…And great quality clients that pay well, appreciate you and refer you.
Many Accountants tell me that they want more clients, the clients they have don’t want to pay them much, don’t really respect them and expect everything to be done at last minute. This has a lot to do with how they’ve been sought after in the first place and the communication that’s been used.
Sometimes getting more clients isn’t the answer, tapping in to the potential of your existing ones is however, for the benefit of answering this question I’ll address the key factors involved.
There are many factors that are going to help you get better clients and I’d rather share with you the ways to get great quality clients than as the sign above suggests, you come across as desperate and accept anyone as this will lead to problems in both the short term and long term.
I’ve therefore created a mini series of Articles that will help you put the fundamentals in place that will help you get better clients. implementing only one of these will not automatically lead to more clients but the synergistic impact of applying many of the factors in this mini series will.
We’ll start with the most basic form of communications. When I talk about communication I don’t simply mean one channel, I mean being congruent in all of your channels of communication from your website, articles you write, emails you might send and conversations you have. To better communicate, consider these three factors. But it is important to appreciate that a website will be one of the first places a prospective client will go to to check you out.
In this article I’ll touch briefly on deciding who the right client is so that you really enjoy working with them.
Decide who you’re talking to.
I know, a lot of people talk about defining your ideal client, but it is important and I’d be remiss if I didn’t address this. If you don’t define an ideal client then your language is too general and generic, this has little appeal to people, you’re not talking to them, you’re talking at them.
Too many business owners shout out their ‘buy my products’ message like a fruit seller on a Sunday market who’s trying to shout loudest and be the cheapest as that’s the only way they can compete with their competitors. Focus your communication and language and your message will be truly heard by the people you want to be listening.
3 areas to consider when defining your ideal client.
Psychographic, geographic, demographic.
Psychographic.
Think about the personality of the person who owns/runs the business. Personality is so important, if there’s a personality clash then you won’t enjoy working with them, if their values differ from yours you won’t see eye to eye and they’ll treat you as a commodity rather than the trusted advisor. Rather than trying to get all psychoanalytical, simply think about the individual you enjoy working with the most, regardless of whether their business is right, who do you get on with well, who respects and listens to you and you enjoy talking to. Make every communication channel talk to that 1 single individual because there will be others just like him or her and your message will resonate with them.
Geographic
Is location important to you? With cloud and virtual technology, for some this is important and for others it isn’t. Make this clear in your communications, if it’s important they’re within a radius of your office because you value physical face to face meetings with clients then explain this, if you find that with video conference technology you can deliver an equally powerful service to the right person regardless of location, explain this too.
Demographic
Is the type of business important to you? There are many advantages of niche’ing to a specific industry and getting to know that industry well, understanding the typical challenges, folding in specific language and examples that will really resonate will help to position you as more of an expert in that industry. It’s better to be seen as a specialist than a generalist. Even if you choose not to home in on a specific industry, niche’ing in to a specific set of circumstances of a business means you get to know the challenges those business owners have. Perhaps it’s businesses who have grown to £1,000,000 but struggling to expand further.
Maybe you excel at helping start-ups.
Perhaps, like a couple of the Accountants we work with, it’s niche’ing in helping women in business who balance being a great mum with being a great business woman.
To conclude
Don’t be a Fruit Market stall owner who’s shouting about how his/her fruit is cheaper than the next because it’s no different from the next. Don’t shout to the crowd, focus your message on only the people you truly will enjoy working with and if that’s a small percentage of the businesses in your scope then fine. Let that happen, you will have a greater appeal to the few than trying to be all things to the majority.
My closing question to you…
Do you really need more clients? In many cases there’s the potential to raise your current clients
fees without looking like you’re sell, sell, sell. Look out for that in my next article.
Further help.
On average I run a live webinar every 3 weeks where I go in to topics like this in more detail with how to’s and recommendations. They’re free and there’s no obligation and no catch. Register here if you’d like to be invited to them.
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