July 16, 2020

“How can I drum up new work from old clients without seeming desperate?” and more...

In today’s marathon 2+ hour group coaching session, we had a bunch of good questions that touched on topics like:

How to raise old clients “from the dead” to drum up new work
How to uncover value in a sales interview without making the client nervous/suspicious
How to maintain and promote a daily writing practice for your email list
How to use Trello as a simple CRM
How strict to be about expiration dates in proposals
How to get initial traction when starting a mailing list from scratch
How to “fire” a client that you have outgrown (or are sick of dealing with)
How to design low-price products without devaluing higher priced offerings
How to decide what “rung” to add next to your product ladder

Plus, I did a detailed home page teardown, which is always fun :)

Good stuff!

Here are just a few of the questions I answered today:

Do you ask old or existing clients to recommend your services to someone they might know? Do you send letters to your old clients to “raise them from the dead”. e.g.: “I liked working with you on project X. I’m curious, is there anything I can do to help your business grow?”. (timestamp 2m 11s)

During the value conversation, how do you ask questions about the expected monetary value of future business improvement without being perceived as if you gather too sensitive information? Did any prospect get nervous/suspicious that you will charge a higher price if you know more info about his/her potential gain? Because at that stage you are still a rather stranger to them. Plus nobody asked them such value questions before. Maybe they never asked those questions to themselves. (timestamp 5m 17s)

Could you please elaborate more about your mailing daily practice: How far in the future you have emails scheduled? How do you find inspiration when you feel stuck? How do you manage to avoid overwhelming people’s minds inbox? Do you have some heuristics for daily mail: maximum number of words, bad ideas, home-run lessons, etc.? (timestamp 11m 15s)

How strict are you with proposal expiry dates? Or does this completely depend on the project? Any minimum ‘cool-down period’ if someone misses the expiration date before you consider talking about the project again? Or just depends? (timestamp 42m 30s)

If you didn’t have your podcast and you were starting your list - or when this was true for you - how do you get initial traction on your list without constantly spamming LinkedIn, FB, and Twitter? (timestamp 48m 18s)

If you feel like you’ve outgrown a client, do you still try to assess whether they still want to work with your new prices before letting them go? Have a client that needs work done that actually helps them convert customers (and they know this) but I have a strong feeling that they are still the champagne taste & beer budget type. (timestamp 56m 14s)

I am inspired by your product ladder with your productized consulting services. I am considering to offer similar services. What do you like the most about these type of productized services? What do you dislike about them? Would I be better off with offering an online course instead? (I love travelling and my freedom to organize my working days on the go. A lot of your products seem to require tight schedules in your calendar) (timestamp 74m 53s)

I have 2 new clients and 3-4 current clients I am moving to Retainers with weekly meetings. I’m trying to price this with options for unlimited support email, the periodic call, and finally an option for direct 24/7 cell phone access for CEO. They are all currently paying $200-$250 hour. Trying to determine a good starting point for a quarterly retainer, understanding there is a premium for access. (timestamp 87m 52s)

(If you’re curious, you can review the entire list of questions here)

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Yours,

—J

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