your company’s product line, your industry, their business, and their needs.
5. Be eager to learn. Show the client that you’re sincere about wanting to understand their business and become a valued business partner, not just a vendor. Ask how you can learn more about what they do so you can recommend helpful solutions.
6. Anticipate the next sale. Every face-to-face meeting with a business decision-maker is a chance to promote another product or service. Think about the client’s potential needs and be ready to suggest ways you can address them.
7. Update the client’s contact data. Business titles and addresses change constantly. Ask the client to confirm their contact data and ask if there are other people your company should be communicating with at their business. This one step can expand your marketing database and lead to new connections and referrals.
8. Connect on social media.  Before the meeting, follow the client on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other social media. Read their blog. After the meeting, invite them to connect with you on social media, especially on LinkedIn, and to subscribe to your blog if you have one.
9. Create a reason to follow up. Go into every meeting with a plan for a next contact.
10. Be curious. Give the client a chance to tell you something about themselves that’s not on their business card or in their LinkedIn biography. The first meeting is a great chance to start getting to know the client as an individual. That’s how relationships are built — and  great client relationships are essential to a smart B2B marketing strategy.