If you have people who love your business then these people will make great clients because they love you already. They’ll want to work with you and they’ll tell people about you. They’ll open your emails and they’ll make an effort to say good things about you and write you some fabulous testimonials.
Love is a two-way process. Just as you have two people in a relationship, there are two people in a relationship with your customer as well. YOU and THEM. The relationship will need to start with YOU because your prospects might not know that you even exist yet.
So how can you love someone who doesn’t love you business yet, without coming across all stalkerish and irritating?
[video_player type=”youtube” youtube_remove_logo=”Y” youtube_force_hd=”hd720″ width=”550″ align=”center” margin_top=”0″ margin_bottom=”20″]aHR0cDovL3lvdXR1LmJlL1llT0YzYTJpekI0[/video_player]
Here’s some ideas:
1. Look your best.
If you were going out on a date you would dress up, find your lipstick and make sure your hair looked fabulous in order to make a great impression. In your business, you need to make sure that you are dressed appropriately as a representative of your business, especially when you’re out and about, but you also need to consider how your business is dressed. This means looking at your visual branding and how well it conveys your business message. Take a look at how well dressed your logo, website, printed materials, social media platforms and business premises are. Do they look their best? Have you dressed them up to help you to attract clients?
2. Give
Who doesn’t like gifts?! Don’t you love it when you come home to a bunch of flowers or when someone else makes the dinner?
I LOVE giving presents. I love it when I have an idea which I know is going to be a hit with the person who’s opening the present, I love buying the ribbon and the decorative bits to make it look pretty, I love giving them the present and seeing how they react. Giving doesn’t just benefit the person you’re giving to, it’s a great experience for you as well.
In your business, what can you give to others? This could be some information or worksheets that will help your audience out, blog posts on useful subjects, videos that help them move forward with their problem, think about the kind of things that they will really appreciate. Giving is so rewarding, and if you give to the people who you would like to work with they are more likely to want to find out more about your business. You could also use this to give people a reason to join your newsletter or follow you on social media.
3. Remind people that you exist
When you love someone you try to spend time with them regularly. You might speak during the day or go out for a meal whenever you can. With your clients and those who are not your clients yet, you need to remind them that you exist! This doesn’t mean ringing them up every day or following them home after work or anything remotely icky, this means finding ways to remind them that you are there waiting for them and letting them know what it is that you do. So attending the networking events that your clients go to, sending them regular email updates to let them know what’s going on in your business (with their permission of course), maybe even sending our postcards from time to time and interacting with them on social networks.
4. Be you
This should be the easiest tip of all! After all, you are you, and being you should come naturally! There’s no point in trying to be something you’re not. If you are real, authentic to who you are and don’t try to change the way that you are then not only will business be so much easier for you but you’ll find that you’ll stand out for being yourself. What is there to gain by trying to be “normal”, trying to be like everybody else? Who wants to buy from a generic business when they can buy from YOU. The people who like you will be the kind of people you’ll enjoy working with – and you won’t break their hearts when they find out who you really are.
5. Ask questions
This one’s easy too – ask your audience what they want to know, what they think, what they are into, how you can serve them better. If people are seeing that you want to do a better job, improve your service, provide new products that are just what they want or just that you are interested in them, then they will be happy to help! A phrase I come across often is “you don’t have to be interesting, just be interested” which is great for me as I don’t really like talking about myself very much, but I love finding out what’s going on with other people.
If your audience feel that you really care about them, then they will be keen to find out more about you too.
The other day, I saw a tweet from Kim Garst which said:
One of the reasons that you love your parents is because they first loved you. BRANDS NEED TO DO THIS! #garyvee #truth
— Kim Garst ツ (@kimgarst) January 24, 2014
I think this shows that you need to take action first, show your prospects that you love them, and once they are feeling loved, they will be more interested in you and love your business right back.