When interacting with potential clients and referral sources, a helpful self-promotion tool is a collection of client success stories. Everyone loves to hear stories — we find them entertaining, educational, or evocative of deeper emotions. We identify with people through the stories they tell.
Client success stories are tales of moments in your business when you overcame challenges to help your client succeed. Telling these stories creates a memorable impression and gives the listener anecdotes about you that they can repeat to others. Your stories can help your contacts make the connection between the problems or opportunities of their situation and the person (you) who can provide a solution.
Here are three steps to creating a client success story:
1. Setup
What was the situation? Describing the client’s pre-existing situation, problem, or opportunity sets up the plot of your story. Example: “I had a client… contract… job… situation… who/where…”
2. Action
What did you do about it? You may have developed plans, assigned tasks, held meetings, written proposals, or implemented a hands-on solution. Describe the methods you used to tackle the situation, mapping out the process in detail, all the way through to resolution.
Use active, descriptive verbs to illustrate what you did. Examples: “So I analyzed… evaluated… diagnosed… assessed… clarified… reviewed…collected… compiled… solved… advised… recommended… influenced…negotiated… persuaded… planned… drafted… authored… formulated… adapted…designed… composed… created… invented… engineered… constructed… built…developed… installed… set up… purchased… integrated… produced… prepared…performed… implemented… supervised… coordinated… facilitated… trained…taught… coached… managed… directed… arranged… organized… executed…”
3. Payoff
What happened as a result? Explain the positive end result. Be specific about the increase, change, or improvement that resulted from your actions. If there was a measurable impact of your work, value it in dollars, percent of change, or another quantifiable factor. If the result was less tangible, describe it in qualitative terms like increased satisfaction, reduced pain, or improved outlook.
Examples: “And as a result, my client achieved… attained… resolved… determined… retained…restored… raised… increased… reduced… earned… gained… won… expanded…strengthened… improved… enhanced… fixed… corrected… succeeded…conquered… pioneered… transformed…”
Here’s what a completed client success story sounds like:
I had a client with a human resource system that was absurdly complex and hopelessly out-of-date. It had been modified in-house by an employee who was no longer there, and was being operated by a technician and a data entry clerk who hadn’t been adequately trained. In addition, there was almost no documentation of how to use the system.I assessed the situation and began to reverse engineer the programming code to discover how the system worked. In the first 30 days, I was able to produce ample documentation to run the system error-free on a daily basis, and I trained the technician and data entry clerk sufficiently for them to work with minimal supervision.
Then I prepared an evaluation of the system, and recommended that it be completely replaced. After my recommendation was accepted, I joined an inter-departmental team dedicated to evaluating and selecting a replacement system, and later joined the system replacement team. There I served as the expert on duplicating needed functionality from the old system, and managed data mapping and conversion.
As a result of my work, my client was able to replace their outdated and error-prone HR system with a new system that completely met their needs, while at the same time keeping their old system fully operational. The whole project took only 18 months from the day I was first hired, and was completed on time and within budget.
There’s an added benefit to using client success stories to illustrate your capabilities. Most professionals find it more comfortable to tell fact-based stories about what they’ve already done, rather than promising what they could do in the future. Since listeners also find stories like these more convincing than hearing about your skills in the abstract, this approach to telling folks what you can do will make sales conversations go more smoothly for both you and your prospective clients.