3 founder tips on maintaining high client retention

Steve Rowbotham is an Olympic rower turned fast-scaling entrepreneur. He is the founder of Navigator, a travel ad tech business that within six years has a 75% client retention rate, works with global brands and has a goal of a multi-million pound exit.

Below, he shares with Business Advice readers his top tips for maintaining high client retention, regardless of your sector.

1. Understand the metric to shift

With clients, it’s understanding the metric that you need to shift the most that’s the most important to them, and proving to them that you’ve shifted it.

2. Give clients what they need

There’s the client relationship side of it, which is important. But the other big thing is giving them what they need, not what they want. Many of our clients come to us and say, well, this is what I want. Then you talk to them and listen to them and really understand their needs and their problems. You then realise what they want isn’t what they need as a business. When you can give them what they need and can show all the value that you’re creating, that retention naturally happens for itself.

3. Know you can’t help everyone

There is no brand on this planet that is for everyone. Even Coca-Cola. Not every single person on this planet likes or drinks Coca-Cola. That’s probably one of the biggest brands on the planet. So for us as a business, we have to be humble enough to go, we’re not for everyone. Saying no to people is important.

Daily we are telling clients we won’t work with them because we know we just can’t impact their business. That sounds strange because in businesses you have revenue and money and all that kind of stuff, but working with clients you can’t help won’t lead to long-term growth.

By identifying who we need to be working with and then focusing on that has led to a 75% client retention and compound annual growth of our clients at around 60%. They’re decent metrics.