Reducing the friction of gaining new clients
Let’s face it, for most of us, engaging new clients is hard.
Maybe it’s getting started and picking up the phone.
Perhaps it’s maintaining this kind of activity when things get busy.
Or perhaps you’re not sure where to start.
But the challenge of engaging new clients (traditionally known as “sales”) depends a lot on our interpretation of what it is we’re doing, when we think about this topic.
Most of us who run our own businesses are aware that our business grows as we do. So there's an outer game, where we do things publicly and externally, and then there's an inner game, where we develop and grow the ability to create things that matter and are valuable to us.
How do you develop resourcefulness, resilience and courage?
One of the best ways to grow yourself is to do business development.
Business development involves all sorts of things most of us fear. Rejection. Exposing ourselves. Feeling like an imposter, perhaps.
That can be a place to avoid, or a place of learning.
Some people describe moving into this place of learning as "getting out of our comfort zone".
In Generative Leadership, we call this place "our learning edge" – the place where we go from comfortable to in the learning zone.
One way to easily find your edge is to go out and attempt to enroll a new client.
For most people, that's almost guaranteed to show them the edge of what they know and feel confident in.
Engaging with new or different clients, and having them agree to work with you is one of the best ways to learn about your inner game.
So what shows up?
Maybe it's a part of us that we thought we'd left behind and moved on from.
Perhaps it's a feeling of nervousness, a tendency to rush – and perhaps those things get in the way of us really listening to the person in front of us.
Or perhaps there are moments of doubt, where we feel a lack of confidence or like something of an imposter when we go to offer our gift to a potential client.
The challenge when you're a coach or consultant is that people buy you.
When you're talking to a potential client, they only want to know two things:
Can I trust you, and
Can you help me?
So how do we work with these parts of ourselves that make conversations with new clients difficult? How do we improve our inner game so we have more energy, more confidence, and so we embody more of what clients want?
The challenge is not so much to try and get rid of our edge, but to change our relationship with it.
There is always an edge. There is always something new to learn.
The answer is to move with our edge, rather than trying to pretend it's not there.
So next time you go into something that you find difficult, choose to pay attention to the one thing you want to be different in your relationship with your edge. Practice being with it, rather than worrying about it and see what changes.
Interested in learning more? Sign up for the FREE WEBINAR here.