The document provides tips for maintaining relationships with past clients through farming. It recommends identifying past clients and organizing reminders to stay top of mind. Farming existing relationships has benefits like already knowing the people and perfect timing at the start of the year. A 3 step process is outlined: 1) identify past relationships, 2) organize reminders in calendars and alerts, 3) send professional or personal emails with offers to connect to build a solid network of past clients.

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8. Sales Tips Weekly Program - Example Farming is the best way to build trust and sell business to existing relationships. Remember, people tend to buy from people that they trust….and since you have already built trust by over-delivering on a past project, they will most likely like to buy from you. The trick is to be in front of them at the time they might need help….said differently, ‘out of sight, out of mind’ so you want to stay in front of your past clients so that you are top of mind, when they have a question, or a problem, or need help. Again, Farming is about working your existing network of relationships. Three good things about farming right now: 1) You already know the people you are going to send the emails to, 2) Beginning of year perfect time to send emails, 3) In this economy, they are probably going to appreciate hearing from you as networking has taken on an increased urgency. A I follow a 3 step process which I would encourage you to do: *First identify past relationships *Second organize yourself to make connecting with them easy *Third send them professional, personal, or both emails Let's break these 3 steps down so that you know what I do: 1) Identifying past relationships (Make a list which goes back 2 years and add names, company, focus area, project milestone dates, etc) 2) Organize yourself to make connecting with them easy - Take the list of past relationships you just created and in your outlook calendar add reminders for birthdays, historic project milestones such a start and completion dates, quarterly & announcements, new product announcements, etc. Over time these reminders will add up and you will build a solid network of past clients who you should reach out to. My Outlook pops up with dates…for instance, today is a client at HP's birthday so I will send him a note. Set up Yahoo and Google News Alerts with you client’s name and company so that you are aware of your client’s pain and joys 3) Send them email notes - either professional (I saw that you released your quarterly numbers and was just thinking of you, I just finished a project which I thought you might be interested in hearing about, today is the anniversary of our project and boy did I learn a lot from you,…..what ever…these are all professional reasons to reach out), or personal (just thinking of you, saw you in the news, what have you been up to). Remember to end each email with an offer to buy them a cup of coffee or tea (in other words, let them know that you'd like to connect.) You will be surprised how many clients want to see you Maintaining Relationships With Past Clients ©