In the 30+ years I’ve been in the business of providing professional services, I’ve learned a considerable amount about what works to get clients and make sales. One of my most significant discoveries — which I luckily made early in my self-employment adventure — was that it’s easier to convince people to buy something that seems to be tangible than it is to sell only your intangible services.
Imagine this conversation, between me and a client who’s looking to bring in more business.
Me: What about giving your potential client a quick call?
Client: That’s not really in my lane.
Me: How about grabbing lunch with a colleague you haven’t seen in a while?
Client: They already know me. Not sure what difference that would make.
Me: Could you reach out to some current clients and deepen those relationships?
Client: They hear from me monthly already via my newsletter.
Me: That’s the generic newsletter your assistant sends out, right?
Client: …Yes.
Marie Kondo (author of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up is famous for encouraging you to ask if the things you surround yourself with spark joy. What if you applied this concept to your business marketing?
When you look at your marketing to-do list, do many of the items on it look all too familiar? Have entries like “call Dolores Sanchez” and “follow up with Wallingford Corp.” been copied from a previous week? Putting off unappealing tasks may be human nature, but for a self-employed professional, procrastination can be deadly.
Delays in contacting a prospect can lose the business to the competition. Failing to get the word out about an upcoming event may forfeit dozens of opportunities. When prospects don’t hear from you for a while, they forget you exist. Wasted marketing time can never be recovered. By the time you realize you might not make your sales goals for the month, quarter, or year, it may already be too late.
Never underestimate the power of a thank you. I thanked someone a while back for helping me solve a technical problem. She replied to my note of thanks by inviting me as a guest speaker for a group she chairs. I didn’t even know she chaired this group and I had never considered speaking there.
As a professional selling your own services, you may believe that your discomfort about calling prospective clients on the phone is because you’re not a “real” salesperson. But studies reveal that up to 40% of full-time salespeople experience episodes of call reluctance that are serious enough to threaten their careers.
In the old pre-COVID days, we self-employed professionals went to local and global gatherings to meet people -- mixers, professional meetings, conferences, community events, cultural happenings, and more. To follow up with our contacts, we scheduled coffee, lunch,...
One thing I’ve noticed regarding networking during the pandemic is how people are connecting, or more accurately, not connecting. During more “normal” times, networking had a certain forgiveness built into it. For example, if you went to a networking meeting and met several people, you’d connect with some more than others, and that would feel normal.
What Can You Do if You Need Clients Yesterday?
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, I shared my thoughts on Appropriate Marketing in a Time of Crisis and What Kind of Marketing is Possible Right Now? The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on many self-employed professionals has been substantial. Even if you are able to perform your usual work under safer-at-home rules, your regular clients may not need your services right now. Or, they may simply be unable to pay you.
Meeting new people, in person, is consistently rated as one of the most effective ways to find new prospects for selling your professional services. After attending just a few networking mixers or industry meetings, you will quickly end up with a daunting collection of new contacts. But what do you do with them all?
Remember Why You Are Networking
The whole point of meeting new people is to give you a starting point for developing relationships. New contacts almost never become clients as the result of a one-time meeting.
