I like to win. When I set myself a challenge, the satisfaction I get from completing it can’t be put into words. Whether it’s climbing Snowden (a long-term personal goal that I achieved earlier this year) or the 22/22 challenge (22 press ups every day for 22 days, to raise money for army veterans in the UK and US), whatever it is, I give it my all.
So in the early days of running my business I found one of the most frustrating aspects was when I didn’t win a client I’d been pitching to. Obviously there’s only so much that’s within my control, however as with everything else in life I was giving it my all in the pitch/nurturing stage, so to ‘fall’ at the final hurdle was both exhausting and demoralising.
On one occasion I’d spent a good few weeks on with a prospective client, answering all their questions, putting together rates cards and proposals (and adapting them as necessary), finding associates who would be a great fit, the same as I would do for any potential new business. This one felt different though – the impression I had was that I’d already won the business and what I was doing at this point was a preliminary to signing contracts.
So when they told me after a couple of weeks that they were going with another agency, I was stunned. Actually, I was crushed. Was it me? Was it something I’d done, or not done? Who had they gone with and how could they have done that? All that groundwork I’d done and it was all for nothing.
But after about 5 minutes of feeling sorry for myself (which is as much as I ever allow myself!), I started putting a plan into place.
My clients are the core of my business and know how hard we work for them at VAA… but when I’m nurturing new customers I can’t let the work I do for my existing clients slide, which is what had happened on this occasion to a certain extent. So I started to think about how I could develop my new relationships but without putting all my eggs in one basket or running myself ragged in the course of winning that business.
I set about building a series of processes that enabled me to nurture, and win, new clients, efficiently – ways of working that I’m still using 13 years later! And now I want to pass that information on to you.
We’re really excited to announce our new course ‘Winning the Client’, which will be launching soon. We’ll show you how to develop and win your leads, giving you templates, ideas, tips, and a repeatable model that we know is successful across the board. It’s an affordable way of boosting your business success and growing your company.
As with our flagship course ‘Supercharging Lead Generation in your Business’, the course is broken into modules, giving you step-by-step instructions that you can take at your own pace.
If you’d like more information about ‘Winning the Client’, ‘Supercharging Lead Generation in your Business’, or any other aspect of the work we do here at VA Agency, get in touch today – we can’t wait to hear from you!
Until next time!
Stay productive.