As entrepreneurs and business owners, what duty do we have to our customers, clients and to the public in general when tragedy strikes? Here at ClientAttraction.com we’ve been faced with this question twice in just the last two months. We haven’t always done everything right but we’re learning. Based on both recent events and all the feedback from the Client Attraction community asking me for advice on what to do, I wrote this new article on Doing Business in Times of Crisis—an important topic that not enough people are talking about right now. (Click here to tweet this.)

Your Client Attraction assignment is to please read it. But then I ask you to take one extra step and share it with other entrepreneurs and business owners in your tribe. As entrepreneurs we’re all catalysts for positive change in the world. We’re all in this together. Pass it on and pay it forward. Thank you.

Many entrepreneurs are drawn to open their business because of a defining moment or series of events that changed everything in their lives. Because of that moment, some of us dropped everything and decided to dedicate the rest of our professional lives to doing what we now do. What I’d like to talk to you today is about not underestimating that.

You can actually use your story to attract ideal clients. (Click here to tweet this.)

As you may know, my compelling story is how I went from leaving my corporate job to opening up my own nutrition practice. And even though I had clients right away, I didn’t have enough clients to pay my midtown Manhattan rent and all of my bills. I made a decision one day to figure out what it would take to get clients. I learned everything that I could and ended up filling my practice to full capacity within 8 months. I eventually created the Client Attraction System™ and went on to fill my second practice.

Whenever I talk about my story I talk about my “3 AM-I-don’t-have-enough-clients-sweats” and how I was able to overcome all that and fill my practice very quickly. That is my compelling story and it’s something I tell to establish instant credibility with new prospects, in front of an audience or at the beginning of all of my programs.

Your own compelling story may be that you overcame a serious challenge in business, in your health or in life that caused you to change your course. Some people call it the hero’s journey.

You can use your compelling story several ways to attract new clients:

1. First and foremost, it helps the prospect bond with you. Often your prospects are in the “before” of your “before and after” story. If you’re in a business like mine, working with individual clients, your compelling story helps establish that know-like-and-trust factor. People aren’t buying a “business.” They’re buying a solution first and a relationship second.

2. It can be the beginning of your signature talk or your teleclasses, helping you to “earn the right” to be up there speaking to an audience that doesn’t know you yet.

3. If you don’t have a lot of credentials, your personal story can give you instant credibility. You’ve been through what they’ve been through too, you’ve experienced success, and now you’re back to tell them how to solve their problems.

Your Client Attraction Assignment:
What is YOUR compelling story around your business? What brought you to do what you’re doing today with such passion? What is your before-and-after story and how did you overcome your situation?

Sprinkle this in your marketing materials and in conversation. Creating your compelling story to share with others can be a catalyst and one of the most powerful ways for you to attract clients through the know-like-and-trust factor.

Have you already created your proprietary system? If you did, congratulations! That will make your marketing so much easier.

I do get a lot of questions from clients about the best way to use the system with your individual clients once it’s been created. The concern is, “Clients differ, so how can I take everyone through the exact same process in the exact same order?”

Let me make this really easy for you. Your proprietary system needs to be created in a logical, chronological order. Every step builds on top of the first one and then on top of each consecutive step. That makes sense, right?

This same process can be used for other products you create like a home study system or a telephone boot camp. I even did a one-day program with each step of my system. This is by far the best way to organize the information – in logical chronological order.

However, when you are actually working with a client, they have their own experiences that you need to honor. So you might have to start at step four or jump around and go out of order. And this is perfectly fine. You can always loop back around to the beginning or proceed from wherever you jumped in.

I hope I’m not letting this big bad secret out, but I rarely, if ever, take any client from step one to step ten in linear order. Usually I go through steps one through five, then fast forward to closing the sale, and then go back to step six.

My suggestion is not to put a lot of pressure on yourself to stick to the exact process in order when working with individual clients. That order is there especially for clients using the home study system on their own. But, when you are working with a person one-on-one to guide them through the process, you can mix it up for that particular person’s needs. Your goal is to provide what they need to achieve their goals, so customizing the steps for each client is perfectly acceptable.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Have you been using your proprietary system with private clients? What have you noticed that works or doesn’t work? What adjustments can you make that will help your clients and make things easier for you as you take them through your system? Make note of what you tried, so you can put the successful nuggets to work for you again in the future.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction Home Study System™ gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

Today we’re going to talk about how to always have clients—not just clients once in awhile, but to always have clients consistently.

A few years ago someone asked me, “Fabienne, what is the difference between salad and garbage?”  I had never been asked that before.  The only difference between salad and garbage is time.  When you’re looking at a fresh green salad and you don’t eat it right away, in a few days it becomes garbage and unappetizing.  You’ve also heard the idea of striking while the iron is hot—hot leads turn into cold leads if you don’t take action on them right away. (Click here to tweet this.)

In business, timing is everything.  A client of mine always used to say to me, “Fabienne, it’s really difficult for me as a real estate attorney to attract clients because I can never anticipate when they’re going to need me.  It’s not something that they need very often, so how do I know when to market to them?  I don’t know how to market to them.  I don’t know when to market to them.  It’s just all so arbitrary.”

Well, what I said to him is and what I want to say to you as well is with stay in touch marketing vehicles you solve that problem of trying to anticipate when somebody needs you.  The idea is that you always want to be on the radar screen of your prospective clients.  You always want to be top of mind so that when they need you they think of you.

What is an example of a stay in touch marketing vehicle?  Well, it could be your weekly Ezine.  It could be a direct mail campaign.  It could be a quirky postcard campaign.  Really just a way to communicate proactively with your prospects so that you can actually anticipate any current or urgent needs that they may have.  If you are consistently being in touch with them, you are essentially establishing a Know-Like-Trust relationship in advance of the need.

You will be on their radar screen when that need arrives, which means they’ll say, “Hey, you’re exactly what I need.  I can’t believe you’re right there, right under my nose.”  This is when they happily pay you for your services and you don’t have to go chasing any ambulances.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Be consistent with stay in touch marketing vehicles and when you do you will always have plenty of clients because you will have built that relationship and anticipated the need well before they know they need you.

Derek and I recently attended the Stevie Awards for Women in Business at their annual dinner in New York City (it’s the Oscars of the business world.) I was honored to receive the Gold first place award for The Female Entrepreneur of the Year (see the video here…) and to also receive silver and bronze awards for Coach of the Year, Maverick of the Year and Company of the Year! For me, it was a wonderful night of reflection and appreciation for all the amazing opportunities that I’ve been blessed with on this journey, and frankly it hasn’t all fully sunk in yet. Who would have thought 12 years ago when I first started my business that this would ever happen! I’m so profoundly grateful that you are part of that journey as well and I’m looking forward to seeing what else the future holds, for you and for me.

When you start creating your packages, you want to be sure you have different levels to serve clients who are in different situations. Rather than simply creating a program and pricing as you like, I have found a method that speaks directly to your prospects and helps them to self-select the best program for them. Here’s what I recommend as the method to choose your package and pricing levels.

Think about your packages based on the different levels your clients fit into. How can you separate your prospects and clients into categories or groups who share similar concerns? You can see how I’ve done this at www.ClientAttractionWinnersAcademy.com

Create Client Profiles
My first step was to create client profiles to really examine who these people are and what kind of help they need. What are their concerns and burning questions? What do they need help with most? I created these profiles for three levels to start with three profiles
1. Ramp up Rachel (Rob)
2. Leverage Lucy (Larry)
3. Visionary Vicky (Vince)

Details for each profile include their immediate, driving need, income range, and a description of where their business is currently and what their issues tend to be.

Create Programs that Fit Client Profiles
By clarifying what’s happening at each level, you help your ideal prospects to see themselves and know what they need. This makes it easy for them to see which program fits best.

Using this model, you are creating a program based around a particular person or around a particular issue instead of just creating different programs.

Client Profiles Help You with Pricing Decisions
This makes it easier to price your programs too. So for example, in the Gold program, I’m giving more access, content and value than people charging three times as much. I’ve kept it really affordable for people who need more clients and more money.

My next levels attract prospects who have more money and clients.  What they need is to learn to leverage their business so they can afford a little more and ultimately they want a little more access.

What I have found is that the more affordable the programs are for people, the better results they get because I’m only speaking to them about their problems and solutions. This is different than speaking to everyone at all levels at the same time. And, it’s so much better than talking beyond their level about things they cannot implement in their business because they aren’t at that stage yet.

The bottom line is to help your clients self select and pre-qualify themselves, so they say, “That program is for me.”

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Have you thought about the different types of clients you serve? Think about the clients you’ve worked with and see if you can sort them into categories. When you can do this, you are on your way to creating program and package levels that will allow prospects to self-select. That makes your job of closing the sale so much easier down the line.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction Home Study System™ gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

Today’s topic is where to find clients.  You’ve opened up your business.  Perhaps, you’ve been in business a few years and your practice is still not full yet or you’re just looking to fill your programs even more.  The big question you may have is where do I find clients?

These are my four best tips for how to find your ideal client and how to get in front of them in large numbers and inexpensively. (That’s the ultimate shortcut!) (Click here to tweet this.)

1. Get clear on who that ideal client is.  You may be thinking, “Yeah, yeah I know this.  I know this already,” but most people that I talk to aren’t actually very clear about who their ideal clients are.  You want to get clear on who is it that will get great results from working with you.  Who is it that you love working with that sees value in what you have to offer because they get great results from working with you and they’re going to tell others.

Get really clear about the following: are they a particular gender, a particular company, a particular age group or do they have a particular problem?  Whatever it is, figure out who that person is first.  It is basic, but so, so important.

2. Once you know who that is, you want to look to see who is already speaking to that person.  Perhaps, it’s an individual like a strategic alliance or a joint-venture partner who is in a particular industry and is already speaking to that person, or who already has a list of these people. Or perhaps it’s an organization, networking group or an association who is already speaking to large numbers of your idea client. They’ve already gathered them for themselves, but really they’ve gathered them for you too. Once you’ve identified these people or groups, you’ll want to reach out to them and offer to add value to their people, to their list.

3. Contact them and ask, “How can I help?  This is what I do.  Can I offer some free content?  Would you like me to come and speak?”  Whatever it is that you do you are making sure that it’s not all about you, that you’re not here to just take from them because they’ve really put a lot of time and effort and probably money in gathering these people so you want to make sure that what you’re offering benefits that strategic alliance or that joint-venture partner as well.

4. Make an offer. The idea is to give such good content and such value, whether you’re speaking or giving them something free, that you will impress them so much that they’re going to come over to your list.  This is when you want to offer these people something that they can’t refuse.  Maybe it’s your free checklist, your free audio, your free DVD, or a free ticket to an event that you’re doing.  Bring them over and then give them high content and high value on your own list until they raise their hand and say, “I’m ready.  I want to work with you.”

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Us this formula to find your ideal clients.  Just put it into place.  Do the work and watch your practice grow.

Join Fabienne and Amy Porterfield for this conversation about inspiration and courage, while you discover “best practices” on how to play bigger in your work and in your life. Enjoy!

With 12+ years marketing experience, Amy has worked with mega brands like Harley-Davidson Motorcycles, along with Tony Robbins International where she oversaw his content marketing team and collaborated on multiple online marketing campaigns.

She currently creates online programs to teach entrepreneurs and small businesses how to leverage social media to gain greater exposure, attract quality leads and turn their fans and followers into loyal customers. To learn more about Facebook and social media for your business, check out Amy’s site: http://www.amyporterfield.com

See all the classes here.

Your elevator speech is the way you succinctly explain what you do for people you meet at networking events. You share just enough information to encapsulate what you do and spark interest among the men and women you talk with. The point is to get the conversation going, right?

There is another type of elevator speech that I call the “Situational Elevator Speech”. Let’ say you’re at a holiday party. You are mingling with people you don’t know, enjoying appetizers and drinks. That’s not the right time to start with your regular elevator speech created for networking – it’s way too business-like.

But you can try this method instead. Just fill in the blanks for your business once the subject of what you do comes up.

“I have a service that helps _______people who struggle with ________, which means they don’t have __________. What I do is ______which means ________, which equals, _______.”

You keep drilling down and going deeper into what you do one step at a time focusing on the results and benefits. Here’s my speech:

“I have a service that helps entrepreneurs get more clients and make more money in their business. I tend to work with people who have a semi-successful business, but who really want to make a lot of money and right now they can’t because they don’t have the right marketing in place. Which means they don’t have enough clients, which means they can’t always pay their bills.

What I do is teach them how to build systems around marketing, get clarity about who they’re working with and close sales more often which means they make more money, serve more people and live a more freedom-based lifestyle.”

It doesn’t matter specifically what you say as long as it’s situational. The person you‘re talking to will say, “Oh, that makes sense.”

This method is more conversational because you are not cramming a bunch of business words into a single sentence or two. As you drill down to the benefits of what you do piece by piece, you are just expanding the conversation rather than selling people anything.

The whole thing about client attraction and what I teach is that you have to be yourself. You have to be authentic or it just won’t work. If it’s too formulaic, people will see right through you. They can smell a sales pitch a mile away.

So, it’s very important to talk about what your clients struggle with and the results of working with you and your service. And share this piece by piece as you drill down through all the benefits of working with you.

Now you are all set for all the socializing you’ll be doing during the upcoming holiday season.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Prepare for your social interactions and opportunities coming up in the next month. You never know who you might meet and who could be your next referral source or client for that matter. Practice this “situational elevator speech” and the drilling down process, so you can feel comfortable with the method. That’s the best way to be authentic with what you are saying about your business.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction Home Study System™ gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.