One of the things I feel most strongly about is communicating with our customers and one of the really important aspects of this is soon after a project is complete. As consultants we tend to knock em' down and move onto the next challenge. As much as this approach is engrained into the psyche of a consultant I honestly feel it's the wrong approach.

I regularly encourage our people to contact their customers regularly especially after a project. It's not rocket science or certainly something I've invented but its good business and your customer will appreciate it. Don't bother with emails, not at this point, you're already passed the "honeymoon" phase and your customer wants to talk to you voice to voice. Email is so impersonal and too many people today use it as a shield between interaction and communication with other people, including me. Yes, I must admit sometimes it's just as easy to fire off that one liner to someone to see if you get a "bite" but it's so much better voice to voice and if you have the time to do it face to face, you're even further ahead of the game.

If I can ensure every person at Bulletproof did one thing per day religiously it would be to call one of their customers. Doesn't matter if you're the sales executive or the technical expert that did the work, in fact if you really want to impress your customer, you both should call him or her. I guarantee it will make a lasting impression.

I'll leave you with my top 5 reasons why you should always call your customer shortly after you complete a project:

• 1. Being top of mind is everything in business no matter what industry you work in.
• 2. Letting your customer know they were important enough for you to take the time out of your day to call them is priceless.
• 3. There is a good chance there may be some additional follow up work to be done.
• 4. If for any reason you did a less than stellar job than fix it now instead of hearing about it from your competitor.
• 5. Whether you're the sales person or the technical person it shows continuity and closes the loop on the project.

Don't wait, pick up the phone now and call your customer.