Today, I’m going to share a strategy with you that I use with some of my clients. It’s designed to help them solve problems and get the answers they need. It can do the same for you.

Although this strategy can be used on just about any business challenge, the example I’m using here is, how to get more referrals?.

Ready?

Lets go!

When we get a client referral we always know why it happened.

We earned it.

We exceeded our client’s expectations and provided exceptional customer service. We were consistent. We turned up. We cared. This combined to make us extremely referable.

When business owners consistently get too few referrals, they usually can’t figure out why. From their perspective, they’re working hard, caring for their customers and delivering solid customer service. Often, they will blame someone (their customers) or something (their industry). This then places the problem outside their control and allows it to persist.

The answer?

What if? thinking

When I solve this type of challenge for business owners, I start by doing some ‘what if?‘ thinking with them. It looks a little like this.

• What if the range of services you provide isn’t ideally matched to your client’s needs… how could you improve it?
• What if your response time isn’t optimal… how could you improve it?
• What if your customer service isn’t perfect… how could you improve it?
• What if the level of care and attention you place in your work isn’t maximized… how could you improve it?

Important: Using specific ‘what if?’ questions, based on my client’s exact situation, leads to massively more effective answers, than the very general examples above.

The idea behind ‘what if?’ thinking is to allow us to imagine a scenario, where there is room for improvement. And remember, it can be used for ANY area of our business, not just referrals.

‘What if?’ thinking lets us put distance between the challenge (too few referrals), and our belief that we’re already doing everything we can. It opens our thinking up to new possibilities. Possibilities that simply aren’t there if we blame external factors.

All of the important challenges we face, in life as well as in business, need to be solved from the same starting point: Accepting we have a problem. And if we want to find the best answers, we need to acknowledge that we’re not already doing everything perfectly.

This is truly great news.

It means there’s always room for our business to improve, because there’s always room for us to improve.

It means we can achieve more, because we can become more.

I was talking with an amazing group of entrepreneurs earlier. During our session, I mentioned that I hadn’t sold my services to anyone in well over 20 years. I went on to explain that thousands of people have hired me or bought from me. But I hadn’t sold anything to anyone.

That’s not just word play.

It’s a way of operating!

And if you want to attract more customers, no selling required, you need to know about it.

Buying and selling

It starts with something that my first ever boss told me. It’s simply this.

“Everyone loves to buy things, but no one likes being sold to”.

And she was right.

Most small and medium-sized business owners do not ‘get’ this. Their marketing is little more than a series of needy pitches. They turn up when they want you to buy something. And it’s rightly ignored by the vast majority of prospective customers, because no one likes being sold to.

The smartest business owners focus on engagement. They look for opportunities to give. They seek out ways to be useful to their customers, prospective customers and the wider marketplace. They build relationships and earn trust. In doing so, they attract attention and create meaningful connections.

In short, those very different approaches look something like this.

• Most marketing is about bringing your need to the marketplace. Sales pitches, special offers and closing sales.
• Smart marketing is about bringing your seed to the marketplace. Growing engagement by contributing your knowledge, solving problems, sharing your passion, being helpful and opening relationships.

Smart marketing is more effective, develops greater trust and builds better relationships. And it works in every industry. Because regardless of what line of business you’re in and what marketplace you serve, people love to buy things.

Bring your seed, my friend. Before you know it, your business will blossom in a wonderfully predictable way. No selling required.

Competition is good for business. More importantly my friend, competition is good for YOUR business.

Here’s why:

• Competition motivates you to raise the bar and set higher standards.
• Competition inspires you to innovate.
• Competition compels you to leave your comfort zone.
• Competition encourages you to differentiate yourself, so you stand out.
• Competition leads to better products and better services for the marketplace.

As business owners, the decision we face is simple: Do we wait for an agile competitor to force us to do better, or do we take the initiative?

In other words, do we wait and react or take the lead and act?

Our response to that question is hugely important.

Why?

Because it will determine whether we give ourselves a winning advantage and achieve our full potential or find ourselves constantly playing catch-up.

It’s tough being a service provider. There are so many of us in every industry. Not only that, a prospective client can find lower priced alternatives to us, on Google, in seconds.

With so many competitors, what can we do?

• We could try and out-spend them on advertising. Of course, this eats into our profit margins.
• We could try being the lowest priced. Of course, this almost eliminates our profits.
• We could try joining a networking group. Of course, we’d be relying on fellow group members to provide us with leads… the very same people who need to attend the group because they can’t even get enough leads for their own businesses.

There are better alternatives though. And one that works extremely well, is to become number one in a category of one.

It’s the strategy I follow for my own business and one that could be just as effective for you and your business.

It works like this

Let’s imagine you’re an accountant. (You could equally be a mentor, financial advisor, lawyer, designer, trainer, marketing consultant or whatever). Anyhow, unlike your fellow accountants you choose to work exclusively with creative professionals. This immediately places you as number one in a category of one.

• The fact you understand their profession at a super-deep level, sets you apart from the rest.
• The fact you understand their terminology and speak their language, sets you apart from the rest.
• The fact you understand the threats and opportunities specific to their industry, sets you apart from the rest.
• The fact you understand their unique requirements, sets you apart from the rest.
• The fact you understand the creative mindset, sets you apart from the rest.

And because you’re set apart from your former competing providers, your prospective clients will see you as massively more relevant to them and their business!

It’s hard to think of a service provider in any industry, who couldn’t transition themselves into being number one in a category of one.

Including you, my friend.

How attractive and interesting does your marketing look, from the perspective of your marketplace?

For example.

• That interesting newsletter you’re going to send. Is it interesting to you or the people you’re sending it to?
• That special offer you’re about to launch. Is it special to you or the people you’re offering it to?
• That important email you’re planning to send. Is it important to you or the person you’re sending it to?
• That exciting announcement you’re about to make. Is it exciting to you or the people you’re announcing it to?
• And that amazing opportunity you keep talking about. Is it amazing to you or the people you’re talking to?

Think for a moment about how many special offers, exciting announcements and marketing messages you encounter each week, which you totally ignore. It’s more than 99 percent of them.

You only buy (attend, purchase, subscribe to, etc), the things marketed to you, which do the following.

1. Grab your attention. Otherwise you wouldn’t notice them or the message they have.
2. Are clearly of so much value that you attend, make a purchase, join or subscribe.

And that’s also what your prospective clients or customers need from your marketing!

Here’s the thing: The vast majority of small business marketing fails on both fronts. Why? Because it’s written from the perspective of the sender (the marketer), NOT from the perspective of their marketplace.

I’m not saying the offer isn’t directed to the prospective client, or that it doesn’t offer benefits, or that it lacks a call-to-action. It usually does all those things.

I’m saying that the way this is done, is based on a toxic assumption. An assumption that the marketplace is as motivated about whatever the marketer is offering, as the marketer is.

3 ways toxic assumptions can hurt a business

These are probably the 3 most common examples. Though there are many, many more.

1. Too little time is spent pumping MASSIVE, real-world value into our offering.

This happens because we think the benefits of our services are already compelling enough. The truth is, no matter what we think, our offering is never compelling enough! If we’re not adding a measurable lift in the value of our product or service very, very regularly, we quickly get surpassed by competitors or become irrelevant.

Check out the competition. Look for holes in the provision of whatever you do, which a little creativity can be transformed into a huge marketing win.

2. Too little time is spent listening to what prospective clients want.

Even before the pandemic, the pace of change was accelerating. Now, as we plot our way out of the pandemic, the rate of change is hugely accelerated. Thankfully, social media gives us access to what our marketplace wants, in real-time.

The social media platform we choose to ‘listen’ to should be based on where our marketplace is. With a little time spent learning how to find the core information we require, we can better match our offering to the ACTUAL, current wants and needs of our prospective clients.

3. Too little time is spent learning how to create compelling marketing.

When we assume that our marketing is already compelling enough, there’s little incentive to radically improve it. Sure, we might make some adjustments. But we tend not to invest the time, effort and hard work on improving something, if we believe it’s already great.