5 Tips to Get More Clients
Tags: Customer Engagement, Entrepreneurship, Marketing Strategies, Scaling, Lead Generation

1. Learn more about the customers you already have

This is the first thing I tell my clients when they ask for marketing help. What do you know about your current customers and prospects? Usually, it’s shockingly little. You and all your best customers should all be on a first name basis with each other, maybe even all your customers. I know the names of most of my clients’ kids. I know when they’re on my websites searching for information. I know when they didn’t like one of my products or services, and I definitely have an arsenal of ways to contact them if needed. And they appreciate when I do.

That’s because they trust me. They trust me with their contact information, and they want me to have it because they know I’m only going to use it to bring them value. They understand I just want to know if they got what they paid for, if there’s anything else they wish I provided.

I just want more information on how they, the user, would benefit even more greatly from our business.

Why does this help you get more customers? Because it helps you drill down what people are looking for, and what triggers people to make the decision to purchase your product. It also tells you why they don’t, or why they never buy from you again after the first time.

Track your customers. Figure out how they got to your website, or your open house, or your restaurant. People love exchanging their information for free stuff, which is why rewards programs are generally a great way to collect users information. Surveys, events, seminars, newsletters, vouchers, 1 on 1 free consultations. All of these are ways to provide value to your customers in exchange for more information about them, the problems they face, what they think about your product, and how they would like it to improve.

Use your resources to get more information about your web traffic. Don’t stop there though, you should also be using your resources to get more information about your competition’s web traffic.

Compare, improve, reiterate.

With tools like Google Analytics, CrazyEgg, and AHrefs you can build amazing information systems about your customers, your web traffic, and your competition’s in order to figure out what works, what doesn’t, and why.

Find out where your users are coming from and figure out how to start tracking them before they get to your platform, or store, or restaurant. If they make a reservation, or RSVP, don’t just ask them for their name and email, ask them how they heard about the event, if they’re a customer already, and what are they expecting to get out of this experience? Ask them if they’d be interested in a 1 on 1 call to diagnose exactly what sorts of problems you might be able to solve for them. Often you should know this before you even meet them. If they come from Facebook, make sure you embed a Facebook pixel on your website. Most major content platforms have something similar. If they used search you can get a lot of useful insights through Google analytics with MOZ and SEMRush. Again, this will not only give you information on your users, but will allow you to compare it to your competitors so you can

Compare, improve, reiterate.

2. Talk to your customers

We touched on this in the last point, but this doesn’t have to be just to collect information. It could be to help them with a problem, to teach them, or maybe just to ask how they’re doing. Do you know how each of your customers were impacted by COVID-19? When did their kids go back to school? Were they working from home? How about their spouse? Who watched the kids?!

Building relationships with your clients does a lot for you. First of all, it gives them a reason to come back. Many of my clients will try a new service simply because they support the business and its owner (me). They trust that it will bring them value, and if it doesn’t they know they will be heard and the business will do what they can to make it right.

They know you understand their situation, and therefore they trust you’ll have better solutions to their problems than your competitors. Do you know how many times a client has called me and asked me “do you know anyone that does X?” And I said, “hey I could do that for you” resulting in us both getting super excited because, once again, we realize we go together like peanut butter and jelly. That is the type of relationship you want to have with your customers, peanut butter and jelly. You were made for each other, act like it.

Years ago one of my clients who I provided server administration for asked if I make User Interfaces. I said something along the lines of “to be honest I do but they kind of suck, and I know you’re a perfectionist. One of my competitors makes beautiful UI’s though, and for pretty cheap.” Then I did some research and gave them a few more options they might be interested in. You might be thinking “why would I refer a client to a competitor?” But don’t you see? I just solved a problem for my client. I provided a service, a consultation, an answer. For free mind you. I brought them value, and they trust that I always do.

My customers and I are best friends, like peanut butter and jelly.

3. Give your customers a community

If you’ve been following me on social media (@Gedwill_thee_stallion) you know I love discord and reddit. They are the best online community builders available right now. I am in communities with my customers, we share memes to each other, sometimes we even talk about the taboo topics like politics. I invite them to marketing communities, tech blogs, trading communities and subreddits to help them up their content strategy. I tag them in posts I think they’ll find interesting, I CC them newsletters I get from blogs, and call them up when there’s a community I find that they’ll like. Because that’s valuable, and we all know if there’s one thing I want to do for my customers, it’s provide value.

Become a leader, a subject matter expert, in these communities. Back when my target market was software development teams, I was extremely active on Quora where I’d answer questions about complex software topics. I was a top writer in the SQL, Python, and GoLang topics for over 2 years. I was a major influencer in the communities my clients went to for information, so they recognized me, they trusted me, and we had a rock solid relationship. They trusted I knew what I was talking about, and I had no problem helping them solve problems they couldn’t afford to pay me for. I provided value for them not just as an engineering consultant but as an influencer in the communities that brought value to them organically.

When I was an intern at an engineering firm, my boss used to hold monthly “seminars” where he’d round up everyone he knew and they’d get hammered on the beach. Not sure if they got any engineering done but I know everyone loved it and the community was built. Any time anyone in that group needed something, they’d tap into the “beach crew” which was just a giant group of engineering entrepreneurs in Santa Barbara who all loved whiskey. I tell you what, my CEO never ran out of whiskey lovers to sell microcontrollers to.

Marketing to your communities is also one of the most effective ways to launch a new product, because you can trust you will get as fair and accurate of an evaluation as possible. Your community will not have a problem telling you that your product stinks, or that your service is too confusing to use. Hopefully they tell you that before you even start making it.

They will also be constantly talking about problems they face — many of which they may be interested in paying you to solve. I recently joined a lot of blockchain/crypto communities, looking for people to talk to about problems they are experiencing. I love asking them how they came across these problems, how they plan to solve them, etc. It gets my juices flowing about how I can get in there and create value to the community. I think I’m starting to see a theme here…

4. Build strategic partnerships

This is the one I see often overlooked, which surprises me because it is what Venture Capitalists look for most when doing a startup valuation.

“It’s all about who you know”

We’ve all heard that before. Strategic partnerships are absolutely essential to scaling your business as quickly as possible. All it takes is one solid relationship to take you from “small business owner” to “startup executive.”

My favorite way to summarize the strategy of building strategic partnerships is to “go up the chain of command.” If you have a vendor, find a way to introduce yourself to their boss. Start creating value for her. Repeat.

Move up the chain of command with everyone you meet, often times if you have a good relationship with someone they will happily introduce you to their boss, especially if they are confident you’re going to put in a good word for them.

Talk to all the merchandisers, vendors, and drivers of your store and ask if you can put in a good word for them to their boss. Do so, and think of a way to provide value to that person (remember, most of the time all you have to do is ask). Ask if they have some new products they need to test out and you’d be willing to put some on your shelves.

Every person you meet probably has a boss, and we all would love for someone to put in a good word for us to our boss. This is the tried and true way to move up the chain of command. You would be surprised how many executives I know simply by telling the boss of an account manager, merchandiser, or agent that they have a great worker. A compliment about a worker is a compliment about how their boss runs the show, and who doesn’t love compliments?

Another great way to meet strategic partners is through networking events. In engineering basically every technology has a suite of events they throw every year. This goes for virtually every professional niche from sales to HR. Attending these is a great way to find strategic partners.

So what do you actually want strategic partners for? The most valuable aspects of strategic partnerships are custom solutions and pilot programs. Because you’re a trusted partner, they will trust you with their pilot programs. Often times companies are afraid to release a new product because they don’t want to taint their brand or quality of service. If you make it known you understand this version of the product isn’t as thoroughly tested, they may offer it to you. Often this comes at a discount, or even for free as long as you give a thorough review/analysis, and they may even tell you the way to get the most out of it.

Custom solutions are also a great aspect of strategic partnerships. Remember, these companies are all trying to do the same thing you are — bring value. If they hear a problem you have, and they know of a solution, they’ll probably just give it to you. Many times companies are chock full of value, but they just don’t know how to productize/monetize it, so it sits on the shelf waiting for the perfect customer to ask “hey, do you guys know anyone who does X?”

The last value of strategic partnerships almost goes without saying. They may have access to relationships or prospects that could completely level up your business. They might even be that prospect themselves. If you know the CEO of the biggest marketing client for a prospect, that CEO may help you piggy back off of her and help you land a contract too. These partnerships go both ways, and you can flex that relationship to your own clients as well.

5. Solve Problems

It should go without saying, but it doesn’t because money is just something that can’t go overlooked. You aren’t here to make money, you’re here to solve problems. As much as it seems like that’s just some cliche, feel good, bulls**t, it’s true.

Nobody is going to pay you to make yourself money, so you’re never going to find clients with that mentality. People do, however, pay top dollar to have their problems solved. Find problems people have, Solve them. This is how you bring value to people. This is how you find and keep customers.