A prospect almost hired us… but then ditched us for another company… here’s what we did next to win them over !
Last year one of our prospects suddenly gave away a big mobile app development project to another company. This happened after multiple rounds of detailed and almost final leg discussions with us.
The reason?
The other company was willing to develop the mobile app at a far lesser cost and in a much smaller timeframe, while our prices were way higher, almost the cost of the prospect’s firstborn :P
So … we parted ways, but on a positive note.
Well, not exactly this way…but you get the drift right?
Now, I am a firm believer in forging strong relationships. So, I did not forget the prospect.
I kept my communication channels open with them. From sharing interesting industry updates to following up with them about the progress of the app, I tried to be more of a friend than a consultant. I had thus entered the friendzone.
We regularly discussed the status and progress of the project. The client also shared the occasional hiccups they faced initially with me, and as a friend, I also started giving them advice on how to overcome them.
Our friendzone period continued for a while, when one day the prospect finally popped a question to me — Can your team rescue us from this hell ? Can we try your team out with a paid trial ?
I was of course delighted — almost did a little jig in the conference room. I agreed to do the paid trial for a few weeks. The prospect loved the work our team did. They were convinced that we could develop a MUCH better app than the other company, which is why, one day, they suddenly emailed me to inform about their decision to give us the entire project.
We were ecstatic. We had to literally pinch ourselves hard to believe that the same prospect who ditched us for another company, was our client now.
What changed ?
By now, I am sure you may have several questions in your mind.
Like, did I force them to give us the project?
Not at all.
Did I spread malicious information about the other company?
I would never ever do that.
Did I influence them?
Yes, but in a fair and ethical manner!
I did not do any nasties to take away the project from my competitor. I cared for the client’s project and genuinely tried to help them even when we were not a part of it and that’s what worked in our favour.
I know it’s going to sound cliche, but winning a client requires as much efforts as proposing your partner.
You can’t force, or stalk them to seal the deal.
You have to patiently build a relationship of trust with the customer.
Yes, I know everybody shares this generic ‘gyaan’ on building trust, but I am going to move a step ahead and tell you exactly my 2-step process for getting results like the one mentioned above. So read ahead to know the secret.
Step 1 — Become their friend
Duh ?! Every relationship begins with friendship. Business works on the same premise.
You have to warm up to the client before giving a sales pitch (you don’t want to look like that friend who turns up only when they need money, do you?). They have to trust you enough to give you the project.
There are several ways to do it — and no it does not include sending bouquets to the client, his wife, or his pet.
That is creepy.
You CANNOT be a narcissist either. So, if you plan to inundate your client with emails about your greatness, then let me break your heart — THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU!
They care for their business and are interested in knowing how you will help them achieve it. That’s exactly what your communication should revolve around — about THEM, NOT YOU!
You just have to give them what they want — Useful content !
People love it when you give them solutions to a problem or an impending challenge for free. Educational content serves that purpose. Pick up a topic that has been troubling your client or his industry or a buzzword that has caught everyone’s attention and revolve your content around it.
Your content could be in any form — blogs, videos (everybody loves videos), white paper, e-books, and podcasts.
The key is — it should serve the following purpose:
- Educate your clients
- Engage them in a conversation
- Embrace you as a trusted voice by subscribing to your content
The secret sauce to creating awesome content
Let’s assume you are a company that helps businesses in digital transformation and your target companies are the brick and mortar shops.
Now, how will you convince them to take their business online?
One method is to send them cold emails. It might succeed in getting few clients who were already thinking about taking their business online.
But what about those who are not even remotely interested in going online but have a huge potential to succeed if they do?
Will you ignore them? That could be a grave mistake especially if they are a potential golden goose of your business.
So what’s the solution?
Easy. Just pursue them and show them the beautiful world of doing business online.
The best way to do this is by creating useful and awesome content that talks about the business.
Bonus points if it includes a cute cat’s GIF that flows with your content.
It could be on anything — advantage of changing the business model, pressing on the pain points of the current business model that becomes easier with the digital transformation, trends in the industry, and so on.
You just have to find the right topic.
And the best way to find that topic is ….. Drumrolls … by using Google Alerts! …
Dun Dun Dun !
Let’s face it; you cannot keep a tab on everything that’s happening in your client’s industry.
You may not even have the time to read more than two newsletters out of the ten you subscribed to. It is here that Google Alerts comes to your rescue.
It gives you all the information that you need without you having to break a sweat.
It’s pretty simple to use. Just enter the keywords, that is the topic on which you need information, click on the ‘Create Alert’ button, and relax!
You will receive all the updates related to the topic in your mailbox as per the options you have selected.
See an example below.
Once you create an alert, you will receive useful articles across the web. All you need to do is — read the article, do some groundwork by studying more about it, and create an original piece of content peppered with real life examples and stats (yes, people love reading stats and real success stories).
For example, in this case, the article on why retailers should turn to technology in 2018 could be a useful article for you and your client. It talks about why technology is important for retail industry.
You can do a different type of content keeping the theme of the article as the base.
You can write a blog with facts and figures, you may create a listicle on 5 reasons why technology is important in retail, you can even create a video on it. You get the drift.
The idea is … your client should relate to your content.
You can even create multiple alerts for a different related keywords to get a complete overview.
For example, besides creating an alert on digital transformation in retail, I have also created an alert on technology in retail to get more information on the topic.
This will help me improve the quality of my content.
Tadaaa … your content is ready!
You have won the first leg of the game! Now let’s look at the second part of it.
Step 2 — Follow-up, follow-up, follow-up your boat, gently down the stream …
Imagine this, you go out on a date with someone. It goes well and you would like to spend more time with them. Obviously you will text or call him/her to subtly check if he/she is as interested in you, as you are in him/her, so you can make the next move.
Business works the same way.
Remember how I kept communicating with the client even when I was not a part of the project?
It helped me build a healthy relationship with the client. Follow-up is very important to get a new client. You cannot send one email on how technology helps the retail industry and forget about it. You have to create follow-up content on how they can transform their business model to reinforce the idea.
Remember, the more you discuss about the topic, the stronger are your chances of winning the deal.
And you don’t have to worry about dearth of relevant topics when there is Google Alerts available at your disposal. Create alerts on the topics you need to be informed on, get high quality content delivered to you, curate it for your prospects and create follow-up content, link it to your previous content on the same article to form a flow, and watch out for your client’s reaction!
They will soon start looking forward to your content.
But …. You got to be patient, son !
Your date isn’t going to become your life partner immediately. You have to pursue them consistently and patiently till they trust you enough to walk down the aisle.
I hear you … Sending informational / educational content regularly and following up is hard if you do it manually for each of your prospects …
Imagine you have a list of 100 prospects you want to do business with. I know you are not going to be able to keep a tab on whom you sent which email and what their action was.
Who opened the email … Who clicked on your blog link in the email … Who replied back … Who wants to get on a phone call with you ….
Enter … drumrolls … Automation tools like … more drumrolls … like Mixmax, Drip and Autopilot, Mailshake and many others.
You spend a little initial energy setting them up once and the tool keeps engaging with your prospects on your behalf (the way you setup the automation) without you having to lift a finger.
Pursuing prospects successfully requires lot of commitment, skill and perseverance.
But if done right, you can be assured of a long-term engagement with your client.
Even if it means waiting for a year to hear back from them !
