And although not everybody will face the same challenges, here are some of the more common ones…

1) Self-discipline / Self-management.

Do you also find it is much harder to stay on task in a home office when there is no one watching over your shoulder?

It is easy to get distracted – even with the best intentions. A friend can show up unexpectedly; or you need to run to the shop for bread and milk; or there is a party coming and you need a new outfit; or the washing is piling up and you need to attend to it; or you lose yourself on the Internet and in social media.

There are so many things that can test your self-discipline at home.

If you also struggle with this type of self-discipline / self-management, possible solutions can include to….

Plan your day and set some rules – mostly for yourself.

Show up at your “office” at the same time each morning. Block out the times you will work and then stay focused on the tasks at hand. When you are in your office, you work.

When you know you get lost on the Internet, set a timer and limit yourself to the set time frame to search the Internet or to work on your social media.

Schedule specific breaks for times when you need to do the washing or other household tasks, and limit trips to town for weekends and after hours when your “work day” is over.

Another big challenge of working from home is that…

2) You’re “always” at work.

This is the one challenge that I struggle with the most. I often allow the temptation to work too much sneak into the picture. It is easy to quickly check some email while cooking dinner or run to the computer when you have a few minutes, or take work with you everywhere you go…

Technology even allows me to take my work on vacation (much to the frustration of my family).

Possible solutions when you feel “always” at work:

The easiest way to separate work from family life is to set rules and to have SPECIFIC working hours as the first wave of defense. But do it in such a way that it fits your lifestyle, because that is the only way you will really stick to those rules and working hours.

A schedule that works for me is to mainly work in the mornings. The afternoons are usually occupied by my daughter, and playing “mom’s taxi”. I rarely get to do any work during the afternoons and early evenings when the whole family is together. But, at night when everybody goes to bed and the house is quiet, I can return to my office and put in another 2-4 hours of working time.

If you are like me, one of the reasons we started a home business is to be more available to the family, right?

So we need to create some balance – even when it is difficult. Apart from setting work hours and rules for yourself regarding your business, also create a rule to “be in the moment” with your family.

Train yourself that when you are in the office, you work. But when you are with your family, you are fully present with them – not thinking and worrying about uncompleted work still waiting for you. Simply have fun as a family and create time to talk to each other.

The third big challenge I see all around me is…

3) Staying professional.

Working from home inherently lends itself to feeling less professional than when you have to dress up and go to a more formal office environment. And to add to this, many of our clients – especially when we work with corporate clients – sometimes also struggle with the idea that we can still be professional working from home.

Things that can diminish the professional image you want to portray are the way you answer your phone, or your appearance when we have a video Skype session with a client. Also a lot of background noise when you speak to a client on the phone or via Skype – noises like children playing and shouting in the background, the dog barking outside the window, the TV or radio playing.

Possible solutions to remain professional can include…

To have a dedicated workspace, preferably in a room with a door you can close to block out background noises.

If space is a problem, be creative to find somewhere you can put a desk away from the noisiest areas of the house, and or schedule client appointments at times that you know the house will be relatively quiet.

When you answer your phone, do it in a way that instills trust. Don’t just say Hi or Hallo. Always include your name as well, so that the caller knows he’s talking to the right person.

And when you have a meeting with a client – even if it is via Skype, dress up and apply some make-up. When you feel good about yourself, it boosts your confidence levels, shows you take your business and clients seriously and might even help to clinch the deal with a new client.

Lastly, one of the biggest challenges with your own business is you have…

4) No fixed income.

Many women start their new business to be in control of their financial destiny. This financial destiny can be very rosy, but it can also be disastrous for some.

Working from home inevitably means that you do not have a fixed pay-cheque every month. Your income varies from month to month and especially in the beginning, it is difficult to earn the same you’ve earned while working in corporate.

A possible solution can be to…

Evaluate your situation before you start your VA business. Are you the sole provider for your family? Do you have a savings fund that is big enough to pull you through six months without any income from your business? Do you have a spouse that can take care of your day-to-day living costs for an indefinite period until your business is sustainable and profitable?

If not, consider not quitting your job immediately. Rather start your VA business part-time because you need to live first. It’s quite stressful living off your savings and seeing it reach a point where you are forced to take up employment again.

When you are already in business and feel that your financial situation is not what you expect it to be, try to improve on your marketing, and take a different approach if your current marketing is not working. The only thing that will turn your financial situation around is to get more paying clients.

****

I’m curious. What are some of the challenges you are facing when working from home and how do you deal with it?  Share them with us in the comments below.

To Your success

PS: If the challenge of “ no fixed income” is something your struggle with, then here is a free resource and a very effective “get-more-clients-strategy” that might help you with getting new clients. Check it out, here.

The post How to Beat the Top 4 Challenges Of Working From Home appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

If you have valuable belongings, you keep them locked up – you put it in a safe or in a bank vault or even in a locked wooden box under your bed.

Locks are also used to prevent someone or something to get in or out – like a yard, prison or a safety den….

But sometimes, the success of your business is also securely locked up.

In principle there are basically 2 kinds of locks.

There are locks that require a key to open and then there are locks that require a combination.

Although both locks have the same purpose, they are quite different.

For the one, you only need a single item, a key, to successfully open it. For the other you need a combination of numbers to successfully unlock it.

So which of these 2 are keeping your business success securely locked up?

You often hear people say: “I found the key to unlock my business success. It’s ….(a shinny object or the newest fad)”.

I however believe that in business it does not always work like that.

It is seldom just one thing that is needed to unlock your success. You cannot ONLY deal with a lock and key – one aspect of business. You most of the time have to deal with a combination lock – many different aspects of business – to successfully unlock your success.

But, here’s the problem with combination locks…

They require different numbers, and if you only have 1 or 2 of the numbers to a 3 number combination lock, you might spend endless hours trying different combinations to unlock it – often without success.

And even when you have all the numbers to the combination lock, you are still unable to unlock the damn thing. Why?

Because it’s not enough to have all of the numbers…

You need someone to give you all the numbers AND in the right order!

It is the same with business.

You cannot only rely on one aspect of the process or only have some of the elements required, because you might then still end up spending too much time trying to unlock your success.

You need to work on all the different elements and implement them in the right order, if you want to stop the struggle and find the success you rightfully deserve.

If you are tired running around in circles and are frustrated with not getting the results you want, it’s perhaps time to get the correct number combination for YOUR business and put it all in the right order to unlock your business success.

To Your Success

PS: Contact me today for a personalised Business Breakthrough Session. Let’s spend some time together to work on your combination lock and see if we can move your business forward a little faster this year.

The post Is The Success Of Your Business Locked Up? appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

And I realised if you are living in SA, there are 9 billion reasons why investing in and building a website is a good idea.

What? You can’t even count that far? Well, me neither!

But it’s true…, there are 9 billion reason to invest in a website, because 9 billion rand is the amount of money spent PER YEAR by business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce in SA.* In other words, people buying products and services via the Internet!

This is serious money. Spent by serious people…

And if this is the amount of money spend in only ONE small country, think about the money spend globally!

But let’s focus on South Africa as an example of some more mind-boggling Internet usage stats.

According to Internet World Stats* (2014), there are 23.6 million Internet users in South Africa – almost half of the population.

The biggest single age group is 30 to 49 years old – representing 42.9% of the online population. 18.6% is older than 50 years and about 30% is between 20 and 29 years old.

Thus, more than 60% of the Internet users in South Africa are part of the economically active population!

…and with an online spend of 9 billion per year they certainly have money to spend. (Whatever country you are in today, the stats will probably have the same trend.)

So in my humble opinion, I’d say there is some disposable income in there with your name on it!

BUT, if you cannot be found online, and if you do not have a website, you might be missing out on that income.

Apart from these mind-boggling stats – and before we get too overexcited about all these big numbers), here are 8 more practical reasons why you need to consider having a website for you business.

# 1: Your Clients / Potential Clients

Will potential clients use the Web to look for information specifically about you?

Yes, they will. Potential clients may hear about you from a friend or see your business card; perhaps read an article you’ve written or follow you on social media.

When people are curious to know more about you, they’ll probably do an internet search or try to find your website before they decide to contact you. Will they find you?

Will potential clients randomly search online for the specific services you offer?

Yes, they will. Doing some quick keyword research will reveal that tens of thousands (even millions) of searches monthly are done for the specific services or products you provide.

Will they be able to find you?

If you do not have a website, the chances are they won’t and you’ll have to pass this potential client opportunity on to a competitor who is online

Do your potential clients or target audience have web sites themselves?

If they do, they will without doubt consider the web to be an important business tool and might find it strange if you don’t have an online presence.

# 2: Your Own Business

Do you want to reach a wider client base?

A website is not geographically bound and can extend your reach. It helps you to increase your business footprint to attract potential new clients locally, nationally or even internationally?

Even when you have a purely services based business and only work with clients locally, a website can serve as a platform to diversify your income and or add additional passive income streams to your bottom line.

Do you want your business to project a professional image?

Off course you do…even when you work from home (and sometimes in your pyjamas – who needs to know 🙂) .

A well designed web site can project a professional brand to the world – no matter your office location or your clothing preferences.

Are you running on a tight budget and want to optimise marketing costs?

Creating a website, can be an initial capital outlay. Thereafter, continuous online marketing can be cost effective.

When you use your marketing efforts to drive traffic to your website, you can implement an effective lead capture strategy on your site, to trigger more business as well.

# 3: Your Competitors

Do your competitors have web sites?

The Internet opens up the availability of choices and many people love to “research and compare before they commit”. If you don’t have a website, but your competition does, potential clients cannot include you in their comparisons or decision making processes, and will probably go with who they find online. So you are losing out on potential income.

With a website you are on equal footing with you competitors and can inform and pre-sell interested prospects with all the reasons why they should rather work with you.

If your competitors do NOT have a website, you immediately differentiate yourself when you do have one. Plus it gives you the opportunity to attract web visitors (and potential clients) looking for those things you offer.

Are your competitors longer in business?

If you’re just starting out, a web site can help you to level the playing field. A well designed website gives the appearance that your business is well-established already and provides an added layer of trust.

So, this is what I want you to take from this article:

If you do not have a website yet, then evaluate your business and start taking action towards getting one in place.

If you already have a website – think about how you can refine and update it to help you stand out and attract more of your ideal clients.

To Your Success

* Internet World Stats

The post Do You Need a Website For Your Business? Hell Yeah! appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

Assuming you want to start your own business. Where do you begin?

• Now is not the right time. She made the time
• I don’t have any money. She found the money
• I don’t know where to start and what to do. She did the research and found the answers she was looking for.

The post Are You Making The Right Decisions? appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

Different people may have different answers and all of them might be correct.

In my opinion, the absolute starting point for creating business success is to truly know yourself – to know and understand who you are as a person: your personality, strengths, weaknesses, behaviors, beliefs, motivations, emotional reactions and everything else that makes you tick..

The reason why self-knowledge is so important is because it increases the likelihood that you can create the results you want in your life and your business. When operating your own business, you can read every business tip out there, you can model the practices of others, and you can eat up every piece of self-help that comes across the computer screen, but it’s completely pointless if you don’t know yourself well enough to put the correct advice into practice.

So, self-knowledge helps you to figure out what you want to do, what you will enjoy, and what you are willing to let go. It helps you make much better decisions in terms of

• What type of business to start
• The services you offer
• How to perform your work
• The type of clients you work with
• How you interact with clients
• How you manage your business and resources to progress faster
• How to manage and grow your finances
• How you market and attract clients

When you understand who you are as a person, what you are willing to do, what you want in life and why you want it, you can start creating the business success you want. Because only then, you can change behaviors that don’t suite you, and direct your thoughts, plans and actions to achieve all the things you want.

But, getting to know yourself doesn’t just happen.

It takes conscious effort and a lot of stripping back the layers, one by one.

It also takes a lot of courage. (But it’s worth it!).

So, to help you on this journey of self knowledge, here are a couple of important thought-provoking questions to ponder on.

17 Thought Provoking Questions to improve your self-knowledge

1. How would you describe yourself?
2. What makes you happy
3. What motivates you?
4. What are your top five values?
5. What are you most grateful for in life?
6. What you are really passionate about.
7. What do you dislike?
8. What makes you angry?
9. What do you fear most in life?
10. What limiting beliefs are you holding on to?
11. What empowering beliefs can you take on to help you achieve your goals?
12. What bad habits do you want to break?
13. What good habits do you want to cultivate?
14. What are your greatest strengths?
15. What do you want from your business…from life in general?
16. Why do you want it?
17. What will you do anything for (to have or get)?

Obviously, these questions are just a starting point, but knowing the answers and delving a bit deeper to understanding yourself better, will in the end drive your overall behavior and impact on all the decisions you make regarding your business and your life.

So take some time out today, and start stripping back those layers to get to the real you.

Let’s start creating your business success, today.

To your Success

Francis

The post Want a Successful Business? 17 Thought-Provoking Questions to Gain Self-Knowledge appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

Doubling your income, doubling the number of clients you work with, doubling your enjoyment of having a thriving business, doubling how you experience life… doesn’t always require a major overhaul.

It only requires two simple things:

1. Set the intention via a clear GOAL &
2. Get into ACTION!

I believe that goals and taking action can take you beyond your limits to a world of unlimited possibilities.

But you have to set the right type of goals in order to take the right actions.

Many people set goals, and specifically business goals, that are “uninspiring” – goals to only get enough to pay the bills, to get by, to survive, to make it through the day. In short, many are caught up in the trap of only making a living rather than designing an enjoyable life.

The problem is that lousy goals will not take you beyond your limits into a world of unlimited possibilities.

You need to start dreaming bigger, and start getting clearer on the things you really want!

When we first set large goals, they may seem impossible to achieve. But the most important key to goal setting is to find a goal big enough to inspire you – something that will cause you to unleash the power within you.

The way I usually know I’ve set the right goal is when it seems impossible but at the same time it’s giving me a sense of crazed excitement just to think about the possibility of achieving it.

For me, achieving those big goals is like building a 2000 piece puzzle. (Oh, did I mention I love puzzles? LOL).

So, let me explain….

Imagine trying to solve a 2000 piece puzzle without looking at the picture on the box. I bet it will be an extremely difficult task and you might even give up at some stage. But when you have the puzzle picture right next to you, solving that puzzle becomes a whole lot easier.

It is the same with setting and achieving your goals for this year and beyond.

When you think about what you want for your business this year, it might be to achieve a certain level of income; or work with a certain number of clients per month; or create a new way of serving clients; or…[fill in your goal].

That is your puzzle picture.

That is the picture you must keep in your mind so that it can direct all your actions.

And then equally important is to really look at this picture so that the details can become more and more visible.

Because when you are clear about what you want (i.e. when you have a clear picture of your dreams and your goals) and are really inspired on achieving it, your brain has an amazing power to pick up information and decipher opportunities. You then become hypersensitive to strategies, ideas, people and plans that can help you meet those goals.

But having that clear picture about your goals is not merely enough.

It is also necessary to take persistent action on all the opportunities, strategies, ideas and plans that present themselves to you.

Let’s go back to our puzzle example to illustrate this.

You see, if you’re just staring at, and admiring the picture on the puzzle box, and taking in all the beautiful details, the puzzle can’t be completed.

You need to take action, empty the puzzle box on a table and start turning over the pieces one by one.

Only then can you slowly start building the puzzle, one piece at a time.

In the beginning it might seem like an impossible task and you might try to put pieces together that just don’t fit.

But when you persist and consult the puzzle picture regularly, you’ll start taking in the details and you’ll start to look for, and find the pieces that obviously fit together. Only then a small recognizable piece of the overall puzzle will start to take shape.

As you progress with one piece at a time, the bigger picture unfolds and eventually the puzzle on the table represents the picture on the box.

That is when you achieved your goal.

Tony Robbins says that: “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible. It is the foundation for all success in life.”

So take that first step in doubling your results this year.

Set the goal.

And then, follow up on it with consistent action.

Remember, your goals provide a magnificent direction and a way to focus your attention on those things you regard as important to you. Keep it at your side – just like you’ll keep the picture on the puzzle box next to you when you solve a puzzle.

No goal or dream for this year is impossible. You can do it!

Here are some practical action steps to help.

1. Grab a cup of coffee (or your favorite drink).
2. Find a quiet place and start dreaming about your business (or your life). What do you want your business to be like in future? What would you like to have? Don’t limit your thoughts – just dream.
3. Put in some details. Build on that dream and get a clear, vivid picture of it in your mind.
4. Put all your thoughts on paper or create a visible vision board.
5. Keep it close where you can consult it every day.
6. Create a couple of shorter-term goals. Goals that excite you and will move you closer to that dream.
7. Decide what is the first step (or next step) you can take TODAY to put you on the journey of achieving that goal.
8. Then go out and DO it.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until you reach that goal.
10. Finally. Enjoy the journey!!

To Your Success

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The post These 2 Simple Things Can Help Double Your Clients and Income Results appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

Are you like Shrek?

Funny question, I know…

…but I think humans are actually a lot like ogres.

Remember when Shrek was trying to explain to Donkey what ogres are like and had the “onions / layers” conversation with Donkey?

[Click video for dialoque]

Well, like ogres, humans are also wonderfully complex creatures…

We also have many layers and there’s a lot more to you than meets the eye.  🙂

But have you ever really think about…

How well do you know yourself and your layers? 

How well do you know:

• Who you really are as a person?
• What makes you happy
• What are you truly passionate about?
• What do you want from your business…from life in general?
• Why do you want it?
• What motivates you?
• What do you dislike?
• What makes you angry?
• What are your values?
• What are your biggest fears?
• What are your greatest strengths?
• What will you do anything for (to have or get)?

Research has consistently shown that people, who truly understand these basic things about themselves, tend to be stronger performers and better leaders in their industries.

It’s not just about knowing your strengths and weaknesses; it is also about understanding your personality and knowing what is important to you because that knowledge drives your behavior and the decisions you make in life AND your business.

In business, understanding your own layers helps you make better decisions in terms of:

• The services you offer
• The type of clients you want to work with
• How to interact with clients
• How to perform your work on a daily basis
• How to manage your business and resources to progress faster
• How to promote your services and attract more ideal type clients

Success in life starts with clarity…

Knowing and understanding who you are, what you are willing to do, what you want in life and why you want it is often the starting point of creating a successful business…

…because only then you can direct your thoughts, plans and actions to achieve all the things you want.

To Your Success

PS: What are your thoughts? Share it with us in the comment section below. And if you enjoyed this article, it’s easy to share using the buttons below!

The post Know Yourself – 12 Important Questions to Ask appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

Doing marketing, drawing clients into your pipeline, staying in touch with prospects and clients, scheduling client consultations, converting prospects into clients, keeping records of client communication, billing clients, tracking income and expense etc. etc. are all tasks you do on a regularly (even daily) basis. Creating a system around each of these tasks or activities, makes it easier to do, saves time and can even put your business on autopilot when you are not in the office.

So, what is a system?

Without going too much into details, a system is a set of steps, methods or procedures you follow to carry out a specific activity, perform a task or solve a problem.

Thus, to create a system for a specific activity in your business you’ll need to know all the specific steps you follow – from start to end – to complete that activity.

In practice, creating systems do not need to be complicated. The only requirement is the systems should work best for YOU and YOUR business. Ultimately the purpose of a system is to save you time and to put most of your repetitive tasks on autopilot so they can take care of themselves with no to minimum involvement from you.

Systems save time and put most of your repetitive tasks on autopilot.
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Here are examples of 5 systems to simplify the process of getting more clients.

Doing Marketing: If networking and frequently attending live events is one of your marketing strategies, a system can simply be to schedule the dates of all the networking events in your calendar. This way you do not have to remember everything as your system will do the work for you. You can even set a reminder for a couple of days before the event to allow for any preparation, if needed. This way you won’t forget about the event and will be well prepared when you attend. Scheduling is a simple system that can help you stay consistent in attending those in-person events, saves time because you know it is scheduled and you’ll be reminded in time, and you’ll feel more confident when you show up, since you had ample time to prepare.

Filling your Client Pipeline: An example of a system to fill your client pipeline is to use your website, email marketing software and a free offer to capture the contact details of visitors to your website.  You can direct all your marketing efforts (the people you meet at events, all your off-line and online marketing) to your website and let your well-oiled system takes care of getting these web visitors into your client pipeline so you can stay in touch with them. This is a system that can be set up once. And best of all, it runs on autopilot while you sleep or are miles away on vacation

Staying in touch: It is important to ensure your prospects don’t forget about you. When staying in touch you continuously build relationships with your prospects and keep your services and offerings in front of them. One way to stay in touch is to publish a regular e-zine (electronic newsletter). An example of creating a system around your e-zine is to create a list of topics you want to share with your audience on regular intervals and then to schedule those topics into an editorial calendar of when each will be send out. An important part of this system is also to schedule the time in your calendar to write the content and populate your email marketing system. When you use email marketing software like Aweber, you can write your content in advance and schedule it to go out on a specific date. This saves time and have the added benefit that your communication are send even when you take an extended vacation.

Convert prospects into clients: Once people are interested in working with you, a new client conversion procedure or system can do wonders for your business. An example of a system here is to have a form on your website where prospects can inquire about your services. Once they’ve filled in the form, they receive an automated email to set-up a complimentary discussion where you get together on the phone. For the discussion you can use a specific, pre-developed script or format  to lead your prospect from just inquiring about your services to becoming eager and willing to work with you. The system is taking care of all the pre-work and you only have to be there to conduct the discussion and convert the prospect into a new clients.

New Client Intake: When a prospect becomes a client, it is good business practice to give them all the information they need for working effectively with you. An example of a system when a client says “yes” is to have a client information pack (or welcome pack) ready to send to this client. The bulk of this information pack and regular client communications can be pre-developed and only customized per client. This saves a lot of time and prevent you from re-inventing the wheel for each new client.

With workable and automated systems in place, you can simplify and streamline the process of getting clients and accomplish most of your daily client related and administrative tasks in a matter of minutes, not hours.

Systems put time back into your day – time that you can spend on growing your business with clients and income and/or taking a well-deserved break.

Your assignment for today:

• Pick one thing. . . just one thing in your business and create a system around it.
• Start documenting all the steps you take to complete that.
• Evaluate what you can do to automate / facilitate all the repetitive activities to help you save time with this in future.

The ultimate goal is to create systems that don’t require your attention every minute of the day.

To Your Success

P.S. Do you use systems in your business? Tell us about it in the comment box below.

The post 5 Systems to Simplify the Process Of Getting Clients appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

This speaks for itself, because the better you know your clients, the better you can tailor your marketing message to solve their biggest problems, the better they’ll relate to your message – making it easier for you to attract them and convert them into paying clients.

Thus, knowing your clients is critical to your business success….and it starts with your ability to put yourself in your clients’ shoes – to truly understand who they are and what they need.

So, here are 8 important things to know about your clients that will put your business and client attraction on an upward success spiral.

1)    Who are they?

Everyone talks about the importance of defining a target audience and ideal client…yet very few businesses actually do it. However, the clearer you are about who you work with, the easier it will be to get to know them AND to identify places to find them.

2)    Where do they spend their time?

Knowing where they spend their time, helps you to also be present – either in person or via your marketing materials.

3)    What do they struggle with?

Every business has a number of frustrations and struggles that they want to get rid of. What are those struggles for your clients as it pertains to what you do? Knowing what they struggle with can help you position your business to become their problem solver.

4)    Why are they struggling with it?

There is always a reason why people struggle with something. E.g. do they have these struggles due to time constraints or lack of specific knowledge and skills or lack of technology and equipment? Finding the reasons can help you tailor your services and marketing to solve those problems.

5)    Why would they work with you?

Do you stand out from your competitors? What will be the deciding factor to help your clients decide that you are the one to work with?

6) Why do they need your services?

Understanding why a client needs your services means that you can approach him at the right moment when he is ready to work with you. E.g. if you provide financial tax support, you can start promoting your tax related expertise during the start of tax season, increasing the likelihood of attracting clients searching for tax help and advice, because they might not feel confident enough to do it themselves or they want to save time.

7)    What do they expect when working with you?

Understanding client expectations means you can encourage a positive customer experience from the start and maximize the chance of repeat business. E.g.when you know what they expect, you can bring that into your very first client conversation to put them at ease about working with you. Then ensure you do that to retain their business.

8)    What are their top 3-5 priorities / goals?

The more information you have on what your clients’ top priorities are, the better you can position your marketing and your services to assist them reaching those goals faster.

Knowing your clients is a powerful way to propel your business forward.  It allows you to make positive changes in your own business to accommodate their unique and varied needs. This helps you stand out and makes you much more client attractive.

To Your Success

The post 8 Important Things To Know About Your Clients appeared first on CreateClientChemistry.com.

A business that attracts lots of clients is a business that focuses on service excellence.

Anyone can give a service and find some clients, but someone who focuses on service excellence, will have a business that prosper and will attract clients into long-term relationships.

On vacation to Romania last year, I started to understand what service excellence really means and how it can practically put your business on a totally different level than your competitors.

While exploring the ski slopes of Poiana Brasov, a small town in Romania, we noticed one restaurant that was bustling with customers every single night, while others barely had one or two tables occupied. So, obviously we wanted to try it out. Due to a huge language barrier, we had to call in the help of our hosts at the B&B we were staying to make reservations for us for the second week of our stay. It turned out that this restaurant only take reservations and is normally fully booked for weeks in advance – even in off-peak seasons.

The wait was absolutely worth the while and here’s why.

Upon entering the restaurant, we were personally greeted at the door by the owner of the restaurant and taken to our table which was made of rough, solid sleeper wood and was beautifully laid out with sparkling silverware and fresh flowers (in the middle of winter in snow-filled mountains – that is a big wow). The chairs were covered with snow white sheep skin for added warmth and comfort. A big log fire blazed away in one corner and a traditional band with dancers kept us entertained with great lively music.  We were just seated when they brought us warm, freshly baked bread with real butter. We were served complementary glasses of spicy “gluwein” (obviously the price of the wine was worked into the food somewhere, but the mere fact that it was not reflected on the bill made it special). The waiters were extremely efficient. The food was delicious and the presentation was faultless. A small mint chocolate was served with the after meal coffee. The bill was reasonable. All in all one of the best restaurants I’ve ever visited.

So, what made this Romanian restaurant stand out above the other restaurants in that area as well as above many of the so-called five star restaurants we’ve visited in our life before?

Well, everything they did had one goal in mind: Service Excellence.

Making you feel welcome; making you feel good by just being there. Attention to detail and small things like the chocolate with the coffee, fresh flowers, the personal greeting at the door, the beautiful table, clean silverware, the festive atmosphere, the complimentary gluwein, good food and good service – all working together to ensure a full restaurant and customers coming back for more.

That made me think:  If a restaurant owner in the middle of nowhere can keep his restaurant fully booked for weeks in advance, how can we apply the same service excellence in our businesses as well.

For me, service excellence is about:

• Showing a great attitude towards your clients;
• Enjoying what you do and knowing how it can benefit your clients;
• Displaying exceptional behaviours and applying those to your client relationships.
• Finding ways to make your clients feel good about your services, your business and themselves because they simply feel good when dealing with you.

Here are some practical ways to create service excellence in your business:

Listen to your clients.

Let your clients talk and take the time to identify exactly what they need by asking questions and concentrating on what they are really saying. Listen to their words, tone of voice, body language, and how they feel. Show that you are listening by making the appropriate responses and suggestions or giving alternative options on how to improve things. By just listening to your clients, they not only feel heard and understood, but you also pick up on valuable nuggets that can help you improve on your service to give them exactly what they want and need.

 Be reliable and deliver on what you say.

Reliability is one of the key aspects to any good relationship. If you say, “Your report will be ready on Tuesday”, make sure it is ready and delivered on Tuesday. Do not “over-promise” and then “under-deliver”. Rather do it the other way round – under-promise then over-deliver.

 Always play open cards with your clients and be honest in all your negotiations.

Don’t tell a “half” truth or withhold information from your clients, just to “save face” or earn a few more bucks. When you are honest about situations, even when you’ve made a bad mistake, you’ll win the client’s respect and trust.

 Deal with complaints promptly.

No one likes hearing complaints, but when a client complains, the chances are there might be a problem or a misunderstanding that is causing it. Listening and solving complaints is an ideal opportunity to restore goodwill, keep a client and build stronger relationships. Handling complaints can also help you to improve your procedures thus eliminating or minimising similar issues in future.

 Pay attention to small detail and give them more than expected.

Be creative and give your clients what they do not get elsewhere. People love to get more than they thought they were getting – and it doesn’t need to be something big to be effective. E.g. send a small gift when someone start a big project with you; include a thank-you note when you’ve completed a project; send a message on their birthday– even when you’re not working together anymore; follow-up and thank them even when they don’t buy from you; send them information to help them in their business without expecting anything in return; give them a coupon for a couple of additional service hours. There are all sorts of ways to go the extra mile and to give them more than they expect. They may not say so, but people notice when you make an extra effort and will tell other people.

Creating service excellence in your business doesn’t cost much, but it can mean a world of difference to your clients and your business. If you deliver service excellence consistently, it’s a free form of marketing. Over time your business will become known for its good customer service and you’ll create a business that prosper and attract clients into long-term relationships.

Your take-away assignment for this week

How can you create even more service excellence in your business to make your clients come back for more? Please go ahead and share your ideas in the comment box below. Let’s all learn from each other.

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