Making the Most of Your Customers

By Marty Nemko

Of course, rather than cold-calling new customers or flogging weak ones, salespeople should focus on reselling to their best customers. But there's another way to make the most of those great customers. Invite them to be on your new advisory board. Their role? Once or twice a year, invite them to a lovely lunch meeting in which you solicit their suggestions for augmenting your business. They benefit from the good lunch and prestigious "board of advisors" title and you get input plus increased loyalty--if a customer joins your firm's board, he's less likely to switch vendors.

What can you do today?
Make a list of potential members of your board of advisors.