Business Owners: More Clients, More Profits

Business owners are a profession that I have a lot of admiration and respect for. After all, where else do you get paid to help people make important, life-changing breakthroughs. The right business owner can set you on a lucrative path to success, whether you’re unsure of your next professional move, or you’re struggling to get that promotion.

There needs to be a better understanding of the business and marketing side of practising business and building a sustainable and profitable business. This will ideally lead to a move away from financial struggles that so many business owners face.

There are a lot of common mistakes that business owners make, leading them to financial struggles.

In this article, I discuss a list of these mistakes that tend to make on their journeys when establishing themselves professionally. I also provide some insightful tips on building a successful business, making the process of starting up a new business a lot simpler and smoother.

Mistake Number 1 - Trying to Make Everyone Happy

It’s regularly disclosed by successful business owners and entrepreneurs that a trap that a lot of people fall into when starting a new business is trying to please everyone, mainly because they’re excited to share their knowledge.

The most important step when starting a new business and marketing is identifying and knowing your ideal customer. The trick is looking at your own personal skills and life experiences, and to determine and understand who you are able to serve best – better than your competitors. This is where your focus needs to be. And saying ‘no’ to those that don’t fit into that picture becomes very important. Whom a practitioner chooses to support becomes just as important as the practising itself. Remember, you are your own brand, and you need to determine what distinguishes you from the rest.

Mistake Number 2 - Providing Services for Free

The second biggest mistake is not treating your business as an actual profit-making business, but more like a charity. Your marketing strategy needs to be created with your for-profit practice in mind.

This doesn’t mean that you have to turn down events where you might have the opportunity to speak for free, whilst offering your services to gain more clients.

Keeping this goal in mind - that this is your business you are trying to grow - needs to be the main priority. It’s important to remember that unstructured and casual conversations are not practising: when someone is looking to ‘pick your brain’, it’s important to reinforce that this is what you do for a living.

Mistake Number 3 - Wasting Time and Money on Social Media

While social media platforms can be used successfully for marketing your practice, there has been a change in how these platforms operate, and you might in fact not get exactly what you want from them.

Buy ads on social media if you need that extra boost, but your focus should not be on publishing content on Instagram and Facebook (thereby just building massive value for FB instead of your own practice). Your focus needs to remain on getting new clients. With the algorithms that the platforms have in place, it’s not even guaranteed that your desired audience will see your content.

Focus rather on unique ways of presenting yourself to your ideal customers. This could include publishing an article on LinkedIn, attending a networking event that is in line with your practice, being a guest on someone else’s podcast, or even simply publishing an article on your own blog. Connecting with people in real life and attracting them to what you have to offer is extremely powerful and will help your business grow.

Mistake Number 4 - Investing Money in Complicated Technology.

There are many marketing technologies out there today that help you to connect with your clients. My advice is, to begin with, basic technologies that you understand. You also want the process of getting in contact with you to be simple for your client. For example, make it easy for someone to book a time slot on your calendar. There are options such as Calendly, Schedule Once and Acuity Scheduling, which each have their own built-in features such as text and email reminders.

Make sure to look at what will grow your practice the most without getting caught up in fancy or complicated technology.

Mistake Number 5 - Not Serving First

‘Taster sessions’. Everything needs to be about the potential client and what you can do for them. That’s why giving them a complimentary taste of what you have to offer can be extremely beneficial for your business. Then, at the end of the session, it will follow naturally for you to say “would you like to do this more often?”

Business is not a product, it’s an experience. Show off what you have to offer! Create a few breakthroughs for your prospective clients in this free session.

When starting off with these free ‘taster’ sessions, don’t schedule two sessions back-to-back. You don’t know what may happen in one session, or how long it might take for the client to have a breakthrough, and you don’t want to run out of time right before you get that potential client to commit. You’ve then essentially wasted that entire session. Make sure you have enough free time around each ‘taster’ session so that there’s no limit on nurturing these potential clients. Each client is different, and time frames for each one’s needs may therefore differ. While it’s natural to consider spending two hours with a ‘taster’ session a waste of time, think of how this will come across to the client as you making such a great effort with them. It leaves clients wanting more, and makes it harder for them to say ‘no’. The psychological aspect of this is very powerful.

Business is not a product, it's an experience

Mistake Number 6 - Letting Fear Hold You Back

Stepping out of your comfort zone as a business owner is important, and needs to be done on a daily basis. Clients also want to see this quality in someone they’re working with. They want to see their practitioner doing extraordinary things in their own life.

Fear often holds business owners back - they’re afraid that they won’t know how to handle it when clients get very deep or emotional, and that’s why they never ask really powerful questions that might be transformative or provide growth for their clients. This makes their sessions good but not great. So they might get really close to signing on new clients but then they don’t.

Successful business owners know that they need to keep their prospects on the line until they have a clear commitment from them. Don’t let them switch over to “can you send me this information on email?” Successful owners are not afraid to face all the client’s objections because they know that objections are either fear or misunderstandings, and they take on facing that fear with their client even when they feel unsure of what to do. This leads to true connections with clients. When a business owner removes his/her own fear, peaceful confidence enters the space between the practitioner and the client.

Mistake Number 7 - Not Having the Right Mind-Set

You need to believe that you’re worth everything that you’re charging. Prospective clients can feel when you have self-doubt. This leads to struggling to attract and convert high-ticket clients. Focussing on results, not on the hourly rate is what successful business owners do. They know that they are doing great work, which is worth their premium pricing. Ultimately, they believe in themselves.

I like to express it like this: the value of practising is driven more by the value of the problem that someone is looking to solve, rather than what the business owner charges. When a business owner has identified a problem of high-value, a prospective client is more than likely willing to make an investment to solve this problem.

Finding your ritual or habit to work on your mindset every day is very important, whether this is meditation, yoga or a morning run. You need to be working the hardest on yourself first.

Mistake Number 8 - Not Investing in Yourself

Thinking they can do it alone is extremely na?ve and a mistake that a lot of business owners tend to make. A worse mistake is expecting clients to sign up to their expensive service, but they don’t make similar investments in their own business, for example, taking an expensive, good quality course to refine their sales skills.

Tips for Growing Your Business:

1) Practice in an area you are an expert in. Business Owners is a profession that allows you to be more of a guide. You don’t have to have all the answers, but it still helps to establish credibility in the speciality area you are working in. A prospective client is looking for someone who understands their particular challenges, and ideally has a proven track record for having accomplished what they are looking for.

2) Create a sales funnel that brings in consistent leads.

This can be done in the following 4 steps:

• Attract: get the attention of your target audience and continue to attract new people
• Engage: communicate with these people effectively
• Invite: invite suitable prospective clients to their first (free) session with you
• Serve: conversation is key - talk to them before you “sell” them

These steps should be the essential focus in building and maintaining your business. Everything else is an unnecessary extra - like relaunching your website or being active on all social media platforms. Focus on a small number of activities that will get you results.

Have a look at your own business. Can you identify any of these common mistakes? How can you improve your business?