A reader emailed me with some great news. He used the advice from one of my blog posts and it’s worked extremely well. There’s a powerful idea behind what he did, which I’m going to share with you. It can help you achieve similar (or even better) results.
Here’s what happened.
Danny is a partner in a medium-sized accountancy firm. After reading this, he decided to open for business 20 minutes earlier than his competitors. So, instead of 9:00am, he and around half the team are there from 8:40am. He then emailed all his clients to let them know.
The response was immediate.
He said, “I had replies back in minutes Jim. Clients loved that they could call us before their own businesses opened. They also said it was really useful, that they could pop in on their way to work. It created a wave of good feeling toward us. In the 3 months since we started, client recommendations have increased by 87% on the same period last year.”
Why it worked
Danny increased the value of his service, in a meaningful way.
Clients were immediately able to see the benefit. Most of his clients are in retail. They could now speak with an accountant, not a call-handling company, before the client’s own business opened its doors. It was a story worth sharing. So his clients told fellow retailers, knowing they’d find it useful too. Some of these retailers switched. Danny’s team bought into it too. They appreciated the flexibility of being able to start and finish work, 20 minutes earlier.
That’s an 87% increase. For the sake of 20 minutes. Think about that for a moment.
How to make it work for you
The real lesson from Danny’s story is NOT about opening 20 minutes earlier. That’s just a tactic.
No.
It’s about understanding the importance of constantly looking for opportunities to make your service remarkable. Remarkable enough to get people’s attention. Remarkable enough to talk about. Remarkable enough for your clients to truly value the extra something you provide.
The end result is massively more referrals, far better client retention and never having to sell based on your fee again.
Here’s the post, which gave Danny his idea.