Before we begin, to those of you offended by the title of this post (I realize that the word “steal” may be putting some people off): if you work for yourself and provide services, stealing clients IS your job, face it. Where else would you find good and highly qualified prospects than amongst the people that already use the similar service to yours?
As unethical as stealing clients may seem at first glance, it is actually a quite standard business situation and I personally don’t think there is anything wrong with that. Every company loses clients. But while some go on their own account (you provided a crap job or simply, they need a fresh approach to their projects), others are being taken away, by the competition.
It’s a fact, part of your job as a salesman (and no matter what you think, you are a salesman first, whatever else that you do comes second) is to win new clients, and many of them will come from the ranks of your competitors.
Stealing a client is probably the most difficult sale you will have to make. It takes a lot of energy and hard work to first get through the door and be even given a chance to present your offer. Then comes overcoming all of the sales objections that usually come up when it comes to changing vendors.
Unfortunately, quite often this is the only way to win good business. Face it, most of the clients you would dream to work with are already serviced by someone else, your competitor.
As hard as it may be, there are certain things you can do to make “stealing” clients a much easier job. In order to successfully snatch a client from your competitor, you will need 3 things:
1. Better reputation on the market
No client will change providers without being sure that their new vendor is better and can provide them with more efficient solutions to their problems. Therefore, before you even try to do anything to win someone elses clients, you need to work on how you are perceived on the market.
Ask yourself:
How many people talk about you?
How many referrals do you get?
How many people tweet about you?
How many retweets your posts get?
How many fans do you have on Facebook and so on.
All this stuff matters.
You need to build your reputation as an expert in your field, but here is the catch, you need to be better at it than your competition.
2. Better customer service
Your new client must feel special about working with you. They must know that if they switch, you will be there for them. Therefore, you need to provide and be known for your insanely great customer service.
TIP: Every time you work with a client, old or new, ask them for testimonials. However, instead of just getting them to answer few questions about the project and the quality of your work, make them to talk about your service. This way you can build a portfolio of a positive feedback you can then post on your site, Linked in profile, Facebook page and so on.
Market these, tweet about every new positive testimonial and entice your clients to do the same. People research their potential vendors thoroughly these days so make sure they have plenty to find during their research.
3. Better support
Stealing a client is one thing, making sure that no one else steals them back from you is another. Usually an aspect of a business relationship where things go wrong is support. Service providers have a tendency to consider sending out an invoice as the end of the project, whereas for the clients, this is only the beginning. It’s the after project support that counts the most to them. This is usually when they have all their questions, worries, problems emerging and so on.
If you want someone else clients to first work with you and also, stay with you, you need to be there for them after the project is completed. And they must be assured of that before they even make a decision to move to you.
Contrary to common belief, one thing you don’t need to steal a client is a lower price. It’s you, your position and what you offer that shouId convince them to move to you. In fact, if price is amongst the reasons they would move from one vendor to another, I would suggest you run away from them as fast as possible.
Why?
Because next week they will move to someone cheaper. And there is always someone cheaper.
Here is the biggest lesson from this post. It’s difficult to steal a client, not impossible. It is more difficult to keep them though. The thing is, in order to do so, you need the exact same three things as you’d need to steal a clients.
Think about it.
Something to ask yourself: - Do you have a list of your wish clients?
Do you know who services them at the moment?
How does your market position compares to theirs?
Image by Dunechaser
About Pawel