“Steve, clients are a leaky bucket that always needs topping up” he taught. “Business is all about kissing frogs”, “you have to kiss the frogs to find the princesses”, “Always upgrade your clients, work for the top of the class only”. These words of wisdom all came from an early boss who preached the religion of unceasing and relentless prospecting, regardless of the current workload.

This business view is that, just as a man must ask a lady for a date, so must a professional services firm approach clients. Importantly though, just because you made the first move does not mean you want to close the deal, its simply part of your job to approach the target. Whether you’re interested in the prospect depends on the quality and potential therein, but to determine this, you must audition them first.

Sadly, a lot of SME owners don’t adopt this strategy and miss out on the profits they deserve. Because they don’t kiss enough frogs, they don’t ever meet enough princesses to grow their business to its potential. Worse, some owners don’t even understand the idea of auditioning for princesses and turning down the dross clients. Some are so desperate to get clients in the door that they sell themselves to everyone. They end up working with clients who don’t deserve them, don’t value them and sometimes, even those clients who only buy on price and won’t even pay them properly. To pour vinegar on the wound, they often keep these naff clients onboard for years instead of getting shut of them because they fear they can’t replace the income.

Look, from 2 decades of lifting the bonnets of professional services businesses, you should know that the average number of frogs finding strategies averages at only 2-4 methods per firm. That’s at best! Forgive me for stating the obvious but if you use twice as many methods to attract frogs then can you see you will have lots more frogs to kiss?

Did you know that how many frogs kissed each month is probably the number one KPI to predict the health of your practice’s future? 

Here’s some ideas, I’m using right now to attract frogs (like you) regardless of how busy we are…

eBooks, webinars, videos, lumpy mailshots (lumpy means something lumpy in the letter), LinkedIn organic networking/ messaging, LinkedIn advertising, search engine optimization, pop-up chat on websites, Google adverts, Facebook adverts, remarketing cookies, marketing emails, seller and buyer profile marketing, referrals, LinkedIn InMail’s, Facebook & LinkedIn social media posts, LinkedIn Polls, PR releases, this business blog, introducers, seminar selling, networking, client bank servicing and old fashioned, well targeted, cold prospecting.

Some are more effective than others, all have yielded the odd princess.

The more ways you attract frogs then the more frogs you will have available to kiss. If you can kiss enough frogs, you will be able to select ONLY the princesses to engage with and you will still have more than enough clients. The most profitable and valuable professional services businesses are always built on princesses that were once frogs. Get puckered up!

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