How to Get Great Clients (Really)

Last week, you’ll recall, was a teaser. I wanted to get you thinking about the traditional ways we try to attract clients– any clients, not just great ones.

We sponsor little league teams, we buy advertisement, we join service clubs, and we do all kinds of things to prove that we’re nice, and people should therefore come to us for our services or products. Last week’s reverse role-play exercise demonstrated that these things are ineffective to get you great clients.

Implicit in the exercise was the notion that when you’re really in a fix, and/or you desperately need something special done — and done right — you don’t turn to your second cousin just because he’s family. No, you seek out the person with the reputation for excellence in your specific area. The fixer.

So, if I stopped this essay right here, you would have the key to getting great clients, wouldn’t you? Well, mostly.

The most obvious and explicit lesson in the exercise is that if you really want to have the best clients, you need to be the best “go-to” in your field.

Now, this is not to say that you cannot make a very good living, and have a very happy life, selling commodity. If in 2022 you can sell a million cups of coffee and make fifty cents profit on each one, you’ll have a pretty good year. Most of us would be OK with that.

But if you hold yourself out to be a professional, claiming some kind of special skill or understanding, you mostly can’t make it work in the commodity business. There are exceptions, which I will discuss later, but generally speaking, the top of the food chain is inhabited by the known experts, and the known experts never need to beg for work.

So, here’s the last bit: 90% of the secret to getting a never-ending stream of ideal clients is to be the one that they really, really, need. But the 10% that eludes most of us is this: how do such potential clients know you exist?

Tune in next week!