The importance of being genuine and sincere in business.
Whether you are a virtual assistant, online business manager, or any time of online business…. Trying to get clients can be the hardest part of running your own business. Of course, marketing plays a role, but how can you secure a potential client when they book a call with you?
If this is something you have been struggling with then keep listening as I’m going to share with you how you can secure a potential client through genuine connection.
Let’s talk about what a genuine connection is. Some of the words used to describe genuine include, authentic, pure, quality, real and sincere. Now, think back on one of your previous client calls where you did not secure that client….what did the conversation sound like, were you being authentic and real? Or were you trying too hard or even fibbing a little to try to pretend you were more experienced? We’ve all done these things so this is not with the intent for you to feel bad about it….it’s an experience that you can and will learn from.
Sometimes you do not get the client because it just wasn’t meant to be OR sometimes you failed to secure the client because you were unable to make a true, genuine connection with them.
The thing is, we constantly are living in this online world where we can “pretend” to be anything we want to be. We only show the best photos on insta and pretend our lives are so much greater than they actually are. Trying to live up to this status is exhausting.
Nowadays, people just want to have true connections, not fake ones where we both know it isn’t real but we pretend to be best friends. I have worked in luxury sales for over 20 years and seen the best salespeople try way too hard to impress the customer and might get lucky to sell something but definitely not getting the full potential.
On the flip side, I have seen a handful of salespeople over my career that were truly genuine and showed the client who they really were. Not trying to act, dress or talk like a certain social group, but more of “this is me and I’m not going to conform to something that I’m not.
Guess what! This approach has been the most successful connection I have ever seen with clients. I promise, they will respect you so much more and really trust your opinions if you just be you!
I know this can be hard when you are first starting out in your business because you may not know a lot but you want your client to think you are a professional. Let me let you in on a little secret….that potential client definitely does not know it all either!
Instead, try approaching the calls as 100% pure honest you and be totally real with them. If they ask if you know how to do a certain task or work a certain program, DO NOT LIE or pretend you do…..be completely honest and say…actually something like “actually I have not had the opportunity to do that or learn that yet, however, I’m a quick learner and will do some research after this call so I can learn about it and then come back to you with a solution or ideas.
The client will not only respect your honesty, they will suddenly feel a connection to you that they can truly TRUST you with their business because you made yourself vulnerable and were unapologetic about it!
Never feel embarrassed or ashamed about what you do not know, rather be encouraged that we have this powerful tool, called the internet, where you can learn almost anything!
Genuineness is harder to find these days than you think and by practicing this mindset, you will truly stand out from the crowd!
Now that we got our mindset in the right place, let’s talk about some other things you can do to help secure a potential client…
Understanding their pain point: They booked a call with you because they needed help or support right? So take some time and ask many questions to truly understand your client’s struggles in their business. Sometimes, clients don’t even know what they need help with but just know they are too overwhelmed. By digging deeper and asking more questions, you can nail down their true pain point and reiterate how you understand and how you can help with that specific pain point…… for example, if your client says they feel unorganized or overwhelmed and feel like they cannot keep up or do all the things needed in their business. This is your cue to start digging….Things like…”give me an example of your day?” or “Give me a list of the things you want to do but never have time?” or… “if you could take 5 things off your plate, what would they be and why?” Asking these type of questions allows you to truly understand their pain point.
Once you know their pain points, then you have to Give Value !! What does that mean? Giving value means thinking about ways that you can add or give something additional or helpful to this potential client. For example, In the previous scenario, you were able to list 3 specific things your client needed support with and one of those things was organizing their business…. Put together a planning calendar or SOP plan for them to show them an example of what you could do for them. You could use programs like Click Up, Asana or Trello and map everything out or it could even be very basic and simple in a Google Shared Calendar showing what tasks to do each day and make take it a step further to actually assign it to yourself so they can visually see their struggles being taken away!