How To Win More Clients

Two words. Client acquisition. Or here’s another two. Business development. Words that fill many business owners with dread. 

I would say it’s a challenge that most entrepreneurs I work with struggle with.

In a webinar I ran, the owner of a B2B professional services company said she had a sales challenge: she was finding it difficult to win new business. Revenues had been flat for a long time. What did I suggest?

She said the issue was attracting enough new prospects.

A marketing or a sales challenge?

I explained that I call this a marketing rather than a sales challenge. My definition of

'marketing' in the B2B space is all activities that attract prospects to having a conversation, and 'sales' is converting them into paying clients.

She went on to say that she and her team had worked hard on activities such as:

• Social media

• Advertising

• Putting on events

• PR

• Asking their existing clients for referrals. 

They had also tried networking with non-competing professional services companies, and, although there were often warm words, no referrals were ever forthcoming.

There was a chorus of agreement from around our virtual table — this was evidently a common problem.

Manufacturing businesses inherently understand the need to open distribution channels to get to their target market, such as direct (e.g. website), indirect (e.g. retailers, importers in other countries), whereas professional services companies often do not, or, if they do, they believe it isn't possible.

Overcoming concerns

So I asked the participants to imagine that we were on the board of a breakfast cereal startup; we had a fantastic new product that was fast becoming popular with our online community; if only we could get it out to a wider audience. What could we do to get it stocked by one or more of the major retailers?

They chimed in with lots of suggestions:

"We have to get them to taste it."

"They'll need to make enough margin."

"They'll need to visit the factory."

"We'll have to show them we can be trusted on food safety."

"They'll probably want to run a small pilot at one of their smaller stores."

"They'll want to know how much we're going to spend on promoting it."

I asked, "Can you see what's in common about these points?" After a while, they realised these were mostly concerns that needed to be overcome.

How does it make you feel?

I explained this is no different from the concerns a potential referrer feels when you

approach them — think about how you feel when someone approaches you. No matter how impressive they seem, how likely are you to refer them to your best client?

Would you feel comfortable that they would give them excellent service? That they won’t undermine your relationship with them? That you can trust them, and the rest of their team you haven’t met, to treat your best client well?

And, of course, that their culture and the way they do business sits well with you.

Making pre-qualified referrals flow

In the same way that a buyer at a major retailer has concerns that must be overcome in order for them to stock the product, it's vital to overcome similar concerns of a potential referrer. Only when they have been overcome, will the referrals flow.

This takes time. In my experience, months of gradually building up trust.

How about the other side of the equation, in other words the benefits for the referrer? In the breakfast cereal scenario, the answer's obvious: sales and profits for the manufacturer and the retailer.

However, in the B2B professional services world, the answer isn't so obvious. It may mean you pay them a referral fee, or that your referrer builds loyalty with the business they’ve referred to you; maybe you reciprocate with referrals back to them.

Or perhaps the referrer gains more knowledge about the client they refer to you.

The key point here is that it takes time and effort to (a) overcome often unstated concerns, and (b) co-create benefits for a win-win working relationship.

As I finished explaining this, there was excitement around our virtual table; several business owners, including the person who had asked the question, said they wanted to try this approach out ASAP and see what happens. I’m glad to say that several attendees that day reported back with good results over the next few months.

This is an evergreen problem I hear crop up regularly. And regular pre-qualified referrals continue to be my evergreen solution!

If you would like to talk about how I can support you with your business, do get in touch. I’d love to hear from you.