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How To Get Your First £20,000 Client

by isaacsmithjones
10 replies
I've just been going through the forum... And seeing that tons of people are still thinking in terms of the commodities that they're selling. This kinda thinking is only gonna limit you.

So whether you sell websites... SMS marketing... Social Media Marketing... SEO... Or ANY other marketing service... You NEED to be truly competent, and confident...

If you don't currently have any/enough highly paying clients, you can be sure of this:

* It's NOT because your portfolio isn't big enough

* It's NOT because of the economy

* It's NOT because there's too much competition

It's because you're unsure of your ability to generate massive results...

I'm certain of it. The thing is: When you're an offline marketing consultant, it means that you KNOW how to make money. If you don't, then I'm sorry, but you don't deserve the title.

As a marketing consultant, you should be able to look at a business, and see the PILES of money, sitting there, waiting to be harvested. And if you stop selling the "thing" itself, and start selling your knowledge of how to APPLY these things to businesses to generate real results, the client will be much more likely to see your value.

You are a facilitator. An intermediary between the commodity (e.g. SMS marketing), and your client. And what you are paid is essentially a facilitator's fee. If you start thinking about what YOU can do for your client, before you think about yourself... This is how it works:

1. You come in, and identify the fastest and most sustainable ways that your client can make money, or ways that you can save them money.
* E.g. Your prospect is a hairdresser earning £100,000 per year. You identify a problem: You realise that on average, their customers only visit twice each year.

2. You estimate: As accurately as you can - Just how much their problem is worth - How much money is sitting there, waiting to be collected?
* E.g. If you can get the average customer visits up from twice a year to 4 times per year, then you'll double the business, earning them an extra £100,000.

3. You negotiate with the client, to work out how much they're going to pay to, to solve their £100,000 problem.
* E.g. If you are only paid 20% of the EXTRA money that you earn them, they are still £80,000 better off.

4. You do the work, get the results, and get paid.
* E.g. You work on a year-long email and direct mail campaign, which doubles the average visit frequency of customers, doubling the business, and pocketing you £20,000.

The trick here is that you re-framed the whole proposition. You're no longer a sales person, trying to get the client to GIVE you money. You are now a problem solver. You worked WITH the client, and GAVE them £100,000 worth of services. How do they know it's worth £100,000?

Because that's what it ACTUALLY earned them. So now that you've GIVEN them £100,000 worth of value, they're happy to pay you £20,000.

Sound simple?

It is!

And it's way better than charging £500, or £1000 for a website, that never earns the client their money back.

On top of that... It puts you in a position where you are able to CHOOSE your clients, rather than having clients choose you. No longer are you looking for whoever's gonna pay you. You're now thinking "Who can I help the most?"

Because undoubtedly, these are the people who can help you the most too.

So take some time to learn your trade. Study business. Learn how to generate RESULTS. Because you're only ever gonna earn the value that you can actually generate.
#£20 #£20000 #client #client acquisition #high-paying
  • Profile picture of the author Jason Kanigan
    Yes, this is essentially the process I describe here:

    http://www.warriorforum.com/offline-...uch-again.html

    The prospect has to believe and agree that your efforts can generate this new revenue, though, and that is why getting them to come up with the numbers rather than you providing them is so effective.

    The prospect has to know their numbers.

    If they don't know how much they make on average per customer, that's an issue.

    If they don't know how many times their typical customer comes in every year/month/week (whichever is most relevant), that's an issue.

    If they throw it back to you ("You're the expert; you tell me") when you ask how many new customers or new repeat visits you can generate for the period, it's difficult to give a number without getting into an argument. Remember, if the prospect doesn't believe in your number, it's not going to work.

    "You're the expert; you tell me."

    "Well...let's be conservative. What do you think, conservatively, is realistic? If we do better, great. But getting customers to come in two times more a year for haircuts than they are now? Do you think that's realistic?"

    Then you can adjust up or down depending on how the prospect responds. And you're not defending.

    The key is in having the prospect come up with or totally agree without reservation with the numbers. And, of course, you do have to be able to fulfill the promise you're making.
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  • Profile picture of the author isaacsmithjones
    Thanks, Jason.

    COMPLETELY true: As people who are in the business, who have seen, and been a part of massive results, it's easy enough for us to believe them.

    But if we look at my example of the hairdresser: She's probably worked for YEARS to get to £100K. And that probably seemed like an insane goal in her reality. So if we come in offering to double it in a year, she probably won't believe us.

    So we need to turn the sales process into a coaching process, where we get the client to give us all of the necessary information, including their own projections, as they're obviously gonna trust themselves more than they trust us.

    So thanks for your valuable addition.

    And if you haven't read/watched Jason's 3000th post, read it now.

    It's all about value-based sales.
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    • Profile picture of the author Underground
      I loved that post. If you decide to take those sentiments to heart is a long, hard road until you actually gain real skills and insight where you have the ability to boost the revenue of all that you work with.

      The same as any real profession. Once you have those skills, and your confidence shines through, there is no end of people willing to pay you large sums of money like they do to specialists in other professions.

      Very few are going to weather it out and get their because they constantly seek something easy and convenient for them to sell, and don't care what it is, rather than learn the skills to go and make businesses real money.

      Great post.
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  • Profile picture of the author isaacsmithjones
    @Underground

    Thanks. I must admit, I spent years selling websites around the £300 mark. But whenever I'd do one for a friend, I'd do it for no up front fee (except £ 10 for the domain name). I worked extra hard for them, and added all the client-getting bells and whistles for free, to make sure it would help them.

    And when they started making money, they'd voluntarily pay me more than my usual fee. I thought "Well that's interesting"...

    Whenever I'd put the client first, not worry about the money, and simply do it because I wanted them to succeed, I'd be more highly rewarded. And I thought:

    If a start-up can pay me well... Imagine if I did this for established companies.

    So I did.

    And that was a turning point in my business.
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  • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
    Heres the thing, there are large agencies that charge large agency fees and don't go very far for their clients, they still pigeon hole them to a degree , yet they get paid a lot mainly for their positioning and standing in the industry (hell even the likes of Yell/Hibu fall in that category) .

    Now we don't have the size or large budget and reputations but we can and do most certainly deliver more and more specifics to our (I mean all us on here not just my company) clients
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    • Profile picture of the author isaacsmithjones
      Originally Posted by mjbmedia View Post

      Heres the thing, there are large agencies that charge large agency fees and don't go very far for their clients, they still pigeon hole them to a degree , yet they get paid a lot mainly for their positioning and standing in the industry (hell even the likes of Yell/Hibu fall in that category) .

      Now we don't have the size or large budget and reputations but we can and do most certainly deliver more and more specifics to our (I mean all us on here not just my company) clients
      Exactly. One of our advantages as smaller companies is the fact that we have better quality control. And if we just work with a few clients to bring them massive results, that in itself will boost our credibility and reputation for future projects.

      P.S. Don't get me started on those LAZY hibu sites... One of my clients got a free yell listing, and they relentlessly called and emailed him, trying to sell him a premium listing, and one of their template sites (even though he already has a website).
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  • Profile picture of the author misterme
    Just curious: then does that hairdresser get concerned doubling their business means they'll need to double the hours they stand on their feet working on customers? Do they wonder how they're going to manage the increased logistics of it? Where they're going to find the time to service everyone? Do they worry about the negative impact this will have on the customer experience and the possible damage to their reputation that can come out of them taking on so much more work?
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    • Profile picture of the author isaacsmithjones
      Originally Posted by misterme View Post

      Just curious: then does that hairdresser get concerned doubling their business means they'll need to double the hours they stand on their feet working on customers? Do they wonder how they're going to manage the increased logistics of it? Where they're going to find the time to service everyone? Do they worry about the negative impact this will have on the customer experience and the possible damage to their reputation that can come out of them taking on so much more work?
      Good point. Now personally, I only take on people who are willing/able to take on the extra work that we will be generating. I would see how willing/able she was to improve infrastructure, and take on extra workers if necessary. If she wasn't willing/able, then I personally wouldn't work with her. Just because I like to work on an unlimited basis. And something like that would limit my thinking, and limit the results that I can give to her.

      But as I said, that's probably just me. But hypothetically, if I were to work with her, I'd do a few of the following things:

      Now, since I can't give her extra WORK, I'd have to help her to create revenue streams that don't eat up her time.

      Increasing Income Without Creating Extra WORK...

      1. Joint ventures.

      Get her to send referrals to similar, NON COMPETING businesses. E.g. Nail technicians, spray tanners etc. Now, if these people has a customer value of £500+, then she could charge £200 per referral, or take an ongoing percentage of profits. If she were to generate 5 referrals per month, then that's an extra £12K per year. These businesses could simply be featured in a monthly newsletter, or something similar.

      2. Get her a higher-end client base.

      If she's limited as to how many clients she can serve, then she'd better make sure they're the highest paying clients. She should look at who currently pays her the most, and ask those people for referrals. These people are likely to refer people who are similar to themselves. Over time, these people will become her most "typical" clients, pushing up her average client value. She can also push up her prices, as she becomes more desirable. She could increase her prices upwards of 20% using these techniques, adding £20k to the business.

      3. Sell more products

      She can either do this by JVing with product-selling companies, becoming a distributor for various brands, or simply buying wholesale. Either way: With a clear cross-selling system, she could increase transaction value by around 10%. That's another £10K, assuming she's only selling to existing customers. Much more if she's selling elsewhere.

      4. Sell her system

      She now has a more-than-decent sole trader hairdressing business. She could license out her marketing system to other hairdressers who aren't in direct competition with her. E.g. Other cities.

      As she's not looking to expand to these places, it will be of no detriment to her business. If she were to license out her system for £100/month, that's £1,200 per year, per licensee. Selling just 10 of these licenses would be an extra £12K.

      ---

      NOTE: Some of these techniques will take more than a year, so the extra £54K earned, will probably be spread over a couple years, so that's only an average of £27K per year.

      The above techniques are likely to take much more effort than simply increasing customer frequency, and the results are significantly smaller. But as consultants, it's our job to work out what's gonna work for the particular client, under their particular circumstances.

      I'm sure there are tons of other ideas that could be implemented, but these are just off the top of my head... So please feel free to let me know what I've missed out.

      ANYWAY: Thanks, misterme for pointing out that potential hurdle.
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    • Profile picture of the author mjbmedia
      Originally Posted by misterme View Post

      Just curious: then does that hairdresser get concerned doubling their business means they'll need to double the hours they stand on their feet working on customers? Do they wonder how they're going to manage the increased logistics of it? Where they're going to find the time to service everyone? Do they worry about the negative impact this will have on the customer experience and the possible damage to their reputation that can come out of them taking on so much more work?
      depends if they're smart or stupid

      Of course they can double their business as in increase their clients, which means they can then afford to take on more stylists etc giving them time to step back and work on growing their business, opening another salon, relocating, franchising etc instead of 'being on their feet all day cutting hair' , that's smart (presuming it fits in with their overall aims etc of course)

      Stupid would be having just enough clients to need to be on your feet all week cutting hair , then working evenings and weekends on the business
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      • Profile picture of the author isaacsmithjones
        Originally Posted by mjbmedia View Post

        depends if they're smart or stupid

        Of course they can double their business as in increase their clients, which means they can then afford to take on more stylists etc giving them time to step back and work on growing their business, opening another salon, relocating, franchising etc instead of 'being on their feet all day cutting hair' , that's smart (presuming it fits in with their overall aims etc of course)

        Stupid would be having just enough clients to need to be on your feet all week cutting hair , then working evenings and weekends on the business
        Short and sweet...

        And that's why I personally wouldn't work with someone who is overwhelmed by those kinds of cencerns. Because if they're preoccupied with that stuff, then all it tells me is that they don't want to build a real business.
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