Being Busy Is Unattractive

There’s a popular misconception that showing your customers how busy you are makes you look popular, which means you’re the best choice for a job. After all, no one wants to suffer from FOMO — the fear of missing out.

But here’s the reality: When the vast majority of your customers hear you talking about how busy you are, they start to believe you don’t have time for them.

They think, “My jobs aren’t big enough. My work isn’t cool enough.”

By leading with how swamped you are, you indirectly tell the potential client that if their job isn’t as neat as the one you’re showing them pictures of, they can take their business elsewhere.

The fact of the matter is if you’re running your business correctly, you’re more concerned about the type of customer you attract than the type of job someone happens to have in a particular week.

Making yourself look busy by showing off a big project does describe a capability. It says, “Hey, we’re playing in the big leagues.” But it also tells the buyer that anything less than the big leagues isn’t valuable to you.

It’s one of those marketing mistakes I frequently run into. You can see it yourself if you hop on LinkedIn or Facebook and scroll to see what the social media teams are putting out there. In their defense, most social media teams don’t know any better — they’re posting what the boss told them to.

I’ve moderated this discussion (i.e. argument) many, many times. The business development team or the owners of the company want to tout a big show and their big capability by highlighting, for example, a giant LED wall. The marketing team says, “Yeah, that sounds cool.”

But no one thinks about the effect this has on your potential or even existing customers, who now have a reason to blame you for returning their call too slowly.

“I know you guys have been really busy on that big job and you’ve got that big, new LED wall,” says the customer. “So you’re probably not interested in my little project.”

Now you’ve created an awkward, passive-aggressive relationship.

I’ve seen it happen too many times. What should you do instead?

It’s more important to show an ideal prospect how they can engage now (or whenever they’re ready) and to show how accessible you are. Your success is rooted in how and why your ideal clients engage with you the first time.

4 Ways to Engage Ideal Clients

1. Talk about how a client engaged with you.

Instead of showcasing your big LED wall, showcase a person who benefited by engaging with your company.

“Mary came to us with an open mind and lots of questions. Three months later, she’s on stage being congratulated by her CEO for a job well done in producing the event. And look at that beautiful LED wall in the background!”

It’s just a different way of saying what’s really important. What’s really important here is Mary was successful. Your client is being highlighted, not the LED wall.

Your potential customer wants to be Mary.

2. Showcase your clients, not the show.

It’s not about how many graduations you did in a weekend. It’s about how many colleges and universities will only do graduations with you.

Don’t tell somebody you did five graduations last weekend. Instead, say, “Here are all the universities that rely on us to make their graduations a success.”

The former says you had a really busy weekend and you overcame your challenges — which is what you’re expected to do. The latter says, “Here are all the people who trust us. You can trust us, too.”

Nobody cares that you did five graduations last weekend. Another company will tell your client, “They can only do five graduations in a weekend? We can do 20.”

Don’t talk about your busyness. Talk about the universities you worked with and describe the caliber of clients that get your attention.

3. Connect needs with processes.

Connecting needs with processes is important. Some customers think your solutions are canned. They think all they need to do is ask and you’ll pull up innovative ideas.

But there’s a process you need to go through to come up with the results customers expect. If you’re going to show somebody a cool technological solution, you need to focus on the process that said this solution was needed.

To connect needs with processes, you might say something like, “Our client Tim needed an event concept that blended with his company’s distinct logo. Our event design team came up with this custom LED solution, and our 3D animator, Judy, took the concept over the top. Here’s an image of it.”

A client might say, “I liked that 3D LED thing you did. Can we do that?” What you really want them to say is, “I want the same thing Tim got. Would you help me go through the process of designing something that meets our brand and strategic needs?”

That’s where value is created. If you end up using an LED wall, great. But who really cares?

The important thing isn’t the technology — it’s the process. Focus on the process that delivers the results.

4. Meet your client where they are.

Say a client doesn’t have a timetable and you want them to have one. This is an opportunity for you to teach the client what’s possible with extra time in your production schedule.

When you showcase a solution, showcase what extra time would allow this customer to do. This trains the client to be a better buyer.

If you showcase a big job you were asked to do at the last minute, all you’re doing is allowing the potential client to demand last-minute solutions. That’s not the ideal client.

If you say, “We had six months lead time on this one, so we were able to come up with this solution,” it paints an entirely different picture. Lead time is good, and for lead time, you need a timetable. Set the expectation that lead time is an especially important point.

Conclusion

Remember, being busy isn’t attractive, but engaging ideal customers is beautiful.

Everybody wins.