Yes it's nice when a client has a budget and a need, but is that enough? Are there not criteria that you should have, that qualify or disqualify a buyer?
The Sales for Nice People Podcast
Ep 48: Why you need to define your client-filters
Yes, the contract might be really lucrative, and the project might be really a lot of fun. But should you want this client? This is Sales for Nice People, the daily podcast for ethical entrepreneurs who want to sell more because of their values and not despite them. I am Martin Steller, I help nice people sell more, and today I want to recommend that you create a client filter. Because, look, some people are just not the right fit, and the cost of working with the wrong kind of buyer can be extremely high. For instance, you might want to try and sell to a large organization, corporation. Because, hey, now you're going to get to do a really large project, and it's going to be so lucrative, you'll be making so much money. Yeah, but, in order to lend that contract, you might have to spend up to six months going through all kinds of meetings with all kinds of stakeholders, never even talking to the decision maker all the way up until the end, rewriting your proposal in order to finally lend that client. And if you would have spent your time trying to engage with smaller companies, you might have been able to make the same amount of money in those six months while having far fewer headaches and meetings with all kinds of people. Or consider a client who's constantly micromanaging. Every time that you are there doing your work, this person writes in or calls you because they want you to do it this way or that way, telling you how to do your job. And then you spend the rest of the day being frustrated because you have your work to do, but here is somebody who's getting in your way. That means that you have mental real estate being spent on something that you cannot solve because a micromanaging client is something that you just cannot fix. And that mental real estate, which is very costly, doesn't go into doing the actual work that you're being paid to do. So, it's really useful to have a set of criteria that enable you to filter out the kind of people that you shouldn't work with. I call this a client filter. It's very simple. It consists of two columns. On the left, you have the must have attributes that you want to see in the client. And on the right, you have the must not have attributes. So, for me, for instance, in a client, I must see self-awareness. I need clients if I'm going to coach them to be able to look in the mirror and take responsibility for their own faults and shortcomings. That is a requirement. If they don't have it, I can't work with them. On the must not have side, it's people who say, "Yes, but," because when people say, "Yes, but," it means no because, and then they argue for their own limitations, and then they fight against me. And then how am I going to coach somebody like that? So, when I see that in a buyer, well, then I pass on the opportunity so that I can focus on dealing with buyers and clients who actually have the criteria that I require. So, for yourself, in your own business, what are the attributes that you want to see that are required, that are a requirement in your buyers, and what are the must not have attributes that would disqualify a buyer from being your client? Make a list and use it as a filter in order to simply have an easier time enrolling buyers and to be able to do better work for the people that you should be working with without having to waste all kinds of mental real estate on things that are simply an impediment to doing your best work. Make sense? Good. I'll see you tomorrow.