As entrepreneurs, we move quickly in business. We make decisions more quickly than most. We are spontaneous and we have the technology at our fingertips to assist us even further.

But there are times in life and business, when we need to take a step back, slow down and think it through more carefully than usual, especially during those rare times of national, even global crisis. For us as a company, that has happened twice in late 2012 with two tragedies that hit very close to home here in Connecticut, where ClientAttraction.com is headquartered.

Six new guidelines to doing business with dignity, integrity and respect during times of tragedy. (Click here to tweet this.)

Both times—first during Hurricane Sandy (one of the most severe storms to ever hit the East Coast) then again during the Newtown school shootings, our nation experienced deep heartbreak as we watched our neighbors endure severe loss. And both times over that short span of two months, we as a small company with clients to serve, employees to support and year-end goals to meet, were in the middle of a major business launch.

Did we do everything right as a company in response to the tragedies? No. But we’re learning and applying what we’ve learned to our Best Practices so that as a company we can continue to get better at what we do, continue to improve our service to our customers and clients, and to always, always put people first.

Watch this week’s important video for my six new guidelines to doing business with dignity, integrity and respect during times of tragedy.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Take some time to evaluate how you do business during times of crisis—what worked and what didn’t in the past? Use my six guidelines to help you prepare your own checklist. My advice is to do this in advance…before you ever need it.  My team and I would like to extend our sympathies to the city of Boston and to all those who were affected by this recent tragedy. I hope these strategies will help you do business with more authenticity, integrity and love.

It’s important to educate the people you consider personal advocates (those who know you, like you, trust you, love you and want the best for you), and let them know what you’re up to and who your best clients are. If you’re just starting out, it’s a letter of introduction; if you’ve been in practice several months or years, write an “update letter” of how your practice has grown or new services that you provide.

Now, before you resist this and think it might be too forward, read on. The fact is; most people who are your personal advocates will be happy to help (people LOVE to give referrals and to help out a friend in business, especially when the person is a trusted friend). It makes them feel good, yet most of us somehow feel we’re being a burden on our network when we do this. The good news is; it all depends on how tastefully it’s done.

In both of my private practices, I sent “warm” letters of introduction letting my friends and family know what I was doing and asking them to think of me when they saw or overheard a particular situation relating to my coaching. Both times, I received clients right away, and both times, friends also referred people as long after the fact as 6 months to a year after receiving the letter. It sure feels good to get those phone calls from people you don’t know saying they’d like to work with you.

This will be one of your most effective client attraction tools, and best of all, it’s relatively no-cost to you! Here’s what you do: write a letter to contacts that you already know, as an announcement or introduction to your services. Be sure to keep it friendly, warm, as well as educational, remember, this is NOT a sales letter. You’re just educating your environment at this point. Describe your ideal client and ask the recipient if they know someone who might fit that profile.

I sent it to everyone I knew, about 10 to 20 a week. I hand-wrote a couple of words at the top to make it more personal. (“Hi Mary! It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other. Would love to catch up over a cup of tea. I’ll call you this week. Best, Fabienne.”)

That following week, I would call the people I wrote to, set up a meeting for breakfast, lunch or tea, get caught up on their life and talk to them about my new business, asking them if anyone they knew fit my ideal client profile.

The result? Word spread and I received a number of clients and referrals this way.

Client example:

A former client of mine (a professional organizer) dragged her feet with this idea at first, thinking that it was too sales-y for her personal style and she wasn’t going to get any leads or new clients that way. After some coaxing and coaching, she started the process of sending out letters of introduction and was absolutely shocked at the results: new clients started coming in and her friends, former colleagues, school friends and family were the ones referring them. She was thrilled and years later, continues to update her personal advocates on what she’s up to, using her update letter.

New clients weren’t the only things she received. Soon after, this client was flown from New York to Washington D.C. to give a seminar on organizing one’s office and do a series of organizing projects within a corporation. This referral, as you may have guessed, came directly from a “non-sales-y” introduction letter she sent to a remote friend in Washington—only 3 weeks after sending it out.

Your Assignment:

• Create and send a “warm” letter of introduction as an announcement/update of your practice to contacts that you already know.
• This includes everyone (your family, friends, colleagues, past clients, and acquaintances).
• Keep it friendly, as well as educational, but definitely NOT sales-y.
• You may write a handwritten hello at the top of the page to make it more personal.
• Follow up one week later with a phone call and invite people to join you for a conversation, either in person for a casual meeting or over the phone.
• Describe your Ideal Client and ask them if they know someone who might fit that profile.
• If you have been in practice several months or years, write an “update letter” of how your practice has grown or new services that you provide.

If you’re ready to take a no-excuses approach to getting lots of clients, you’ll definitely want to check out The Client Attraction Home Study System™. Step by step, I take you through everything you need to do to stand out in the marketplace, pull clients in easily and consistently, and exactly what to say to turn them into paying clients. Get it today by going to http://www.theclientattractionsystem.com/. You’ll also get hundreds of other ideas and resources to help YOU become a Client Attraction machine like thousands of my previous clients.

© 2010 Client Attraction LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Want to use this article on your website or your own ezine?

No problem! But here’s what you MUST include:

Fabienne Fredrickson, The Client Attraction Mentor, is founder of the Client Attraction System , the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to attract more clients, in record time…guaranteed. To get your F.R.E.E. Audio CD by mail and receive her weekly marketing & success mindset articles on attracting more high-paying clients and dramatically increasing your in.come, visit www.ClientAttraction.com .

Do you dream of picking up the phone and hearing the person on the other end of the line say, “Hi, you don’t know me but I’d like to work with you. Here’s my credit card number. When can we start?”

You might laugh, but isn’t that what we all really want, deep down?

Well, the good news is, it’s totally POSSIBLE. I’ve found a way to make this happen and can honestly say that a third of the private coaching clients I sign on, I’ve never met before and don’t know who they are until I get that phone call that says they’re ready to get started. Here’s how I do it and how you can too.

You need to stop pushing and start PULLING your clients in with your materials. To educate your environment and turn interest into a prospect and a prospect into a client, you’ll need some marketing materials that REALLY SPEAK to them.

You’re looking for something that PULLS them in and gets them to, at all costs, want to talk to you:

Here’s how you get ready for the next assignment:

• Put yourself in their shoes first.
• Stop focusing on yourself and talk about them and their struggles.
• Then, only then, can you position yourself as their problem solver.

A good example of something that will PULL ideal clients in is a set of compelling questions to which your ideal client would answer YES for each and every question.

Examples of this are on the back of my business card and on my website www.ClientAttraction.com:

• Not attracting enough clients to your existing small business?
• Do you love what you do but haven’t mastered that “marketing thing” yet?
• Are your current clients not sending you enough referrals?
• Do you wish you could turn more prospects into paying clients?
• Do you sometimes feel like you’re just pushing too hard?

The questions above were formulated based on what brand new clients were coming to me for. Many of them used the above topics as things they wanted to work on and resolve immediately with my help. So, seeing that this was what was drawing clients to me without much effort on my part (and they were very good clients), I decided to put together a set of standard questions that would begin to develop trust and credibility among other prospects and suspects. What would yours be?

The key here is to focus on your Ideal Client’s struggles and hot buttons first. To get them into the pain just slightly, so they realize their situation isn’t as great as they’d like it to be.

But mostly, the questions above will get your prospective clients to feel like you REALLY understand their situation and you’ve been helping people like them for a long, long time.

Once they feel that trust and see you can provide them with the results they need, they’ll be closer to picking up the phone to call YOU.

Your Assignment:

What questions can you use to PULL prospects in, based on the struggles, challenges and hot buttons they have?

Be sure the people reading the questions will answer “yes” to all of them (instead of yes, no, yes, no) and you keep it to no more than 6 or 7 of them, so you don’t overwhelm them in the process. Once you’ve written them all out, put them on the back of your business card, on your home page, etc.

You’ll get their attention with the questions, and they’ll be much more likely to read the rest of what you’ve got to say, and if you continue to talk to them in terms of the results they can expect from working with you, you’re golden! Just be ready for new clients…

That’s just ONE of the many tools you can easily implement to PULL clients in (and stop pushing so hard to fill your practice). Wanna know all the tools I use myself and thousands of my clients have used for the same purpose? Then you’ll probably want to either call me to investigate private coaching, or look into the Client Attraction Home Study System™ for attracting all the clients you need with proven, systematic processes that will help you fill your practice quickly and consistently, guaranteed. Here’s where you can get a copy: www.TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

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Want to use this article on your website or your own ezine?

No problem! But here’s what you MUST include:

Fabienne Fredrickson, The Client Attraction Mentor, is founder of the Client Attraction System , the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to attract more clients, in record time…guaranteed. To get your F.R.E.E. Audio CD by mail and receive her weekly marketing & success mindset articles on attracting more high-paying clients and dramatically increasing your in.come, visit www.ClientAttraction.com .

“Quote: Invest three percent of your in.come in yourself (self–development) in order to guarantee your future.”– Brian Tracy

Sometimes, the signs that it’s time to invest in taking your business to go to the next BIG level show up without notice. Take this past summer, for example. The second call of my Preview Teleseminar Series for my workshop was scheduled and I was set to interview two inspiring and motivating solopreneurs on how they use the Client Attraction systems daily to make well into the 6–figures. We had close to a thousand entrepreneurs registered for the call and I was excited to host it. (more…)

“How LOW can you go?” is what you think about when you do the limbo. Since we’re talking about marketing, I’ll ask you this: How BOLD can you go, in describing what you do?

I was coaching a private client this week about how to turn his Kitchen Designer elevator speech into a conversation that elicits a prospective client meeting, right there at the networking event and in less than 5 minutes! The key? Come up with a claim for what you do that is the BOLDEST thing you can think of (while still being legal, of course).

Your claim should be so bold that the person listening to you will say “Wow, really? How do you do that??” This gives you permission to go into what you do and how you do it (preferably talking about your proprietary system). Now, whenever I talk to clients about this and we start working on this exercise, often the stuff they come up with is kinda bland, stuff we’ve heard before, and that doesn’t elicit that WOW we’re looking for. So, again, I stress, “What’s the BOLDEST THING you can say?” and then the good stuff comes out.

Use, the words below for some inspiration:

• Double in half the time
• A ___% increase over last year
• In less than 10 weeks
• Etc.

Here’s an example of a script I put together for my client:

Stranger: Hi, I’m Jane, we haven’t met yet.

John: Hi, I’m John Smith, founder of Amazing Kitchens.

Stranger: Hi, John, nice to meet you. So, what do you do?

John: I help homeowners increase their home’s value by up to 110% in less than 6 months. (BOLD CLAIM)

Stranger: Really?? How do you do that?

John: Well, you know how some homeowners… (insert CONVERSATIONALLY WRITTEN elevator speech, focus on struggles of the ideal client, and results and benefits they receive after working with you). Would you like to know more?

Stranger: Yes, please!

John: Great…what we can do is set up a complimentary meeting to talk about the approximate current value of your home, your kitchen “lifestyle,” and what we could do to increase your current living experience in your kitchen. We’ll then give you an estimate as to how much your home’s value would increase at resale time. Shall we chat briefly tomorrow to set up a time?

Stranger: Absolutely, let’s do that. Here’s my card.

John: Fantastic. (handshake) Nice, to meet you Jane. I’ll call you tomorrow to set that up, promise. (John made a date, now he’ll circulate and meet more people and do the same thing.)

CHACHING!

Now, granted, this is just a made-up example, but you get the point.

With a bold enough claim, you have permission to start a really compelling conversation, with an invitation to tell them your elevator speech. Not bad for 5 minutes, right?

Your Client Attraction Assignment:

Your turn. What is the boldest claim you can make in the marketplace? If you put your creative hat on, how can you take what you do and transform it into something that prospective clients will be literally WOWED by and will want to know more about, eagerly? Take a pad of paper and brainstorm. Once you figure this out, I guarantee you’ll turn those ‘eyes-that-glaze-over’ into a lot more prospects in your pipeline.

Not sure how to get started with your compelling elevator speech or proprietary system to begin with? You’ll want to get a copy of the Client Attraction Home Study System™ for attracting all the clients you need with proven, systematic processes that will help you fill your practice quickly and consistently, guaranteed. Here’s where you can grab yours: www.TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

Want to use this article on your website or your own ezine?

No problem! But here’s what you MUST include:

Fabienne Fredrickson, The Client Attraction Mentor, is founder of the Client Attraction System , the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to attract more clients, in record time…guaranteed. To get your F.R.E.E. Audio CD by mail and receive her weekly marketing & success mindset articles on attracting more high-paying clients and dramatically increasing your income, visit www.ClientAttraction.com.

I’m known in the marketplace as someone who takes a no-nonsense, no-excuses approach to marketing and getting clients, meaning, I do what it takes, and create systems for everything so that I’m always marketing. (By the way, my clients now do the same.) In turn, I always have a full roster of clients. That’s what I teach in my private coaching, in my Boot Camps, and in my Client Attraction Home Study System.

One thing though, which only my private clients know about me, is I also throw in a healthy dose of Manifestation, which means focusing on what you want in your life, in such a way that you start attracting what you want quickly. Some might call it “positive thinking,” but I believe it goes WAY beyond just thinking positively about something. It also takes action.

I use “manifesting” for just about everything I want to attract in my life (a certain amount of money, my boat, a new home, etc.); however, for the purposes of this article, let’s focus on attracting clients, lots of them, who happily pay your full fee.

As for just about everything in my Client Attraction System™, I’ve even come up with a formula or system for manifesting clients. Here it is:

1. Figure out EXACTLY what you want in great detail (how many clients, paying you how much, with the best of circumstances).
2. Come up with your BIG GOAL (“My practice is bursting at the seams with 15 clients happily paying my full fee of $_____.”)
3. Each day, write it down several times (I do this at least 9 times), each time imagining how great it will FEEL to sign on these new clients.
4. Go back and read the big goal OUT LOUD (this ‘locks’ it in place).
5. Spend several minutes, eyes closed, imagining your full practice in all its details and glory.
6. Write down one BIG action step you’ll take that day to make this happen.
7. Notice the synchronistic, happy “coincidences” you experience during the day that seem like a sign from the Universe, as they relate to your big goal.
8. Each day, spend a couple minutes writing down how very fortunate you are, what you are grateful for today, and what you would like to attract more of.
9. While you’re at it, write a letter to whatever you call your Higher Power (I call mine “Universe”) and go into greater detail about what you want, asking for it to be done by a certain date.
10. Have faith in the process. Don’t cancel out all your “manifesting” with negative comments or thoughts such as “why am I doing this anyway, it won’t happen, it never does.” If you start thinking that way, you can stop yourself right away and revert back to the big goal, and how it will feel to achieve it. Faith in this process is 80% of the game.

Granted, there’s a lot here and I do just about all of it each day, but you don’t have to. Even if you do only ONE of these things, consistently, you’ll start noticing opportunities coming out of the woodwork, happy coincidences pointing you in the right direction. Take action on these, they are divinely sent! As a result, you’ll start attracting lots more clients. I promise.

YOUR ASSIGNMENT:
It’s a new unusual way of attracting more clients, one that we’ve never talked about here and one that you might not be familiar with. However, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. Even if you are familiar with it, perhaps you’ve not taken the time and effort to apply it consistently. Make some time for in your day for this, each and every day, and you’ll start seeing results quickly.

If you like the idea of this and want to try it in addition to the more pragmatic marketing stuff we regularly talk about, you’ll probably enjoy the book “Excuse me, your life is waiting” by Lynn Grabhorn. I did.

Back to “regular” marketing techniques next time. If you can’t wait until then, check out the Client Attraction Home Study System™ for attracting all the clients you need with proven, systematic processes that will help you fill your practice quickly and consistently, guaranteed! Here’s where you can get your own copy: www.TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

Want to use this article on your website or your own ezine?

No problem! But here’s what you MUST include:

Fabienne Fredrickson, The Client Attraction Mentor, is founder of the Client Attraction System , the proven step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to attract more clients, in record time…guaranteed. To get your F.R.E.E. Audio CD by mail and receive her weekly marketing & success mindset articles on attracting more high-paying clients and dramatically increasing your income, visit www.ClientAttraction.com.

Have you ever felt strange about marketing your services for fear of people thinking you weren’t successful enough or good enough at what you do? I was reading a transcript of marketer Dan Kennedy’s Coaching and Consulting Business Boot Camp this past week at the beach and I came across a section about the fine line between the need for marketing and not wanting to look like you NEED business.

It struck a cord with me because I remember being stumped a few years ago, when a photographer I met at a networking function asked me, “So, if you’re such a marketing expert and you help people attract all the clients they need, what are you doing here at a networking group each week?” I didn’t know what to say at first. Never had it been posed to me that way.

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If you’ve been in business for a few years, you’ve probably been marketing your business for just as many years (hopefully). You’ve tried marketing tactics that worked, and if you’re anything like me, you’ve tried some that didn’t and failed miserably.

After a while, I believe everyone gets into a slump with their marketing plan. This happens with a majority of my clients at some point or other, and has happened to me too in the past. There are many reasons for this:
1.    We get bored.
2.    We get complacent or lazy.
3.    We become greedy or simply in it for the mo-ney.

(more…)