When you’re trying to get clients it can be a frustrating journey, to say the least. Really this is the hardest part of any business owners journey, no matter what type of business you have. Sometimes you’ll talk to someone who seems perfect but they either don’t get back with you, or they tell you they picked someone else. After all the work you do to qualify your clients, it can be a big let-down. But, there are ways you can get to yes that you may not have thought about. Let’s look at a few of them:
Understand What “No” Really Means
Most of the time, when someone raises objections, they are really asking a question – not saying no. It’s your job to know what type of objections your audience may have in advance and come up with answers and education that explain away these objections. Your sales pages, email marketing messages, and other marketing material should answer most of these objections up front to avoid them later.
Be Committed to Getting to Yes
Most people just need time to get to yes. If you have someone sign up for your email list, and they are at least opening the emails, you’re part of the way there. If they’re not opening the emails, it’s up to you to figure out why (perhaps your freebie is targeted to the wrong audience, or your subject line needs to be changed) and then move them to a new list so that you can market to them more aggressively. Perseverance wins over a lot of doubters if you keep delivering high quality education.
Host a Webinar
This can sound like a very intimidating proposition, but it shouldn’t be. You don’t have to have special equipment to get started, and I promise that there’s something for you to contribute, even if your “space” on the internet seems too full. Even service professionals can host webinars to discuss something they do for their clients. If you, for example, set up shopping carts for your clients, and keep them running smoothly, you can host a webinar about “making your products stand out” or “100 reasons you should use 1ShoppingCart” if that happens to be your specialty. Then end with an offer they can’t refuse.
Spend More Time on Client Screening
If you are getting to the discovery call phase and getting a lot of “no” answers, it may be time to re-evaluate your client screening process. Potential clients that get to the call should be ready and willing to buy. The way you accomplish this is by building up an email list of leads who may become prospects, who will then be more likely to become clients based on the actions they take as you lead them through your product funnel. It’s important to figure out what was missing from the funnel that those “no” people went through or what could be changed. You can also follow up with these people and ask them directly what lead them to their decision.
Yes – You Need a Product Funnel
You read the words product funnel above and maybe cringed. Maybe, like most of us, you’ve heard that a thousand times before. Maybe yours just isn’t working, and it’s time to re-do it. And maybe, worse, you don’t have one? Well now is the time to to create one. A product funnel for a service-based business is not much different from a product funnel for other types of business. You put the least expensive item you have at the widest part of the funnel, and the most expensive item at the narrowest part. In between you develop educational materials that lead the prospect through the funnel. There are a lot of techniques and methods to creating a funnel (let us know if you’re interested in us making a video about our funnel creation process!), so do some research if you want to find a way that works for you other than this one.
Stop Treating Each Prospect the Same
Every prospect you have is unique. You need to personalize your efforts for each prospect that gets to the discovery call stage. Learn all you can about them via a client questionnaire that you send to them prior to the call. This will help you narrow down what to talk to them about, as well as help you identify potential issues. Don’t worry about if you find out they are not right for you in the process. You saying no is acceptable.
Hone Your Marketing Messages
If you are sending a lot of people to the discovery call phase and still getting a lot of no’s, then you may need to improve your marketing messages. As the person creating the message, you’re responsible for how your prospects hear them. If they’re not hearing what you thought they were, then it’s your job to go through every single message and fix the problems. Do some research about what words “convert” or work well for email providers. See what words you can replace or change in your emails. You don’t have to change every single thing. You can also check your images, etc. Maybe your booking link doesn’t actually work, or one of the images in your emails is really fuzzy. Small things like that can make all the difference!
Tell Your Story Better
When you look at high-priced items compared to lower priced items at the grocery store, they are essentially the same thing. What is it that differentiates the perceived value of the items? Is it really the ingredients? Sometimes, sure, but often it’s all based on perception. It’s your job to tell your story in such a way that your audience perceives your work as worth more than the work someone else does. Donald Miller has a great book about Building a Story Brand, which we talk about in our recent book recommendations (check the rest out here). We highly recommend reading that to learn more about honing your story and telling it in such a way that gets you clients.
Getting to yes, and being the chosen one, doesn’t come from luck. It doesn’t come from waiting around. It comes from proactively creating a system that helps pull in your ideal client. The clients who want to say yes, the clients who really want to work with you and is ready to do what it takes to do so. It also takes the discipline to review this system, hone it, and improve upon it continually.
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