Getting The Same Clients To Buy From You Again, And Again (And Again)
What kind of magical world would this be if the same amazing clients you’ve worked with once or twice, or here and there, just kept working with you time and time again…
Imagine it for a second.
You wouldn’t have to go looking for new clients over and over.
You wouldn’t have to stress over cash flow ups and downs as frequently.
You wouldn’t have to see a client leave just after you got to know them, their business, the project.
Instead, you can focus on working with clients for longer, delivering full end-to-end solutions that help them much more than a one-off project or engagement.
In this article, I’ll share one approach (of many) that can help you achieve returning clients in your service based business.
Turning Project Clients Into Ongoing Clients:
Many businesses who work in project-style-services (this could be your website designers or even your accountant doing your taxes)... often see their clients slip away too soon, when they know they can help them after the project.
And this period after the project is often where their services come to light and really shine even more (a new website with no traffic is… expensive).
Where many of these businesses go wrong with trying to keep these clients after the project is, they’ve waited too long to pitch their ongoing services.
When you first speak to this potential client, at the start you want to say; “the way I work is different to most website designers, I don't want you to just have a website, you probably want a website that gets traffic so your business grows”.
Bundle your ongoing services with your project service and be upfront and open about it from the beginning. You could very-much be doing your clients a disservice by leaving them to their own devices after the project.
Now, it’s entirely up to you if you still provide people with the option to only purchase the project service from you and not your ongoing services, but at least you’ve got the ball rolling on creating interest in your service.
Say, you do get to the end of the project and they didn’t sign up for the ongoing service, don’t let it slip, now’s your next chance to have a chat with your trusted client about whether you do help them ongoing (now or in the future).
Your Ongoing Services Could Be A Range Of Solutions:
Maintenance: a website developer may offer the ongoing website updates
Training: a sales consultant who overhauled your sales processes may offer ongoing training to the team
Regular revisions: a graphic designer who did your branding may update your collateral every season
Integration period: a systems expert who developed your project management system may be available as your business adopts this new software
Optimisations: an ad strategist who set up your paid advertising may offer regular optimisations of your ads
New projects: any service provider who completed one project for a business may pinpoint the next area within their scope to help their clients
There are countless ways (and reasons) your clients could buy from you again and again, and it’s up to you to make these suggestions to them.
Service providers are experts in solving problems for their clients within your wheelhouse of expertise, just ensure your services are packaged up accordingly to help your clients continuously.
→ If you’re a service based business and found this helpful, I invite you to join the waitlist for the Service Business Boardroom, which is a one-of-a-kind business program that helps businesses under $2million in revenue go from scattered and stagnant to profitable and sustainable.
✋ I'm Shannon Stone, award-winning business & marketing consultant and I specialise in helping service based businesses strengthen their sales, enhance their team and better manage their business.
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