By Fabienne Fredrickson
Many of us entrepreneurs are drawn to our particular profession by a specific defining moment or series of events that changed everything in our lives. Because of that moment, some of us dropped everything and decided to dedicate the rest of our professional lives to doing what we now do.
As you may know, my compelling story is my before-and-after scenario: how I went from not enough clients and struggling to pay the bills, to learning everything I could about marketing, networking and business management. As a result of creating my own Client Attraction System™, I turned my practice from a mediocre one to one bursting at the seams just 8 months later, thereby eliminating my “3-A.M.-I-don’t-have-enough-clients-sweats.”
My own ‘compelling story’ is something I tell to establish instant credibility with new prospects, in front of an audience or at the beginning of my Client Attraction Home Study System™. Clients and people in my seminars have repeatedly told me that hearing it was one of the first reasons they then hired me. It spoke to them because I’d been in their shoes too, at one point, and now I’m on the other side of the Client Attraction challenge. They tell me they too have tossed and turned at night with the “3 A.M. sweats,” and that to see someone having survived it and now thriving, they feel they can too.
You may also have a compelling story that no one else has. Your compelling story may be that you overcame a serious challenge in business, in your health or in life that caused you to change your course and do what you do now to help others with the same struggles.
You can use your compelling story several ways to attract clients:
- First and foremost, it helps the prospect bond with you. If you’re in a business like mine, it’s the know-like-and-trust factor that you need to really establish with your target audience. People aren’t buying a “business.” They’re buying a solution first and a relationship second.
- It can be the beginning of your signature talk or your teleclasses, helping you to “earn the right” to be up there speaking to an audience that doesn’t know you yet.
- If you don’t have a lot of credentials, it can give you instant credibility. You’ve been through what they’ve been through too, you’ve experienced success, and now you’re back to tell them how to solve their problems.
Client example: A travel agent who once attended one of my Full Day Client Attraction events had a breakthrough in figuring out what makes his seemingly non-descript travel business different from the competition and it was his compelling story.
To paraphrase it, his travel business focused on cruises. During a group coaching moment in the workshop, I asked him what brought him to focus on cruises, and he painted a scenario for us that no one in the room will forget. You see, a few years ago, he was diagnosed with a very serious health concern and he intuitively knew that his current corporate job was literally making him sick.
One day, because he couldn’t take the toxic environment, this unhappy employee signed himself up for a cruise. He came back having experienced what felt like heaven to him and he continued to vacation on cruises regularly and was shocked to see his health condition was getting rapidly better. According to him, he has now healed himself of his health concern, and it all started by taking care of himself and his soul by going on a cruise regularly.
He decided to quit his job and dedicate the rest of his professional life to helping people break free of toxic lifestyles by experiencing the wonders of the cruise lifestyle.
I tell you, there was not a dry eye in the room. THIS was a compelling story and everyone there was truly compelled to take a cruise after hearing him, even if they’d never considered taking a cruise before. Best of all, they wanted to work with HIM to book the details of the cruise, not their regular travel agent. Had we not gone through this exercise in person, he says he would never have considered this story something that would attract clients and give him an advantage over other travel agents. But it does.
Your Assignment:
What is YOUR compelling story around your business? What brought you to do what you’re doing today with such passion? What is your before-and-after story and how did you overcome your situation?
Sprinkle this in your marketing materials or in conversation. Creating your compelling story to share with others can be a catalyst and one of the most powerful ways for you to attract clients through the know-like-and-trust factor.
Need to discover other ways of attracting clients by differentiating yourself in the marketplace? Then consider getting a copy of the Client Attraction Home Study System™. It’s everything you need to know to create a marketing message that will appeal to the best clients for you. You’ll learn how to decipher what makes your business remarkable, how to create Raving Fans so you get clients to call YOU, and lots of other crucial techniques to help you fill your practice quickly, including how to put together a simple marketing plan that gets you clients and then putting it on autopilot so you can have fun again. You can read more about it and get a copy at www.TheClientAttractionSystem.com. (Why struggle when you can just attract clients easily?)
© 2006 Client Attraction LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Fabienne Fredrickson, The Client Attraction Mentor, is founder of the Client Attraction System™ and www.ClientAttraction.com, the proven step-by-step program to attract more clients, make more m’oney being self-employed, while having more time off to enjoy it all. To receive your F.R.E.E. Audio CD by mail and get weekly how-to articles on attracting more clients, visit www.ClientAttraction.com.
