Happy Tuesday Confident Ladies,
I am excited to chat with you this week about a topic I feel so strongly about…….Confidently booking {ideal} clients. So we all know anyone can book clients right? But it takes a lot more planning and confidence work to book ideal ones.
Now why do we want to book ONLY ideal clients in our businesses? A few reasons:
They are obviously more fun to work with!
Your work together will be more effective because you are working together and not against one another.
When that rapport is there, both parties have more trust in one another.
Ideal clients are people you CAN help.
Ideal clients ALWAYS get results.
Clients who get results are much more satisfied with your work.
Happy clients are walking billboards for your businesses
Happy clients leave glowing reviews.
Glowing reviews get you more trusting clients
Trusting customers keep your business open + running!
So what is NOT to love about booking ONLY ideal clients right?! All of the above sounds amazing. However, in my work, I have had ideal client after ideal client tell me they are NOT working with ideal clients and feeling pretty drained, burned out, frustrated, resentful, and defeated. So let me give you a few tips for booking ONLY ideal clients:
1. Set your boundaries. What would this relationship look like? Would you have communication between sessions? Would this be something extra (VIP add on)? Up until my maternity leave I always added a buffer in my packages that would account for support between sessions.
Here is what I found: some clients would NEVER use it and some would use it WAY more than they probably needed. Because there was such a discrepancy, I decided coming back from my maternity, to allow my new clients to opt in OR opt out of between session VIP support. I now have it as an “add on” and if at any point they feel they need more support betweens sessions (maybe a launch month or a month with personal things going on) they are welcome to add it to their package. And even with my VIP support clients, there still are parameters to our communication. They know I have 24-hours to return their message and I answer messages M-F 8-6. Obviously if there were an emergency I would be there, but setting these boundaries up front ALWAYS sets the stage for how the relationship will go right? It is way harder if you say “I’m free for support anytime” then see someone taking advantage and you needing to then tighten the reigns. Just not as effective. Set stricter boundaries upfront and loosen up as you go.
2. Make sure YOU do your research before even getting on a Discovery Call with someone. The one thing that transformed my TIME management, confidence, and mindset in my business was NOT having a “book your discovery call” button on my site with access to my calendar. Now most tell you to have this--it is pretty standard in a service based business.
People will say, make it really EASY for people to get on the phone with you so you can show them your brilliance. I beg to differ. I told my early on coaches I would give it a shot and ended up finding what I thought I would find. Super unqualified people signing up for Discovery Calls to just “pick ma brain”. I would hear, “Just make sure they complete the questionnaire and you'll be fine”. However, once they booked the call and questions were sent out, they would conveniently “forget” to complete them. I found myself spending hours each week on Discovery Calls, with little to show but frustration and defeat. So I went with what my gut told me all along, have them fill out a pre qualifier application FIRST, review + see if they qualify, and if it seems like a 90% fit, invite them onto a call. And guess what happened? I would say 99% of the people I would get on the phone would be ideal clients, my close rate skyrocketed from a 2/10 to roughly a 9/10, and best of all, I freed up HOURS of time each week to work within my business rather than wasting time on calls with people who didn't have pure intentions.
One thing I want to point out, your Discovery Call bookings will DECREASE. Rather than doing maybe 20 discovery calls per month you may book 1-3 per month. But guess what, you WILL have the same amount of clients closing. And imagine what you could do with potentially 17 extra hours in your month?! You’re welcome!!
3. Don’t sell, INVITE. Yes, you heard me! Don’t sell yourself, invite people to work with you. What I mean by this is give them the power, let them decide, don’t try to sell them on all of these great things YOU are going to do for them. Just have a conversation. Tell them how you will SUPPORT them in making changes in their lives. Invite them to work with you if THEY feel it’s a “hell yes”. If it isn’t clear, tell them to take time and come back when it is. The last thing you need is wishy-washy clients or clients who feel they were “sold to” and pressured. You want them to feel excited and EMPOWERED to make the decision on their own.
If you can at least follow these three simple tips above, you will be on your way to better attracting and more confidently onboarding ONLY ideal customers Confident Lady!
Which tip hit home the most today? How confident have you been in your “inviting” ideal customers? Take a moment and ask yourself, are you taking on these clients from a place of “I need money” scarcity mindset OR “I know all of my ideal clients are out there and it’s ok if this isn't one” abundance mindset? Comment below and share with me! If think you might be ready to get some support with this, shoot an email to me at kate@katecrocco.com
Make sure to head on over to my YouTube channel to check out the video I did on this topic as well!
Blessings + Abundance,
XO Kate
P.S. If you want to go even deeper and learn how to create a mindset for massive success & become a confident, recognized leader in your industry, download my FREE Confident Ladies Success Kit!
You'll get:
The Mindset Reset Workbook: Hit the reset button on your mindset and reprogram it for success
The Building Confidence Workbook: Overcome the "Imposter Syndrome" so you can build your confidence
The Visibility Workbook: The exact steps I took to go from no business to a full & thriving coaching practice within 90 days