If you are tired of working for low value clients, I have an idea I would like to share with you. It has helped me attract the best clients, avoid the worst clients and build an extremely successful business.

It can do the same for you. Allow me to explain.

Making a very deliberate choice

Before deciding to accept a new client, I ask myself the following question: Is this prospective client worthy of my best work?

• If the answer is Yes, I accept them as a client and provide them with the best work I am capable of.
• If the answer is No, I don’t work with them.

That decision puts a series of success factors into play, which creates the perfect foundation for business success.

Here’s the payback!

I have never had a cash flow problem. I have never had to face a client I didn’t enjoy working with. And I’ve always had the freedom to do my very best work. This is extremely important. Here’s why!

By being able to do my best work, my clients get great results… so my client retention is exceptionally high. Equally, my clients and former clients are a constant source of wonderful new clients.

The typical small business takes the opposite approach. And it locks them in a cycle that damages their business. What they do, is accept almost any client, who has the means to pay them.

As a direct result, they often work for clients who pay them too little or clients with dull, uninspiring projects. That’s not the scenario where professionals produce their best work. So, they get fewer client referrals and become stuck in a cycle of working with low quality clients.

Every business owner, including you, already makes the decision. You either decide to work with the people worthy of your best work or to compromise and work for those who are not.

Beggars can’t be choosers, Jim!

When I share this idea with business owners, the typical answer from those who will work with anyone, is that beggars can’t be choosers.

The thing is:

1. They are business owners, not beggars.
2. They are already choosing, by choosing to work for low value clients.

High value clients lead to more high value clients, as they recommend you to their friends and you become known for servicing the quality end of the market.

Low value clients lead to more low value clients, as you become pigeon-holed as servicing the low value end of your marketplace.

So, build the right foundations for your business. Intentionally choose great clients. And if you think you can’t afford to be choosy, wait until you see the long term cost of not being choosy enough.

Once you’ve created a plan, spoken to the right people and done the research, it’s time to ship. It’s time to produce. It’s time to make it happen.

So stop stalling. Stop making excuses. Stop waiting for things to be perfect.

You don’t need more time. What you need is the courage to ship.

The most successful businesses bake marketing into their services. In this post, I will explain what that means and why you should do the same.

If you have not heard the term before, baking marketing into a service (or product) means creating something, which is of so much value and interest that people want to buy it and also tell their friends about it. This is how products like the iPhone and services like Uber grew so popular, so fast.

Most small business owners do the opposite

Look around you at your competitors and you will notice how similar they are. Remarkably so. In fact, their similarity to one another is the only remarkable thing about them. So, they try and undercut one another on prices or fees, out network one another or outspend one another on marketing.

They are focusing their time and money in completely the wrong direction. They are trying to get people interested in something, which isn’t interesting. This is a costly, avoidable mistake.

I want something far better for you and your business!

Bake marketing into what you do

Today, I am going to ask you to consider doing something bold. I’m asking you to consider adding value (huge value) to what you market… your core products or services.

Why? Because you can waste years of your time trying to sell a service, which is simply not interesting enough to the marketplace. Great marketing is no substitute for a dull product or service.

The reason there is so much uninspiring stuff out there, is that business owners tend to be passionate about the products or services they provide. This happens, regardless of how generic or average their products or services are. Business owners are often blind to just how insipid their offering is. In Steven Pressfield’s new book, No one wants to read your sh*t, he calls this mindset client’s disease.

Conversely, a service that is of exceptional value will often sell itself, as people are so impressed with it that they spread the word. I regularly speak with business owners who don’t need to spend a penny on advertising, because their customers and their marketplace are always recommending them.

Most small business owners use the opposite approach. Instead of inspiring people with the story behind their business, they try to motivate uninspired people to talk about their uninspiring offerings.

• Some offer commissions.
• Others try to pester people into recommending them.
• Many join networking clubs, hoping that social pressure, reciprocity or rules of membership, will force people to talk about them.
• Some spam us with unsolicited emails or pester us on social networks.

All of those work to a degree, but you can do massively better by shifting your focus 180 degrees!

Here’s why.

• If you are the only person proactively telling the world about your business, your growth will be limited. You can only pester so many people. You can only attend so many networking groups.
• If your offering is remarkable enough that people tell people about it — and these people tell people about it — and these people tell people about it… you have a highly successful business on your hands.

Here’s what we know: People do not need to be pestered or pressured into recommending a GREAT service. They automatically spread the word when they encounter something exceptional. However, we must first give people something worth talking about… a story worth sharing.

When we do, they can’t help themselves. They shout from the rooftops.

A better approach

The alternative is to bake marketing into what you do. Here are some suggestions to get you started.

• Observe your marketplace and develop a product or service, which is based on what they want. This is way better than offering your version of what your competitors already provide.
• Give people a story about you or your business that’s worth sharing. This means having the courage to be different. Easier said than done, but essential if you want to attract the interest of your marketplace.
• Deliver a customer experience that stands out for all the right reasons. Pull out all the stops. Leave your clients and prospective clients feeling moved and roused by the experience of working with you, visiting you or connecting with you.
• Demonstrate your passion for what you do and your desire to help others. Passion stands out. Passion is infectious.
• Have outsiders. You can’t have insiders without outsiders. Insiders are the people who buy from you. Insiders are the people your services are aimed at. Don’t try and be all things to all people. If you do, your story will be vague and cease to motivate people.
• Learn from the products and services that you recommend. Think about what drives you to spread the word about certain businesses. What lessons can be adapted from what they do and used in your business, to help you deliver something remarkable?

Just don’t fall into the trap of trying to get people inspired about an uninspiring service or product. It’s expensive, low leverage, frustrating and places a very low ceiling on your potential.

Give one person a pen and a pad and they will scope out an exciting, new idea or maybe compose a poem.

Give another person that same pen and a pad and they will write a shopping list with it.

The pen. The pad. They’re just tools. It’s what you do with them that creates the value.

This begs the question

You have an internet connection, which offers you access to a global audience of millions. And this access comes to you, with little if any financial cost attached. It’s an opportunity our parents and their parents could never have imagined.

The question is, what are you going to do with it?

Focus on the possibilities. Because, my friend, they are limitless.

How secure would your business be, if an expertly marketed, high quality competitor started targeting your clients and prospective clients?

Most people only consider this scenario after the fact. They wait until an exciting new business, product or service shows up. It’s only then that they think about how to respond.

We have to be smarter than that my friend.

The secret?

The secret to building a robust, thriving business, is to act as if that competitor had already arrived.

This means always, always looking for ways to improve the quality of your services. Listen to your marketplace, find out what concerns them and figure out how to help them. This will make your existing clients love you and ensure you attract a regular supply of new clients too.

Of course, I recommend you do as I have done and avoid having any competitors. Yes, it’s absolutely possible. Here’s everything you need to know.

The message here is simple: Don’t allow the arrival of “some guy’s business” to be what determines when YOU up your game. A new provider, product or service WILL show up in front of your clients. Take action now and be so well prepared that the new competitor doesn’t stand a chance.