I talk a lot about nurturing relationships.

Adding value and building credibility and trust over time.

(So do a lot of people).

But the truth, I believe, is that the main value you get from nurturing relationships is much simpler.

It's being top of mind.

Most clients only buy high-value services every now and then.  And when they do, the majority of the time it's from a small number of suppliers who they already have in mind.

Sometimes that's because they've worked with them before.

But often it's simply because the supplier kept in touch. They benefit from what the marketing scientists call “mental availability”.

When the time is right, they spring to mind.

Of course, building credibility and trust makes you more likely to win vs competitors.

But the most important factor is that your potential clients actually think of you when they have a problem you can solve. If that's missing it doesn't matter how much credibility or trust you have in theory – it's never called into play.

So in many ways, the role of all your nurturing activity – be that emails, phone calls, stuff you send through the post, social media posts – is simply to get you noticed.

Of course, if your content is dull or it has no value, your clients aren't going to pay attention to it. So it won't work to get you top of mind.

But it doesn't have to be a breakthrough or work of genius every time.

Just interesting enough. Valuable enough.

Don't kill yourself trying to create a work of genius every time.

It has to be interesting. It has to be useful. But most important: you have to actually get it out there!