Who are they? They are your prospects and your past clients. They are your network and your industry contacts.

Often the challenge of a small business or even a leader in a large organization is that when business is booming, we gladly leave behind the “gruelling” task of relationship management. We don’t have time for that golf game or dinner event. We don’t drop a line or make a call for a few minutes to check in with someone.

Then it happens. Business booms…not; and we can’t believe that our client(s) have gone somewhere else and forgotten how well we served them in the past. We get angry and offended.

They didn’t do anything but respond to the consistent or timely contact of a competitor. We have to stay on everybody’s radar within our sphere, or we risk having our sphere shrink with potentially negative consequences.