Client Acquisition Tip – Take The LEAD & Get More Clients

Despite the ongoing disruption to many of our businesses and lives, we are convinced that things will improve, and we will return to a more normal state of affairs. Why do we believe this? Because it’s what we do – what human beings do. Always have and always will. With that in mind, we’d like to offer a client acquisition tip that will almost certainly help you grow your interior design and/or luxury furnishings business.

• Now, since acronyms are all the rage these days, we’ve developed a li'l sumpin’, sumpin’ we call the LEAD approach to client acquisition:

• Listen – to your target audience and they will tell you how to convert them.

• Educate – your audience on solutions to their pain points.

• Adapt – to the needs of a broad client base.

• Develop – services or products that meet specific needs.

These steps will become the foundation for a fully integrated, well-conceived approach to generating leads that will address the needs of your target audience. This will enable you to communicate with them as individuals, not as a vague, superficial, poorly defined collection of personality types.

4 Tips for Improved Client Acquisition

Let’s dive a little deeper into the practical steps of the LEAD approach; steps you can take to effectively generate leads for your business in virtually any business environment:

• Listening includes increasing communication – in both directions. As we’ve mentioned before, prior and existing clients may be your greatest asset. Since they already know and trust you, they are an invaluable source of information about the value of the things you do – as well as a resource for referrals. Engaging with them will enable you to speak to them about alternative offers, explore new value-added services, and make yourself invaluable to them and prospective clients.

• Education and learning are equally valuable – to your audience and you. Learning about the challenges your clients are facing will create opportunities for you to offer increased, targeted support. The current situation could create life-altering changes that will need both short- and long-term solutions. Regularly scheduled meet-ups with clients, prospects and team members should become the norm.

• Adapting to the needs of a broad client base now includes adjusting to new challenges. This is where you will begin to employ some outside-the-box thinking since new challenges are going to need new solutions. You may need to get some online training yourself, as a means to offer more services and greater value. You may want to offer special deals, temporary rate reductions, and freebies to generate interest. You may even want to reexamine your values in an effort to discover what really matters – to you and your clients – in these challenging times.

• Developing new products and services will be critical to your success. This will likely include broadening your own skill set, as well as finding new ways to present them. This is especially true for service providers, like interior designers for example. You may need to expand your services menu to use your entire skillset, as you figure out new and inventive ways to offer value to your clients.

Many design clients struggle to articulate their vision for a particular space, which is where you come in. Find creative ways to offer them the greatest value by presenting practical, real-world solutions to their pain points. Assure them that you’ve spent years building relationships with dependable contractors and furnishing suppliers that enable you to deliver as expected in a timely, cost-effective manner.

Even if staying in touch with clients and team members regularly involves nothing but sharing stories and commiserating, staying engaged has value. Being visible will keep you front-of-mind with your audience as the economy and markets return to normal. Showing you care will build trust and loyalty, which will allow you to retain and acquire clients more smoothly.

And yes, we believe that optimism is key because we know that life and business WILL return to normal and, when it does, you want to be ready.

Are you looking for more client acquisition tips or other marketing ideas and support? Ted remains available for business consulting to the trade. Simply… Get in touch with TD Fall today.

The Art of Selling – How Educating Prospects Can Boost Sales

Untold millennia ago, a clever and industrious caveman realized he could offer something that would increase the comfort of his fellows. And so, after much huffing and puffing along with wrestling of heavy objects, he managed to arrange a large flat stone before a large vertical stone and invented “Chair”. By offering to barter such an innovative furnishing to members of his tribe, he also invented “Marketing”. When an equally clever pal did much the same, offering “Discounts” of fewer things in exchange for his creation (as well as presenting it to other tribes) Competition began, Markets were created, the Entrepreneurial Spirit was born, and learning the Art of Selling became integral to human survival.

Needless to say, while new ideas for tools that could be used to gather and hunt for food were vitally important to our ancestors, creativity and style were not much in evidence. However, bartering for something that had never been seen before required educating prospects to the practicality and use of “Chair”. And so, if our clever fellow hoped to barter such a valuable item (in exchange for say, a date with his target’s only daughter in the hope of making her his wife), educating his prospect was essential.

Selling Now Requires More Than Grunting and Hoping

In our contemporary world, grunting and hoping will not make the sale. Neither will assuming your prospects can intuit how your work will benefit them if you do not educate them to those benefits. That said, there is no single, perfect approach to selling your services and products that will work for every client in every situation.

Yet, as our grunting ancestors proved all those millennia ago, fully educating prospects about the benefits and value of working with you is probably the most effective approach to making a sale.

For example, the fact that a homeowner is willing or eager to work with an interior designer does not automatically mean they will want to work with you. And, while we all know closing the deal will take some convincing, proving your worth to them will require some education as to WHY you are their best option.

Then, of course, you must educate them about the value of your work to convince them you are worth the expense!

It’s much the same for furniture dealers who must educate customers on the value of luxury furnishings over cheaper big-box or build-your-own alternatives. In the age of internet shopping, it has never been truer that “Price is what you pay – Value is what you receive.”

Helping prospective clients understand this is the foundation of the education you must offer.

What Kind of Product Education to Offer

The way you educate clients and prospects also matters. An engineer may want to know how the furniture you are recommending is built, while an artist will be more concerned about style. An older couple may be most concerned with comfort while those with a more competitive mindset might be interested in their remodel being “better” than their neighbor’s.

These are the types of things you can learn from the sales step known as “qualifying”, the question and answer period where you get to know them and try to learn about their wants, needs, and goals. By listening closely to their responses, you’ll discover clues to the types of information you should offer to help close the sale.

This is why we say there is no One Size Fits All approach to selling anything: because the answers you receive from clients and prospects during qualifying will vary significantly, requiring different solutions from you.

The art of selling requires thought, patience, and knowledge, as well as the willingness to educate yourself and get better at educating prospects. For anyone struggling to close more sales, Ted is available with business consulting and sales training for both interior designers and furnishing dealers. To learn more, just… Get in touch with TD Fall today.