A Simple, Yet Powerful Strategy For Getting New Clients

Over a year ago I started working with my lovely Sales Coach, Lyn Pornaro. I had hit a spot where no more work was coming in and I had exhausted all areas of bringing more in. Well, that was what I thought anyway! I was completely wrong. I hadn’t even begun!

I have always been pretty good with follow up. I like things tidied up. I remember a boss years ago, in my PA days, telling me that I am acompleter. He was right.I don’t like loose ends. If people don’t want to work with me that’s fine, it’s that whole ‘hanging in the air’ thing that I don’t like.

As coaches, most of us tend to have what we call discovery sessions. (they go by other names too but essentially it’s the call where you chat with a potential client to find out if you are both the right fit for each other) We talk about how we can help and often the potential client leaves the call sounding interested. But sometimes you never hear from them again. You over-analyse and think that you said something wrong, didn’t say the right things or enough of the right things. You start to wonder if your prices were too high, or too low or…. All of these different things coming up. Has this happened to you?!

Well it all becomes easier when you have a follow-up strategy. If a person doesn’t get back to you it doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t want to work with you, it can mean lots of things. They could have been inundated with work, been ill, family issues have cropped up, they don’t have the money to work with you at that point, or they are feeling overwhelmed and want to take some time to reflect on things, their goldfish might have died, or they’ve simply forgotten about your call. Sad, but true. We all move onto the next thing very quickly, it’s not intentional, it’s just how fast paced life is these days.

So what do you need for this strategy? Either a notebook and pen, or an excel spreadsheet or an app where you can write down dates. So you can do this by going through all of your notes around who you’ve been in contact with, or you can start from now. I’d actually suggest both but for this podcast let’s just focus on now.

• You have a discovery call with someone. They’re interested in what you do
• Lyn taught me that keeping control of the conversation is key so while you’re on the call set a date to speak to them again, perhaps in a day or two.
• Sometimes they won’t want to stick to a date, so if they don’t tell them you’ll be in touch again soon. That way it won’t be a surprise
• The reality is sometimes you’ll forget that bit so after the call make a note in your diary to follow up on a set date. I usually set a date of around a week – 10 days. This is now where your diary or spreadsheet comes in. I keep a list of names and the dates I’ve been in contact and then set a follow-up date in my diary to speak to those clients again.
• Follow up with them, saying something like it’s been a week since we last spoke. I know you were interested in whichever programme / service and I just thought I’d check in with you to find out if you have any questions for me. If they reply then deal with those responses, if not then leave it for another couple of weeks
• In two weeks follow up again, saying something like, ‘Hi I’m just checking in with you about the programme/service. Is this still something that you’re interested in?

There could be 4 responses;

They reply and say ‘yes’ and you follow up with them.

They reply and say ‘no’, so that’s OK. Tell them you’d love to keep in touch with them by adding them to your mailing list so that they can be kept up to date with lots of useful content/news. If they agree fab, if not then you will pretty much know they aren’t your ideal client, not right now anyway

They reply saying they’re still not sure. Ask them to jump onto a discovery call with you to find out what’s happening and then you can help determine if the programme/service you’re offering is, in fact, the right fit. If it’s not, tell them, you don’t want to sell programmes/services to people, neither party will benefit and it could damage your credibility too

They don’t reply. Again, it still doesn’t mean a no, but this time don’t contact again for a few months. Make a diary note to follow up again in the future one last time.

If you want to keep in touch then you can just occasionally share something that you think they might be interested in, but with no added sales pressure. This is just to a) help them and b) remind them that you’re there. They may never become your clients, they may just not be your ideal clients and that’s OK. If nothing else you get to find out what your ideal clients want and need from you, and get to have lots of fun conversations along the way.

Whether you choose to use my method or another one, you will find that it really helps you to keep a track of who you’ve spoken to and follow up with people, you may find your list of clients grows. You will also know that you’d done all you can to help that potential client. I can’t count the number of times a client has started working with me now saying the main reason is because I kept following up. They know that I’m the coach that will hold them accountable.

Time for some action: Your action for this week is to write a list of all of the people you’d either like to reconnect with, or make a connection with. Start with a list of 30. If you contacted just 1 person on your list each day you will have started building 30 relationships.