Are You Certain about Your Reputation?
While there are five different strategies for you to consider, most businesses only need to use one of them in order to build a great reputation that allows them to get and keep ideal clients. If you deliver more than one service in your business, you might use different strategies for your different services. You might also have one main strategy with some overlap from another one. However, the majority of the coaches, speakers and trainers I’ve worked with can focus on just one of the strategies to get the best results.
When you’ve identified the best strategy or strategies for your business, you can work out how to apply it to everything you do in business in order to get clients and also to keep them.
- Certainty – this is the strategy we’re looking at in this issue of Scribbles
- Connection
- Contribution
- Growth
- Significance
If your ideal clients are looking for a lot of assurance, clarity and support from the coaches, speakers or trainers they decide to work with, the best strategy for you could be the first one on the list – Certainty. If they want a supplier who will take a strategic level of control in your relationship and a high level of responsibility for delivering great results, that is another indicator of Certainty. Do they want to feel focused and informed as a result of working with you? Would they like to feel peace of mind and reassurance, knowing that your advice will deliver that to them? Does working with you give them a sense of relief and safety? Is security something they want to feel every time they speak to you?
These are all emotions and feelings that clients want to experience, if Certainty is important to them. If your current clients use these words to describe being coached by you, listening to you speak, or being trained by you, then Certainty is the main strategy you can use to get clients and keep clients.
Getting Clients with Certainty
When Certainty is a key strategy in your marketing, your clients want to feel looked after by someone they see as a safe pair of hands. This means that your marketing messages need to really focus on how much you look after your clients. Less of the ‘how’ you will get them the results they want and more about what you will do to support them. No glitz or glamour about how wonderful you are, or how exciting your new technology is. Nothing that expects your potential clients to have to think about how you can help them – just simple, practical facts.
Certainty is probably the least ‘sexy’ strategy of the five. This is because, for prospects who want to feel certainty, safety and security, the best way to help them feel this is by being really straightforward with your marketing. Keep your potential clients informed of the facts, leaving nothing to their imagination. Not because they don’t have any imagination – but because for them, feeling assured and aligned with whom they work is far more important. They want to feel a sense of relief when they work with you, knowing that they’ve made the right decision.
Clients for whom Certainty is a key feeling when working with coaches, speakers and trainers rarely go back on their buying decisions. Allow them to feel certainty and peace of mind right from the moment they sign on the dotted line, and they will know they’ve made the right decision to work with you.
Keeping Clients with Certainty
Winning new clients is only the first half of successful marketing and developing a sustainable business. You also need to keep your clients, building long-term relationships with them. You want them to keep buying from you, and to keep recommending your services to other clients.
Once you’ve brought them into your business using the Certainty strategy, you can use it to keep them. Do this by focusing on the same feelings and emotions they want to experience when you’re first speaking to them. Every time you have a call or meeting with one of your clients, turn up on time – or even early. When you say you’ll send them notes within 24 hours of that session, send the notes in time – or even before your deadline. Answer your phone with a smile, whether you feel like smiling or not. Of course, if you’re ill and unable to speak coherently with a client, invite them to leave a message and tell them, as soon as you can, when you will be able to speak to them. Clients who want Certainty don’t want to be left guessing. They’re not particularly demanding, but they do love good communication. A quick message to let them know the situation is far better than leaving them wondering. Remember that safety, assurance and peace of mind are really important to them. How can you offer them the safety, assurance and peace of mind they need?
When something goes wrong – and let’s face it, none of us is immune to making the odd mistake – the best thing you can do is apologise really quickly. Explain the situation to your client and take full responsibility for what has happened. Talk to them about what you’ll do to make sure it doesn’t happen again. This approach is so much more powerful than coming up with excuses for a mistake. A quick “I’m sorry for my mistake; what can I do to make it up to you?” will turn a disgruntled client into a raving fan surprisingly quickly.
Keep clients who need Certainty by embodying Certainty in everything you do. When you do, you’ll build a reputation that will attract more and more of your Certainty-seeking clients.
