What is the way to ask for business from a client, without saying that I am desperate?
Let us look at a thought model on how we get business from clients?
Let’s say that you already have established a first contact with a prospective client, May be you are marketing a candidate, or doing a reference check or whatever.
So you are talking with them on the phone, what you don’t want to do is say, “Joe, You have a budget, I need money, what searches can I work on to take your money?
That’s a withdrawal. You want to ask the same question, but you need to phrase it in terms of making a deposit. As we all know that every relationship that you have has an emotional bank account, you want to put more deposits, than withdrawals.
Your thoughts when talking to a prospective client should be something like this. There is a delicate balance, part of you should be thinking, “You are so lucky that I am calling you right now, because of the value that I can bring to you.”
You need to have that confidence, even if you are brand new. If you are brand new in the business, just pretend that you are a big player, I am not talking about being cocky, I am not talking about being arrogant. I am talking about being Confident.
You don’t need to brag about yourself, it doesn’t matter what other people think about you. When you are good and you know it, then it doesn’t matter what other people think about you. When you are good and you know it, people will seek you out.
Let’s say you are on phone with a prospect, let’s assume that you just did a reference check for a candidate, how can you make transition into “How can I get your business?”
You need to start with this, “How are things in your market right now?” that’s a good way to transit from the initial discussion. Remember everyone loves to give an input. They love to talk about what they think on a certain topic or issue. You need to take caution with this; if you don’t have any knowledge of the industry trends, then I won’t advice you to go for this. You need to look for common area of interest; it can be sports, weather, etc.
What we are trying to do is to gain a level of Trust, there is a process. There are three steps in this process:
Common Area of Interest: Look for common area of interest, it can be industry information, common relationships (Common people that you know), may be you have gone to same college, or you are a member of a common professional group. You can always ask questions like, What do they think about growth of their company in next quarter, or What do they think about hiring plans of their company in next quarter, they might get back to you, asking what do you think?. This kick starts a conversation, so you are playing ping pong of questions and answers with each other.
Build Rapport: Questions like, if you have asked about the growth trends of their company, you can ask, how it impacts you, how long have you been working there.
Final Closure: Instead of asking, are there any searches that I can work on for you? Say this – “You know what Joe, I am seeing some moment of some very sharp people right now, If I happen to see someone out there that you would want to hear about , what type of person would that be? You ask them that, you will have clients that will say, “Well we are not looking for anybody, but if you find a senior claims analyst I want to hear about that.”
Remember don’t say what you have that I can work on, that is a withdrawal from the emotional bank account.
