Adding Value: Giving Back to Your Clients
By Skye Berry-Burke.
As resume writers, interview coaches, and employment consultants, we support clients every day. Providing similar advice to them each day, it might be easy to forget how overwhelming a job search can be for them.
Many clients come to us seeking a resume or a LinkedIn profile compilation, or interview coaching and we happily oblige and provide them with the best service we can provide. We go above and beyond to produce documents that will get results and provide coaching that will assist them in landing the job of their dreams.
But what if this is just not enough? What happens when our clients receive these amazing documents – that took hours upon hours to create – and they don’t know what to do with them? How good is our service if our clients aren’t sure what to do with these knock-out creations afterwards? How good is our interview coaching if they forget the essential bring-along items because nerves got in the way?
What if I told you there was a simple solution to all these what-ifs? There exists a solution that will not only help your clients bring their career to the next level, but will help build your business at the same time!
The Solution: Build Your Brand around Value-Added Tip Sheets!
Providing free tip-sheets at the end of a client contract is a very easy solution to all these what-ifs. Not only do tip-sheets assist your clients in working with their documents and coaching services, but it helps to ensure that your career service is sustainable by creating customer loyalty and gaining referrals from happy clients.
Tip sheets do not need to be lengthy or complicated. A simple one-page Microsoft Word document can be sufficient.
Think about the questions you most often receive from clients and provide a tip-sheet around that. Or, create different types of tip-sheets that depend on the type of service the client is investing in.
Examples of tip-sheets could include:
- Resume Posting Tips – explain when to use an ASCII or Microsoft Word vs. PDF document in applications.
- Resume Update Tips – explain how to make edits and updates to the document you have provided – for example, how to work with text boxes or change formatting.
- Resume Saving Tips – this can also go along with updating a resume, but will offer details on the difference between ‘save’, ‘save as’ and how to save a document as a PDF when they make edits to the documents.
- Cover Letter Tips – help walk a client through how to write or amend a cover letter around a specific job posting.
- LinkedIn Tips – include tips on how to customize their URL or be active participants in groups, researching companies using LinkedIn and even making valuable connections.
- Interview Tips – include details about how to dress for success, what to bring, and questions to anticipate.
- Informational Interview Tips – include suggested questions and how to delve deeper into opportunities.
- And so on…
The list is limitless and truly depends on the services you provide and the questions you are most frequently asked by clients. Remember, the goal is to ensure customer loyalty with these tip sheets.
As career professionals, we often forget that aside from helping people land the job of their dreams we are also sales people who have a goal of running a successful career service. Building a loyal customer base becomes much easier when you start to focus on the fact that you are selling a result – not a product. Help your clients achieve this result through value-added tip sheets and you are more likely to have a happy client who returns the favour by referring other great clients your way.
When we start to focus on building relationships with our clients it creates a win/win result. Clients win by receiving a solution that meets their needs. And you win by closing the relationship in a way that gives the client the right solutions that create opportunities for referrals, repeat business and loyalty.
Build your career service brand around value-added tip sheets and lavish in the win/win results!