With rapid advances in media and technology, the last two decades have brought big change to the world of marketing and service providers. Business owners and marketers can now reach a much larger market than ever before, and target their campaigns to very specific audiences. In fact, nowadays, providing a service involves selling time, and time is money.

Every person has 24 hours in a day. As a service provider you probably aim to provide your services for 8-10 of these, or if you’re really keen 12 or more. As a service provider, it is important to recognise every hour of your day as an investment. Whether it’s an investment that you either get paid for, or one that builds or maintains a relationship.

There is a fine line between investing time into a positive, growing relationship, and a bad one. As the owner of a creative digital agency, I find that not everyone considers the hours spent in meetings, dishing out ideas, advice and direction, are worth their price. These are the same people who accept that going to a lawyer, doctor or accountant, people comes with a price. Why is it okay to pay a doctor for an hour of his time and advice, but not a marketer, who also gives advice, direction and helps build and possibly fix something dear to a client – their business.

The answer lies in the relationship. As humans, it is in our nature to take things for granted. Giving away too much in the beginning as a service provider can cause clients to have the expectation that this is a standard, and they begin to expect more for less. Giving less and asking for more, however, leads to appreciation.

Of course, doctors, lawyers and accountants have been around for years. Marketers, designers and developers are new age service providers. Unfortunately, for the latter group of people, people only expect to pay for end results. Anything before that is not considered chargeable.

As new age service providers, we need to be clear, provide what we are being paid for, and look to the future. If people respect your skills, and value the relationship you build with them, they will pay for it.

There are two types of businesses: product based businesses and service providers. Although neither is easy to run, from my experience, service based businesses can often be more complicated, requiring effort in building long term relationships, good communication and patience.

Of course, I am not saying that product-based businesses don’t require building and maintaining relationships. Selling a product requires gaining an understanding of the target market, who they are and what exactly they want, and then marketing the product to them. When selling a product, the target market either like it or they don’t. The relationship comes when you have to follow up on deliveries, possible product defects, and etcetera. Customer service, product improvement and strategies for promotion. That’s about all of the relationship involved.

On the other hand, for service providers, a good relationship is what it’s all about. Ask anyone if they have a good accountant, landscaper, hairdresser, designer or marketer. They will either say ‘yes, they’re great’, or they will say ‘no, I wouldn’t recommend them’. Everyone has had good and bad service provider experiences. Your opinion of your service provider, whoever they might be, is always based on the experience and relationship.

There is no doubt that everyone wants the best quality service at the lowest price. The service provider can be polite, friendly and affordable. However, the results are either not great, or they can be expensive and rude but provide great results, leaving you feeling a little apathetic towards them. The ones who are always recommended, however, are the ones who provide a friendly, relationship-based service paired with great results. For many smaller and some large businesses, cost is certainly a factor. However, as long as the client has the right connection, and trusts that the service they are after will be provided, cost becomes insignificant.

At the end of the day, people want to work with those who they can trust, who care and who believe in each other. As a service provider, no matter how much you invest in marketing, referrals are where you will gain your best business; and the number of referrals you get is dependent on you and how you provide your service. If you focus on meeting expectations and work with love, you will succeed. What you do today is how your business will look tomorrow. Be the person you would hire to provide a service.