3 Questions to Ask Your Clients to Boost Sales and Referrals [Ep 271]

Speaker A: 00:00:01

Are you struggling to fill your client roster? Wondering where to find the right clients who truly need your services?

Do you often find yourself chasing that next client without realizing that the answers may be right in front of you?

In today's episode of the Real Truth About Business, we're going to explore how understanding why your clients choose you can unlock new opportunities for growth. I'm going to share a powerful story from a recent strategy session that highlights how to identify and attract your ideal clients with ease. Ready?

Let's dive in. Hello, my friends. I hope you're having a wonderful day. I'm excited to talk about clients today. Your clients.

And this being probably it's the number one thing that I bring up in my hidden money masterclass as the five areas. Money's hiding in your business and clients is one of the number one things that I bring up because we are constantly chasing that next client.

And honestly, the clients that need you, the clients that want you, the clients that hire you, the clients that say yes to you, the answers of where do I find them? Are sitting right in front of you. And I want to share a story. I want to open up with a story, because then this whole episode is going to make sense.

So I was working with a new client the other day on a strategy session, and she shared with me all her big goals and her big visions and how she wanted to have multiple fleets.

She runs a mobile salon, which side note, back in the day when I was a hairdresser, for those of you that don't know me, maybe you do know this about me is I was a hairdresser.

And one of my biggest goals when I was a hairdresser was to have a mobile salon, one where you could go to people that couldn't get out of their house, people that had just had surgery, et cetera. And so when I met this woman, I was like, omg, I can't believe you're doing this. This is something that I've always wanted to do anyways.

I just love, love, love take, you know, talking to her. And she's. It's been, it's been really fun to kind of relive my days as a hairdresser through her.

But anyways, so we were talking about how she wants to expand and everything else, but her current mobile salon is not fully booked. Right. And so until she's fully booked or has a little bit more proof of concept, it was like, it doesn't make sense to add on. Right? Like, this is.

That's probably a topic for another day, but One of the things that people tend to do is they kind of grow too quickly before they have like a solid foundation in place.

So we were working on creating this solid foundation and working to figure out how she could get more booked, you know, every single day and kind of become in demand, right? Because that's what her whole salon is all about, is that she can be kind of on demand. So anyways, I promise this story is going somewhere.

Bear with me. I hope you have me on. Maybe you have me on 1 1/2 speed. Does anybody listen to anything on 1x speed anymore, by the way?

But anyway, so anyways, here's where the story is going. So I asked her, I said, okay, let's talk about it.

Let's figure out how you can find new clients like the current clients that you have, the ones that come back to you for haircuts over and over. Why do they keep coming back? Right, simple question. Why do they keep coming back? Why do they choose you?

And without any thought, I was like, she kind of was caught off guard and she goes, I've never really thought about it. And so right there, action. Step number one is think about it, right? Think about this question, like, why do clients choose you?

Why do they keep coming back? Especially if you have a business where you have recur, like returning clients, loyal clients, why do they keep purchasing from you?

What is it about you ask yourself that question, why you? Right? Right then and there you're going to have a slew of answers as to why people choose you.

And you can start to use this in your messaging so that you can attract more of these people, right? So stream of conscious, she just starts brain dumping all of these reasons, all of these things.

Well, they're moms, they're busy, they're running between school practices, they forgot, they don't have time to get to a salon, yada yada yada. Like all of these ideas just start spewing out of her. And as she's just going and just verbally brain dumping all of this, I'm taking massive notes.

And I said to her, I was like, okay, there's three things here that you just said in common. They're moms, they're busy and their kids are in sports, right? So where, where's the next sports practice? What sports are in season right now?

Do you have a YMCA close by? Right, like, so looking at those things of like, okay, then you can ask, okay, here's all the things that my clients have in common.

And then you can ask, where do they Hang out right? Now, I know we've all heard this before. We've all heard this in the niche down, pick your ideal client. But this is not about that.

It's like, where are they truly hanging out? Right? It's not about whether or not they're on which platform of Instagram or, you know, LinkedIn or whatever. Social media platform. Yes, there's a.

There's a time and a place for that. But I'm talking about, like, why are your clients choosing you? Why do they say yes? What. What made them finally say yes?

What do they all have in common? And where do these people, once you figure out what they have in common, where else are these people hanging out? Right?

So another example, if I give you my own example, is I've asked multiple questions, this question to my clients, and if you don't know the answer to these questions, simply go and ask your clients, right? Why did you choose me? What made you finally say yes? Right?

If you need to go grab a pen and paper, pause this, Go grab a sheet of paper so you can write these questions down. And then go ask your clients, just say, hey, do you mind if I ask you a few questions? Right? And maybe you already have the answer.

So for me, almost all of them said, like, I just felt like I was lacking focus.

Like, I felt like I have all these big ideas and I know that I can do more, but I just don't know what to do, when to do it, where to even start, and I don't know how to create a plan, right? Like, I needed clarity, I needed organization, and I needed focus, which, that's why I named my program the Focused Visionary, right?

So, you know, think about that. It's like there's. There's messaging gold inside of there when you start asking your clients and you start looking at it.

So that was the first question. It's kind of like, why do they choose you? They could go to any salon, back to that other client. Like, they could go to any salon.

There's all these kids salons out there. Well, why you? Right? And so she talked about even the fact that it was convenient, right?

She goes and literally takes her trailer to, like, a certain neighborhood, and all the moms and all the kids get their hair done at the same time in one neighborhood. Was like, perfect, Go find more neighborhoods, right? So find the things. You hear me say this all the time.

Find the things that are already working in your business and start with your clients. What's working for them? What program is working for them? What made Them say yes. How did they find you? Right? Why? How did they come across you?

What made them say yes to you? Because when you can figure this out, you can stop with all this guessing. Maybe my clients need this. Maybe they're hanging out here.

Maybe if I created this offer, they would be more likely to engage. Maybe if I did this, they are they interested in a low ticket? Maybe if I created that, right?

Like all these thoughts grow through your head and I get it because they go through mine too. But when I think about it is like, what are they loving right now? Most of my clients, the other thing that they love is they love the community.

They love knowing that when you come into my world, you, you joined my community and I have a very tight knit community and I am a incredible connector of peeper people. Peepers people, right? So that is a huge plus for a lot of people, right? It's a huge. So I bring it up, I use it, I use it in my messaging.

I say, and, oh, by the way, when we work together, if there's somebody that you need that I can't help you with or if there's an area that we need to dive deeper into and it's not my area of expertise. I have an incredible support and referral network, right?

So again, I'm talking about really taking a look at and asking yourself, why do clients choose you? Why do they choose you? What made them say yes? What made them say yes to you? Was it because you continue to stay in touch with them?

Was it because you were honest? Was it because you're convenient? Right. For her, this other client, like her convenience. But that's the name of her business, by the way.

Go look it up. She's so fun. Her name is Convenient Shears. And like, again, use that, right? She named it Convenient Shears for a reason.

Because she wanted to be convenient. I named the focus visionary. The focus visionary for a reason. Because I wanted visionaries to maintain and gather and collect some focus, right?

And so the whole point here is though, is that this is simple. This is a simple exercise. This is not about going out and defining this ideal client in a superficial way of like, well, in an ideal world.

I think this is what they're struggling with and here's their pain points and here's how they want to feel and here's all this. You can create that, right?

You can create this idealistic version of your, you know, this ideal dream client, or you could look at the dream clients that you've already had and use them as your Avatar, right? You could use them to say, well, here's all the things that they had in common.

Here's all the things I loved about them, here's all the reasons why they said yes to me. And then use that to go find more. That's it. It's easy as that. Use the information currently in your business to go find more of it, right?

Go find more people. And it's seriously, it could be the missing piece.

This little tiny exercise could be the missing piece to more sales, to more referrals, to more collaborations, all of that. Right? Because you can dial in so clearly exactly what your clients need and want from you and why they say yes.

Because it's great to have a loyal fan base, but businesses run on revenue. Revenue is run from clients saying yes. So what makes clients say yes to you? If you've had one client, you've had one. Yes. Don't.

Don't give me this, well, Michelle, I've only had one client or I've only had a couple clients, so I really don't know. One is enough. Go ask them. If you've had two, go ask them. Go ask both of them. What made you say yes? Right?

You don't need a lot of clients to gather this information. And then as you grow, you continue to ask yourself these questions, right? So maybe your. Your client is going to evolve and grow and change with you.

And so every couple of months, maybe every year, at least once a year, kind of reflect on this and go, has my client changed? And if so, and you feel like you're still attracting maybe a client that is not necessarily where you are as.

As far as growth, then ask yourself that question too. Why? Is it. Is it because you're still speaking and using the language of a client that was several offers ago, several years ago, right?

Do you need to just upgrade your messaging a little bit? And you can do that by simply looking at why your current clients say yes. Okay, that's it. Easy peasy. All right.

So if you are really, really struggling to collect more sales, convert more clients, find those clients, figure out where they're hanging out. I would love to invite you to a strategy session, just like I did with this client I gave you this example of. And let me walk you through it.

I can help walk you through this step by step, easy breezy. And we will find those answers. We will get those answers and we will create a plan from it. Right? Because it's not just about finding the answers.

It's about, what are you going to do with the answers once you have them. Right? So there are several of you listening that can just take and run with us.

You can go ask yourself those questions and you can put a plan in place. But maybe you're the client that says, I don't really know what to do with this information.

I know why they say yes, but I can't seem to find more of them. I can't seem to figure out where they're hanging out so that I can be in a room with all of them. I can't figure out how to get them to say yes.

There's something missing. If you're feeling like you've got this little missing piece, reach out. Let's do a strategy session and let's see if we can find that missing piece.

Okay? Because I guarantee you that missing piece is somewhere inside these questions. We just got to dig a little bit deeper. All right, I love you.

I'll talk to you soon. I believe in you. Take care. Thanks so much for listening today, but remember, now it's time to take action. My goal is to get you results.

So what is one action you can commit to taking this week? Feel free to share it with me in my DMS or tag me on your socials. Not sure what action to take?

Grab the link in the show notes and schedule a strategic power hour. We can talk through it together and get you a strategic plan of action in just 60 short minutes. Oh, and one last favor.

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Talk soon.