A Simple Secret for Getting More Clients Your clients don't care about your methods as much as they care about your results.
By Brian Hilliard •
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
What are clients buying from your professional services business? It's not coaching, accounting or any other service.
Even if you're a lawyer, your clients aren't buying your legal services. They're buying peace of mind regarding an outstanding legal issue.
They're paying for a result.
The same is true for a coach. My clients aren't paying me because they want me to coach them, but because they want to get more business. The meetings and sessions and everything else is simply a vehicle for reaching their goal of getting more business.
And that's the simple secret for getting more clients: Recognize the difference between your services and your results, then market your results. Let people know what you can help them with, not how you're going to do it.
Understand the overarching benefit your clients get when working with you. That is your true product.
Related: 7 Steps to Winning New Customers
How to use that in the field
You want to mention your true product on your website, during presentations and via social media, because it will help you attract more clients and get more business. You'll be speaking to potential clients in a language they understand (their problems) and that very few others are using.
My co-author of Networking Like a Pro (Entrepreneur Press 2017), Ivan Misner, is a good example. Misner founded BNI, a referral network, which has chapters all over the world. What are the people who spend time and money on BNI actually buying?
It's not networking opportunities, or more referrals or even more business.
They're paying for more consistent business through word-of-mouth. If you're an entrepreneur who wants to get a consistent flow of referrals through word-of-mouth marketing, then you need:
- A gathering point of other likeminded individuals,
- A structure for galvanizing and pointing those people in the right direction, and
- A process and support mechanism for making it happen.
You can establish those things yourself, or you can pay to have a solution ready for you. But, you're not paying for those steps, or even for the platform. You're because you just want to network with others, or get referrals (again, you could join just about any organization for that). You want to take steps towards getting a consistent amount of business through word-of-mouth.
So, if if I worked for BNI and I wanted to attract more members, I would spend a lot of time talking about our results. I would talk about it during my presentations, and on my website. I'd mention it while networking and would update my social media profiles to be reflective of that fact.
Related: A Quick Fix for Increasing Your Client Acquisition Results
Don't get caught up with the details of your business
People get so caught up in the details of how they deliver their service that they skip right over their true product, and the problem their perspective clients are actually trying to solve!
Always keep in mind that you want to focus on the problem that you solve. Put that into all of your marketing and client acquisition activities going forward: your website, your social media, your sales pitch when talking to prospects.
See if after a few months, that doesn't get more clients in the door. If your experience is similar to mine, it absolutely will!
