Time is money, as they say. When you’re trying to build the capital that you need to grow a business, there are few things worse than wasting that time that could be better spent on something more productive. However, in the world of business and sales, time-wasting doesn’t always start with you. Sometimes, it starts with a bad choice of clients. Here, we’re going to look at some warning signs you shouldn’t miss, as well as ways to make sure you’re spending your time on the right people.
Don’t let them set the rules
This is the first order that every entrepreneur, business owner, and freelancer should follow. You are the one providing the service, you get to say how you provide it. Negotiation is expected, but when a potential client starts dictating what, exactly, you’re going to do and how much, exactly, you’re going to get for it, you should head for the door. You can work with some difficult clients, but those who want to set the terms are going to keep doing it. Either you can keep compromising, and keep making your work more unprofitable or miserable, or you can give them a hard, firm “no” when they first try.
Qualify those leads
Of course, how do you know you’re talking to someone who is going to be able to make use of your services in the first place? Lead generation can be tricky. You want a number of leads, but you’re looking for quality too. You can spend days or weeks talking up your game to someone who’s ready to go, only to find they don’t have the finances for it. So, you do what you can to find out their finances in advance. You can find mortgage mailing lists to get a relative idea of their budget. You can learn more about where they work and the kind of pay they can expect from their job. Qualify your leads so that you know they’re able to pay before you even make your offer.
Make sure they know what they want
Knowing your clients and knowing what they want is a big part of making any successful deal. However, even if you know what they want and how you can help them, they may not. Clients who haven’t done their research won’t only be indecisive, they might not be able to fully grasp when your service has been successful. If they don’t know enough about what you do to know the benefits, you aren’t going to be able to satisfy them. For instance, if you work in marketing, your client needs to know or be willing to learn at least a little bit about analytics, different marketing tools, and so on.
You might be eager to nurture your lead to the next step, but don’t let that get in the way of a healthy dose of skepticism. If you can find out they’re a time-waster in advance, you can immediately move on to better prospects.
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