The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 36 Degrees
Nothing worse than being in the client business with a genuine desire to help people.
You would think that would be an asset. But with the way we humans are wired, the more you want to help, the faster they run away.
Reminds me of Elmyra on Tiny Toons. The harder she chases the “cuddly, wuddly” little animals, the faster they want to run.
So how exactly are you supposed to ask your prospect to the “first dance” (a discussion, consultation, etc.) without scaring them away?
Wouldn’t the simplest thing be just to say, “Hey, I’d love to talk with you about how I could help you…” Of course it would. But we’re talking about human beings here! Nothing is that simple 🙂
So you can’t ask them to dance. Or at least you probably don’t want to. Because things rarely go as well as they could when you’re the one doing the asking.
Approaching things like that works about as well as a hole in your head does. From the getgo your prospect will feel “pursued.”
You want to be pursued.
As I talk about in this, the idea is to create something I call “decision points.”
Think of these as open doors to your world. There’s no emotion around them. You don’t care if someone does or does not walk through. And if they DO walk through, there’s a certain way they have to do it. There’s a structure. There’s a set way things work.
You’re not going to sit down and say “let’s talk about possibilities. I’m here as long as it takes.” Don’t do that to yourself.
Instead, be very clear:
“We’re going to speak for 17 minutes, on Wednesday, after which X, Y, Z will happen.”
You want specific so you don’t waste your life talking to people who aren’t serious.
Your job is to attract prospects towards you and then make it known that these “decision points” exist.
Your prospect walks through that door and enters the next level of orbit around you.
And the process continues from there.
One word of warning: You can’t stop attracting just because you get a client.
If you do, you’ll go from “hired expert” to “one of the guys” (or gals) pretty quick. Once that happens, your profitable days are numbered.
The general principle here is that you never stop attracting. Easy to say, hard to do. But the fact is, you can’t turn into a different person once you get a client. It messes with the spot you’ve earned in their brain.