Lessons

Lesson Info

Finding Three Perfect Clients

How to find your first three perfect clients name this intention because if you have no clients yet, you know you just have an idea we've already talked about how to find an idea a profitable idea we've talked lightly about how to test that idea now if you already have clients, you may have the wrong type of clients we discovered that here today in the room and online so how do you find these perfect clients so well, ok, this could make a lot of people mad, but most people do wrong is they spend time on things that they think they should do that actually will never lead to clients, okay? And I'm going to be pretty critical of a lot of areas of waste that icy here. How many people online have an idea for a business? Maybe even one or two clients and they're on twitter facebook they bought business cards, they've maybe got incorporated their company or they've gone to networking events in the last one month okay, how many clients paying clients is that lead to two? Anybody zero anybody s...

ay zero ok, they're not even raising their hand, which means I know it's true um when you start your business and you're focusing on finding paying clients to validate that you're doing the right thing to start understanding client psychology, there are so many things you could do right, you could do this. This this is it's. Just like those big wins we talked about yesterday and being a cop in a miser, you have to focus on on ly the things that will lead you to three paying clients. That's it that's why people go through my urn one k course and that's why you guys are watching today? Because I'm not promising to make you one hundred thousand dollars by the end of the year for most of us, that's unlikely, but it can happen. And in fact, you saw jackie. It can happen. But what I can tell you is that it's likely for you to be able to raise your rates dramatically and find more paying clients. Three is the number. Like I said, one two might be a fluke. Three is really it's validation. So what most people do wrong is they create all the start doing all these things they somehow magically think will lead to clients down the line. And if you ask him to or three questions, everything falls apart. Okay, you started a twitter account. Why, you know what people say when you say, why'd you start a twitter account? Me, I should have a twitter accounts everybody told me I should that's a number one correct, what else? Well, say something really big about how, like social media is this thing now the people do yeah, yeah, like I had to be in the conversation, like I kept hearing about social media on the radio. Exactly, and anything else like there used increasingly vague things, like I just needed to engage in the conversation I need to be in front of where these people are. You look at their twitter account there, like thirty eight followers and sixteen of them are bots like, oh, my god! So now it's possible to get clients off twitter. Kathy, you did it! That's good. Was it off twitter? All right, it's not possible, it's possible, but is it the most likely? No, definitely not. I had a student mind, jenna. And she was if you google rem eat satay freelance stop wasting time. I think you'll find this article. I wrote it on someone else's site and, uh, she she was, like, really frustrated about her business. She was a freelance writer and she was like, I do, I'm doing all this stuff I'm so busy and I just like, I'm not even staying afloat. It's a very common thing for us, right? Like, I'm doing all these things I'm so busy every day but I'm not actually speaking any money and I said okay, well like what what do you doing? And she told me she's like I'm on twitter I update facebook all the time I went to all these networking events and I said okay, well let's break it down you go to his networking events she's like yeah I drove like an hour to get there I said okay, so first you spent like an hour and a half to plan it agreed to its schedule it etcetera you drive an hour that's two and a half hours you come back you know that's four hours what could you do in four hours? Couldn't you study four or five potential clients go out to coffee with them email them, couldn't you if you discovered who you might want to be pitching right amazing emails to them discussing how you can help them. I'll show you those scripts in a minute instead of going to some networking event where everyone else is unemployed as well, right? And they're all handing out business cards to each other in the weirdest echo chamber of all. Why would you go there now? Now people get mad at me re meet you could know networking events or good like you've to build your network that's true, but I would rather network by seeing one person that I really admire studying everything about them emailing them, showing value, meeting them in person or on the phone or whatever and getting to know that one person, wouldn't you rather do that for one person? That's amazing than fifty people they're handing their business cards what you guys do, what those business cards anyway throwem away let's get brutally honest with ourselves, right? We're always like doing all these things that everyone tells us to do, but if you were actually eliminate all the time wasters, you'd have tons of time. So your buddy who was totally right, he believes he has no time actually is probably just wasting it on stuff that will never pay and I don't just use pay to me and financially I mean psychically okay, all right, so let's, look that's what most people do wrong let's talk about I like, take him out what people do wrong let's talk about what they do, right? Going right? Doing things right is about saying look, I have a simple goal three paying clients. I want to deeply understand who my clients are, what they want. I want to offer them some type of value in exchange for some type of compensation, and if that doesn't work, I'm gonna go on to the next one next one next and learn from each one it's really quite simple, but everything I do has to lead to three paying clients, so if you're getting business cards, does that lead to three paying clients? I would argue? No, what are you know, I wrote a post on yahoo, everyone on yahoo got really mad, and everybody hated me there. They're like is ridiculous. I used business cards all the time, and I'm like, I don't really believe you, and I think that maybe you do, but I think that there are things that are much more important than business cards. Yeah, at a certain point, you might want give us this cards, but to get your first three clients know so you can focus on reaching out to the right people, understanding what they are like, studying them, changing the way you talk instead of talking about yourself talking about that. So we're gonna go through the system right now. Very simple. Three steps identify who they are, reach out directly and chat with them. It's really quite simple, and I'm gonna show you the actual scripts to do that. So identify. We've talked about sort of back of the napkin ideas of who's my client. Um, what gender are they? What age are they, one of their hopes, fears and dreams remember, we kind of stereotype this right? And we are going to test it in a minute. Can we do a quick exercise with personal organizer's? You guys know what a personal organizer is? It's kind of like someone who comes into your house and they they don't like their are cleaning your house, but they're setting up systems too you know, if your keys get lost in your kid's stuff is all over the place we're going to set up systems how you do it I want to walk you through example how to identify my client, okay, so I'm a personal organizer and I want to find clients and I want to find clients I'm really good at what I do and I've been doing it for fifteen years, but I'm not making that much money. I know I can deliver value, so I want to find clients who will pay me for what I'm worth and like they're willing to pay their willing tto value my services walk me through it who's my client, professional man or woman woman how tow upper thirties maybe like thirty two to thirty five government okay, hold on right there on that before we get into all this, what most people would have done is like, I'm just looking for people who have messy houses that doesn't say anything just like if you're a photographer writer, I'm looking for people who need you don't even understand who you're looking for that's what we're doing we're identifying who we're going after okay so we started with gender which is always a really easy one age you said thirty to anybody here think of thirty two year old's gonna pay for a personal organizer now held forties correct why everyone here who's there like yeah forties why all the women in here just said they were nodding their heads wise that I don't think the young they're probably not gonna be financially stable enough oh and they also probably not gonna have a lot of the same time career and family challenges that you get later so good you you deeply understand this client already just intuitively that you intuitively applied the pay certain technique because I could really use you totally understand because you are that person that's amazing now your goal is to be able to do the same for your clients to become that bribe for that brief moment and understand every hole here and dream she has like I'm about to show you so the other issue that someone has brought up is that the forty five year old probably actually has a home huh right do I care about hiring a personal organizer for my random apartment with four roommates all right so I'm now a let's say forty five year old woman am I married? Yes and do I have kids? How many kids too great we're assuming we're assuming too it doesn't matter to three whatever, so I'm a forty five and by the way, if I can't afford your premium services, do I work? Ok, so I work, so let me get this straight. I'm a forty five year old mother of two and wife and I work my husband. Does he work? Yeah, so you're saying what? That I'm like? Uh, I'm really busy. I'm a busy working woman busy working mother and now now we're getting into it right now we're starting to understand this client it's not some random it's a it's a real person. Um, I come home from work, I opened the born this is what you have to you have to get deeply into their world. I opened the door. What do I see? Kids, their toys all over the living room floor. Dinner hasn't started. You forgot to pick up the dry cleaning beautiful, you know this this is great it's so fascinating. By the way, how? Look at this this example is hitting so closely home that we're just breezing through this example, right? All the guys are like, I don't understand this example it all on, all the women are like, yeah, yeah, okay, so she comes home it's a complete mess and she how do I feel right now? I'm the woman of again on the world. How do I feel walking in that door? Stressed panicked? You're late the night he needed to leave half a hour ago. Exactly. So I sit, I sit there and I opened the door and my kids are running around and I really what do I want to do? Say that louder? I want to, but I can't write because they're too many things so much to spend quality time spent quality time. Exactly. So so now we're really getting in their heads right now. A personal organizer who's in amish who hasn't gone through this creative live class or my urn one case stuff they're gonna walk in and we're gonna start today. You need to have bins pitching, bullshit, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch, pitch dark done this with clients blah, blah. You should use him whatever boxes shut. They don't hear you're talking about you. You're not even listening to me. What are we selling? Remember, we're putting our client at the center of our world everything they need. If they are not right for us, we will refer them to someone else will do whatever it takes to make them happy. And we will tell them if we're right for them and they're right for us what are we selling? We're selling a service that gives them peace of mind so that they can spend unlimited time with their family when they get home you guys are killers I've done this exercise a few times and it literally takes like two, three minutes to get to that dudes are like we're selling organization we're selling productivity and you intuitively get the you're selling peace of mind you're completely right peace of mind that's exactly right it's not about it's not about me knowing where my keys are gonna be yeah I'm knowing where my keys are going to be so that I can have peace of mind you intuitively get this but you don't intuitively get what your clients want think about that you're selling peace of mind when you now talk to your client like this you know beth I after talking to you for a couple of days I think I understand what's going on you come home from work and I know you work pretty long hours and uh you come home from work you open the door there's just stuff all over the place and there's balls rolling around and food over here and you know I could understand that after a long day at work you'd want to come home and I just feel peace almost like just feel tranquil you know, I think I can help you know that one of the things that I do when I work with clients is I really want to study the way that they work I don't want to come in and change what you're doing I don't want you to have to learn a bunch of new systems but I want you I want to work around you and work with you so you told me that uh it's really tough for you to remember which food to pick up uh twice a week to make dinner well when I worked with x y z client here's the system we designed that helped with that and she actually just sent me a little note yesterday and then here's the noted actually said deer meat I haven't like my dinners have been amazing for the last six weeks thanks so much for such a happy family and we're gonna live happily ever after so you know if you're interested there's a couple things I could suggest one is that I can come in here and actually design a system that works for you so what that would entail aside coming here kind of just watch for about a day I show you a list of what I'm planning to do get your approval and do it the second thing that I can do and I do this for some clients not all but some is come back in here eight weeks later and the reason that some of my clients choose to take this up is you know, there's a lot of concern that okay I'm going get this system is going to work really well at the front but then I'm going to stop using it after a while does it sound familiar to anyone by the way everyone kind of understands the idea that systems might fail after a while so I can come in if you're interested in that of course it would be an additional charge but we can discuss that later um but I'm happy to come in and do that and re jigger anything we need to do what do you think accommodating totally not trying too hard sell anything super accommodating super understanding of what the client wants right? I'm going to be there for just one day watching I totally understand her problems I understand her aspirational goals walking and feeling tranquil I'm using the words she used by the way tranquil peaceful etcetera and I said and by the way I made sure to say you know that would be an additional charge why did I say that? Because if I've connected with her right it doesn't matter in fact in this whole discussion did price come up ever it's a triviality it's nothing because you connected with her and you're actually offering massive value instead of a novice for worthless personal organizer who would come in there shoving a bunch of boxes, never understanding my actual concerns, thinking that her job was to be a tactician rather than truly understanding my hopes, fears and dreams and she would leave and I would waste that money and I would feel bad I'd rather pay mohr me as an affluent woman, I'd rather pay more for someone who's going to serve my needs. Okay that's identifying let's move on, so reach out directly how many of us set up a website or twitter account? We just kind of like open our arms to heaven and wait for the clients to come. Nothing drives me crazier you don't deserve to get clients, you don't deserve to have anyone calling or knock on your door, earn it or get out of business, you need to be pro, actively reaching out to people it's so funny we'll talk about this tomorrow how many people know someone who's having trouble finding a job or they want a new job and they're sending out resumes? Anybody know somebody like this and or you read about him in the paper and they're like I sent out seventy five resumes anybody hear people saying stuff like this and it's like, dude, if you sent out seventy five resumes, you're definitely doing something wrong fact you've already lost, yet they think if I just sent out another seventy five I'll get that magic hit no, you're competing against millions of other people who are doing that you're playing the entirely wrong game that's what most of us are doing in the creative world when we set out some web site that uses generic words like easy, secure and fast which no one ever says and then we just wait for them to come I would rather you actually reach out to people and you do this in a variety of ways first you do the kind of initial research where you've done it on the back of a napkin you apply pay certainty and a couple of other things then you reach out to do ask without selling right? So you're like actually studying it, testing your assumptions at this point you kind of have like a lot of people you've reached out to and you have identified some potential clients so there's a whole variety of ways you I start pitching him I'm gonna show you a couple of actual email scripts thes air just one of many scripts you can use uh which will help you pitch okay? So here's pitching a prospect and I'm gonna read this script up hi, my name is we meet safety and I'm a recent stanford grad I've been reading your blogged for two years I love the post about using virtual assistance and got both of my brothers to start using one and it's really help me be more efficient with my work it occurred to me that you're probably interested in growing your block I might be able to help I've done video editing blah blah blah dot com and power point design blah blah dot com imagine doing a great video on using virtual assistance then distributed through newsletter I could do one for you in about two days if you're interested how about chatting later this week my number's blocked or I can give you a call at your convenience I would say I would rate the script like it eight out of ten it's not it's not the world's best script but there's some good stuff going on here. What do we what do we notice about this script? Yeah, go ahead drew uh for one you start off by, you know, presenting your you know you introduce yourself but then you also make sure to tell them that you know you like their block and use this example yes and how you've reached out to other people about their service really good. Um yeah, I mean, you go on and then you you you know, you give them examples of what you've done, what you're presenting to them good and you know what else you give a specific time? How about chatting later this week? I'll leave it open and open ended uh what else specific solution which is what with video correct anything else what's not great about this script I see a lot of vulnerabilities in this good two days makes me really worry I can create a video for you in two days. Okay? All right, I think you're too fast it might be too it might not be quality enough good all right anything else? I mean, I think there's bigger phone really scott maybe the websites that kind of seems like you wanna drive his traffic to your website um I can see where it would be helpful he'd want to see the quality of your work but on the other hand kind of feels like you might be trying to sell something okay, I am trying to sell something but okay, well leave her if I really get that I wouldn't respond just just because it seems like they're going straight for it. Yeah too quick it's stupid. Okay, interesting it's kind of like you if you're at a bar and some guy comes up to say let's get married it's kind of weird wait that doesn't work so so there's a couple ways you could sort of massage that one is there's a reason that I wrote stanford grad and and you can substitute in anything that shows credibility right? So they look at this we're like all right this guy's probably legit in some way he's not some random and then the better way to do would be say like I use this subject line extensive mike jones suggested I get in touch with you if mike jones is a mutual acquaintance so I would put him away from the city and I was talking to my jones a couple weeks ago and he suggested that you might need help growing your block. Okay, so that's number one that's how you slow down the relationship number two actually don't think that this is particularly great says you're probably interested in growing your block what does that even mean? More newsletter readers subscribers just rs s what let's get specific if someone said to me you're probably interested in growing your email subscription infact I noticed a huge spike when you were on the front page of yahoo and I can actually help replicate that with bla bla bla now I'm like oh, so I think that's a little bit weak I do think that another one one guy pitched me by saying like, hey here's, I think you could improve your videos by doing x y z in fact, I already did one for you here's a little sample do you know how fast I was on the phone with that guy? Sixty seconds I got the e mail I was on the phone with him in sixty seconds that's what we'll talk about free work in a second when do you do that? When do you not? We'll talk about that anyway, more free scripts like this and I will teach you the rich dotcom such creative live, but the point of these is you need to be going out proactively you do this after you've done your homework after you've connected with a bunch of people and you've done some ask without selling if you build a relationship, as you've done asked without selling let's, say, with twenty moms, you might even like, hey, I'm actually starting to think about offering a violin service for for children. Do you know anyone? I should talk to you? Well, if they've spoken to you about violent, either, they're gonna raise their hand and say, you know, I'm not interested in how the budget but a couple of my friends who I'd be happy to introduce you that's how you get your first prospects, does that make sense? So I know dawn you were talking about, you haven't sort of proactively reached out when you do your research, this is how you find potential prospects. I was thinking about way also attorney, but being that I'm in a minute destination wedding market and none of my clients are local, not one they they they somewhere else they fly in, they fly out so I don't get repeat business um at all because you know weddings over and they're not in the area so I don't really have the opportunity to go out on me we do do some social networking online does it work? Uh you know what? For the bride to booked us I find it very important to keep that personal connection um but no, I don't generate clients from it so I have a hard time like howto why then directly connect proactively correct connect with a person I can never physically need that's a tough one I mean there's a couple ways one is you're doing google stuff so if women are searching destination wedding of course you can get him and give him a free book or whatever and do that that's pretty sophisticated stuff the other thing I would do is just go and I mean a woman who's doing a destination wedding or a couple they're going to be touching a lot of vendor's flowers, hotels I would go make friends with all of those guys now you khun I mean your competition may have already done that but you can offer better terms you can either pay them a higher referral feet you can send them tickets to the super bowl every year whatever you figure out what numbers make sense for you or just be friends with them just be cool with them and when they be like, hey, I just wanted to give you a heads up. We have this couple that is coming in for a destination wedding. I thought they might be interested. Maybe you should talk to them. Happy to make the intro new client. And of course, you always take care of the person who sent you that client referral. So then the third step is to chat over coffee, lunch or email chatting. So notice what I said in that last email, by the way, that last email had something pretty important. And that is for busy people, you know, you want to make it really easy for them on. I need to explain the power dynamic. I have so many people who want business like if you want business from someone, you put them in the position of power. If they want to meet at this place that's where you meet if they want to have a call at this time, that's when you do it it's. So weird that sometimes people who are trying to get a freelance client there like I can only talk at the time of that time, like, okay, then, goodbye, so it's, really important to make your emails focus on the convenience of the recipient. Especially if they're the ones you want the business from so I like to try to sort of escalate the relationship over time it would be like first chat by email I don't want to try to like set up a phone call immediately and it's just a little weird then I would if we liked each other via e mail if you think there's something useful we may go to phone if phone makes sense and were geographically located I may do in person and on and on on in fact, some of the deepest relationships happen over text there's someone's giving you a cellphone in your texting it's like whoa, you're pretty close right? So the key here is we're not just doing stuff online how many of us on lee wants to talk to people online and if you do that your relationship will be hard to grow up with your clients it stops right there think about it think about people who you were just colleagues with first and then you you went out to happy hour together now you might actually invite each other to the ball game like it's a completely different dynamic you cannot just do this sitting behind your computer that's one thing that people who will talk about this tomorrow when they send resumes out they want to go online to all these resume sites and submit the resume and just sit there and like okay, give me a job, get off your ass, get outside and validate your ideas and talk to the market. You have to get off your chair and go into real life. Does that make sense? Okay, let's, take reactions and then we'll take a break. Uh, yeah. We're gonna come back with more scripts. What? We have reactions from online and also surprising insights here. Justin chatting over lunch or coffee. I've got one client that I meet with maybe like, every three months and every time I sit down for coffee or lunch time he's like, so glad you do this. You know what you know, it's? Just the smartest move for you because every time we do it, uh, there's, another video project I want you to do here and it just it always generates more work. Is it just triggered something in their heads like, yeah, that this is something I need to be doing your staying top of mind. We're gonna cover out how to do that on a scaleable basis. If you have thirty or forty or fifty clients or prospects, how do you stay top of mind with him without having eight million coffee meetings? But I love what you said getting there's nothing better than meeting someone in person, right it's worth how many e mails one hundred emails and yet most of us just want to wait for them to find us and then email us and it's like we almost want our lives to be this automated way and you could do that and you'll just be a commodity creative yeah, it's through that that we develop a good relationship hang up for drinks afterwards and now on there sole provider totally video so that's how we're it's exactly right? The people that I work with, I like them and I would hang out and when I, whenever I'm in their city, I meet them and, you know, it's like fun and at this point, it's like a simple trusting they could invoice me and I'm not going to scrutinize every number because I trust them and they've been working with me for years and they trust me that I'm going to pay them on time. I'm not gonna haggle, I'm not going to question every last thing, but they also know that if I do question it, they better be able to back it up. So we have that trust were also, you know, we're business people, but meeting in person or on the phone or g chat or whatever is an incredibly better way to connect than just sitting around waiting for some of the e mail you what we got online we have a number different reactions that are starting to come in, ashley are saying most makeup artists won't meet brides for coffee because the seat is a waste of time when I'm willing to do it, it makes them feel special and like, I'll make time for them, no matter what love that so good way to differentiate yourself, by the way, I bet you make up artist, I bet you most of them are like there's no way I could raise my rates, but they're all doing the same thing they're never understanding their brides needs. And by the way, if I were a make up artist, I'll be doing stuff like, uh, indian weddings only I'm not kidding because indian brides use different makeup and stuff like that, I'd be trying to figure out a niche that down as much as possible. I appreciate that comment. What else? Uh, met kon click saying, but do you not make time make time for clients versus prospects? I mean, you could make time for clients like yeah, I mean, it depends, right? So you might want to meet with them every quarter at the point you're working with a client, I kind of know what they're what they want, what they expect. You don't need to force it but you know you might say I'm gonna be out to coffee would you like to join me? I would love to just see how things were going and any other way I could help now you're not necessarily selling them, but you're listening and you might say, look, I have like you're looking for someone to help you with your headshot actually know a great photographer I'd be happy to introduce you so you're adding value in ways that you may not even be making money from but I know is the client that next time I need something I just go to you because you know all these photographers and magazine writers and and you're my solution you're my solution let's take one more and then we'll hit break cool well, brenda beri pet photo quick one says I am much better in writing than in person and that's her his hesitation in reaction to this is then what I do okay, so what do you think? One get better in person that's easy to say, but tomorrow we're going to practice if we're actually going to do hot seats and bring people up, they're going to tell stories and then we're going to improve those too you know, that's a long term thing, you can still work with what you've got over email and perhaps phone but you, you know, spent, you could spend eighty percent your time on that stuff, and twenty percent kind of working to improve your in person skills. Not all of us love to be around people. I get that. A lot of my students are introverts, but that doesn't excuse, not going out and meeting. If, if you want to grow your business, offer premium services, connect deeply, you will have to do it at a certain point in person.