Running on “Hope Power”

The Desert of Arizona
Sunny 55 Degrees

“Dear Ms. Prospect, my fees range somewhere between $XX and $XX. Is that a good fit for you now?”

We’re in business to spend our days doing what we enjoy and to develop a way to transform one form of value (our skill, service, insight, advice etc.) into another form of value (money).

You don’t have to go too far into this business to realize that in order to end up with that money, it’s smart to attract people who already have it.

But there’s a big difference between someone having that money and being willing to spend that money on you.

Big difference.

Over the years, I’ve developed ways to attract prospective clients with money. It seems to be what I’m wired to do.

But I used to wait a long time to arrive at that little bit of important info. “Are you willing to invest $XX in me and are you willing to do it sooner than later?” Without those two things being true, why move forward?

I’m not in the convincing business.

I could have saved myself a ton of work, frustration and false hope by figuring out a way to GET that information sooner. But I didn’t because I was scared about getting to the truth. You read that right. I was scared of getting to the truth. I was freaked out to actually have a near life experience by meeting reality head on.

Back then, I preferred the feeling of “hope power” instead of just facing reality.

So instead of just figuring out whether or not this prospect qualified to move forward (there’s no reason to move forward if they’re not prepared to make an investment with me sooner than later), I pushed that decision well into the future.

I did a lot of work for no reason. Proposals, phone calls, all the normal dog and pony show.

As I’ve moved away from “selling” and more to “attraction” (which means prospective clients pretty much show up sold already), there’s really only one bit of info we need to get clear on to see if there should even BE a discussion about working together.

So these days, we get to that pretty quickly. Really, life is short. No time or reason to play games. After all, we’re in business to help people. But we don’t do it for free.

So why not just get the facts out on the table?

The Platform approach to client attraction puts you in a position where you can be upfront and very clear. You don’t have to “sell” anyone because someone else is always coming. The goal isn’t to sell them, the goal is to sift and sort those that are right for you from those that aren’t.

The next Platform Lab is open for enrollment now. Register here before it fills up.