A lot of consultants, coaches and high value entrepreneurs are of the opinion that they should accept every new client that wants to work with them.
On the surface, this seems like a solid strategy. You have a potential paying client that is ready to work with you and they want to pay you for that work.
Win, Win. Right?
Nope, wrong. This is almost always a lose, lose scenario.
I’m here to tell you with 100% certainty that this is the wrong mindset to have in your business and if you’re currently taking on everyone that wants to work with you, you’re probably holding your business back and causing a ton of unnecessary stress and overwhelm in your life.
In my Premium Clients Every Day program I turn down approximately 25% of potential clients that want to enroll in the coaching program.
This means that after speaking with four clients clients on Strategy Session calls, only three of them are eligible and qualified to move forward and enroll into my program.
There are a lot of specific reasons why a client might not be eligible for Premium Clients Every Day, but, the broad reason is that they are just not a good fit for what I do at that time.
When I first started out in my consulting business, I used to take on any client that wanted to work with me. “If they’re paying, I’m working” might as well have been my old motto.
But, I quickly realized that not only was this a “fools gold” strategy, but, it was actively killing my business, my growth, my mindset, and my personal life.
I used to speak to clients that I knew would be “problem clients” or “difficult to work with.”
Instead of politely declining these types of clients like I do now, I used to take them on and tell myself that I could overcome their obstacles and “get through it.”
Unfortunately, this never actually happened. What happened was that these few “nightmare clients” would take up 90% of my time, have unrealistic expectations, be unwilling or unable to work hard and ultimately blamed me when things didn’t work out exactly as they had planned.
This led to an unfortunate situation where I had one or two clients that would actively sabotage my business every month which led to a ton of stress, headaches and issues for me.
On top of that, these few clients would take my time and energy away from the hard working, enthusiastic and overall great clients that I was also working with.
The day that my business completely changed was the day I made the concerted effort to truly make sure that a client was perfect for my programs before agreeing to work with them.
After that day, my business was completely transformed.
Now, I only work with motivated, enthusiastic clients who are truly ready and able to take control of their businesses.
And for those clients that are not quite the right fit? It’s now extremely easy for me to figure that out up front, and politely decline these clients and at times when appropriate, point them in another direction that may be more helpful.
In June of 2016, before I enroll any new client into my program, they have already attended my webinar, filled out an application, scheduled a Strategy Session with me, and spoke with me for an hour about their business and the expectations for my program.
My marketing funnel automatically filters out the “bad fit” clients and by the time I speak with a potential “good fit client” they already understand who I am, what I do and how I’ve helped past clients like them.
This makes it incredibly easy to only enroll perfect fit clients who will get the best and most transformative results from my program.
Are you currently working with “issue clients” or do you feel like a percentage of the clients you currently work with are problems?
I promise you it doesn’t have to be this way and the sooner you start rejecting clients that are not a good fit for you, the sooner you will enjoy true freedom, growth, fulfillment and free time in your business and life.
Summary: Do not take on every new client that wants to work with you. Set up a marketing funnel that automatically “weeds out” problem clients before you speak to them, and make sure you conduct a Strategy Session with every potential new client that is interested in working with you.
Action Steps:
- Set up your marketing funnel to weed out problem clients before you speak with them.
- Make sure you conduct Strategy Sessions with every potential client that is interested in working with you.
- Ask pre-planned, open ended questions to figure out if a potential client is a great fit to work with you.
- Enroll clients that are a perfect fit for what you do.
- Politely decline clients that are not a perfect fit for what you do.
- Enjoy your life again, experience incredible business growth, get amazing client results 100% of the time and eliminate frustration, issues and problems in your business.