2014 - Page 8 of 11 - Small Business Coach, Women Business Coaching

When you are building your practice, sometimes you choose to work with a client for free for a number of reasons:
• Gain experience with an ideal client
• Minimize risk of trying out a new program
• Build up your client testimonials
• Give back to the community by offering services to a select few who cannot afford you

While paying clients are of course more desirable, the freebies often provide their own advantages. There is nothing wrong with having a few practice clients who can help you attract paying clients, as long as you set clear boundaries.

I’ve heard from people who spend so much time with non-paying clients, they don’t have time to market themselves and attract paying clients. Obviously that’s a problem as growing your business always needs to be your primary concern as an entrepreneur. Building your practice is the main focus until you have enough money coming in to pay your bills and meet your own needs.

Truth is, establishing boundaries can be a problem with free or paying clients. That’s why learning how to be clear about your working relationship is important no matter what stage of business you are in.

How to Establish Clear Boundaries and Handle Non-Paying Clients
1. Use an agreement with all clients. Whether or not there is a fee involved, clearly outline appointment times, number of sessions and length of sessions, what will be covered, etc., in a formal document. This helps your clients understand exactly what services you are providing. Don’t leave things vague or up in the air.

2. Place a cap on the extras with non-paying clients. Sometimes, to sweeten the offer with fee-based clients, you provide unlimited emails or 5-minute calls. But, with your free clients, you can cap this so they don’t overdo the extras and drain your time. This is essential to ensure you have time to market yourself and attract clients.

3. Investigate other forms of payment. Sometimes a client comes along who is ideal, except they don’t have the funding to pay your fee. If you still want to work with them, ask if there is some other form of trade that might be an option. For example, perhaps they have great connections and can refer you, so you can attract clients who will pay.

4. Don’t get wrapped up in the drama. It’s really simple to get wrapped up in the drama around your clients and their needs. Just say to yourself, “OK, what do I need to do? I need to tell the client that we need an agreement in place for a particular amount of hours until he can start paying me.” Discuss this with your clients and finish by asking, “Is that fair?” That’s a really good question to ask because you’ll most likely gain their agreement.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
If you aren’t currently using an agreement, then it’s time to create one. Be sure to explain the elements of your working relationship and what services you are providing. Be specific and quantify things like number of appointments, length of appointments, when time with you expires, how they can continue when they complete the first round, materials included, etc. Establishing clear boundaries protects your time and helps clients feel comfortable knowing what they can expect from you.

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 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.

If you are working to attract clients and create a positive mindset, affirmations will help get you there. What a difference they can make! In case you aren’t familiar with this mindset technique, an affirmation is a positive statement about a goal you want to achieve, written in the present tense as if it is happening right now.

The First Step is to Write Your Affirmations
You want to craft a series of positive statements about the goals you wish to accomplish. For example, you might write about your business:
• I attract clients easily and my business is flourishing and growing
• This year my income will reach $___ or higher (be specific!)
• I find the ideal virtual assistant who will help my business grow

You might also write a few for your personal life:
• I feel energetic and excited today.
• Good things come easily to me.
• I love my life, my family and my home.

Affirmations Need to Be Positive
Make sure these statements are written about what you want to attract or feel versus what you don’t want. For example, you want to avoid affirmations like: “In the future, I don’t attract clients who can’t afford my fee.” This sentence has two things working against it:
1) Putting the time frame out into the future vs. making it about now
2) Talking about what you don’t want instead of what you do want.

Here’s how to turn this statement around so that it will work for you:
“I attract ideal clients who pay my fee easily and get great results working with me.”

These positive statements set you up energetically with an optimistic outlook about what you want. For affirmations to work, you need to repeat them on a regular basis so they get into your subconscious mind, which is the place where all manifesting originates.

Use Affirmations Twice a Day
I recommend working with affirmations at least twice a day. In the morning after waking, you are in this foggy place where you can bypass the conscious mind and go straight to the subconscious. The other ideal time is at night when you are fading before falling asleep. Both times give you access to that part of your brain.

Try Positive Expectations
In addition, I also hold positive expectations during the day. One of my favorites is “I am positively expecting great results no matter what I see in front of me.” I have that posted everywhere in my house and office so it has worked its way into my subconscious as well. This is a powerful tool for shifting your mindset and creating the results you desire.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Have you created your affirmations yet? If not, take time right now to get started. Even a few positive statements can have a wonderful impact on your business to attract clients.

You can write them every day, read what you have written daily or speak them out loud to yourself. Take a moment at the end to express your gratitude for these statements coming true.

Sometimes my students struggle with how to price their services. There might be a particular service or segment of your knowledge that you feel has more value. You might have an idea that you should charge more for this piece, but feel unsure whether that is fair. Here’s how I look at it.

Reframe How You Look at the Value of Your Knowledge
You need to reframe how you are thinking about this. You are putting a price tag on the full value you offer. While this may feel awkward, this is how many businesses are structured and services are priced.

Deeper Knowledge Has More Value
Your pricing strategy should reflect that some information is simply worth more. Think about how you will change someone’s life or business and how they will succeed with your help and knowledge. That is worth a tremendous amount to your clients. So, you need to be charging accordingly to reflect this value in order to attract clients or you run the risk of not being taken seriously.

Attract Clients with Multi-Level Programs and Pricing Tiers
If you have different levels of valuable information to share, you can offer it in two or more parts or stages. Start with the basics of your program or knowledge at a lower price point so more people have access to it. Then, for those clients who want more on a particular topic, you come up with the higher level program that has absolutely everything covered and allows you to share your knowledge and expertise on a deeper level at a higher price point. Maybe it has audio recordings, transcripts, video, ebooks, exercises and worksheets. Worksheets are actually an amazing gift to clients because it helps them park all of their ideas and helps them work things out on paper. This way they can record their thinking and strategy all in one place. Anything that I do includes worksheets and exercises to firm up the learning.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Do you have an area of expertise that is worth more than the rest? Make sure you put the proper value on it and price it accordingly. When you have at least two levels of programs, beginners can get the basics of what they need. And your more serious clients get the advanced knowledge and details they need as well. This way, everybody wins including you. You’ll attract clients to build your business and get well paid for your services.

As you work to grow your business, there are many options available to attract clients along the way. One thing that may tempt you is the idea of licensing your proprietary system and/or training coaches or trainers to teach it to others. This can be a lucrative revenue stream but first I recommend you follow these steps before moving into that arena.

Step #1: Fill Your Own Practice. When you are working to attract clients and fill your practice, everything else that doesn’t focus on this goal is a distraction. Your first priority is to fill your own practice to build a strong business. So you network, run free teleclasses, offer your IFO, etc., all designed to fill your practice to capacity.

As I often say, the fastest path to cash is with individual coaching clients. Many people want to run groups or teleclasses before they have a full practice, but unfortunately this often doesn’t work. You need to have a big list to market to before you can start groups that will garner the kind of success you hope to achieve.

Step #2 Create Groups. Once your practice is filled and you have a waiting list, that’s when you are ready for the next step. Now you can start creating groups, boot camps, seminars, and masterminds and attract clients like crazy. This phase can last for several years and you’ll make very good money helping lots of yummy people get really great results.

Working with groups gives you the opportunity to reach so many more people. Group work is very productive and also more affordable to those who participate than individual coaching. This is when you make your work more accessible and you start to leverage your business.

Step #3: Certify Other Coaches and/or Trainers. Once you get to the point where you can no longer satisfy the demand for groups, then it’s time to consider licensing your proprietary system or training other trainers or coaches in your method. You will have a very successful business that is ready to expand to the next level.

Don’t Create Your Own Competition
If you try to train other coaches or license your system before you have a solid foundation and strong business, all you really end up doing is creating competition for yourself who will make it harder to attract clients and fill your practice. Yes, you’ll generate revenue but you’ll also expose your practice to other people who now know how to do exactly what you do.

Don’t take your eye off the ball. Stay focused on completely filling your practice. There is nothing more important. Attract clients, make money, keep the pipeline full and close sales – that’s what you want to work on.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
How is filling your pipeline going? Are you continually getting new prospects lined up, closing sales and bringing on new clients? Make that your main objective and let go of anything that distracts you from this goal.

If you are wondering how to increase your business and client attraction, the most important first step is to set a specific goal. So many people in business, especially those just starting out, don’t have a goal. They just want to get some clients. That does not really work very well.

I have very specific goals. Every year I know exactly what I want to earn and because of that I am able to completely focus in order to reach that specific goal. It’s not about being money hungry. It’s more like I know what I want to create and I know it’s possible if I have clarity on what the end result looks like.

Follow this step-by-step method to set your goal and create your own marketing plan.

The Goal Setting Process:
1. Set your goal. Let’s say your goal is $100,000 for next year.
2. Divide the number by 12 and you’ll get a monthly goal of $8,333.
3. Figure out how many clients you need to reach the monthly number with your current rates.
4. If you close a sale one-third of the time, (hopefully more) and you need five clients each month, that means you need 15 get-acquainted sessions every month to reach your number.

Now that you know the numbers you are aiming for regarding client attraction, you can start to think about marketing and what you need to do to make that number possible. Do you see how that works? It’s actually a formula.

The Marketing Plan Process:
To create your marketing plan, focus on those 15 get-acquainted sessions per month and look at your marketing pie. Think about each slice:
• How many speaking gigs would you need per month?
• How many networking meetings would you need to attend?
• How many warm letters would you need to send on a monthly basis?

Include JV partnerships, article submissions, social media, warm letter campaigns, and ezines– everything that’s part of the marketing pie. This is an easy way to build your plan, by backing into the goal you’ve set.

Now you may think this sounds overwhelming. But trust me, you will get into a routine. After you go through the process once, you are recycling the information. The overwhelm comes from not having client attraction systems set up. After you do that, the marketing is just something on the calendar that you take care of, delegate or both. In fact, for my students, many not only feel relief after setting up the marketing plan, but positive expectations about the client attraction machine they set in motion.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Get a year-at-a-glance calendar and map out everything you’re going to do. You’ll need to make time to do all of this work because marketing and client attraction are more important than anything else in your business. The only possible exception is the client work which is almost as important as the marketing.

When you are speaking live or conducting a free teleclass, you want to finish with a strong call to action for your audience. Years ago I created a formula that I’ve used successfully as a call to action that is authentic and pulls prospects towards you.

There are three main components to this call to action.

1. Deliver loads of content. Start your talk or presentation by delivering a lot of content with plenty of value. This is the foundation for all of the marketing you do and gives you credibility, sets you up as an expert and creates good will since you are willing to share your knowledge generously.

2. Seed in Client Success Stories. Next, throughout the presentation, seed in success stories to attract clients. By sharing these stories, you communicate, “I am for hire,” without saying, “Please hire me.”

This is one of the most powerful components to really prepare for the sale. You’ll share client stories several times during your talk. For example, talk about a particular strategy, then follow up by saying, “My client Jane, who I work with privately, took this concept and added another $5,000 a month to her business. Pretty cool huh?”

You are not only saying you work with clients, but you are seeding the talk with indirect testimonials or case studies as well. This makes the resulting success very real to the listeners. In a one-hour talk, you can probably share stories or case studies three to four times. Of course you don’t want to over-do it either because you don’t want to sound too “sales-y.”

3. Wrap Up with a Soft Close to Attract Clients. At the end of the presentation I recommend this soft close which works for private clients. I’ve used this with great success for many years. Here’s what I say to attract clients:

“I hope you’ve enjoyed the information. Please don’t make this ‘shelf-help’ in the sense that you put your notes from this talk on the shelf and never do anything with it. Please take action. Please implement.

However, if you found that you have questions, you feel overwhelmed, or you simply want to work with the concepts faster than you could on your own, please contact me. Let’s see if I can help. I’m very accessible. You can tell me about your situation and we’ll see if I can help.”

That’s it! If you’ve left your contact information, your business card, your one sheet flier and your testimonials on their seats, you will walk away with new clients.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
When is your next talk? Think about all the client stories you have. Then put them into categories about what points they support. Find the best three of four that fit with your talk and find places to insert them. Practice the soft close so you feel comfortable with it and then deliver to attract clients like crazy.

Sometimes my students end up in the frustrating place where prospects can’t afford their programs. This is a tough spot to be in and there are a few things that might be contributing to this situation. When I hear this, I recommend three tweaks to their get acquainted session and closing process.

1. Stop Teaching During the Get Acquainted Call. When you aren’t converting enough prospects in the get acquainted call, I ask if the person is “teaching.” Some people, in their desire to help, actually end up coaching on this first call and giving away their knowledge for free. That doesn’t work so well. Once a prospect has what he or she needs, why would they sign up to work with you? People walk away satisfied, having gotten what they need and as a result they don’t become a paying client. To attract more clients, you have to giving away your knowledge for free.

2. Ensure Prospects Answer Prep Questions Prior to the Call. There are a number of questions prospects need to answer before the get acquainted call, preparing them to talk to you. One of the questions I always asked was, “How much is one new client worth to you?”

Let’s say the value of one client is $1,000. Next I asked how many clients they have (let’s say two) and how many they need (let’s say 20). Then it’s clear the gap is 18 clients at $1,000 each – that’s a gap of $18,000 right? My program was $2,000, so prospects could see the cost was far less than the $18,000 they needed. Or another way to look at it is that the cost of my program could be covered with just two new clients.

You’ll want to apply this to your own closing process. Perhaps you’ll ask your prospects what is the value of good health to him or her? Or what is the value of finding true love? Whatever they say, your program is probably less than that. You might say, “Well my program is only $1,000” which conveys how affordable it is.

A Third Tweak Might Be Needed. Now, if you make these two tweaks and prospects still can’t afford your program, a third factor may be present. You might not be networking in the right place for your ideal prospects.

Even if your prospects have all the qualities of your ideal clients, but can’t afford your offerings, they are not really ideal. To attract clients who are ideal, change your marketing materials to say, “I work with successful women” or “successful business owners” – whatever your target audience is. It may sound harsh, but you are doing them a service by not wasting their time or yours.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
If you encounter a lot of prospects who can’t afford your services, rethink where you are networking. It’s also not enough to go to monthly events. You are more likely to fill your pipeline and attract clients when you join a weekly group focused on providing leads.

If you are in the start-up phase of your business, you may wonder how much networking you need to do. Some people don’t feel comfortable with networking and meeting new people and as a result, they prefer to do less. Their natural instinct is to avoid this process.

One of my students recently asked me this very question. She had joined BNI which meets weekly and was getting good leads every time she went. That’s exactly what you want of course! But, she felt that should be enough and didn’t want to get out much more. Her tendency was to hang back because she didn’t feel very comfortable.

When I was just starting out, I went to everything and joined as many things as possible. I would attend seven networking groups and sometimes four to seven events in just one week. Now, that wasn’t every single week since some groups were monthly. Keep in mind, at this point I had more time than I had clients or money.

So I used my time to attract clients and make money. You want to take a “no excuses” approach right? Even if you are getting leads in one place, you may still need to attract more clients. That’s when more networking is the right action to take.

Of course you want to avoid burnout too. There is a fine line between doing everything imaginable and extending yourself past your limits which becomes burnout. The key is to push yourself until you start seeing some results. After a while you’ll figure out what is working for you. You’ll track which groups deliver the most leads and then slowly, you can weed some groups out. You might end up keeping three to four groups that truly work for you.

So, if you still need clients but wish you could stop networking after one or two groups, rethink this desire. Until your pipeline is full and your practice is at capacity, you‘ll need to be doing lots of networking.

The good news is, the more you network, the better you’ll be at it. You will start to feel more comfortable and become skilled at meeting people. The better you get at it, the more networking will work for you to attract clients and become successful.

Your Client Attract Assignment
When you are doing a lot of networking, I recommend you create a log to track your results. If you are out there often, you might not easily remember which client came from which group. Tracking your results will help you know which groups serve you best, and which ones you can let fall go of. Sometimes you need to try a wide variety of groups to discover which ones provide the best access to your ideal clients.

When you offer programs that stretch over six months to a year, you will encounter clients who want to drop out. Frequently, money is cited as the reason. What’s behind this excuse is usually one of two things. Occasionally, clients are not experiencing the value they anticipated, but this is not common.

More often the person who wants to leave early has not been taking the recommend action. When clients aren’t doing the assignments and see their credit cards being charged monthly, they question whether the program is right for them. The reason behind this is really their issue with not taking action.

Longer programs can produce amazing results, but only when people understand what’s involved. To get the desired results requires a commitment to be part of the entire program. First there is a legal and financial commitment made when registering. There is also the commitment to other participants, to you and your company and most importantly, to themselves and the results they hope to achieve.

Here is my two-step approach for handling clients who want to drop out:

1) Talk About Personal Responsibility
A few years ago I started talking more about personal responsibility. It’s one of the most important changes I made in my programs to attract the right clients. Mention personal responsibility in your welcome letter and agreement. Then remind people as you move through the program. At the beginning of each a call, I speak first about personal responsibility and the fact that you create results by every action you take and don’t take.

2) Be Strong and Ask a Lot of Your Clients
When I first started doing longer programs, I discovered I wasn’t asking enough of my clients. I let them get away with not playing big. Then, I read how the one thing most people want is a strong coach – somebody who demands a lot of their clients. That’s a big part of how you attract clients too.

Clients often say to me, “Kick me in the butt. Hold me accountable. Stretch me.” They don’t want you to be lenient or soft. Tell them you don’t enable quitters. That’s what I tell my clients and why they choose me. Being held accountable delivers results and attracts clients who become successful.

Tell your clients who want to drop out that you aren’t going to let them NOT reach their goals. Talk about how success takes commitment and perseverance. And in terms of mindset, tell them how they need to believe in the possibility of their success to see it unfold and become a reality.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Do you have a problem with drop outs? Are you too lenient with your clients? To attract clients who are committed, I give you permission to take a stand and say, “Come on now.” Then remind them of why they joined the program and the goals they signed up to achieve. Be the strong coach your clients need to help them stay committed to their vision of success.

Recently, one of my students asked me a really good question about how to deal with “know-it-alls” who attend your live events. When you get a heckler in the audience or someone who dominates with too many questions, it can be very disconcerting. This and other situations can arise that require you to step up and really manage the room.

Being on stage involves a lot more than just teaching. You have to use your intuition and have the confidence to handle situations as they arise.

1. Manage the Energy. Low energy, restlessness, eyes glazing over–all things you may notice from the stage. Don’t take this personally. It’s often just a normal reaction when there is a lot of information being conveyed. However, you want to keep the energy moving so the audience stays engaged.

To break up the energy and engage people again, you can turn up the music and even have everyone dance! Try varying the pace and volume of your speaking as well. You can also ask people to turn to the person next to them and share for a moment. These actions get the energy moving again.

2. Over-bearing participation. Participation will vary in any group. There will always be people who never speak and then there are those who speak too much. When you have to deal with a know-it-all, they often don’t even realize what they are doing. It’s not their fault, it’s just who they are.

For the frequent hand raiser, you can say, “I hear you, but I want to hear from somebody who hasn’t spoken yet to give everyone a chance.” Then encourage your quieter attendees to come out of their comfort zone a bit by speaking up.

For a person who raises her hand in the middle of a point, you can say, “Let me get back to you in a minute. I want to finish my thought.” Or, “Hey guys, I’ve got so much content, I can’t take any more questions right now.” Always respond and say these things with a smile.

3. Command the Room. As the presenter, you have to drive the train. You have to provide the audience with the content you promised and create the outcome you want. If you allow yourself to get off track, you won’t be able to do that. When they walk out of the room and don’t get the value they could have gotten, you end up feeling like you cheated them. Don’t let that happen.

It’s your job to manage the room and provide the content, so own that. Stand up because that generates more energy and helps you feel in control. If you are around a conference room table, stand to feel like you are on stage. If you sit, you are on the same level and people feel they need to chip in which may cause you to lose control. Standing is the way to be in command of the room.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Next time you deliver a live workshop or give your signature talk, take a moment to review these tips for managing the energy in the room. Anyone can get flustered, but now you know how to deal with a know-it-all, command the room and move through these situations with grace and ease.

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