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Quickstart - Addressing Your Clients' Wants and Needs
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Quickstart
Grow a Profitable Consultancy and Still Have Time for a Life
In this issue
Note from Beverley - Keeping Dreams Alive
One Step Further - Addressing Clients' Wants and Needs
Personal Reflections - An hour and a pot of coffee
Note from Beverley
I have been wanting to move house for a couple of years and wanting to go on holiday for about a year and so have decided to put "karma" into the universe to make it happen. Am I mad? Maybe. Do I care? No!
All I've done is make up 2 montages of the kinds of things, experiences and feelings I want my new home to have/create and frame them. They are now prominently placed on a wall in my current abode.
Whilst enjoying the sunshine on Sunday afternoon I was reading Conde Nast Traveller magazine and thought ah yes, I can relate to some of these "experiences", dream destinations and holidays of a lifetime - so I will do some more montages of those places I fancy too. Will it make one jot of difference? Who knows but it's fun and if it does have even a 1% influence on the universe that'll work for me.
What karma do you need to "put out there"?
Have a good week.
Beverley
bev@onestepfurther.co.uk
www.onestepfurther.co.uk
+44 (0) 1344 625713
One Step Further
Some of the pieces of positive feedback I regularly get from clients are that I
* Tell it how it is.
* State the obvious in simple yet realistic ways
* Don't let them get away with their assumptions as excuses or barriers to progress
* Help them feel what they really want to achieve is completely doable
What's interesting is that this is not about what I do, it's really about how I do it. It's about my style and approach. Now in saying that, I'm sure that if the strategies I offer weren't of value I'd soon be told but it got me thinking that, sometimes giving people what they want is not as valuable as giving people what they really need.
One of my mentors has a phrase "give them what they want and this gives you permission to give them what they need".
I agree with this 75% of the time yet some people really need to get what they need immediately, without having to go through the what they want stuff first. Let me give you an example.
A client comes to you and says we need a time management course for all our employees: They are moaning they have too many emails, too many meetings are overworked, stressed and rarely meet deadlines, we need to improve their time management.
Now the mediocre (or even money grabbing, couldn't care less) reply would be OK when would you like MY 2 day time management course?
However...
YOU wouldn't say that would you?
Many times the apparent request is for something that touches a surface issue and doesn't really address the root cause of a problem. In this example the clients WANTS a time management course because they see it has the solution. What they need is to understand the root cause of too many emails, meetings, etc etc.
Now of course the answer may, in part, be some kind of support with time management for some individuals. However, in my experience blanket solutions for large groups of people rarely address real problems. They merely give people what they want short term and not what they need.
The brave, honest and in some cases risky approach is to delve, probe and even be blunt in helping the client to figure out, see or be confronted with reality, so that you can have a sensible and valuable conversation with them and then really help them decide what they need.
So which of your clients or prospects can you be brave with and really help them get what they need?
Personal Reflections
"And what's your investment? Well that's where we are different again. One fresh pot of coffee and 1 hour of your time"...
"PS. What makes us unique is that once we have valued the proposition we can create together, you determine the value of our contribution and that becomes our fees"
This is the final paragraph and PS in some letters I have recently written for another company I am part of. The rest of the letter is equally "different". It provokes thought, is a bit brazen and basically implies that however remarkable the reader thinks their company is, more can be done.
Once those letters have been followed up, appointments or further discussions have been secured (not by me) in the majority of cases. What's interesting is that the style and approach of the letter has in some cases directly contributed to securing the appointment (we know this because the reader has told us so) - why? Well it might be because the letters were
* Targeted to an individual
* Targeted at a particular problem
* Targeted with a particular message
* Brazen, bold and outrageous in their suggestions.
* Risky in their style and approach
* Just different and refreshing
Sometimes having the courage to risk being rejected can improve your chances of being accepted.
I quite often get asked how can I get people to buy from me? Well one way is to be remarkable in your approach. Avoid being the same as the crowd and take a risk - you never know it may pay off.
Best Regards
Bev
bev@onestepfurther.co.uk
+44 (0) 1344 625713
Author Take Control of Your Time: 7 Straight Shooter Strategies for Success |
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