After the last piece on how to get clients and testimonials the same day, I had a few people ask me how to get clients if they had few or none in the past. In other words: what is the second fastest way to get clients.
The short answer is: give a talk or an evening intro to your work.
However, there are several structures you will need to have in place to make this an effective event for client acquisition.
- Give people no less than 10 days notice, but no more than 2 weeks notice about your event. This falls in the window of them making sure they schedule it, without being so far out in the future that they wait and forget.
- Give a cap to how many people will be there [limit it to 8 or 10 or 12] and require an RSVP. This does several things:
- It creates more urgency for them to RSVP
- It gives you [if you are not used to speaking in front of a large group] a manageable-sized audience so you can become comfortable with the whole affair
- It allows you to then publish how many spots are left for the evening in a follow up email [and really, 1 email is never enough and 4 is likely too many in 2 weeks]
- Make sure you open with the fact that you are obviously there for 2 reasons [say this in the first 1 minute of your talk]:
- To provide value such that their lives are improved whether you see each other again or not
- "obviously" to market your services [at the end]
- At the end, let them know what is available, but simply pass around an interest sheet that lets them opt in to a free exploratory session, or your email newsletter. Low commitment level makes it easier.
- When you open in this manner it does 3 things:
- it sets context and appropriately sets expectations
- it is honest and direct and also takes away the objection they will have at the end that they were not expecting a sales pitch--tell them to expect it
- gives them an opportunity to walk out if the do not want that experience
- Bear in mind, you have 48 hours before the prospective clients lead begins to cool off--they become less clear on what they were inspired by or moved by to ask you to contact them
- Do not waste your time or money on letting them take your card [or even having them, really, or brochures for that matter]. If you truly want to be of service, then get their permission to contact them and take the guess work and variables out of it.
- If you are publishing to multiple lists/target markets, you can do this ever two weeks, however, if you are publishing the same type of event to the same list, be aware that what happens is that if you do it more that once ever 6 weeks they will begin to take you for granted--"Oh, s/he'll be doing this in a couple weeks...so" and they won't come.
I hope this makes a difference in your life and in your business today.
In Service,
Jason