The Story You Can Tell to Triple Your New Client Wins
A few weeks ago a client said to me, "In this economy, I don't think we’ll ever be able to get ahead. It's been nearly impossible to get new clients to sign on, and I think it will be for some time to come. My team feels flat. It’s been a huge challenge to keep them motivated. And I understand why...it's just so hard out there."
We talked about it. The conversation went like this:
Client: My team seems like they’re running at 50% energy because no matter what they do, there’s just not the return on the other end for their efforts like there used to be.
Mike: You won a few new clients recently, though, right?
Client: Well, yes, but it’s been a huge effort to win them.
Mike: I understand. Now that you won them, how have the engagements been going?
Client: We’ve already returned all of our fees at least threefold to both of the clients we won last quarter. And it’s looking like they’ll both be signing on for larger engagements.
Mike: Great to hear! So have your competitors won new clients lately as well?
Client: Not as many as years past, but you know our industry is so fragmented that we have more competitors than most businesses. They wouldn’t survive at all if there weren’t at least some new clients signing on with most of them.
Mike: Let’s get an estimate then.
(Client lists off competitor after competitor and mentions the names of actual clients they’ve won recently.)
Mike: OK, then, let me stop you there. If you even won a fifth of those, that’s more new clients than you could even handle in a quarter.
Client: Of course, if we won them, that would be overwhelming to us. There’s no way we could keep up with that much work.
Mike: Assume for a minute that your team wasn’t feeling sluggish or defeated. That each individual on the team was as motivated as you’ve ever seen them to go out and win clients. That they believed great success was just around the corner waiting to be had, and all they needed to do was go make it happen.
Client: The change in the business would be dramatically positive. If we could get that done, we’d be growing like a weed.
Mike: So what you’re saying is that new clients are giving business to your competitors all around you, and, even though the circumstances are different in the market than they were three years ago, there’s still more business out there right now—today—than you could possibly handle. And to get those clients, all you need to do is to get the team performing as well as you’ve seen them perform in the past?
Client: When you put it that way…
As we continued talking, the client told me that if he could put it to his team this way he thinks that he could get them focused and excited again about the possibilities. "New clients were out there just waiting to be won…we have a great story that the market needs to hear…it’s up to us to get it done, and we can do it!"
Yes, he needed to put it this way to his team, but the first person he had to put it this way to was himself. Before he could get the team to focus again on the success they could have versus the failure that was obviously looming in front of him, he had to see it himself.
For as long as he told himself the stories of doom, sluggish, can’t, won’t, and unable, these were the stories that would come true.
What do you think would happen if you changed the story you tell yourself?
Or if everyone on your team changed theirs?