Building Long-Term Relationships as a Core Strategy with Rob Howard

When you think about the relationships you build with your clients, what does that look like?

Are you setting it up from the very first touchpoint to be a long-term relationship? Or do you approach it as a one-and-done kind of thing?

Neither is better than the other—but your business values influence your business model, rippling out into how you build relationships, do your work, and create your legacy.

Last week, I talked with Kate Strathmann about using pricing strategies to move towards creating more equitable businesses. We talked about making sure that you’re using strategies that make sense for YOUR business and how the pricing strategies you choose are one way to build your values into the DNA of your business.

Your values SHOULD be a part of your pricing and business model choices from day one and my guest today has really taken that idea to heart.

Meet Rob Howard, the founder and CEO of Howard Development & Consulting, the web development firm that creative agencies trust when every pixel matters.

One of Rob’s core values is building relationships—and not just ANY relationships.

To him, long term relationships with both his clients and with his team are essential to business. He treats clients as friends—folks he’s going to be working with for 5 or 10 years, at least. And several of his team members have been with him for a decade.

Rob’s created some pretty unique offerings that reflect that value and we’re going to talk all about it today on the podcast.

Listen to the full episode to hear:

• Why Rob has something that he calls an Assurance Plan which is a hybrid retainer that allows him to continue to work with his web design clients long term
• Why Rob offers a 30-day satisfaction guarantee on his work
• The logistics behind Rob’s offerings and how these are just a few of the ways that he infuses relationship-building into every aspect of his agency 
• How to create offerings that embody your company values
• Details on crafting ALL your services around a long-term recurring relationship model

Learn more about Rob Howard:

• The Agency Owner's Guide to Hiring Web Developers
• Connect with Rob on LinkedIn

Learn more about Susan:

• Scalespark Dollars + Decisions Roundtable
• Twitter @ScaleSpark
• LinkedIn @thesusanboles

Grab your free ticket to the Autonomous Creative Conference for May 13-15 at beyondmargins.com/autonomous