Simple Steps to Get More Clients – Part Seven

Lesson 21 – What is a realistic conversion rate?

Hooray, if you’ve been doing your lessons, by now you should have had at least one week of practice sales conversations and have several sales conversations, including some real ones, lined up for this week.

This week, you will continue to take outreach action to generate leads and sales conversations for next week. That’s really the most important.

However, each day this week, I’ll also answer common questions that come up about sales.

A common question is: what percent of my conversations should lead to sales?

This is a good question, and there isn’t a simple answer.

I would say to start if half your conversations lead to a sale you are doing well. This might be lower than you expected.

Don’t be intimidated by people who claim to have an 80-90% rate of conversion. There are many factors that go into converting conversations to sales, and it may not make sense to hold yourself to that standard.

If fewer than half your conversations are leading to sales, you will want to tweak and adjust and see if you can inch your results higher. Over time, you are likely to be able to achieve a higher rate.

The best ways to improve your conversion rate include:

Better qualify people before you speak to them. Make sure they have an interest or need in what you do before you have the conversation.
If you are getting a lot of no’s based on not being able to afford your services, you may want to screen for ability to invest. That said, at the beginning, it’s good to talk to a lot of people and learn who is a good fit and who isn’t.
Make sure you are speaking with confidence about your ability to help, and describing what you offer clearly. If you sound vague or shaky, this can hurt your results.
Experiment with your offer. It may be that different packaging or pricing can help you get more yeses.

Your step for today:

Take action to schedule at least three sales conversations in the next week. This can include reaching out to three or more prospective clients, contacting at least one person who can help you find prospective clients, or posting on social media to generate possible leads.

Lesson 22 – Make sales conversations a regular part of your schedule

One of the ways to deeply support greater income in your business is to commit to making sales conversations a regular part of your schedule.

Humor me, and do this small step. Imagine you work 46 weeks a year. Now imagine that you have two sales conversations a week. If you are converting just half of your conversations to clients, that would mean 46 new clients in a year. One sales conversation a week could mean 23 new clients in a year. Now, take the average amount a new client pays you within a year. If a new client represents $2,000 in a year, that means if you had regular conversations you could be bringing in an additional $46 – 92,000 a year into your business! If a new client represents $500 in business, that still means $11,500-46,000 in new reveneues.

Puts a different spin on the power of having regular sales conversations, doesn’t it? I encourage you to consider setting a target for how many sales conversations you want to aim to have per week or per month.

Your step for today:

Lesson 23 – Over time, you can vary what you offer, who you offer it to, or the price you offer it at

As I mentioned in Lesson Twenty-one, one of the ways to improve your results is to experiment with what you offer, who you offer it to, or the price at which you offer it.

This is probably premature at this stage if you are just getting going.

However, keep in mind, down the road, that these are three variables you can experiment with.

If you think back to Week One, we talked about your fastest path to cash. Ideally, when you speak to someone new, you want to have an offer that is a small bite and easy to say yes to. While some advocate going right to selling a high-end package, you may find it less stressful to design an introductory offer that delivers a clear benefit, and that is not hard for someone interested in that outcome to say yes to.

If you are getting a lot of no’s, and a lot of no’s based on price, you may want to consciously shift who you are making offers to. One marketing saying is “don’t change your message, change your market.” Dan Kennedy, king of direct marketing, says that 90% of your business problems can usually be solved by changing your market. For example, if you’ve been targeting teachers, you may find you get different results when you target realtors instead.

Pricing is a big topic and we won’t get too in depth with it today. But, consider the price of what you are offering. Does it make sense? Is it positioned in a way that feels like a no-brainer? The fact is, what you offer can be incredibly valuable, but if it’s too hard for your market to say yes, you will suffer. You don’t have to simply discount. However, you may want to drop the price on an entry level offering, or create a smaller package you can offer at a lower price.

Your step for today:

Lesson 24 – Collecting proof – this can change your business

People are getting more and more jaded about the offers they are made.

One way you can speak to those fears is to have documented proof of the value and efficacy of your offer.

Documented proof means that you can show:

Numbers that indicate level of change, or satisfaction in the key areas your work addresses
Stories of how people moved from one place to another as a result of their work with you
Ideally a combination of the two

Collecting proof can become a habit and mind set. With a proof-oriented mindset, you may:

Habitually collect entry and exit data or evaluations on your clients
Interview satisfied clients
Ask satisfied clients if you can interview them and publicly use the interview in written and audio form
Conduct case studies using free or low-paying clients when you are testing a new offer in your business.

Your step for today:

Lesson 25 – When to add more strategies

So far, we’ve focused on simple strategies to generate leads: speaking with people you know, asking for help from people you know, and posting on social media.

I would stick mostly with these strategies until you feel strong and confident with them. Just these steps may be sufficient for you to build a healthy private practice.

But at some point, you’ll ask yourself, what about blogging, what about speaking, what about this other cool strategy.

When is a good time to think about adding strategies?

You want to add new strategies when you are FULLY using all the strategies we have already discussed and you are not generating enough leads to have regular sales conversations.

If you want to do more, where I recommend you start:

Local speaking to targeted groups. Speaking is a great way to educate the public about what you do and generate leads
Building referral relationships. Find other professionals to whom you can refer and those who might refer to you.
Freebies, “pink spoons”. You can generate more interest by creating and offering free tastes of your work. This can include free reports, free call series, etc.
Paid ads, mostly Facebook. Promote something free to get people on your list.
Search engine optimization. Depending on what service you offer, and assuming you have a path of engagement that works, optimizing for more web traffic could be a good use of time.

Your step for today:

As we finish Week Five, here’s what you’ve accomplished:

You learned to set realistic expectations for your sales conversations.
You continued to take action to schedule your target number of sales conversations per week.
You learned how to adjust your sales process over time.
You began collecting data on the results you produce.
You learned when it’s appropriate to add more strategies to your approach.