How to Build Better Relationships
In one of my last posts I talked about how to drive traffic to your blog. Traffic is great, but after you have some traffic what do you do with it?
As I started my blog, not so long ago, one of the ways that I had read about on how to drive traffic to your blog was to make comments on other people’s blogs and forums. So I tried it and guess what it worked. I got excited to see that people were actually coming to my blog. I have to admit that one of my motivations for making comments on other people’s blogs was to get some traffic to my site. Why did I want traffic? Well of course so that someone would come to my site and hopefully click on one of my affiliate links and buy something. But then I thought if they buy something that’s great, but what will keep them coming back. If I am going to be successful in this online business I need to have people coming to my blog and continually come back.
How to you keep people coming back to your blog?
Well, we have all heard you need to have Quality Content and provide a Quality Product.
But what else to you need?
How do you get repeat visitors?
Quick story
One of my summer jobs when I was younger was I used to work at a local hardware store. This hardware store was a family owned hardware store with a lot of history in our small town. It was the kind of hardware store where you could walk into the store, ask a question, and they would personally take care of you by helping you with your problem whether it was hanging a picture on the wall, fixing a running toilet, or leaky faucet. Seriously I can remember a lady came in to the store with her flashlight that wasn’t working. She asked me if I could help her. So I first changed the batteries and turned it on. It didn’t work. I then replaced the bulb in the flash light and bingo it worked. She was very happy. Not only did I provide her a quality product (batteries and light bulb), but I provided personal customer service by actually changing the batteries and light bulb for her. I mean I could have just sold her some new batteries or maybe even a new flashlight, but instead I helped her by fixing the flashlight. She was in turn very happy and appreciative. In that 5 to 10 minutes that I helped her we had built a small business relationship and trust.
What I am trying to say is that at the store there was a personal touch to customer service. By helping every customer personally with there problems the customers felt good because they were personally being helped. For that short 5 to 10 minutes while you were helping someone you were building a relationship with this person. A small business relationship. You were building a trust with this person that you didn’t even know 5 minutes ago. The result of this was these customers would continue to come back to the store for things that they needed as they trusted the store to provide quality products and personal customer service. From this, the store created for itself a reputation. A good reputation built on trusting relationships with their customers. This not only brings back the repeat customer, but when the word gets out it brings in new customers.
So how does the hardware store relate to your blog?
Well as you are making comments on blogs and forums to build traffic to your blog just remember to leave a quality comment. You can go around leaving millions of comments everywhere leaving links to your blog and it will drive traffic to your blog, but how long will that last. Some people will come and some will not. Some will return and some will not. So remember provide a quality comment that is genuine and personal. Doing this will help drive more traffic to your blog. Now once you have people visiting your blog and leaving comments remember you need to provide quality content in your blog and people will come back.
But how do you provide personal customer service and build trusting relationships like the hardware store?
Well truthfully I thought to myself how can I do that? I am on the internet typing posts and comments. How can I give someone personal customer service? How can I build trusting relationships with people over the internet?
Well it may be a little harder over the internet to provide that personal touch like the hardware store, but I think it can be done. To build trusting relationships on the internet I think when someone comes to your blog and makes a comment you need to thank them for visiting your blog and provide them a personal comment back. In addition, go and visit their blog and provide them a personal comment by reviewing their blog and providing a comment that is personal and meaningful. I have to admit I haven’t been the best at this, but I am going to start to do my best in the future. I want to build sustaining trusting relationships because I want to be successful in this internet business.
Maybe another way to build trusting lasting relationships over the internet is to make sure you continually visit the blogs of people that you have come in contact with and leave a personal comment. It’s about networking, building relationships, and keeping your name out there. Sure email newsletter and autoresponders are great, but I think in order to provide that personal touch you need to actually visit that person’s blog and provide a personal comment. Don’t wait for them to come to you. Go to their blog and make a comment. This helps to stay in touch and build a lasting relationship. I will admit this has been hard for me trying to find the time to do this while having a full time job, having a family of 3 kids, and working on my own blog, but it’s all about time management. I’ll leave that for another post.
So in order to have a sustainable business you need to provide quality content, a quality product and personal customer service. Do this and you will achieve a good reputation. This will not only bring back your existing customers, but bring new customers in as the word gets out there about you. Because you know in order to have a sustainable business you want not only new customers, but you want repeat customers. Remember you are building a business relationship with this person that visits your blog and you want them to keep coming back and you want them to tell their friends and acquaintances about you. Generations of families of customers would come to this hardware store because the store had a good reputation. A good reputation for providing good quality product and personal customer service. Do this and you will be successful.
So remember we want to build relationships that are built on trust. You build trust by helping people, treating people with respect, providing quality content, a quality product, and personal customer service. We want to help people, which is, what I believe is the key to becoming successful. Sure you might get some sales by blasting out a million comments, but in order to have a successful sustainable business you need to have relationships that are built on trust. This will build a good reputation for your business and you will be successful. But remember it won’t happen over night. Building trusting long lasting relationships takes time.
I feel like I am slowly building a network. A network of people that I can have sustainable relationships with and people that I can trust. This adventure has only started, but I am very excited to see it slowly grow into a successful business.
I apologize that this post is so long. I know I kept saying the same things over and over again. I just was trying to get the right words. I kept reading it over and over again and my mind kept thinking of more things to write about. If anyone knows me they know I tend to read things over and over again to try to make them perfect. Though maybe that is not so important. It’s not like I am being graded on this. Well maybe I am. You are reading this. I have to admit that as I am reading this again I am thinking to myself this is ok when you have a small business, but what happens when you have a business of say 10,000 customers. Can you really provide the personal touch then? Maybe I am dreaming. Well I will worry about that when I get there. See there I go again. I am going to stop thinking and just post this.
I hope some of it makes sense and helps some people.
Any other suggestions on how to build trusting relationships? I am sure there are other ways. How do you build relationships over the internet? Maybe repeat visitors get something special?
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pratish @ free
Florence Mills
Louise
Learning, hard-working, persistence. That’s my motto. To build better relationships: learn how to do it, work hard to accomplish it, being persistent in the process. That’s my pattern.
Cheers
Isaac | GoBlogger´s last blog ..How to show ‘Read More’ Buttons on WordPress
[Reply]
Jim Hardin Reply:
August 9th, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Thanks Isaac! I like your motto. Its straight to the point and it works. Work hard and be persistant and some day it will pay off. Right now I am meeting people and building relationships. Sure its just the beginning for me, but I am enjoying it.
Thanks again for dropping by!
[Reply]
One thing I believe in is “you can’t get to the top alone”. On your way there you will meet a lot of people who will contribute somehow. Also, time will also come that you will need someone to rely on.
I think in building a relationship you should always open yourself to “potentials”. This is not actually coming from me originally but it is nice to share. Everyone is prospect for partnership so take the chance to make friends and build a trusting relationship. You cannot force it to happen but it will naturally arise especially if you are of value.
I guess if you provided quality information and solution, people will come and stay. That is a two way benefit, achieving the best of both worlds.
[Reply]
Jim Hardin Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 7:30 am
So true Alex. As I have started to meet some people I am learning different things from different people. Each person is contributing, in their own way, to me by teaching me things they have learned. This is slowly helping me to become hopefully successful one day at a time. I appreciate everyones help and I hope that along the way I am helping other people learn and contributing to their success. You’re right I dont think you can do this alone but if we work together we can be successful.
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I agree with everything you said Jim. It might have been a long post (which happens to me all the time), but you had a lot of valuable information. Blogging is all about networking and building relationships and that is one of the main functions of a “Comment Box”… to create interaction between people.
Especially when you are starting out you want to comment on everyone’s site you can that is a related niche to your own, as well as leave comments on anyone who comments on your site, as well as reply to their comments… just like you said. As your audience gets larger and larger, of course you will not be able to keep up with this as much, but by then you have so many people leaving comments that the people commenting will be doing it for you… and the momentum should hopefully fuel itself.
Another way when starting out (plus it is just good to do) is to email some of your commentors and thank them personally… as that is really good at building strong relationships. Also, if I ever see something that looks wrong, or find something not working on a site I like to email the site owner and let them know. It is also good at building relationships, but it is also just good Karma!
Doug Dillard´s last blog ..We Want CommentLuv… but Need YOUR Help
[Reply]
Jim Hardin Reply:
August 10th, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Hey Doug!
Thanks a lot for coming by. What you said makes a lot of sense about as your audience gets larger and larger you cannot keep up. I started a thread on the warrior forum. Little did I know that it didn’t take long and people left so many comments. I didn’t know how to keep up. I tried my best to thank everyone. Everyone there seems very helpful. I hope that was ok. I did my best to thank everyone. I hope that one day I can gain a lot of visitors. I realize though it will take time.
Jim
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It is simple, don’t make people hate you. Right on what people want to hear, read. just my 2 cents. Another thing is you also need to visit others.
afzal´s last blog ..Go Affiliate to Make Money on Internet
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These are the basic factors for developing an online reputation. Thats a wonderful post. Just subscribed.
[Reply]
Jim Hardin Reply:
January 27th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
Hi Selurus!
Thanks for dropping by. As you know building an online reputation is important. Creating communication and honesty with your readers.
Jim
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