One Week to More Clients (Without Paid Ads or Social Media)
The thing about paid ads and social media is that no matter how excellent your strategy is, more often than not, you’re bombarded with leads that aren’t at the quality you need them to be. Heck, any kind of marketing can be confusing because of all of the new trends that come in hot and go just as quickly. We’ve said it a million times before, but relationship building and networking is where you’ll find your highest quality leads and potential clients. It’s even possible to do this and gain new clients in just one week.
In this post, we’ll be teaching you how to narrow down your offer, find your network, reach out to potential clients, and hold discovery calls and coffee dates all in the span of a week.
Day 1: Identify Your Offering
So many service providers get hung up at this stage– you don’t want to offer too much, but you also don’t want to offer too little. When setting up your offering, there’s a tremendous value in listening to the needs of the people you want to work with, i.e. your ideal clients. Let those needs, combined with the skills that are currently in your wheelhouse, shape what you could offer to these people.
Also keep in mind that there is a common phase amongst service providers where you just aren’t sure what you could offer, so it’s okay to say yes to projects and try out new things– as long as you keep in mind the end goal of niching down.
IDENTIFY YOUR RESULT
Remember that your clients aren’t necessarily buying the service, they’re buying the solution to their problem. Really get crystal clear on the results that your offer provides. Keep those results and your ideal client top of mind, so when you’re presenting your offer, you can accurately convey that this is the thing that’s going to achieve X results for Y type of people.
Day 2: Reach Out to Your Network
Before you start trying to create a social media strategy, join all the Facebook groups, or pay for leads somehow, you first need to reach out to your available network. This is the most reliable way for you to gain connections and quality leads that are already lukewarm. And believe it or not, there is a network right at your fingertips. This will likely be your busiest day as you’ll actually be reaching out to these people to ask for connections to potential leads.
FINDING YOUR INNER CIRCLE
Your inner circle is where you should start first. This is your family and friends, people you would reach out to to congratulate them on their successes or help them in a time of need, and they’d do the same for you. We all have those kinds of people, and those are going to be your highest quality connections. The best part is that the conversations with them on your business, services, and finding connections will flow the easiest.
BRANCHING OUT YOUR NETWORK
Once you have those people in your inner circle identified, you can branch out and expand this network to people who aren’t as close to you. These could be people in your mom group or social club, friends from school, old coworkers, your hairstylist, friends of friends, etc. The average person knows 1,000 people, as difficult as they may seem to believe, so you should be more than capable of identifying a large list of potential connectors in your network. If you need some extra help, we wrote these 10 tips for networking when you hate networking (we’re looking at you, fellow introverts).
Day 3: Reply to New Connections
When you’re talking to someone you’ve just been introduced to as a potential client, it’s important to investigate who they are and what they are ultimately seeking. In this kind of conversation, we would recommend treating it more like a getting-to-know-you that might turn into a discovery call rather than treating it as a discovery call.
Instead of talking broadly about their lives, you should try to have a focused conversation that links very closely to what you do and the service that you are able to provide for them. Also, remember that this conversation is as much for you to determine whether you can help them as it is for them to determine whether they need your help!
Day 4: Discovery Calls
When someone has voiced interest in your service, you can then reach out to them with a discovery call. A discovery call is called such because you’re discovering things about that person! You’re going to walk them through more of your process and how you can help them achieve their goals.
HOW TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL DISCOVERY CALL
Try to set up your discovery calls within 24-48 hours of them first showing interest in your services. This way, their inquiry is fresh in their mind, and you’re ready to jump in to help them solve their problem. The goal of the discovery call is for you to get as much information about them as possible. Ask them questions, find out what their goals are, and then walk them through more of your process and how you can help them achieve their goals. Your offer and results don’t ever change, but the elements that you highlight to your potential clients during a discovery call should always differ, depending on what you learn from them during this very important conversation.
Then, instead of having the closing conversation on the same discovery call, book a time to meet up with them or call them again. This will be your coffee date, which is what we’re focusing on next!
Day 5 & 6: Pitch Meetings
You could call these coffee dates with your potential clients, but really they’re pitch meetings. This is where you’re going to drive the hammer home and close the sale. Come prepared with a contract and a plan of action outlining what you want to accomplish with them. Then, walk them through the contract and the timelines of the process, and more often than not, they will be ready to sign right there in front of you!
THE P.I.T.C.H. METHOD
This is an ages-old method we’ve been using since the dawn of our own experience working 1:1 with clients. This will be your secret weapon to closing clients faster and confidently. The steps within this method are all played out in a single conversation, ideally in this order.
P- Prove that what you have is what they need
I- Iterate their words back to them
T- Talk them through your process
C- Clarify the contract and next steps
H- Here’s the price
Once you’ve finished the pitch meeting, be sure to tell the client when they can expect to hear back from you with their proposal. This all ties into setting expectations and then following through on those promises, setting a positive premise to what it will be like to work with you.
Day 7: Land One Client
If you haven’t already sent out whatever your potential clients need to get started working with you, this is the day to do that. This’ll vary depending on how their pitch meeting went. If you got a verbal yes during their meeting and they signed the contract, then you should send their next steps ASAP whether that’s their onboarding information or a questionnaire for them to fill out so you can get started. Make sure you’re on top of sending this no later than the next business day after their meeting if it was held in the afternoon; if you can, send it that same afternoon if the meeting was in the morning.
IF THE CLIENT SAID YES, BUT…
Maybe your client said yes on the call, but they still haven’t signed the contract or paid. In that case, your follow-up will be short and sweet yet impactful. You should illustrate how excited you are to get started with them, and as soon as you have their signature and payment, these are the things that are going to happen next. Don’t overwhelm them with all of the tasks you’ll end up needing from them, you just want to convey that you’re absolutely ready to get started and a simple reminder (with links) that they need to sign and pay.
IF NO DECISION HAS BEEN MADE YET
It could be that the client didn’t reach a final decision during the meeting, which is okay. Sometimes people just aren’t expecting to move through this process so quickly and may need a breather. When following up with them, have a gentle sense of urgency. Their proposal shouldn’t last forever, so be truthful with them that if they don’t sign within the next X days, Y will happen (i.e. the price will go up, you’ll have to requote them, you’ll be booked until a later date, etc.).
Book Clients Faster with One Week to Clients
One Week to Clients is seriously the training you’ve been waiting for. Inside, we break down in much more detail everything we just outlined, plus we give you:
Scripts for reaching out to your inner circle, network, and replying to potential clients
Exactly what to say during coffee dates and discovery calls
The art of the follow-up for those leads that go quiet so you can convert more of your ideal clients
What to say when potential clients say no to your services
If you’re tired of relying on social media strategies that take a whole lot of work but have little to no return of high quality leads, head here to grab One Week to Clients and start diving into the material immediately!
