I know this sounds crazy, but before jumping on any calls with clients, it can help grow your business by choosing clients and defining what types of clients you won’t work with.
Instead of chasing every lead and closing every possible deal, we need to determine if a client are a good fit. I often say that I feel tempted to chase pennies when I could be making dollars. Unfortunately, this is true with clients that end up taking more time or effort than what the project is worth.
We do not lose a client by saying no. We gain better opportunities to be closer to the right ones.
To qualify your ideal client type, you can also create your own list of things you expect from your client.
“My business partner and I have a list of standards and expectations we have for our clients. It describes characteristics that we’ve seen almost universally in the clients we’ve helped. For a stress-free and successful relationship, we want to make sure the new clients we bring on share many of these traits. We expect to work with a client who get our approach because we’ve learned that working with clients who don’t understand it leads to unpleasant outcomes. We also ask clients about their own expectations. That helps us get to know their company and team, but it also lets us gauge how well we fit into what they’re looking for. When we make a mistake and let a client through who doesn’t match our standards, having this list makes it easier to let the client go and refer them to somebody who’s a better fit.” – Matthew Edgar
We need to be picky with who we work with, making room for a good client that will pay us our worth. Creating your red flag list might take some painful personal experiences if you are new in the industry.
