Unlocking the Power of One Thing

Clients seek the assistance of professional service providers to reduce their pain. In most cases, clients have been struggling for a long time and feel overwhelmed by trying to come up with their solutions to their life problems.

The client may be facing a difficult decision, or they may need guidance through a difficult period in their life. In most cases, if these individuals could come up with a resolution to their problems, most would. Lacking the resources to heal themselves, potential clients start looking for someone to help them reduce their pain and get them back on track.

As much as our new clients would love an instant solution to their problems, from experience, as a qualified and experienced professional, you know full well that is not likely to be the case. Understanding the client’s problem is the most important half of the solution. Before we can come up with appropriate solutions to our clients' problems, it's essential to know exactly what the problem is.

Despite the temptation to offer instant opinions and advice, be prepared to invest as much time as may be reasonably necessary to get to the root cause or causes of the problem. Not only will this thoroughness increase the likelihood of a better diagnosis, it will help reassure new clients that you are professionally competent and personally trustworthy. What a great way to build strong ongoing relationships with new clients.

Once satisfied with your diagnosis, the next step is to help clients understand how you and your services will help them. And here's where things can get tricky. Using terminology that they can readily comprehend, explain the process that will help reduce, if not totally eliminate, their pain and the results that they can reasonably expect.

Very early in my professional career, I learned that the business that educates the most, gains the most. This is especially true of small professional services firms like yours and mine. The more your clients appreciate your best stuff and how you can help them, the more you can do for them and they can do for you.

Source: My forthcoming book: How to Succeed in Your Professional Service Business (chapter 10)

LEARN MORE

• SEE: How to Grow Your Service Business to the Next Level in either or both of the Website and Features sections of my LinkedIn profile;
• ASK: Post a question or send me a message. Thanks in advance for your question(s).