Gettin’ On the Merry-Go-Round

The Client Letter
August 26, 2013
The Desert of Arizona
Clearing 63 Degrees
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When I was a kid, my family used to spend a week each summer at the beach in Ocean City New Jersey.

I was pretty young, so I don’t remember a ton, but there are a few memories that are pretty clear in my mind. (The mummies from the haunted house stand out 🙂

Another one of those memories is the big merry go round that we rode on.

Now merry go rounds aren’t exactly as exciting as big roller coasters and stuff like that, but I remember this ride was especially exciting because of something special that happened during it. (Understand that “exciting” is a relative term here. I was only about 6!)

Somewhere in the middle of the ride, out would come this long wooden arm. At the end of it, you could see a silver ring. As you rode around, the object was to grab the ring. Once you grabbed one, another got queued up right behind it.

At the time, I was too small to actually try to get the rings, but watching it was a whole lot of fun. There’d be rings flying all over the place from people who just couldn’t hold on to them.

But that wasn’t the best part.

Every now and again, there’d be a GOLDEN ring that would appear at the end of that wooden arm. I don’t even remember what the prize was for pulling a golden ring, but it was exciting to me as a little kid.

This is exactly what it’s like when you build your client business on the back of a PLATFORM like a newsletter, or book, or podcast etc.

You’re like a person on the merry go round. You keep going round and round just waiting for the golden rings (clients) to make themselves known.

You don’t get every one, you don’t have to. Because sooner or later, you’ll come around again… and again… and again.

When you have a PLATFORM working for you in your business, you’re showing up in front of the “rings” in a valuable way on a consistent basis.

When you DON’T have a PLATFORM working for you, then what’s your plan for showing up in front of potential clients?

You can go out and “sell” yourself to them, but that’s not exactly an attractive way to approach things. And pushing your way in the door isn’t going to do much for your fees either.

We’re coming to the Fall here. That’s when people get back into the swing of things and plan out their calendars for the rest of the year. That’s when prospects get new projects on the books and need people like you to help with those projects.

How do you get clients?

If you don’t have a process, then now’s the time to build one.

If you’re curious about how a system like this could look, I talk about it here.