How To Win New Clients

Posted by: Josh Walsh in Company.

As a reputable development firm, we regularly receive development requests and new project inquiries. The biggest key to our success is staying profitable with the limited time we have.

Qualify Your Leads

Qualifying leads is a difficult task. The first thing we do is consider the following fundamental factors:

• A positive and responsive personality.
• Sufficient capital for the project.
• Realistic time-frames.
• An interest in being involved in the process.

These factors are critical to a successful and smooth project.

Next, we call back any unqualified leads, thank them for the inquiry, and let them know that we are not right for their project. Our polite, but up-front manner is always appreciated.

Make Contact

When it is time to make contact, phone calls are more personal. Resist the urge to respond by email. If this is a referral, ask the referring party to warm them up with a call first.

Introduce yourself, but restrain yourself from discussing the project right away. You will quickly learn a lot about the personality of the person you are calling.

• Are they fluffy and chatty?
• Are they straight to the point?
• Are they being genuine or putting on a false front?

It is important to understand the person you are talking to you. You want to be professional, friendly and right to the point… but, you also want to respect their time. Remember, spending too much time chatting with them will be a waste of their time, but not spending enough time with them can be even more damaging.

The goal of this phone call is to get them thinking about you, and to setup an appointment to meet with them. If they are local, insist that they come to your office. This shows them that you are a professional organization, and that you are respecting the time of your existing clients by not spending time on the road. Your clients will be excited about the project, and most times will not mind coming to you.

If your client is out of town, you will need to set up an initial phone call to discuss the project, and you travel to them when the project gets moving.

The First Meeting

When you arrive, first impressions matter. Shake their hand, look them in the eye, and smile. You do not want to be false, people see through that. Be friendly, courteous, and enjoy yourself. Forget flattery, it doesn’t work.

Do not overdress. Be professionally casual. Your briefcase should be nice, but not expensive. Your clients notice these things and may think you are overpriced before you ever give them a quote.

I always bring out a nice fountain pen that a client gave me when we first sit down. It’s a great ice-breaker and immediately shows that your clients love you.

Just shut up and listen

When it is time to talk about the project, you ask the questions.

• Tell me about your business?
• What’s the goal of the project? (Sales, Branding, Advertising…)
• If applicable, how well does your existing system accomplish this goal?
• What’s your biggest pain?

The last question: “What’s your biggest pain?” is the key question. Nothing makes your service more appealing than the alleviation of pain. Resist the urge to respond to these questions, but do remember them… you will use timing to your advantage later.

At this point, I should mention my philosophy on note-taking during a sales pitch. It is important to have a notebook with you to demonstrate a concept or idea to the client visually, but do not write down answers to questions, or other comments your client tells you. If you have a genuine interest in the client (which you should) then you will remember these details. Write them down after you leave.

At this point, you should just be listening. There is no reason to butt-in, show your product or make recommendations just yet. You will get your turn, when their done… I promise.

It’s your turn!

Once you have a good idea of what they need, it’s your turn to present a solution. Do not present a specific solution, and definitely don’t come in with a pre-prepared solution. If you show up, listen to them, and then plop down a project overview sheet you typed up prior, you’re in trouble. There is no way you can come up with the formal solution before listening to your client, and working out the details on your own time. What you can do, is take the benefits that you have acquired while listening to them, and apply those to generic elements of your product.

“It sounds like your current manual process for processing phone orders is rather painful.”

“Our point-of-sale interface will alleviate these problems by automating order entry into the shipping system.”

Example Conversation:

You have not given a specific answer to their problem, but have associated a personalized benefit with a feature of your product. You can guarantee that the new point-of-sale software will ease their pain, but you don’t need to go into a long-winded description of how.

You want them to visualize their work day being more productive, and your product actually bringing joy back into their lives. If you alleviate their biggest pains with simple solutions that they understand, the sale will happen on it’s own. You want them to remember the feeling of a painless work day.

At this point, explain to them that you will put a formal proposal together, and get back to them in 2 days. In my experience, calling in 2 days builds some excitement and anticipation that you can’t get with only one day. Whatever you do, don’t call late… Punctuality is important.

When you get back to the office, put the proposal together immediately. While it’s all fresh in your mind, get it down on paper formally. You can retouch it later to round off the rough edges.

When it is time to call them, spend a few minutes on the phone just chatting again so they remember who you are and your personality. Refresh them of your benefits and how it alleviates specific pains. Tell them that you have a formal solution put together in detail, and are emailing it to them right away. In the case of a project that’s too large to fit on a quick proposal, I suggest getting a few paid hours to put a formal requirement document together. More about that in a later post.

Pricing

Do not be ashamed of your price. They know they are going to pay, and by this time, they know you are right for the job. Price is always an issue, but if you come out cheaper than your competition, you may lose credibility.

Ending Strong

No matter what happens, end your conversation with a “Yes.” It doesn’t have to be a “yes” for the deal itself, but just a “yes” in general. Always, ALWAYS, leave on a positive note.