A crucial part of running a successful agency, that is not often talked about, is choosing the right clients. This means choosing clients that are actually in need of, and will benefit from, your services; that you know you can help; and who you can enjoy working with. With Jackie Marguglio, a former practicing psychologist, on our side, we’ve taken a doctor-like approach to helping clients.
DIAGNOSIS GUIDES THE TREATMENT
Diagnosing a potential client is very similar to a doctor diagnosing a potential patient. You must ask them questions, find out what you think is wrong, and decide on a path to take to guide them to their goals.
This understanding of your client is crucial in the impending decision you’ll have to make because the better you understand their needs, goals, and situation, the more you’ll increase your own ability to help them.
Here are some questions you might ask a potential client during this process:
- What challenges are you facing in your current marketing and sales efforts?
- What are your goals for yourself? How do you see us helping?
- Are you prepared for the changes that we agree together will help your business?
- What is your sales process; typical process for lead turning into a customer?
- What is your goal for better marketing? (For this, you’d want an answer as specific as possible: "I hope to get ___ number of leads per month/quarter and close ___ more customers per year")
- How many visits is your website currently getting per month?
- How many leads do you get per month? (Website and offline)
- How many customers do you get per month? (website and offline)
- What are you currently spending on marketing? And what is your budget for future spends?
PRACTICE ETHICALLY
When deciding whether or not to take on a new client, it’s important to ask yourself one question: Can I help this person?
If that answer is no, we believe it is unethical to take them on as a client knowing full-well we cannot help them. Neither side would benefit from this; it’s to the advantage of both parties to move on to find the client or agency that is better fitted to help reach their goals.
We’re looking to develop strong, long-lasting relationships with our clients. In order to fulfill this goal, we need to be sure our work is needed and will be effective in meeting the clients’ needs.
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STAYING UP TO DATE
One way we’re able to maintain a long-term relationship and continue to provide an amazing service to clients is our drive to stay up to date on all things inbound marketing and sales. Whether it’s new software or new trends, it’s our constant crusade to keep ourselves on the cutting edge. Just taking a look at our tech stack shows the incredible amount of software we use in our day-to-day, which continues to shift and grow as we learn better ways to serve our agency and our clients.
One way we do this is constant analysis and reporting. This shows us, and the client, if our methods are working or what other methods might be more effective. We’re all about data-driven marketing which means using our data to drive our strategies and make improvements.
It’s a steady and reliable way to track our progress and make sure both parties remain happy.
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