OK so I have a friend who’s been wanting to get her consulting business off the ground for the past 5 years. She works full-time and can’t stand her coworkers. (When her mother died, they really had the nerve to complain about her taking time off!)
Even though she very desperately wants to leave her job and she knows she needs to reach out to prospective clients, she’s been avoiding it. She told me she didn’t have the time.
But that wasn’t the real reason she wasn’t promoting her business. There was something more happening. So I asked her who were her perfect clients.
As she spoke, you could see the energy drain out of her body. She talked about trying to set up meetings with government agencies. They would tell her they would get back to her but they had to go through all levels of approval.
The people she was describing sounded a lot like her coworkers, the very same people who made her want to leave her job in the first place. No wonder she wasn’t promoting her business. She was exhausted just thinking about it.
That wasn’t the real reason she wasn’t promoting her business. There was something more happening.
They were not her ideal clients. Your ideal clients are enthusiastic to work with you. They want to give you their money right away so they can get your product or service as soon as possible.
By the same token, thinking about working with your ideal clients feels energizing and invigorating, not draining and exhausting.
It makes me think of another client, a real estate broker from a popular vacation spot who was finding that every time her phone rang, she got a little annoyed and rushed to end the conversation. Her business was suffering because of it.
When I discussed her perfect client with her, she spoke about how people who called didn’t have any money to buy properties and didn’t really want to work exclusively with one agent and were completely wasting her time. These were not her perfect clients.
We worked together to refine her idea of her ideal client. Instead of targeting local clients who didn’t have as much purchasing power, we aimed for investors from more prosperous parts of North America and the UK. Once she made that shift, her promotion game completely changed.
Within a year, she’d self-published a book which became the definitive guide to property investment in her region. She began attending investment conferences to promote her brokerage. Her business grew so much she had to hire new staff to handle the influx. It was a complete transformation.
Are you finding that you’re not promoting your business like you want to be? If you feel unmotivated every time, subconsciously you may be picturing the wrong client.
Working with your ideal customer should make you feel energized and rejuvenated. I’ve created a technique that works to re-energize your love for your customers. I call it the R³ Method.
- Rant – Have a mini-rant session. Write out all the things you don’t like about your current clients. Don’t be nice about it. Just list eeeeverything you’re tired of that gets on your last living nerve. Get it all out of your system.
Example: I can’t stand that they don’t pay on time. Every time I have to be calling and sending emails to remind them…
- Reverse – Now take a look at your rant. Underline the negative traits. Now make another list of the reverse, an opposite trait to what you underlined this time indicating what you want instead.
Example: If you underlined don’t pay on time, you might write: They always pay ahead of time and are happy to pay because they value what I bring to the table.
- Retarget – Now think of who you could work with that would meet your new criteria. Target them as your new ideal client.
Example: I’m going to target clients who are a bit older because they have more purchasing power.
This simple technique works to get my clients motivated to promote again. Try it yourself and see if your motivation to promote returns.
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