How Way to Get More Clients?

In a recent survey I conducted, 56.8% of the service providers surveyed cited "how to get clients" as the #1 challenge they face in their business. 34.7% of them said that the lack of "how to do it" marketing skill was the primary obstacle holding them back from success.

I'm going to address both issues in an effort to demystify this topic and help you get more clients, more easily. (I didn't say faster. More on that in a moment.)

A few weeks ago, I presented a webinar about getting more clients. In the webinar, I talked about how to create a "solar system" of things that slowly and gently PULL clients into your world. (The emphasis is on the words slowly and gently.)

That's key.

Why?

To answer that question, let me tell you a short story.

Right now, my wife is pregnant with our sixth child. She's a midwife, so I know a lot more about the birth process than probably 99.9% of men on this planet.

It is truly amazing when you understand the thousands and thousands of things that are going on as a little one grows from a tiny little spec into a full grown baby.

Perhaps the MOST amazing thing, however, is that the instructions and blueprint for that entire being are included right from the getgo.

Just like a plant growing in the garden, the course of its entire development (environmental influences aside) is programmed into that tiny seed.

The Same Thing Can Be Said About Your Clients

When your clients show up, they too contain just about everything for their development as a client of yours.

Where do they get their programming?

From your marketing of course. They get it from the system you use to attract clients.

If you have clients that balk at your fees, are annoying to work with and just make your life crazy, then take a look at your client attraction process.

Something in there led them to believe that their current behavior is acceptable to you.

Something in there attracted those folks to you.

You have to find out what that is and change it.

It all begins with...

The Care and Feeding of Leads

It's easy to get frustrated when you're trying to generate leads.

I'm sure you can think back to a time when you were talking to a prospect on the phone, everything seemed great, and you were 110% sure you'd get the business.

And then the business just up and disappeared.

That stinks.

Understand this: leads are just like plants. They require time to grow.

You don't just generate leads, you grow them.

You don't "get" clients, you grow them.

Think of yourself planting a garden. (This is hard for me because everything green I touch seems to die a very quick death. Hopefully you fare better with the plant kingdom.) When you plant your seeds, you don't expect to wake up the next day and find a beautiful garden.

In that case, you know that you have to provide the food and care required for the seeds to grow. If you rush things, you run the risk of killing the plants before they even have a chance.

It's no different with leads.

The process of generating a lead and having that lead become a client can take a long time.

It can require phone calls, and many, many touches where you deliver value to your prospect.

There is nothing wrong with this.

In fact, a long process is often preferable. If you force things, you become an obvious salesman in the eyes of your prospect.

If you don't force things, it is easier to cement yourself as a professional in the mind of your prospect.

As the leads come in, don't put pressure on yourself to "sell them." Simply take them as far as they will go and then put them on your follow-up system (you do have a follow-up system right?).

Some of the leads will close right away and others won't. This is how you fill your pipeline with business at various stages of development.

Then, you allow your systems (email, direct mail, public speaking, etc.) to provide the food and care required to grow them into a client.

But What If You Need to Get More Clients Fast?

I repeat: the best clients are the ones that slowly and gently end up at your doorstep, NOT the ones you beat over the head and drag back home. (As if that's a smart way to get a client anyway.)

My recommendation is to give up on the idea of getting clients fast. It can happen, it does happen and it will happen, but to make that your goal is not going to allow you to attract the quality clients you really want to be working with.

You have to have a SYSTEM. (Don't freak thinking this sounds complicated. A system can be one simple thing you do consistently.)

Three Ways to Feed Your Business Positively

I really enjoy feeding the birds this time of year. I set up a bird feeder in our backyard. The problem is that squirrels love bird seed, too.

I waged war on the bird-seed-stealing squirrels one winter. I borrowed an air rifle and looked for the squirrels as I walked by our bay window. I even put our younger daughter on alert-"Honey, let me know if you see a squirrel on our bird feeder."

That is, until one day she said, "Daddy, we used to look out the window for pretty birds. Now we look for ugly squirrels."

It's easy to stop looking for the beautiful qualities in your business these days, to cease listening for the lovely songs of the cash register cha-ching or the relieved look on a customer's face when you solve a problem; to miss the brilliant colors of the relationships you enjoy with employees and clients alike.

Here are three ways to look for the beautiful at work and feed your business positively.

Abstain from negative conversations

Choose your conversations carefully whether on the phone or in the hallway. Listen actively. Redirect quickly when the conversation spirals downward into negativity without a suggestion of course correction. Attempt to reframe-"Yes, and yet..."-if the redirect is ineffective. Remove yourself with "I must go" if the redirect or reframe fails.

Words impact our perception of reality. Think about how you feel after hanging up or what you're thinking as you walk away from conversations. Positive exchanges lift dark clouds and energize you. Negative words do the opposite.

Deal with conversations quickly. Ask yourself, "Where is this going? Do I want to participate?" and choose accordingly.

Allow for interruptions

You're goal-focused with a prioritized list for the day's activity. That's great-focus on the positive and do those things that increase your profitability most effectively.

Also, allow for interruptions which happen regardless. A customer appears suddenly with a situation you can resolve. A client calls in with an opportunity for more work.

It's easy when these detours appear on the day's path to get frustrated, and sideways in your mental model. Such a reaction prevents you from feeding your business positively.

Instead, anticipate interruptions. Deal with them positively, quickly, and effectively. If resolution is achieved in a matter of minutes, do it. If not, promise to get back with the person and get your Work Positive dream team on it.

Then return to your schedule with a renewed interest sustained by your expectation of interruptions.

Access news/information positively

When you watch TV and listen to radio news, you abdicate your editorial license to someone with a negative agenda. Your filters are down and you simply absorb. These are "push" media that will shove their spin into your mind...as you let them.

You Must Recruit Talent Now

Alright, so you're in charge of recruiting employees for your business. You want to recruit stars, but how? Well, there are a few things you need to do: understand their expectations, identify talents, define the job, prescreen candidates, and involve current employees. Recruiting stars is tough work but well worth it.

The first thing you should do is simply understand the expectations of talented employees. What's the salary? Benefits? The job environment? You should be upfront and honest during the interview: candidates expect you to be forthright about what it will be like working at your company.

Before the interview itself, though, you need to define the job. Don't just provide a vague title and description. Instead, go into detail about what the job entails, but still leave wiggle room for the candidate to bring their talents to the table. After all, stars are stars because they are unique! Here's a few tips to write great job descriptions:

    Job Title
    Start with a very typical job title and spruce it up a little bit. Read a few blog post about how to write magnetic headline and applies your learning here.

    About Our Company
    Prospect should understand what you do in the first two sentences. The rest of the paragraph would ideally describe: work environment, company mission, key statistics about the growth or success of the company, how big the company is, who are the executives and underlines the company values (with meaningful exemples only).

    About the Job
    Start with one or two sentences on why this is a great job. Is it about the people, the technical challenges, the manager, the growth or importance of the role inside the company, the travel, the pay: what is it that makes this job great?

    Requirements
    This is the absolute bare minimum requirements for the position. Keep it short. If you come up with 10, there's a problem and you should re-think your definition of requirements. 4 or 5 is good.

    Nice to Have
    This is where you can list all the things you'd like to see in a perfect candidate. It won't happen, but if one relates to 4-5 elements of your 10 items list, this is a pretty strong signal he might be in a good spot.

    Tone and style
    This is key. By reading the job post, a candidate should have a feel of either the company as a whole (works only for SMB) or the hiring manager style. The reader should be able to tell the type of person he/she will be working for from the style of writing: funny, laid-back, very corporate, precise, detailled, etc.

Now once a candidate applies, identify their talents so that you can cover this in the interview. Don't be afraid to check their Facebook profile or run a Google search. You can also identify talents through prescreening; that is, meet the candidate at a place like a coffee shop before the interview. This provides a chance for you to meet the candidate in an informal setting, which will allow the candidate to open up more.

How Warren Buffett Makes Money

Warren Buffett, a brilliant business man, one of the richest and most charitable people in the world, was being interviewed on CBS's "Person to Person". The premise of the show is to give viewers a glimpse into the lives of some of today's most important artists and newsmakers.

We got a tour of Buffett's office. I have no doubt that it was straightened up a bit before the cameras rolled but this is what I saw.

- An inviting room with a lot of natural light.

- A large desk with a lot of working space.

- A phone front and center.

- A small pile of reading material on the desk.

- Pictures on the wall representing some of the most influential people and moments of his life.

- And most notably... NO computer.

For the most part my office is a lot like Mr. Buffett's (okay, it's not quite as big). I have a lot of natural light. A nice, large desk. A small pile of paper on my desk of things that I'm currently working on and pictures around me of the most important and influential people in my life. The real difference is that my phone is a little left of center because my computer and monitor take front and center stage in my life.

How could Buffett not have a computer anywhere in his office? He's a gazillionaire and has made most of his fortune in the stock market buying and selling on information. I spent 15 years working on Wall Street. I know there HAS TO BE a computer and a TV. How else could he know what's going on in the world every single second?

Ahh... but that's just it. One of the things Buffett said during the interview was that he is happy if he makes one good decision a year. He does his research by speaking to people (on his phone) and by reading reports and other information (mostly on paper). He takes his time to study the landscape, make a few solid decisions and act on them. And when he acts he sticks with his decision. He is known for buying stock in a company and holding onto it for the long run.

I am positive that Buffett has missed out on a lot of opportunities with his way of thinking but at the same time his strategy has done pretty well.

Granted, he has many people working for him that consolidate information for him and present him with what he specifically wants, but he does not spend his day distracted by all of the incoming email and the second-by-second news headlines. He gives himself the space and permission to focus his attention on his decision making process and what works for him.

Here are my top seven takeaways from Mr. Buffett's interview.

1. Make one really good decision a year you're golden.

2. Don't try to do it all.

3. If you miss something it's okay.

4. When you take your time and make a solid decision stick with it and see where it goes. The day to day fluctuations aren't the concern it's performance over the long run.

5. It's all about connections. The most important thing in Buffett's office is his phone.

6. Don't forget what made you who you are and what's important to you. In addition to pictures of family, Buffett has his Dale Carnegie Speaking Class diploma on his wall. He swears that this $100 class is what led him to where he is today.

7. Remove the distractions. Move away from the computer when you need to really focus on something (or at least shut off the "you've got mail" notifications!).