Here's how to increase your client base...

rebeccakepple

The error most businesses make is to try something once and if it doesn’t work, give up. You need to carry on and give your marketing a chance to work. If you are someone who does a promotion, and then gives up because it didn’t bring you new clients, then you are going 90% of the way, but stopping just short of success.

Most marketing gurus agree it takes between 5 and 7 contacts with a client for them to want to buy. Some say more than this but for most people it’s around the 5-7 contacts before they are ready to buy.

What I mean by ‘contacts’ is simply how many times you or your business have had contact with that prospective client.

It’s all about Jane

Lets go through 2 scenarios.

Scenario One

So let’s say you send out some flyers around your local area and someone called ‘Jane’ who has never met you before receives one. This is your first contact with Jane.
Now let’s say your flyer advertises the fact you do a form of healing massage and Jane is quite interested in this. So Jane calls you. That’s contact number two.
When Jane calls, she asks you a bit about your treatments and asks what the price is. You give her all the information and have a lovely chat but Jane doesn’t book in. She says she just wanted to check prices and she’ll probably call back when she has her diary in front of her.
But Jane doesn’t call back and you never hear from her again.

Sounding familiar? This is the most common scenario and it happens every day to hundreds of businesses in this industry. Lets look at Scenario Two…

Scenario Two

You send out your flyers around your local area and Jane gets one. This is your first contact with Jane.
Jane is quite interested in your massage treatments that the flyer advertises. So Jane calls you. That’s contact number two.
When Jane calls, she asks you a bit about your treatments and asks what the price is. You give her all the information and have a lovely chat but Jane doesn’t book in. She says she just wanted to check prices and she’ll probably call back when she has her diary in front of her.
You now say ‘Of course, I completely understand. I do specials every now and again, if you like I can send you out some info next time we have one. What’s the best email address for you?’.
Jane thinks ‘great, a special! Ok’ and gives you her email address.
Now Jane didn’t book in during the phone call because she’s really quite stressed at work. And even though she knows that a massage will help her, she just can’t take the time out right now. She now gets off the phone with you, goes back to work and forgets all about it.
About a week later, Jane gets the first of your weekly email newsletters, which contain a free top tip for how to reduce stress and also an offer to book now. She thinks ‘oh, yes that’s good advice! I must book in soon too’ and then promptly goes back to work and forgets all about it. This is contact number three.
The following week Jane gets your next weekly e-newsletter with another top tip and thinks to herself ‘wow, these guys really know what they are doing. I really must book in’. And then her boss walks in and she has to get back to work. This is contact number four.
…. And so on…. After several emails Jane picks up the phone and books her first appointment.
At her appointment, Jane thanks you for the great advice in your email and you have a good chat about how she can reduce her stress levels through massage.
Because Jane now trusts you and your advice, she decides to book in again and when she gets back to the office she tells everyone all about you. In fact, Jane books in once a week, every week for a year and raves about you to anyone who can listen. You get at least 5 new clients through her and they all book weekly as well.

Now in Scenario One you gave up after she didn’t book on that initial phone enquiry. But actually she was really interested; she was just too stressed at work to book right now. She had every intention of booking in the future, but other things got in the way.

But in Scenario Two, you didn’t assume that she wasn’t interested. You took her details, added her to your database and kept the contact going. And as a reward, eventually she turned into one of your best and most valuable clients.

NEVER EVER assume someone isn’t interested just because they don’t buy the first time you speak to them.

You don’t know what is going on in their lives. You don’t know if they are someone who takes a while to make decisions. You don’t know if they genuinely are busy right now.

If you take their contact details and keep in regular contact with them, many of them can and will turn into great clients.

In fact, the vast majority of people don’t like making on-the-spot decisions. So once they’ve chatted with you, they will want to go away and think about it. If you don’t create a system to convert these ‘thinkers’ into clients, you are loosing out on 90% of your possible clients.

Set up a regular contact system with both your clients and potential clients. Then give them time to respond.

If you don’t have a database, then you need to start creating one right now.

Creating your database

So how do you create a database that creates new clients for you regularly and continually?

Well, the golden, golden, golden rule for converting a potential client into a paying client and then getting that new client to come back is to COLLECT THEIR DETAILS.

You’ll probably already have people calling you up who are interested in coming to see you. It might be from your yellow pages advert. It might be from flyers, or a local newspaper advert, or just word of mouth, or your signage.

We’ll talk shortly about how to get more of those leads but your immediate job is to get the contact details of every single new person that calls or pops into your business. I’ll explain a lot more in my Masterclass Course what you are going to do with those contact details, how you get them to come in and turn into regular clients but for the moment, just collect their details. I can’t say it enough, over and over and over – collect their details!

When someone calls for an appointment or enquiry, ask them if they’ve been here before. It’s easy. If they say no, ask for their details. Yes you want their name; yes you want their phone number. Ideally you want their postal address but the thing that is the equivalent of pure gold to you is their email address.

Emails don’t cost you anything to send. If they give you their email address, they are clearly giving you permission to email them. You’re not going to email them all the time because you don’t want to annoy them but because they have clearly expressed an interest in your business, you WILL follow up with them in an attempt to convert them, not just to a client but to a regular client.

Once you’ve got their details add them to your database.

Now if you don’t have a database yet, create one.

Your database doesn’t need to be complicated. You just need your client’s first names and email address on a spreadsheet.

If you have a computer system that you can just pull this all off, great. If not, no worries.

Open Microsoft Excel or whatever spreadsheet program you have on your computer and create a new document. Type ‘First name’ in column one and ‘Email Address’ in column two.

Then underneath just start listing all your clients’ names and email addresses. That’s it.

You can create a lovely complicated spreadsheet with all their addresses and phone numbers if you want but the most effective and cost efficient way of marketing nowadays is via email. It’s free and it can take you literally only a split second to send an email to all of your clients and prospective clients.

When you create your database, start with putting in all your existing client’s details. Then add all your prospective clients (people who have enquired but have not actually booked an appointment or bought anything yet). Then after that, add all your friends and family!

Your friends and family are your biggest fans. They will forward your emails on to all their friends and before you know it, you’ll have lots more new clients you didn’t know about.