The Desert of Arizona
Partly Cloudy 67 Degrees
There’s an interesting shift that happens when you stop trying to get clients and start trying to figure out if they are right for you.
You go from trying to get yourself hired to trying to figure out if they are worth hiring. Instead of trying to get “picked,” you try to figure out if you should pick them.
Going into a prospective client situation WANTING to walk out of there with a client is a dangerous situation. People can feel that. They will run, they will evade, they will make things up to avoid being uncomfortable. And so, I’d recommend you just give that up.
Don’t try to “get” anything.
Go in, ask questions, figure out if you should offer a portion of your life to this client or not. Here’s a valuable question to ask the prospect:
“What makes you think I’m the right person for this…?”
This approach helps you on a number of levels.
First, it communicates you are not trying to manipulate your way into a sale. If you’re not attached to an outcome, you have the power.
Second, since you’re NOT pursuing an outcome, the poor prospect doesn’t feel like he is being chased into a corner until he hires you.
Finally, this approach makes you stick out. What type of a service provider doesn’t care if he gets the client or not? Who acts like that?
You do. And bizarrely enough, it makes you more attractive.
You might not believe this works. That’s fine. You don’t have to believe it to test it. Test it enough that you get in the habit of doing it. At that point, your energy will change. You’ll catch yourself actually NOT caring about outcomes.
And that’s when you’ll win.