Are You Growing Your Reputation?
I have identified five strategies you can use to see which emotions your clients feel when working with you. Most businesses have one primary strategy that you can use to build your reputation. You might use a couple of different strategies if you deliver a couple of different services. You might also notice some overlap between two different strategies. However, most of the coaches, speakers and trainers I work with focus on just one of the strategies to get the best results.
When you’ve worked out the best strategy (or strategies) for your business, you can look at how to apply the right marketing tactics to win new clients and also keep them with you.
- Certainty
- Connection
- Contribution
- Growth – this is the strategy we’re looking at in this issue of Scribbles
- Significance
If your ideal clients are looking to feel a sense of collaboration, courage and education from the coaches, speakers or trainers they work with, the best strategy for you could be Growth. If they want a supplier who will help them to feel empowered and excited, while giving them a high level of freedom, these are other indicators of Growth. Are they looking for feelings of hope, imagination and inspiration from you? Do they need someone who can motivate them, be optimistic and resourceful? Do they want to become more self-aware, stronger and more stretched as a result of working with you?
These are all emotions and feelings that clients want to experience if Growth is important to them – either personally or professionally. If your current clients use these words to describe being coached by you, listening to you speak, or being trained by you, then Growth is the main strategy you can use to get clients and keep clients.
Getting Clients with Growth
When Growth is a key strategy in your marketing, your clients want to know that you can help them to grow, or that you can help their businesses to grow. Or both. It often starts with personal growth – dealing with issues and challenges that your clients want to overcome – before moving on to business or professional growth. They need to know that you’ll be there to support them on their journey – for the entire journey – by helping them to find the resources required for their future.
If Growth is the best strategy for your coaching, speaking or training business, the marketing you use needs to show prospects how working with you can help them to reach their full potential. It needs to speak to them about how you encourage them to overcome their challenges, with motivational and inspirational support from you. It needs to fill them with hope and optimism while showing them how you will stretch them to achieve their best.
Clients for whom Growth is a key feeling when working with coaches, speakers and trainers, are going places. They need your support to help them get there. They want to be filled with hope and excitement about where their freedom will take them. Focus your marketing on helping your clients to grow personally and professionally and your marketing will be highly successful.
Keeping Clients with Growth
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 new clients into your business using the Growth strategy, you can use it to keep them. Do this by focusing on the same feelings and emotions they want to experience when you first speak to them. Keep talking to them about their goals and aspirations. How far along the path are they now and how much farther do they want to go? Ask them about the next challenge they need to overcome. What else might get in their way and what resources do they need to get past it? It’s your job to keep motivating your clients, educating them and helping them to become more self-aware and self-sufficient.
In order to keep your Growth clients, it’s essential that you keep in touch with them on a regular basis. Don’t wait for them to come to you to ask for help. Check-in with them, just to ask how they are doing. You could sit back and watch their progress, hoping that they’ll contact you when they need help. However, if you just wait to hear from them, they could start to feel that you’re no longer interested in their progress and they’ll look elsewhere for support. Surprise your clients now and then with a random phone call, or an additional challenge. Push them to do more and they’ll thank you for your support and encouragement.
Keep clients who need Growth by providing Growth whenever you can. When you do, you’ll build a reputation that will attract more and more of your Growth-seeking clients.
