What To Do When Clients Can’t Afford You

 

Do you ever have conversations with clients that you really gel with, you know you can totally help them but they genuinely don’t have the money to work with you right now?

I know I’ve had this come up with me from time to time. They are screaming ideal clients, you know all of the ways that you can help, but they say they are going to have to leave it as they can’t afford to work with you. They will try and do it on their own and you know in your heart of hearts that with your help you could take away a lot of the pain, frustration, challenge, time and money that they will have to then invest in DIY.

 Now, if you’ve been reading my blog for a while you’ll know that I will never encourage my clients to put money on their credit cards, or get into debt, to work with me. It doesn’t mean to say that some of them don’t do that, that’s ultimately their personal business, not mine, but it wouldn’t start with a conversation of ‘Why don’t you put it on your credit card, I know you’ll make it back within 6 months of working with me’.

So what do you say to them?

Find out first if money is the real reason for them not wanting to start working with you.

It might be that they think you suck so there would not be a hope in the world that they’d be investing with you! Hopefully, that’s not the case, but we all know we get on better with some people than others. There might be other blocks and they think that money is the best reason to tell you so that the conversation ends.

Once you’ve established that it is genuinely money then you can explore further. Ask them what budget they do have. If they have a small budget, then think about offering them a lower priced point product/package so that they can start working with you, albeit at a lower level initially.

Help them figure out a way to find the money to work with you.

(Obviously, this one will depend on the kind of service that you’re offering)

We all know that taking action on goals is what helps us achieve them so finding creative ways to generate the money can be treated in the same way.

Find out if it would be useful to brainstorm some money generating ideas with them on the discovery call. If they say yes, then if nothing else you will have potentially given them some fabulous ideas to improve their lives.

Here are a few ideas to generate more money, there are LOADS more

• Sell some items on eBay – one man’s rubbish is another man’s treasure
• Think about some of their strengths – they might be great at techie skills, writing CV’s, setting up Facebook ads, ironing, cleaning, alterations, decorating etc. Get them to think about how they could turn those into ways to bring in some money
• If they are creative get them to think about what they could make and sell, what about selling on Folksy, Etsy or making gifts for people to buy for special occasions, birthdays, Christmas, christenings etc.
• Online surveys / market research
• Get paid to shop – become a mystery shopper
• Sign up to be an affiliate partner
• Get a part-time job or temp work, maybe do some overtime
• Ask for a pay rise at work
• Set up as a freelancer on fiverr
• Skilled in a certain area – teach others, run a workshop, an art class, teach at a local college
• Take photos – sell them for people to use online
• Create a new offering in their business
• Babysit
• Dog walking
• Get a lodger
• Deliver flyers/newspapers etc
• Become an Avon rep (or similar)
• Become an invigilator (I have a friend who invigilates exams – she gets to do it while her kids are at school so it’s a win:win)

I am currently working with a client who wanted to work with me for ages and she said that she was going to go out there and make it happen. She didn’t share the ins and outs of how she earned the money but sure enough she came back to me after a while and we are working together 121 now. I am SO proud of her; that shows complete commitment to me.

If the potential client still says that they don’t want to go further with you then they may not be the right fit for you anyway. If you’re anything like me you want clients to take action, and even baby steps taken will help them be one more step nearer to their dreams.

There may be other things going on though, it might not be all about the money, so invite them to join your newsletter, any free groups that you might run on/offline. You could also point them in the direction of your free resources or books you think they might find helpful to get them started. They may not be able to work with you on a paid level right now, but you can still know that you have helped them in the best way possible.

Let me ask you…

When was the last time you were willing to hustle for what you really wanted?

When were you prepared to go all out to get nearer to your dreams? I’m not just talking about money here now but in general, being more visible online, telling people about the services you offer for example, creating new products/services for your clients?

Call to Action: Your call to action this week is to think about ways that you could help a client to generate more income. By pulling together a list of different ways you have another tool to help move people forward, whether they decide to work with you or not.

Also, think about how you can get nearer to your own dreams. What do you need to be doing right now to make it happen?