Choose Your Clients Wisely to Build a Strong Foundation

To be booked solid requires that you have a solid foundation.

As part of a solid foundation you need the following:

• Know who are your ideal clients

• Understand why people would buy what you are selling

• Develop a personal and unique brand

• Communicate what you do in a concise, clear and positive manner

A solid foundation will support all of your business development and marketing. The first step in building your foundation is to choose your clients.

In order to figure out who your ideal clients are, choose your clients as carefully as you choose your friends – the type of individuals or businesses with whom you do your best work.

The purpose here is to identify the specific characteristics of the individuals or organizations that would make them ideal to work with. By doing so, it will allow you to develop a rigorous screening process.

Most businesses work with anybody that has a check book and as much as it might seem to be the right approach on the long run, the benefits of this strategy are very limited. Instead, choosing your ideal clients will empower your business and yourself – it will allow you to increase productivity, do your best work and have more clients and more referrals. Joy, prosperity and abundance happens when you perform optimally, when you are with people who inspire you and energize you.

In order to start the process, you have to begin to identify the types of clients you have. Ask yourself which are the current clients which give you strength, energize you, empower you, make you creative, provide you with confidence and which ones are the ones who drain you, turn you off or shut your down. Ask yourself, would you rather spend your days working with incredibly amazing, exciting, cool, awesome people or spend your time with barely tolerable people who suck the life out of you?

Be honest with yourself, identify your ideal clients and the ones who are not and take action.

Taking a Booked Solid Action Step is a bold action which requires courage – start by removing the type of clients that zap your time and energy - even if you take one step at a time by replacing them with your ideal clients. This process will not only benefit you but also benefit those same clients you will not work with anymore - since, if you are working with people with whom you do not do your best work, you are out of integrity – refer them to someone who can.

There is nothing wrong with the no-ideal clients. They are just not right for you as you are not right for them.

Whenever you take the step, be tactful, diplomatic, loving and keep it simple: “I’m not the best person to serve you”.  

Remember, in life you cannot please everyone, to even try is futile.

Choose the best balance and strategy for you, your business and your clients. You can choose to loosen or tighten at will the type of clients you consider ideal. If you are new in the business you will not want to turn away you first clients even if they are not ideal but as your business permits you should be focusing only on working with and looking for clients which are the ideal clients.

Define and list clearly which benefits ideal clients will provide you with such as energy, strength, confidence, successful, alive, etc. Which qualities do they have such as positive attitude, collaborative, resilient, value-oriented, outgoing, creative, etc.?  

Which clients do you look forward to seeing? Whom do you love to be around? With which clients do you work the best?

Create a list of filters which will help you to define them clearly. What filters do you want to run your perfect clients through?

Once you attract more and more ideal clients you will discover that you are happier, more vibrant, more energetic, more productive and you will give your clients the best of yourself and your services and it turn you will gain even more additional business referrals.

Written by John Krumbach,
VP of Finance

Empathy; Finding Echoes of Others within Yourself

In our previous blogs, we covered all aspects of Personal Competence such as Self-Awareness, Self-Regulation, and Motivation. In our following blogs, we will cover all aspects of Social Competence, aspects such as Empathy and Social Skills.

Social Competence is related to your ability to handle relationships in a positive manner and your ability to get along with other people. Empathy is a part of your Social Competence personality.  

While Social competence, in general, relates to your ability to handle relationships properly, Empathy relates to your awareness of other people's feelings and perspectives.

People who have this competence usually:

• Have an understanding of others

• Can sense the developing needs of others

• Are service oriented

• Leverage Diversity

• Have Political Awareness

Each of these five aspects will be covered in detail later on. 

Use SMART Goals Standard to Reach your Maximum Potential

Whether you call them goals, objectives, targets, or your Holy Grails, if you want them to ever become a reality in your life, they need to be something specific and measurable.

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bounded. If the goals you’re setting for yourself comply with this standard you will have a bigger chance of achieving them than those, for instance, that are too vague or don’t come with a specific deadline.

So, the SMART standard goes like this:

S, for Specific: Your goal must be clear and detailed enough so anybody can understand it –including and especially yourself!

M, for Measurable: always add dates, numbers, and amounts; “more money”, or “less weight” won’t work. You’ll have to set an exact number; that is, how much of that do you want (we’ll also add a “by when” a few lines later).

A, for Attainable: your goal should be something able to be accomplished given the specific amount, deadline and all the circumstances around it. This doesn’t mean you choose to go on the easy way –something that too easy to achieve; but shouldn’t mean that you are going after the fantasy either (like losing 100 pounds in a week). Be smart and don’t limit yourself based on your beliefs, but don’t set yourself up for the impossible.

R, for Realistic: and this means it should be in line with your life purpose. It is a waste of time to climb all the way to the top of the ladder only to find that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

T, for Time-Bounded: here it is our “by when”. Setting a deadline for the completion of your goal adds a vital accountability and motivational factor to this formula. If you don’t have the pressure to make it happen, you won’t do what’s necessary.

For example: if your goal is to do some jogging but never seem to find the time –or the will, you’ll get more “motivation” with a mean Rottweiler chasing after you than with a friend sweet-talking you into it.

And I’d like to add one more item to the list:

Align your Goals with the Greater Good; see that you don’t harm anyone in the process of achieving it.

Like the great coach Jack Canfield stated once: “you can have a goal of breaking 50 car antennas on your way home… It’s specific, measurable, attainable, and time-bounded; but you’ll surely harm a lot of people in the process…

So keep this in mind: always see that the fulfillment of your goals would help create a better world for everyone.

And remember,  if you ever find yourself a little short in the motivational department, wel... you can always get a Rottweiler.