5 Reasons Your Clients Don’t Take you Seriously
Congratulations, you did it! You finally took the leap and followed your heart’s desire to start your dream business. You took the risk, put in the work and put everything on the line for this dream. Now what? You you had a few clients here and there but your business is not taking off as fast as you had imagined? Before you get completely frustrated and give up on this life long dream, consider looking at yourself and your business objectively. Ask yourself these few questions (and be honest).
1. ARE YOU DOING YOUR BEST WORK?
Often times in the early stages of a new business, the business owner is eager and hungry to grasp at any project that comes their way. They have a hard time saying no to clients and end up setting the bar higher than they can reach it. Trouble is, this is not a sustainable business model. If you are over promising and under delivering it can cost you returning clients and referrals.
Now, think back to your last 3 jobs, when your client hired you for a service, did you meet their expectations enough for them to run to their friends and rave about you? Did you solve whatever problem they needed help solving? If service was the reason they hired you, put yourself in their shoes and think about how satisfied would you have been receiving that service. It’s very easy to say “Sure! I can do it!” but you should make sure you have enough time and resources to complete the task.
2. ARE YOU CONSISTENT AND PREDICTABLE?
How well do you communicate with your clients? Are you quick to reply to their emails or calls? Today’s world is impatient and clients often want the service to begin as soon as they made up their minds to hire you or they want the product shipped as soon as they ordered it.
While it is not possible for us to be on call 24/7 (because we all require some much needed healing personal time) if you have demanding clients perhaps you can automate some parts of your business? If you often get asked the same questions consider creating a list of Questions & Answers that you can direct your clients to right on your website, or perhaps you have pre written responses saved on your phone/computer which you can quickly share with your clientele. This can save you lots of time by eliminating redundancy.
Perhaps you can invest in a Virtual Assistant that can take some of the admin or customer service related work off your hands.
The most important thing is that each client feels like they are your only client and that if they have an issue or a question, you will get back to them in a timely manner.
3. DO YOU HAVE A PERSONAL BRANDING PRESENCE?
Today it’s not enough to simply have a great product or provide great service. Your customers want to connect with you on a personal level. While branding may sound daunting or difficult it doesn’t have to be overly complicated. Choosing the right color pallet for your brand and using it in your promotional materials and on social media is a great start. Most very successful entrepreneurs, such as Marie Forleo, Amy Porterfield, Julie Solomon and Jenna Kutcher are perfect examples of how it can take your business to the next level.
One of the most important aspects of creating your personal brand is hiring a personal brand photographer. It’s smart to hire an experienced professional who specializes in this photography niche. Someone who will understand your vision and will work with you to create a beautiful set of images to reflect your vision. Amy Porterfield dedicated an entire podcast on this topic, you can find it here https://www.amyporterfield.com .
4. DO YOU TALK NEGATIVELY ABOUT YOUR COMPETITION?
True professionals will never talk badly about peers in their industry. Don’t do it, it will only make you look bad. Your work should speak for itself. Your customer interactions with you should only be positive. Let’s face it, negative talk is the opposite of positive, so leave it out of your client conversations. Even if a client brings up and speaks badly about your competitor, resist the urge to participate, hear them out and try to shift the attention back to you and your amazing work.
5. ARE YOU LISTENING TO YOUR CLIENT’S NEEDS?
Of course you are a professional and even though you may know what will work best for your client, they may have their own original ideas. Make sure to truly listen to what they want. I suggest creating a questionnaire for clients to fill out. Not only will it give you a better understanding of what your client wants, it may help them narrow down their vision and help better communicate their ideas with you.
Related article: How to declutter and curate your online presence.
