Bad clients = No Money
One of the reasons you are making no money is because you are attracting the wrong clients. The ones who want to beat you down on price, the ones who never buy again or refer you, the ones who really don’t appreciate the value of what you provide. You do not want bad clients, you want the very best clients ever so you can earn all the money you want and deserve in your business.
Here are a few questions to ask yourself about the type of clients you are attracting
- Who am I attracting?
Something that many people do not think about. But the truth is you are attracting a certain type of client because of your energy, your mindset and your lack of a plan.
I am sure we can recall that horrible client we once had. Or that person we spent 2 hours on the phone speaking to only for them to say they cannot afford your services. Didn’t you feel deflated and like you wasted a whole bunch of your time? It is time to put a stop to that and only attract persons who want to work with you and are willing to work with you.
How? By being intentional and specific about who you want to work with. This is not something a lot of entrepreneurs do and that is why the hagglers end up in your mailbox or on your phone line.
- Who do I want to attract?
This is a serious serious question guys. If I were to ask you this today what would your answer be? And I do not mean some vague thing like people who like body scrubs or people who like to dress up. But I mean the real people you want to attract. What is their age? What is their struggle? Why do they need you?
Knowing who you want to attract and why you want to attract them specifically will help you eliminate a lot of wasted time and energy and get to selling your products and services consistently everyday!
Take some time today and make a list of the characteristics of the type of person you want to attract to your business.
- Your money mindset
You have a scarcity mindset and that is why you are not attracting the right people or attracting money to your business. This is the ugly honest truth and until you come face to face with this reality then you will continue to struggle
Many clients tell me yes they believe they deserve the best clients and they deserve to make money but deep down they do not believe it. There is always a feeling of doubt and fear around earning the money that you want consistently. I understand because I have been there as well. Saying yes to people I know I should have said NO to. Lowering prices because of the belief that some money is better than NO money at all. But when you start to self sabotage yourself like this, you will constantly be struggling to make the money you want by attracting the best clients.
Your money mindset can make or break your bank account. Ask yourself
- Do I know how much money I want to make
- Do I know what I will do with the money once I make it
- Do I truly believe that this money will always come to me
- Do I believe what I am currently doing will earn me the money that I want
A shift in your mindset around money is one of the first things that you need to do in order to attract clients who will always be willing to pay you.
- What is my daily ritual to attract clients?
When I ask my clients so what are you doing to attract clients or sell your products and services, I always get these really vague answers like I am posting on my business page. I am here to tell you that without a plan to attract the best clients then struggle will be your middle name.
A plan! Yes! A plan! And that is why I encourage you to set up some daily rituals in your business that you do consistently to attract clients. Creating a routine will eliminate the stress you experience of what to post, where to post and how to post. It will ensure that your clients see you consistently both online and offline. It will become a habit and literally take less than 1 hour to do every day because it is now a routine. And you position yourself as the expert in your field because you share value consistently.
Your daily routine can look something like:
- Post in 3 groups where my ideal clients are. Share value and ask for the sale
- Send an email with value and ask for the sale
- Share a new video with valuable content and ask for the sale
- Call 3 potential clients per day and provide value and ask for the sale
- Follow up with 4 persons who expressed interest in my services/products and provide value and ask for the sale
You will notice that the other consistent part of this routine is that you share value and ask for the sale.
- What am I telling them?
What exactly do you tell your clients everyday? You see this could be the simple reason you are not attracting the very best clients. You are not telling them anything of value! You are not sharing with them how you solve their challenge and why they should buy from you. And I do not mean bragging about how great you are; dropping a flier or a link, but really and truly engaging and showing them how you can help them!
Many clients I have noticed just like to talk about the finished product but they do not like to share the process and that is exactly what your clients want to hear to build know-like and trust! They want to know that you understand the process to get to the finish line.
- Are you telling them about that?
- Are you sharing stories?
- Are you sharing your own challenges?
- Are you sharing WHY you started the business?
- Are you sharing the process?
- Where are my clients?
So now I know exactly who I want to work with. My ideal client avatar is on point and I am excited!!!! Now what do I do?
You show up exactly where they are.
You see part of understanding who you want to work with is understanding where they hang out both online and offline and then being intentional in showing up exactly where they are consistently sharing value and asking for the sale. It is an intentional activity that lands you the very best clients.
And let me tell you a secret….they are not all on your fb business page! LOL
No, they are in groups, in forums, browsing social media, in associations and groups, sitting in their offices etc.
- What do I want them to do?
You may be surprised how many times we fail to tell our clients what to do. Meaning we give them some valuable piece of information and then we left them hanging out to dry. This is a huge problem guys!
If you do not tell them what to do i.e. Have a call to action, then why do you expect them to buy from you. You are literally leaving money on the table.
Literally by not saying to them
- Click here
- Message me
- Reply to this email
- Schedule a call
- Book a service
They will consume your awesome information and then move onto the next guy who tells them exactly what he wants them to do. This is how you get the clients! Sounds simple right? Then why are you not doing it everyday?
- What am I offering to them?
Another reason you are not getting clients is because you are not telling them what you can offer them. So hear me out…I know you will say but Adanna I am posting everyday and telling them but no one is buying…but are you really? Are you being super specific and telling them what you are selling or are you giving them an overview of the 10-15 things that you offer and hope that they pick one of them.
You see, you have to be specific about what you want them to buy especially when you offer more than 1 product or service. Giving them too much information about your whole portfolio may seem overwhelming to your client who just want quick easy solutions. For example as a VA you may offer:
- Administrative assistance
- Social media management
- Content creation
- Email management
- Project management
Take each one of those things and sell them as separate pieces or create bundles but speak specifically to the persons who may need each one of these items individually. And then you can either offer them as a bulk item or upsell them to a bigger package. But if you are not being specific about what you are selling to them then how to intend to attract them and then convert them into YES clients?
- Why you and not the other guy?
Why should a client buy from you and not the other guy? What makes you so unique and how are you communicating this ‘uniqueness’ to them?
The truth is that there is nothing new under the sun and most industries are so saturated with a bunch of people offering the exact same thing packaged with a different name in different brand colours. Everybody is an event planner or a social media strategist or a Virtual Assistant. They are a dime a dozen and we all know this. Yet we show up and say the exact same thing, in the exact same way using the exact same formula and expect people will buy from us…..argggh. NO!!!
If you want to attract the best clients you have to offer them something unique because they have used other people and have been sorely disappointed before. They have gotten a lot of the same ole same ole thing and can tell you exactly what they do not want from you.
Understanding what makes you unique to your audience will help you attract a better type of client who will not only appreciate your services, buy from you consistently, not haggle you for prices and recommend to other awesome clients who will do the same.
- How do I convert clients from maybe to yes!
The age-old question. The answer is quite simple…well not really but it can be done.
- You offer them consistent value. There is reason they are on the fence. They can see the value but it has not become a desperate need as yet and this is why you have to speak to them over and over via emails, blogs, social media, networking, videos, articles etc. The consistency is key to change the maybe to a yes!
- Follow up! A client who has messaged you or asked a question under a post is a maybe client and the way to convert that to a yes client is to follow up until you get the yes. Ask them if they have any questions; offer a free trial; invite them to an event you are hosting; just consistently follow up with them until you get a yes!
- Make it easy for them to say yes. And by this I mean make sure the process of consuming your content and buying from you is SIMPLE. Do not add unnecessary steps. Do not overcomplicate the way they have to get information from you or buy from you. Make everything just a click away. This is the beauty of businesses like Amazon where they have a One-click button for you to buy. Make it simple and make it a no brainer so you can get a yes!
Moving clients from a maybe to a yes is a strategic action that you have to intentionally make easy for your clients.
- Saying NO to low paying clients
Sometimes saying NO is the best thing you can do for your business. Many times I see business owners so desperate to land a sale that they say YES to a client even when they know this client does not respect them or their work or the client has beaten down their price to next to nothing. The desperation to make a sale is real and it can work against you.
I am not going to tell you about knowing your worth because if you do not know that by now, then no wonder you are struggling. But understand that saying YES to everyone who crosses your path especially when they have beaten down your price is your fault!
Say NO to those clients and trust me they will pay exactly what you charge the next time around.