How to love your customers to build a loyal tribe

I am a business strategist. But that doesn’t mean I don’t get love. In fact, the other day my Powerhouse Mastermind group reflected back a few words to each other to close our session. I got “fierce love”.

This is what I offer in life and in my business. In general, how you show up naturally in your life, is how you should show up in your business. Entrepreneurs doing superbly well love their clients and dedicated followers in their own way.

Why love and nurture your customers?

In order to grow – to expand beyond you and a few people – you need to cultivate relationships with people who will naturally help you grow. The first place to start is with your clients.

These are the people who have received good outcomes from buying from you and stay connected to you. They want to hear how you are doing, they want to stay connected to your growth and learning. They want to see you succeed. It helps them stay inspired and connected to their vision.

When you highly value the people who are important to you and your business, you need to show it.

Turn clients into advocates

Cultivating relationships means sharing. It means you focus on giving before receiving. Not everything you do is to create a sale or sign up a client. You may do that once in a while but for the most part, once they have become a client you keep that relationship going.

Communicate frequently & openly

When you want to build a loyal tribe, offering ongoing growth and learning is absolutely essential. Many rock-star entrepreneurs continuously pump out top notch content and topics. They don’t spare the juiciest tips and information. A lot of this is in the form of blog articles, video posts and podcasts. Chris Brogan, John Dumas, Marie Forleo, Danielle Laporte and Derek Halpern are all people who do this amazingly well. They know what their tribe wants and don’t disappoint.

Offer superior support

Another way that I am a huge fan of is creating inclusive communities. I am super grateful to be apart of Tara Gentile’s Quiet Power community. It’s a group of people who have all taken one of her intensive programs. We all connect on online forums where we have varying access to all of Tara’s communities and Tara herself. As a strategist who trained under her, I have access to all of her groups. She has fostered a community of people who are all learning and using the same tools and working on similar growth strategies. Not only does she give you ongoing access to these communities, you also get to attend her retreats and conferences for free.

It’s unbelievable value, provides genuine connection and feedback and ongoing learning. She encourages engagement and it works. She has a fiercely loyal tribe!

Three signs you are connecting well

You have high engagement

Your best clients are highly engaged. Not all will be. Not everyone is committed to following through and might not get the most of what they could get from you. This has nothing to do with you. What’s more important is that a few (you define that number relative to you) of your customers are taking your product and using it well.

If you have a wide business model you might have a lot of social media mentions, for a deeper one you might evaluate how many emails or questions you get from your clients. Are they applying themselves and relying on you for support are good questions to answer.

You get tangible results

How do you know that what you offer your customers is getting them is helping them get the outcomes they want? Ask them! Asking everyone who’s worked with you to give you feedback, in the form of a written testimonial or interview is the best way to get a feel for how valuable you’ve been to them. You want to find out the tangible results you get for them. Are these the results that you want to get for people? Is it aligned with your bigger purpose? 

Referrals are another way to know that your customers value you. When they have a good experience with you, they will send people your way. Before the internet really hit the business world, word of mouth was the main way for attracting new clients.

Are people using your product or service? Is your content or item sitting on a shelf or is it being put out into the world. When people are using what you offer in the right way, over and over again, you know they value your business.

You love the work

To build a loyal tribe you ultimately have to enjoy your work. You love researching and diving into your area of expertise and sharing just becomes a step thats adds to your transformation. Your customers inspire you to keep creating and expanding and are part of the motivation for you to play keep upping the value of what you can offer. If you are always one step ahead of the things they need to learn from you and you share it with them consistently, they will be loyal advocates and love and nurture you and your business right back!