How To Get More Clients. A Case Study — Dream Whisper Development 4

So, how do you get more clients? How do you bring more clients to your service business? How do you get more potential customers to pick up the phone, call you and say “I’d like to book an appointment please”.

I’d like to illustrate with an example. This is the story of a service provider who:

Was very skilled in her professional area.
Achieved marvellous results with delighted clients.
Was ambitious and wanted to grow her business as far as possible.

These were all the positive points – but there was a simple problem. She simply did not have enough clients.

When Carina and myself started to work together on her business – I asked the question “What do you want to achieve here?” to which I got the standard answer “I just need more clients”. But when we looked a little closer, there were a number of specific components to this request.

The Business Problem.

Carina runs the “Craniosacral Therapy Clinic” in Cork, Ireland. I know – you are probably asking “what is that?” – and that is precisely the question Carina received all the time from prospective clients.

When we dived in a little deeper and looked at what Carina wanted to achieve with the business, we agreed on the following:

More people needed to hear about Carina – what she could do for them and the results she was achieving with others.
When they called her she wanted them to simply ask for an appointment – not to have a long conversation about craniosacral and to wonder if it was right for them.
Carina’s week was about 60% full with clients on average. She wanted to fill it.
Finally, although she was only 60% full – she seemed to work all the hours available and was in danger of burnout.

We started to work together in November of 2011. Over the next 8 months we had put a number of new business components in place and carried out a number of experiments to see how they might affect Carina’s business in a positive manner. Here is what we did.

Our Strategy Steps to Get More Clients.

Decide on your Target Audiences – then choose one.
Put a Structured Client Referral System in place.
Establish a useful online presence.
Preserve Carina’s energy and ability to deliver.
Continue to deliver a valuable service – and get great results.

Let’s look at each of these in turn:

STEP 1. Decide on your Target Audiences – then choose one.

When we started to work on the CST clinic – I asked Carina about the types of people she treated. “People with sore backs, headaches, pregnant women, small babies ……” and the list went on. She then started to explain just what Craniosacral was and how it could work wonders with all of these conditions.

However, we were in the middle of a recession. People were very slow to part with their cash – no matter how sore they were. She had noticed a drop off in her adult clients over the previous year – that was very worrying.

On the other hand, mums with small babies were still coming to her – and getting the results they wanted for their children. They were still slow to part with their cash – but they were coming all the same. This is the audience that Carina decided to focus on.

KEY POINT: It is essential that you choose a segment of your potential clientbase that you can reach – you can then go to where they gather and show them how you deal with their problems. This is not about you, your abilities and qualifications – it is about your customers, the problems they have – and what you can do to help.

STEP 2. Put a Structured Referral System in place.

Carina had current group of clients who were delighted with her results – and her personal level of service. So we put a structured referral system in place. It had a number of components – but the following were the four main parts:

As Carina worked with a client – she explained what she was doing and pointed out the positive changes she saw with the baby from visit to visit. She got the mum to consciously notice the improvements in her child due to the treatment.
When she discharged a client she asked for a testimonial – but in a specific way which helped her to obtain one 50% of the time.
She asked her mums to look out for specific problems that a friend’s baby may have – and to mention her as a potential solution.
Every time she received a new appointment – her first question was “where did you hear of me OR who referred you?”

However, we also noticed that many of the potential clients who received a recommendation also searched for her online (especially her target audience – mum’s in their 30s).

KEY POINT: Sometimes we focus too much on advertising – thinking that the business is “out there” somewhere. However, your best “sales people” are happy clients. The critical step is to mobilise your clients as part of a referral system.

STEP 3. Establish a Useful Online Presence.

The keyword here is “useful” – and I don’t mean useful to you, but useful to your potential client. The purpose of an online presence for a service professional is NOT to sell your services, but to establish a growing sense of trust in your potential client that you have authority – and can get results for problems like theirs.

In Carina’s case, we put two components into place: A Website that drives appointments and a Facebook Page that drives traffic to the website.

A. A Website that Drives Appointments.

Once we sat down and figured out her target audience and their problems, we started to gather the “keywords” to rank for in the Cork County and Munster area.

The system I use for many of my clients is Sitesell which will host your site, but also provide you with many commercial tools and access to a vibrant community. This is the hosting system we used for Carina’s business.

We then structured pages around each condition for which Carina wanted to feature. For each of these we built a short case study article highlighting:

Information on the condition
How you should approach the treatment of this condition
Carina’s approach
A case study featuring recent success and highlighting the outcome (one added per week).
A client testimonial.
A call to action in the form of “Call me for an appointment or to find out more”

The results have been very positive.

Within 3 months, her site featured locally in Google for the search terms her mums were using.
When people call – they ask for an appointment, not an explanation. If they want an explanation, Carina refers them to the website.
After 12 months – the website was bringing in 4 plus clients per week, and they were travelling up to 100 miles (and sometimes from overseas!) to be with the “best” person.

You can see Carina’s site here: www.craniosacralcork.com

B. A Facebook page

If you have a service business that is aimed at the individual, I believe that Facebook is an essential part of your online presence. Why? Well, given the size and reach of Facebook, it is where you will find your audience. But, it also has very targeted advertising capabilities.

For the Craniosacral clinic – we established the “Healthy Baby Clinic” page on Facebook. Carina posts twice a week – one of those times she links back to a casestudy on her website. She does not sell on Facebook – her page looks to be fun, engaging and helpful. She can also advertise – targeting women aged 25-40 within 50 miles of Cork City. Sweet!

You can see Carina’s Facebook page here: www.facebook.com/craniosacralcork

KEY POINT: It is a fact of life that the majority of people turn to the internet nowadays for help finding a service. They look to Google, forums as well as asking for pointers on Twitter, Facebook etc. They look for an online referral system! You need to have this system in place for your service business to be visible, credible and authoritative.

However, it is important to have lots of helpful content highlighting your knowledge and approach. Essentially, you build up trust with your potential audience over time – when the time is right they will turn to you for a trusted solution to their problem.

STEP 4. Preserve Yourself.

My main aim is to help my clients establish a client “waiting list” for their service business. But this growth creates a problem. In service businesses YOU are mostly the “product”. How do you stay energetic, focused and healthy enough to service your business as it grows?

With Carina, we looked at the following:

How to make her systems and workflow more efficient. I won’t go into everything here – but we made three main adjustments to the way she kept records and handled appointments and cancellations. This gave her more time and made the administrative side of the work less stressful.
We changed the timing of her treatments from one hour to 30 minutes. This still maintained the same result and suited a busy mum. It also gave us room to play with the pricing.
We structured her workweek to suit HER. Although Carina’s appointment book was only 60% full – she still seemed to be working (and worrying!) all the hours available. We looked at her lifestyle, energy levels and preferences. As a result, she now works 3 days a week (Monday, Tuesday and Thursday – 9.00am – 5.00pm) in the clinic. She also takes every 6^th week off. Following our experiments, this seems to be the best balance for her (and it’s invisible to her clients). She manages to stay sharp and focused.

KEY POINT: It is a mistake to just “throw” all your hours and energy at your business. Adjust the way you deliver your services to suit your lifestyle and energy. Experiment – see what works.

STEP 5. Continue to Deliver a Valuable Service – and Great Results.

This may seem obvious – but it is the “constant” at the centre of your entire “system”. While it is important to keep up to date in your professional area – attend training and read periodicals, it is also essential to keep in touch with your clients. Ask them questions. Ask them what else they would like to see – what other help they need. Above all, stay client-focused.

In Carina’s case we also started an extensive customer survey each year – using an online tool called Surveymonkey – this provides Carina with valuable feedback on what is working well and what needs to change.

But above all, Carina works to stay very good at what she does!

KEY POINT: All of the other systems we discussed fall over if your service is not required or delivered in a sub-standard manner. It is essential to keep our skill and knowledge levels up to date – but also to stay focused on what your clients really want. The best way to find out is to ask them.

Twelve Months Later.

By January 2013, Carina had achieved the following business results on a consistent basis:

She had a waiting list in place for potential clients
She increased her income per hour worked by 25%
She compacted her working week to 3 days
Her online presence brought her in 4 plus new clients per week.

Whenever business drops away slightly – we give a push on Facebook and that brings things back within 2 weeks.

So, is Carina and her service business in the top 25% of performers in the eyes of her clients? How about the top 5%? I believe she is certainly in the top 25% – probably in the top 5% (you can see more about being in the top 25% and 5% here).

The next step is to ensure her new support systems stay active – and to look at delivering other solutions to address the needs of her clients.

Finally – full disclosure – myself and Carina are married! We decided to use the work carried out on her service business to disclose the types of results we achieve all the time with different types of service businesses.

Over the next number of posts we will flesh out a lot of the steps, techniques and resources covered in this article. Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter below if you want to keep in touch – and discover ways of getting more profitable clients for your service business.