Guest Author: From Prospect to Client in 30 Seconds

Editor's Note: When you're selling a $300-$1000 service over the phone, you can't expect people to make a decision right away (at least not always!) Be sure to collect contact information from prospects and develop a follow-up strategy to convert some of these prospects into clients in the longer term.


By C.J. Hayden, MCC
Author, Get Clients Now

The process of converting a prospect to a client can seem like it takes forever. You meet a prospective client, follow up with him or her over time, and hopefully have a chance to make a sales presentation or schedule an initial consultation at no charge. Then you follow up some more, trying to close the sale. Months can pass, or even years, between your first encounter and getting the prospect to sign on the bottom line.

How do you keep following up for all that time without being a pest? Is asking prospects over and over, "Are you ready to buy yet?" the best way to go about it? How can you build the trust of your prospects enough that they become willing to take the risk of hiring you?

The answer to these bothersome questions just might be found in this simple idea. Treat those prospects as if they were already your clients -- they just haven't paid you yet.

Imagine what it would be like to treat every prospective client you encounter as if you were already working together. Every time you contact your prospects, you offer an article they might be interested in, an introduction to someone who might help them with a goal, or an invitation to an upcoming event in their field.

When you meet with them, you listen to their problems and recommend solutions. When you contact them after a meeting, you suggest resources for helping them address the issues you discussed. The solutions and resources you recommend may include your products and services, of course, but you don't stop there. You also offer answers that don't involve hiring you.

The impact of this kind of generosity on your prospective clients can be dramatic. Instead of considering your calls or e-mails an interruption, they will welcome hearing from you. They will no longer count you as a salesperson or vendor, but rather as a valuable resource and important person to know.

I'm not talking about giving away the store. I don't recommend providing the client with free training, spending hours addressing their issues at no charge, or otherwise practicing your profession without pay. It is completely appropriate to ask for and expect payment for doing your professional work.

But what I am suggesting is a shift in your attitude, to being of service instead of selling a service. Give your prospects a taste of just how valuable you could be to them if they were to hire you. Be generous with the information and contacts you already have at your disposal. It only takes a few minutes to pass along a phone number, clipping, or helpful web site, but the impact can be unforgettable.

The effect of this shift on you can be just as significant as the effect on prospective clients. You will eliminate those dreaded sales calls from your agenda and focus instead on what you do best -- helping people. You will no longer fear or resist making contact with prospects, but will begin looking forward to it. Instead of selling, you will be serving.

The fastest way to turn a prospect into a client may be simply to change how you think about them.
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Copyright C.J. Hayden.
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Pre-Employment Assessments

Recently, a colleague was wondering about a pre-employment assessment her client took for a job at Mutual of Omaha. Seeing as how Mutual of Omaha is headquartered here in my hometown (Omaha) and I've had numerous clients and friends who have worked for them, I have a pretty good idea about which assessment her client took.

She was concerned because her client was told he didn't do well on the assessment, but on the strength of his network, he was able to get an interview.

You see, The Gallup Organization is located here in Omaha too. So the assessment her client took was most likely conducted by Gallup Consulting. From the Gallup website:

"The only way to understand and replicate top performance is to study top performance. Top performers in all jobs think, talk, and act differently than average and poor performers. Understanding the talents that contribute to outstanding performance is key to developing an effective talent acquisition strategy. Our consultants identify the talents that contribute to success, then work with organizational leaders to develop and refine a strategy and the supporting processes and systems that help organizations find more employees like their very best."

Marcus Buckingham, a former Gallup Sr. Researcher, has written three books about this process: "First, Break All the Rules" (1999), "Now Discover Your Strengths" (2001), and "The One Thing You Need to Know" (2005).

The principles behind his approach are outlined in his bio:

What would happen if men and women spent more than 75% of each day on the job using their strongest skills and engaged in their favorite tasks, basically doing exactly what they wanted to do?

According to Marcus Buckingham (who spent years interviewing thousands of employees at every career stage and who is widely considered one of the world's leading authorities on employee productivity and the practices of leading and managing), companies that focus on cultivating employees’ strengths rather than simply improving their weaknesses stand to dramatically increase efficiency while allowing for maximum personal growth and success.

If such a theory sounds revolutionary, that's because it is. Marcus Buckingham calls it the "strengths revolution."

Because of the Gallup presence in Omaha, many of our big corporations headquartered here (ConAgra Foods, Mutual of Omaha, etc.) use Gallup's assessments.

Usually, if you don't score well on a Gallup pre-employment assessment (conducted by phone or online), that's the end of it. They tell you, "Thanks, and good-bye." So the fact that his resume writer's client got an interview *anyway* is very unusual ... and is a testament to the resume she wrote, and his network. He'll have to have a great interview to overcome the negative assessment, because the companies that use them rely on them heavily to determine "fit."

I can't recommend any specific "workarounds" for when the negative assessment results comes up in the interview (as I said, 100% of my clients haven't gotten the interview if they didn't match up in the assessment with the pre-identified criteria). If he has time before the interview, maybe he could read, "First, Break All the Rules." Then he could ask about the specific areas where he didn't fit their criteria, and he'd know more about what kind of "fit" that was lacking between the testing and his answers.

Best Career Blog

I'm thinking about hosting a contest for the "Best Career Blog" in 2008.

In surfing around the web, I've found a number that I think would be excellent candidates. I'm looking specifically at blogs written by professional resume writers and career coaches, for clients.

Among them:

Blue Sky Resumes (Louise Fletcher)
Career Assessment Goddess (Susan Guarneri)
Careerhub
Executive Resumes (Laurie Smith)
Jan Melnik's Blog
Resume Boutique (Randi Lewis)

Do you have a blog to nominate? E-mail me at RWDigest@aol.com.

Poll: Quality Jobs Hard to Find

According to a new poll from The Gallup Organization, respondents say now is a difficult time to find a quality job.

A Gallup Poll conducted Jan. 4-6, 2008, found 6 in 10 Americans saying now is a "bad time to find a quality job." This is up 13 percentage points from January 2007 and is the highest percentage since early December 2005, when 60% of Americans also held this view of the job market. Even so, it is well below the 81% who said it was a bad time to find a good job back in March and August 2003, during the buildup to and early stages of the war in Iraq.

Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,023 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Jan. 4-6, 2008. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.