5 Ways to get more clients with Den Lennie EP014

Hey guys, it's Dan here with another episode of the podcast. Now, we are getting full on into the audio only podcast now and that's allowing us to produce more episodes. It's my hope that we'll be able to go weekly very, very soon. But a lot of people get in touch and say they'd like us to do more content. So we're really thrilled to be able to do that for you. We've got some more cool guests coming up, but the next few podcasts, I thought I'd take the opportunity to kind of just run over some real fundamentals with you. And today I'm really excited because we're talking about five ways to get clients. And getting clients is the number one question we get here at the Academy, and rightly so, because, you know, business is all about getting clients in the door, but it's not all about getting new clients in the door. And I'm going to share in this podcast, you know, five different strategies to get clients. And I was just talking to a couple of my clients last week on a call and they were sharing some really cool results they've been getting. Inside the Video Business Accelerator. We actually have some modules that, that have scripts that you can literally use straight off the bat to connect with clients and close deals within the first 30 days. So. So it's a pretty cool way of leveraging our experience at the Filmmakers Business Academy with you being a filmmaker and not having much time to actually do all these other things like sales and write scripts. So we've actually created scripts for you that you can take and utilize straight away. And we love to get clients in to the program. And then we have this 30 day challenge to see who can get the most clients in the door in the first 30 days. So it's pretty exciting stuff. So if you wanted to learn more about that, it's the Video business accelerator. It's videobusinessaccelerator.com and this episode is in fact brought to you by videobusinessaccelerator.com so if you want to learn more about that, hit the link below this podcast or on the website and enjoy the show.

You're listening to the Business for Creators podcast, where each week we uncover the secrets to balancing creativity and business all in the one place. With your host, me, Dan Lenny.

G', day, folks. It's Dan here with another episode of the Business for Creatives podcast. This week we're going to talk about getting more clients. It's probably the number one question that I get asked or I see. And it's, you know, how do I get more clients? And I don't know that it's necessarily the right question, but today we're going to show you or talk to you about five ways to get more clients. So everyone thinks their biggest problem is not having enough clients. But I don't necessarily think that's the case. And if you're starting from scratch, it might be the biggest problem. But honestly, the money that you're looking to make is already in your existing contacts. Let me explain. So there are five ways to get clients. Number one is to get repeat business, which is simply to ask your existing clients for more work. Now, this one generally evades people. And when we run this process with new members of the Creative Business Accelerator, it's usually where we get the biggest wins the quickest. We basically get you to contact all your existing clients and reconnect with them on the phone. We'll go into that in a bit more detail. The second one is to ask for referrals, which is to ask your existing client base to recommend you to their friends, their colleagues, former employees, former university friends, you name it. I mean, this is one of the big advantages of using LinkedIn to connect with people and ask for referrals. But again, just asking for the business number three is to set up something called a joint venture. And a joint venture is when you partner with another company in a non competing space to leverage their contacts and leverage your contacts for them. And I'll talk a bit more about that shortly. The fourth process to getting more clients is actually to create a solid sales process. And I'm talking about a structured, measurable process that enables you to track how many people are visiting your website or making an inquiry, how many of those are turning into conversations, how many of those are actually turning into sales and conversions, and how many of them are coming back again and again. The more you can track that, the more you're able to start actually structuring your sales process in a way that will actually enable you to predict when sales are going to come in and not have this feast and famine of freelancing. And number five on the list is getting new clients. And that's advertising to get new clients coming into your business. So let's start with the first one, which is, you know.

How do you get more clients? And you'll notice that getting brand new clients is fifth on the list. And it seems pretty simple, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's easy. And getting new clients, brand new clients is very Very hard, because they're a very cold audience. They don't know who you are, they don't necessarily want what you're selling. And yet creators spend way much time, way too much time trying to get new business when there's a much, much easier way, yet very few people do it. And that is to ask your existing clients for more business. Yep, that's it. Ask the people who've already hired you if they need any more help. Let me ask you a question. When was the last time you connected with your existing clients? You know, the thing that always baffles me is what generally happens to the creative is they deliver the work, they do the job, they get paid, the client's happy, and they go, oh, the client was really happy. So I'll just, you know, they know where I am. I don't want to hassle them. We just done some work with them. You're kind of riding on that glory of just being paid. And very few people think to go, hey, how else can we help you? What else can we offer you? We've got this other program, we've got this other option, you know, we can do kind of content creation for you if you wanted to. Very few people actually ask the question, and I feel that it's a massive mistake. It's just like, you know, it's the most. It's. The easiest ways to get business is to contact your existing clients. And as I say, when people come into the Creative Business Accelerator program, we actually. It's one of the first modules they do, is to create a list of all of the clients they've worked with. And then we have a systematic process and a spreadsheet that's already created to help them follow up consistently. And we had one client, Gareth, who before he joined us, hadn't worked for three months for various reasons, not least of all he was working at a feature film. But he'd been out of the game in the corporate sector for a while, and within a month we got him on the phone to all his existing clients, booking meetings. Now, I think Gareth would accept that he was a bit reluctant at first because any creative kind of wants to avoid getting on the phone to a client. I don't know why, it's just one of those things. I guess it's the fear of rejection that I've certainly experienced when I have to call people. But like anything, you learn the skill. There's a great book called by David Goggins called you'd Can't Hurt Me and David Goggins. Is a Navy seal. He does ultramarathons, extreme races, and he talks about the idea of callousing. And the idea of callousing is that, you know, no one's born knowing how to ride a bike, you know, and when you first start learning how to ride a bike, you fall off and you hurt yourself. And if you just didn't get back on the bike after you'd fallen off, you'd stop. But if you fall off, squeeze your knee and get back on the bike. Eventually, you do it enough times, there's enough repetition that you actually get better at it and then you nail it. So the idea of callousing is that if you cut yourself, a scab grows over and, you know, it kind of makes it a bit rough. If you break a leg, the bone grafts over the break and makes it stronger. So the idea is that you've got to callous yourself to make sales calls or follow up calls. And the more you make, the better you become. Now, once you've made 30 calls, you'll understand the kind of way in which conversations are going to go. So that's number one, is get on the phone to your existing clients and ask them how they're doing. And one of the things you can say is, hey, listen, sir Bob, I'm so sorry I've not been in touch for a while. We've actually been really busy working on some really cool new things in the content creation space. And I apologize, we've not been in touch. I wanted to check in how the project we did with you back in March went. What kind of results did you get? You know, what was the impact of the video? Did you get the reach and the engagement that you wanted?

And then say nothing and let them talk. What I encourage you to do is have a notebook and actually write down longhand notes of what they're saying, because that will do two things. One, it will force you to listen, and secondly, you've got notes to refer back to and you can say, oh, interesting. You said that you hadn't quite got the reach you'd hoped for. What do you put that down to? What do you think that was? Do you work with an agency? How is that working out? And you can ask lots of questions, begin a conversation, and it comes across as being interested in them. So that's the number one thing that I'd encourage you to do there. You know, you want to be tapping into your existing client base. And as I say, most creators fail to capitalize on this. So, you know, the simple Process is just, you know, call them up and say, hey, we haven't spoken in a while. How did that last project end up? What kind of results did you get? You know, just checking in and asking them about how they're going will set you apart from probably 95% of other businesses. Nobody does it. And if they do, they generally mess up by saying, hey, have you got any work for us? Now, that's definitely the wrong approach. Think of it like dating. You don't want to go in too hard too soon.

So, you know, following that, that process, implementing a kind of reconnection campaign for Gareth, I mean, he did two weeks solid phone calls and the first day he was really nervous and I've done it with, with other people as well and but like ended up with a month worth of work and he's now booked up for months in advance because he keeps being in regular contact with his clients. So you just become front and center. Mind it is as simple as just calling people up and saying, hey, you know, how are you? I mean, if you do nothing else on this podcast but call your clients up after this call and engage with them, let me know how you go. I'd love to know. This really does work. It takes a bit of courage to call people, but the impact is dramatic. And the fact that you check in just reminds these clients that you exist. Because everybody gets busy. You want to make sure you are front and center of their mind. Now the next step is a referral strategy, system and process. Now, the best recommendations that you can get are from your raving fans. So if you do a great job for a client, you should ask them to recommend you to their friends and colleagues. You know, when you try to tell prospects how good you are, well, no one will really believe you because we're all in intrinsically cynical, maybe we're skeptical.

But if you have someone else say how great you are, then everything else changes. Now, when was the last time you asked a client for a recommendation? You know, unless you're asking for referrals after every job, you are just leaving business on the table. You know, a follow up phone call. Now, notice I didn't say an email to say thank you. You know, reinforce that if they had a great experience, you're always looking to work with great clients. And that's the question, can you recommend or introduce me to a couple of people that you think might enjoy working with us? It's really that simple. Now of course it takes courage to ask, but nothing bad ever happened because you asked for A referral. The real gold comes when you create systems for doing it. Then it's repeatable and you will never forget to do it. Now my clients have access to scripts and systems for following up. We like to make it as easy as possible for you inside the Creative Business Accelerator. So think about that. And the other thing is asking for a Google review. Now a really cool technique would be to finish a job with a client and say, hey, would you mind giving us a Google review? You know, word of mouth and referrals are really important to us and Google Reviews are really high ranking metric. I'd really appreciate it if you would give us a Google review now. Then what you do is you send them a template with where to go, what to click and, and the kind of things to say in an email. So you can literally just, they can just literally cut and paste something or they can, you know, come up with their own sort of solution. But Google Reviews really work well. Now you want five star Google Reviews. So if someone's had a great experience, you want to get a five star Google review and make sure that that kind of represents the project. And then the really important thing with Google Reviews is to respond to them and actually say, look, I appreciate working with you. It was great to do that project with you. And then it gives the viewer, someone who's looking at the reviews, a sense of who you are. So next step is something called a joint venture. Now you may or may not have heard of a joint venture. A joint venture is a business arrangement in which two or more parties agree to pool their resources. Now the purpose is accomplishing a specific task. This task could be a new project or any other business activity. For example, if you are a filmmaker, then you could approach a digital agency. You could create a special offer that they could share with their client base. Then in return, they do the same to your client base. It's a win win deal and in most cases don't involve any direct costs. Think of it as an extension of a referral strategy. We want to put your business in front of another person's business customers that may not otherwise be able to gain access to on their own. And in return, you can assist your joint venture partner by putting their business in front of your customers. So for example, you could have a video production company and you want to partner with an agency, a digital agency, who will promote the content and boost it and provide that service. So they could email their clients and say, we're partnering with Joe Bloggs Productions and they're offering this special deal where you can create all this content for a certain amount of money every month as a client of ours and then we will help you with the distribution of it. That's one way to do it. And then you can then email your clients and say, hey, we've got this amazing partnership with ABC Digital Agency and we are doing a package just now where we're going to create this content and they've got a special offer where they'll distribute it for you. That way you're partnering with the digital agency, getting access to their clients and they're getting access to yours. So. But before undertaking a joint venture, consider the following eight principles, right? One is identify your target market. You know, who are your customers? Number two, identify their interests. Your other interests your target market might have. What else do they do? Where else do they spend the money? Three, identify other businesses that have already captured the market you're targeting. Hint the answer to the information above are the key. So who are your target market and what else are they interested in? Four, create a compelling and irresistible offer. It needs to be exciting enough to capture your prospect's partner's interest and entice them to sit down with you. Don't go for everything all at once. Start with a meeting first and nothing more. Build the relationship. Number five, make it a win win. Work out an arrangement that will be beneficial for everyone involved. It has to be win win. What's in it for them? You can't go into a joint venture. Just think about what's in it for you. Number six, identify all the actionable steps on each side and keep them very, very simple because simple gets done. Number seven, set a deadline to get it implemented. It should take no longer than two weeks, otherwise you have an 80% chance that the deal will fall through. So speed of implementation is really important. And this is not normally a strong suit for. Creatives tend to be, you know, creatives tend to be a bit procrastinating. So make sure you set a deadline, put it in your calendar, follow up, get this done. Get. Get stuff done quickly has a higher chance of success. Then number eight, get an endorsement from the joint venture partner. If possible, take the time to make sure they love what you do, or at the very least like it. Now, an endorsement might be them getting on camera and saying, hey, it's Den here from Filmmakers Business Academy. I just wanted to let you know I'm partnering with Atomos just now. We've been working with Atomos for years. We love their products. They're coming on board to help us promote the podcast. And I actually think the products are really good. And I could give that to Jeremy. Atomos. Jeremy could do one for me. Now, that's something we're actually talking about just now, is working more closely together because I really do think Atomos make incredible products. And we've done a lot of work with them over the years. But by joint venturing, we get to share each other's products with each other's market and there's no conflict. So while a joint venture deal can take a little while to set up, once agreed, they can be a very, very powerful source of referred clients. And once they're set up, you can execute them in a couple of weeks. So joint ventures are something that really worth checking out. Now, next step is the creating a solid sales process. You know, sales, selling, and winning the deal. Those are the topics that most creators shy away from. And the issue isn't the actual selling, but the perception of the selling. So let me explain. If you have a video production service that you know will benefit your clients, you know that if they put it in place, video the right way, it will have an impact on their business that they desire. It's actually your moral duty to help that client work with you, because if you're the only person that can provide that for them, then they should be focused on investing their time and money with you because you will get them that result. You have a moral obligation to deliver that result. Now, if at that point or any point before that, they're hesitant, it's down to one thing and one thing alone. You. You simply haven't sold the benefits of your service enough. If they're not compelled to buy, then you haven't explained the benefits well enough. Now, this process isn't easy, and it involves 80% listening and 20% asking questions. If you're talking to a client many times about the scope of the job, if when it comes to price, you send a quote and you don't get the response you want, then something is wrong with your sales process. It's usually communication and it's usually a lack of clarity.

So think about your sales process and also, is your sales process structured? Do you track on a weekly basis the number of leads, the number of inquiries, the number of conversations, the number of conversions to sales? Do you track this? And if you're not, then you should start. Because if you don't track it, you simply won't be able to know how you're performing. And it should be done weekly.

And then finally, new client Acquisition. Now, getting new clients is actually the hardest of all. Why? Because cold traffic, as it's known, has no point of reference to know if you're any good or not. Humans will mistrust you at first, and they will be probably concerned that you might waste the time. It's always a toss up between risk and reward. Do I risk working with someone new and maybe get a reward, or do I kind of step back and go, actually, you know what? I'm going to stick with the guys. I know. They may not be the best, but I know them and I know they'll get the job done. So that's the hurdle that you have to overcome. Now, you only get to that part if you're very, very clear on who you're targeting, understand all of their fears and frustrations, and write a compelling ad with a strong headline and a powerful call to action. Now, learning Facebook or Google or YouTube ads or LinkedIn ads is quite hard. You know, it's very simple to set up and spend money, but working out how much budget to spend, testing, you know, only spend, you know, money on the right things and then when to know when to scale an ad campaign. There's all subtleties here. This is not something you can just learn in a couple of videos because these platforms are changing on a daily and weekly basis. Now, I'm lucky enough I'm a mentor with a guy called Ben Simkin and his Mastermind program. And I know from being at Facebook with those guys and their chief of marketing that, you know, Facebook constantly changing. So, you know, you can't just simply follow a process that someone taught you in a course last week. It may not be. It may not be accurate this week. And you need to know where to be spending your money and how to be doing it. And we're very careful about that. We use the content strategy to generate views, build audiences, and then retarget at a much lower cost per click to get people into an offer. So it's hard and you need nerves of steel and a healthy bank balance to get the result you desire. I probably spent $20,000 on Facebook in the last 18 months, and a lot of that was on stuff that didn't work. But I don't want to put you off because done right, it can be very cost effective. You just need to know what you're doing to avoid spending a fortune and get nothing in return. Now, we figured a lot of this stuff out and spent tens of thousands of dollars of our own money on Google and Facebook advertising to save you Some of the testing phase. Advertising can work if it's done right, but it's not the only strategy and it's an expensive strategy. So if you want to think about how to get clients.

Then I want to consider a content strategy. One of my clients in the Creative Business Accelerator, Simon from Visual Culture, has seen an incredible growth spurt recently. In fact, he was on the podcast a few weeks ago in just making content for his business. He's a video production business and he makes content which answers a lot of the commonly asked questions. And it's that approach.

That clients are responding to because they see Simon on camera and he's not the most confident gun camera and certainly wasn't initially. I think he's great and he's coming across really well, but he was self conscious and he wouldn't mind admitting this, but he did it anyway. And he's just got so much work coming in now that his sales target for the year has just been increased because he's like, we've got so much work booked in for the first quarter of this year, I think we're going to smash our sales target. And that's the kind of results we like to get inside the Creative Business Accelerator. So, guys, I hope that's been of some value to you. If you want to learn more about the Creative Business Accelerator, you can book a strategy call with me. It's at www.meetme. so Denlenny, and you can book in a strategy call. We can have a chat about if it's the right for where you're at in your business. As I say, we're working with some really smart businesses and they're getting some quite phenomenal results. And the big key for us in that program is support and accountability and teaching you what you need to know. You don't have to watch 100 videos and I'm not going to guarantee you're going to do it in six weeks. It's about an ongoing program of support, accountability and teaching you what you need to know for where you're at in your business right now to get you to that next step and then set some very clear goals for what you want to achieve financially in terms of freedom and time and build a business that supports that. So that's it for me this week, folks. I will talk to you again soon. See you later. You've been listening to the Business for Creatives podcast with your host, me, Dan Lenny. If you're a creative business owner who is struggling to get your business performing at the level you want. Then head on over to businessforcreatorspodcast.com to take a free business evaluation survey and discover where you can plug the holes in your business. You can also access range of free training to help you build your business faster. Also, don't forget to rate the show over on itunes so we can get the message out there to more creators who need to hear it. Thanks for listening.