If we are being honest, none of us wants to spend the time or money necessary to attract new clients.
Can I get a witness?!
Instead, we’d all love to create a systematic approach to keeping our clients working with us for life.
Sadly, most entrepreneurs don’t think this way.
They’d rather engage new dollars and spend new energy closing new clients. But the truth is, it is cheaper to keep your current clients. In fact, not only will you save on your client acquisition costs, but if you create a system and strategy for getting existing clients to keep working with you, you’ll definitely work smarter not harder as you build your business.
In this BRAND NEW episode of Incredible Factor TV, check out a few quick tips:
As I share in the episode, thinking this way might be a new way of thinking for you – but when you realize that 78% of your clients will hire you again, surely it makes sense to create a system that you can use over and over to get their attention.
Here are 7 key steps that will work for you:
1. Before you begin working together, complete a pre-survey/assessment. During this process, get crystal clear about where the client is and more importantly where they desire to be. I tend to ask the questions in the discovery session meeting, but if you don’t do it there, be sure that they respond to clear questions and offer insight BEFORE you begin working together.
2. After you have your pre-assessments completed, schedule some time with your team to have them help you to brainstorm the best problem progression plan for this client. Think in terms of which of your client’s problems is to be solved first and what additional problems will surface once that first problem has been solved. (PSST: this tip is the key to a long working relationship with your current client.)
3. Create your project plan schedule, including key milestones and follow up conversations. This is very important – while it may not be something you necessarily share with your client (based on the reason they hired you), you definitely want to create this. Having a client progression plan is the key to systematizing your deliverables, milestones and when you should begin sharing about the other ways you can help.
4. Seed new opportunities with your client. I always love to make “check in calls” with my corporate clients. These calls are outside of the scope of our agreement, but instead they are value-add calls where I seed. The purpose of the call is to check in with the client, check the temperature of the organization per the ongoing recommendations, coaching, training, etc. and to move the conversation toward other ways I can help. They are quick conversations as they aren’t on the calendar, but the value of them will be felt for a long time.
5. Thoroughly solve their current problem. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it’s essential. You must do your job well. You must not leave any opportunity with the current problem to chance. You must get rave reviews and be well-liked by the project team (doing so will make the next steps easy).
6. Complete the post survey. Following the formal completion of the current project, come back in and offer a post survey. Here, your goal is to validate what you’re believing should occur next for the client and position which idea you will lead with for the next engagement.
7. Hold debrief meeting following post-survey. This debrief meeting should be a scheduled meeting that was set up at the beginning of the project. The goal here is to review what has happened and to discuss what should happen now. If you’ve done your job right, you will be submitting a new engagement letter for the next level project. If not, you’ll be trying to follow up until you can get a meeting to discuss what happens next.
No matter what, remember that they want to keep working with you, but your value and the ROI must be readily apparent and easy for them to keep going. If you’ve failed to seed and establish your internal milestones to ensure that you are positioning the right conversations, this will be a challenge.
Now, I want to hear from you: What’s your two cents? How do you set up a new engagement with an existing client before you’re finished the current project? What tips do you have for others in the Incredible Factor community to keep their existing clients engaged?
©2016 by Darnyelle A. Jervey. All Rights Reserved. Darnyelle A. Jervey, MBA, The Incredible Factor Business Optimization Coach and Mentor, is the founder of Incredible One Enterprises®, Incredible Factor University® and the Leverage Your Incredible Factor System®, a proven step-by-step program so you experience financial and spiritual abundance in your life because of your business. For more information and a FREE audio CD “7 Critical Mistakes Even Smart Entrepreneurs Must Avoid for Clients, Connection and Cash Flow!” just fill out the form below.
