3 Ways to Attract the Customers You Deserve

3 Ways to Attract the Customers You Deservestring(43) "3 Ways to Attract the Customers You Deserve"

June 30, 2022
, , , BNI, Book, Business, Networking 8

Businesspeople know that they need to get more customers to grow their business and reach their company goals. One of the best ways to gain new clients is through referrals from the people in your networks. I have found that an effective way to receive referrals is to be the go-to problem-solver for your desired target market.

I’m going to share a mini course on how to attract your ideal customer from the book, The Connector Effect, which I co-authored with Graham Weihmiller and Robert Skrob.

Let’s get started. There are three parts to this exercise and all three need to be completed for best results. Within two minutes or less, write a response to each of these questions or requests. Don’t overthink your answers and know that the more you treat this as a lightning-round type of exercise, the more you’ll get out of it.

  1. Describe Your Ideal Customer

Many would-be marketers fail because they never define a target client. Instead, they use words like “everybody” or “anybody.” Defining a target market gives your referral partners a mental picture of the best customer to refer to you.

Answer the following if your clients are consumers:

  1. Think of a person who is already a great customer for you: what area do they live in?
  2. What is their family status and profession?
  3. How does their household income compare with the average?
  4. What are they planning, bragging or complaining about?

If your clients are other businesses, answer these questions:

  1. Think of a company that is already a great customer for you: What line of business is that customer in?
  2. What’s the approximate size?
  3. Who makes the buying decisions for your product or service?
  4. What’s the problem they are trying to solve when buying your product?

When you are specific, you are serving your fellow members in your networking group by giving them a clear idea of your ideal patron. The more detailed you are, the more effective they will be in finding those referrals for you.

  1. What problems are you solving for them?

Too many businesspeople talk about their products and services. This sounds self-serving, however, talking about the problems you solve makes you into a giver who attracts customers.

  1. List at least three problems your good customer has that makes them ideal for your business.
  2. What is the worst thing that could possibly happen to your clients if their problems aren’t solved?
  3. What is the best thing that can happen once their problems are solved?
  4. Do you have success stories to illustrate how you help your customers? (Client testimonials are a great way to give your network a clearer idea of what exactly you deliver, and they demonstrate that your group members can trust you to deliver what you promise.)

  1. Perfect Your Presentation

Now that you’ve identified examples of your experience as a problem-solver, let’s pull the above information into a brief presentation that you can share during business networking meetings, industry events, and business mixers.

Here are the three elements of the perfect business introduction:

  1. State your professional classification.
  2. Tell a brief story about a problem you solved for a customer.
  3. Request a referral – “who do you know who is [insert target customer] who suffers [from the issue you corrected in the brief story].” Be specific!

It’s important to remember that each presentation is only about ONE particular problem that you solved for your client. Avoid the laundry list – if you overshare by telling everything you do, it will dilute the effectiveness of your presentation, resulting in few, if any, referral opportunities.

These three steps will help you develop presentations that attract the customers you want from your referral partners.
Once you learn how to create these presentations for your business, you can also use this skill for any club, charity, or campaign that you lead to develop an easy and memorable way to talk about those activities, too.  

I’d like to hear your feedback and results from doing this exercise. Share your story in the comments section.

The Downside of a Q&A Sessionstring(34) "The Downside of a Q&A Session"

February 22, 2016
, Building Relationships, Public Speaking 1

ID-10041287One of the most awkward parts of giving a presentation or lecture is the question and answer session after the main presentation. Not only is it awkward, it isn’t always necessary when it comes to business presentations.

Of course, question and answer sessions may be beneficial when you are giving a “How to” presentation, and you want to ensure your audience fully understands the topic.

Here are four reasons why a Q&A is not always your best bet:

  1. You never know what kinds of questions the audience may spring on you. You could be the most educated person in the world on insulating a home, but there is always that person who will ask a question phrased in such a way to where you don’t know how to answer them, and your credibility with the group is destroyed.
  2. Questions people ask during a Q&A portion may be better answered during a one-to-one. One of the best ways to build relationships with a contact is by spending some solo time with them, talking about what you both do and getting to know each other a bit.
  3. Q&As can be time drains. Sometimes people do ask valuable questions during a Q&A, but many times the process of getting people to ask questions, and having some questions asked just be duplicates of each other, can really kill an event agenda.
  4. Your Q&A is not an open forum. Sometimes, audiences will use a Q&A time to air grievances, complain, express difficulties, etc., but this is definitely not the time that you would want to address issues like these.

When you conclude a presentation, you should encourage your audience to speak to you after with any questions or one-to-one requests. This will give you an opportunity to hear questions, and address them individually, while developing relationships with potential contacts.

Don’t Make This Mistake at Your Next Networking Eventstring(59) "Don’t Make This Mistake at Your Next Networking Event"

January 24, 2011
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , Networking, Networking Prep, Referrals 29

If you were sitting in an important meeting with your biggest client and you got a text message, would you stop listening to your client and completely tune him out in order to respond to the text message?

What if you got a phone call . . . would you stop mid-presentation as you were pitching your most important client about your newest product in order to answer the call??  Of course you wouldn’t!  That would be a blatantly rude move on your part and it would put your most valued client relationship at risk.

So, why in the world would anybody ever even consider looking at their mobile phone during a networking meeting?? Make no mistake, a good reason for looking at, picking up, or using your mobile phone in any way during any type of networking meeting does not exist!

One of the fastest ways to ruin your credibility and earn yourself a reputation as being rude, unprofessional, and undeserving of referrals is to use your mobile phone during a networking meeting. It virtually screams to your networking partner(s): I don’t care what you have to say because I have better things to do right now and this meeting is not worth my time.

If you want results from your networking efforts, which I’m assuming you do if you’re reading this blog, then that is the last thing you would ever feel about or  say to anyone in your network.  But, if you’re using your mobile phone during meetings with people in your referral network, I promise you–not only is that the exact message you are sending them, you’re also wasting their time and yours.

So, do yourself a favor and check your phone one last time before your networking meeting . . . check that it is completely turned off and don’t turn it back on until you leave the meeting.  Remember, networking meetings and mobile phones don’t mix!