How to get clients – Revealed

[David Roth weiss]

So, are you already swimming in new clients??? Inquiring minds want to know…

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Milton Hockman]

I’ve been using the methods outlined for the last month and have seen great results! It helped to learn what phase I was stuck in and taught me what I should do to fix it.

For example, I’ve always known what I can do, and what I can do well, but I never really had a 10 second speech. I usually toughted all my offerings when meeting someone. That’s wrong. What I needed was a short phrase that says exactly what I do, and how I can benefit clients in each of my expert areas. Then you can help solve “that persons problem.” They don’t care about your “other services” only what they need now.

I now have a 10 second speech for each of the three services I offer: Web Design, Graphic Design, and Video production. So depending on who I am talking to I can use that introduction. Its worked well with new prospects.

The other aspect that helped me was the idea of “following up.” Often times as new business owners we don’t follow up with contacts that gave us a sign that they were not interested. The book talks about how a man followed up 10 times with a prospect over 2 month period before he got the deal. That’s advice I needed to hear!

A few months ago, I got a website request, traded a couple of emails, sent a quote. Never heard back from the guy – figured he thought my price was too high. Sent a follow up email – nothing. Usually I would write that person off, well I decided to write one last email the other day – since his website was still not finished – guess what he said he’s been busy doing end of year financials but would love to meet now!

That’s the types of tips in this book. Often times new business owners want the “easy” catch, but our world operates just like other business world. And this book helps you understand them.

Owner
Plus More Media Group
Website Design – VA, Corporate Web Site Design – PlusMoreMedia.com
Marketing designs and videos that do more for your business!

[Mark Suszko]

Someone “follows up” on me ten times in 2 months after I’ve said “no, thanks”, I think I would give him a tune-up with a gobo arm.

Got any more “Cliff’s Notes” from the book to share?

[Mike Cohen]

I guess it depends upon what you are selling. If you are selling a service, it is less black and white than selling, say, merchandise SKU’s to a retailer. When selling products for sale, it is usually about price and features vs the competition. When selling a service, often you need to first convince the potential customer that they need the service you have on offer. This is for either cold calling or warm calling.

On the other hand, when a potential customer contacts you looking for your service, because they have heard about you or they looked up your service in the phone book or google/bing/dogpile/altavista/mandy etc, the hard part is done, then it is often a price discussion.

Regards followup, an e-mail is not followup. A phone call is followup. If all you do is send emails and wonder why you have not heard back from the guy, you are not doing your job. If the tables are turned and this person is trying to sell you something, you can be sure you will get phone calls on a regular basis until you either buy something or tell him to stop calling you.

A few years ago when I was renewing my music contract, I sampled the offerings of a few vendors. One in particular did not have exactly what I needed, but the sales guy called me weekly with various offers to try his product. While I started to get annoyed, I took it as a lesson in direct sales techniques, and now follow a rule of frequent phone calls with occasional emails, within tolerance levels, when trying to get new business.

The best advice I have taken from sales books and my boss – learn about the customer’s needs then tailor your pitch to match those needs. Customers tend to have some idea of what they need, or what they think they need, but a Chinese menu of services is not what they want to look at. They want you to understand their needs and tell them what you can do for them, but they don’t always know that.

Mike Cohen

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Milton Hockman] “The other aspect that helped me was the idea of “following up.” Often times as new business owners we don’t follow up with contacts that gave us a sign that they were not interested. The book talks about how a man followed up 10 times with a prospect over 2 month period before he got the deal. That’s advice I needed to hear!”

Like Mark, I would take GREAT offense at this, and if someone did this to me, I would be less than courteous to them and would ask “How dense is your skull? I ask as it seems that scientists may be wrong that Neanderthal Man is extinct” — or some such retort.

But hey, ideas are always valuable and there is no perfect answer to this subject, so the more arrows you have in your quiver, the better.

After all, an art like sales is that, an art. But when you understand more of the science that can be applied to it, the better.

Just don’t become Neanderthal in the process…

Ron Lindeboom

[Milton Hockman]

I think i exaggerated the numbers in that quote. But what I meant by it was the fact that it took 2 months for the client to come through.

You can’t give up on a client that isn’t pulling out the checkbook on the first meeting. Things happen, people get busy, etc. That’s the point the book is making.

So disregard following up 10 times and focus on the 2 months to the close aspect.

Follow up, follow up, follow up.

I just did that to 3 clients today and I now have 3 new jobs!

The other parts of the book are great as well. It teaches you to find out what part of the “cycle” you are failing in and how to get out of that rut.

Give it a read – its got great reviews! I’m reading another book right now too and might critique on here if it goes well.

Owner
Plus More Media Group
Website Design – VA, Corporate Web Site Design – PlusMoreMedia.com
Marketing designs and videos that do more for your business!

[Bob Zelin]

BUT WAIT – if you order right now, we will send you our followup book – HOW TO GET PAID IN UNDER 30 DAYS. That’s right folks, no more waiting around for your paychecks – no more cash flow problems. Those pesky clients will sent those checks out in a jiffy, after reading this new amazing book, and send thank you notes, and invites out to dinner with their families !

AND if you order right now, we will send you “how to record uncompressed HD on the internal hard drive of a MAC Book Pro” – why spend all that money on expensive hard drives when you can just use your MAC Book Pro to do ALL of your work.

Bob Zelin

[Chris Blair]

I’ve read dozens of books like this over the years. Before starting my company (with a partner) 14 years ago, I must’ve read 15 business start-up books, a couple small-business accounting books and a handful of small business marketing and PR books.

My conclusion? If you’re half-way smart, your instincts are often better than the majority of stuff in these “how-to” books. I’m not saying I didn’t learn a few things from a few of them. But I found many of them to be almost insulting. The idea of following-up with clients to me is a pretty basic tenet. Probably half our current clients took literally years of “courting” just to get them to try us. After that first project, it would sometimes be another year before we’d get another nugget. Eventually, most of them brought more and more business our way until they became regular clients. We also have several clients who would use us for a few years, leave to try a “new kid on the block,” for a year or so, then they’d come back to us after realizing the work we deliver, the prices we charge and the service we provide are hard to beat in our area. So even when clients leave, we stay in touch and continue to “follow-up” with them.

Maybe I’m old and cynical, (I prefer to call it experienced and wise), but I’ve found few business, marketing or sales books that claim to possess new secrets to be all that ground-breaking. I do see the author of this book wrote the original guerilla marketing series of books and I will say those have some good ideas in them for promoting your company without spending money.

Certainly reading books like this can’t hurt and can generate some new ideas and methods. But you can find a lot of this same stuff by spending a couple hours googling and reading various blogs and informational websites. Like anything, you have to use common sense when it comes to all the “sales” advice out there. Most people hate to be “sold” to and they can smell a “pitch” from a mile away. I’d rather approach potential clients with ideas on how to save them time or money and solve their problems. Of course, you have to know what their problems are first to do that, and that takes time and effort to figure out before ever approaching them.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com

[Tim Kolb]

Maybe for someone starting out, this book would be helpful.

Honestly I wouldn’t still be doing this after 20+ years if i didn’t understand that the objective is to solve the client’s problem.

I’ve turned down plenty of projects where the client wanted my service to solve his/her problem and it wasn’t going to…they needed something else.

Sales 101 says sell benefits not features. The customer doesn’t care what you’ve put into it, they only want to know what they’ll get out of it.

TimK,
Director, Consultant
Kolb Productions,

[Jeff Bonano]

I dunno, but I read a book called the little red book of selling and it tried to teach me how to be a good salesman without the feeling that I’m being too pushy. I know my customers appreciate me not being too pushy and they feel like they are talking to someone who is more down to earth and care about solving their needs.

Jeff Bonano
http://www.bonanoproductions.com

“I want to have a cool quote at the bottom of my signature, just like everyone else on the cow forum!” -Jeff Bonano