Client Magnets Official Blog

What is the process someone must follow to become a paying client of yours?  Is it something like this:
1. The person calls you or sends an e-mail.
2. You respond, but may end up playing telephone tag for awhile.
3. You eventually connect and arrange a meeting.
4. You do a consultation.
5. You write a proposal.
6. You ask the person if they want to proceed with you.

If there are that many steps, there are too many steps. And there is one common denominator in each and every one of  those steps. You. So we need to wean you off your personal involvement.

I’m sure you’re thinking, “No. That’s absolutely impossible. My business is too complex, there’s so much detail. I need to speak to the client individually and really understand their needs.”

And yes, there are certain business situations that call for that. But not every time, and it’s not the only way.

So, here are the reasons we need to fire you from your sales team.

1. The greater the dependency on you, the weaker your business. You’re putting a lid on your income because you become a bottleneck when everything must go through you.

2. Too much personal investment in a potential client weakens your negotiating position. If you met someone out of the blue who says, “I like what you’re doing but will you do it at half price?” you would probably respond, “No way. Who do you think I am?” But you’d likely put it more politely than that.

But what if you’ve had prior phone conversations with a client, submitted proposals and had meetings? Now you’ve gone quite far down the path.

And after you have invested your time and your resources, the client comes back to you with, “We really like you. We really want to work with you. But we can only afford half of what you’re charging.”

You’re more likely to waver because at that point you’re already invested in the potential sale. Then you are faced with the agonizing decision of cutting your losses completely, or accepting the low fee and hoping for more work later on. That’s not a position you want to be in.

3. Too much personal involvement in a sale creates a false expectation for your client relationships.
Has this ever happened to you? You receive great and attentive service from a sales person before you purchase something from a company. Then, the moment you hand over your cash it seems like they’re not interested in you anymore.

You may think you would never treat customers that way, but you run the risk of this happening if you give a lot of personal attention to people before they become a client. Because you can only do that as long as you’re not busy.

Sooner or later, when your business is at capacity and you’re working with many clients, you’re not going to have the time. Something will have to give. Or you will be so focused on bringing in new business that existing client relationships will suffer.

So, be aware of the dynamic of your business relationships with clients. Be available, of course, but keep it realistic and professional.

4. The final reason we need to fire you from your sales team is that you can’t be duplicated. I love working with clients one-to-one, helping them figure out solutions to their problems. But as my business has grown, I’ve had to pull myself back from those types of conversations. I can’t sustain that level of service on a personal basis throughout my whole business. So now the people that get one-to-one attention from me are the people in my mentoring program.

The key is to eliminate at least some of the one-to-one activities that you’re currently doing to generate new business. Remove your personal self as much as possible from the manual labor and intense personal involvement of getting new clients.

Fire yourself from your sales team and focus on finding tools and resources that will attract more clients with less of your time.

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