Make Your Practice Truly Noticeable (and Clients Will Come)

Make Your Practice Truly Noticeable (and Clients Will Come)
By Fabienne Fredrickson

Recently, the topic of “wow-ing” clients and patients came up a lot with my own private coaching clients. Many of those who’ve attended my Client Attraction seminars have heard me recommend the book Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard. It’s about taking the client experience to a level that makes them literally RAVE about you and your services to their friends and colleagues.

I’ve also been recommending Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable. If you’ve yet to read it, the book is about having your business stand out and be SO remarkable that clients and the general public can’t stop talking about you (hint, hint, this attracts lots of new clients).

Here’s the book description from www.Amazon.com:

“Cows, after you’ve seen one, or two, or ten, are boring. A Purple Cow, though . . . now that would be something. Purple Cow describes something phenomenal, something counterintuitive and exciting and flat out unbelievable. Every day, consumers come face to face with a lot of boring stuff—a lot of brown cows—but you can bet they won’t forget a Purple Cow. In Purple Cow, Seth Godin urges you to put a Purple Cow into everything you build, and everything you do, to create something truly noticeable. It’s a manifesto for marketers who want to help create products that are worth marketing in the first place.”

OK, you’re probably saying “That’s great Fabienne, but what about MY business?” Here’s a client example: A real estate client in Manhattan was looking to stand out of the New York real estate marketplace (there are literally hundreds and hundreds of real estate brokers in New York). We came up with a list of ways to Purple Cow her business so her clients and others would start talking about her services to anyone and everyone they could. Here’s what we came up with. (Note: Some of these ideas she is able to implement right away. Some will have to wait a few months or a couple of years until finances can allow. Either way, they’re a great example to get YOU started on making your own Purple Cow list.)

• Having a chauffeured Lincoln Towncar take home buyers from property to property.


• Providing a hot lunch or gourmet sandwiches in the car at lunchtime.


• Bringing a basket of wine and cheese in the early evening.


• When finances allow it, drive her clients around in a vintage Rolls Royce.

Now tell me, what other New York City real estate broker does this? None that I’ve heard of…until now. But you better believe that if she starts doing this, people will start talking and want to work with her exclusively.

Your Assignment:

Your turn to think about how you could “Purple-Cow” your business to attract lots of new clients and referrals, simply by being remarkable. This will bring a huge (and even unfair) advantage to you in your Client Attraction efforts.

Schedule some quiet time to think about how you could make your business so unusual and so what-the-client-always-wanted that clients and prospects can’t help but talk about you, recommend you, and want to work with you.

Go crazy, go nuts. Don’t stay with what seems safe or affordable. It’s just an assignment and I want you to have fun with it. Talk to your friends about it. Look around and see what other industries are doing that seems over the top and very cool. Take some time with this over the next week or two. Write it all down on a sheet of paper. Once you’ve written it down, look at the things that are realistic to do right now, and those that you would save until later. Then do it.

If you’re ready to take a no-excuses approach to getting lots of clients, you’ll definitely want to check out The Client Attraction Home Study System™. Step by step, I take you through everything you need to do to stand out in the marketplace, pull clients in easily and consistently, and exactly what to say to turn them into paying clients. Get it today by going to www.TheClientAttractionSystem.com. You’ll also get hundreds of other ideas and resources to help YOU become a Client Attraction machine like thousands of my previous clients.

© 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.

Walk Your Talk (and You’ll Naturally Attract Clients)

Walk Your Talk (and You’ll Naturally Attract Clients)
By Fabienne Fredrickson

Not many marketing gurus out there talk to you about walking your talk. That said; it’s important to have your image fit what you do. Living your message makes all the difference in attracting clients. Your image is just as important as your marketing message and your claim in the marketplace.

If you are a seriously overweight, out-of-breath personal trainer or a consultant whose own company is struggling to succeed, you’re probably not going to attract many clients, no matter what you say or do.

Client example: a former client of mine was a fellow business coach helping small businesses. She came to me because she wasn’t attracting ANY clients and was at a loss as to what to do. It quickly became clear to me why this was happening.

She positioned herself as being the one to help you jumpstart your business and grow it to the next level. The problem was HER business was a mess. Her marketing materials were weak, her marketing message was murky, her materials were shoddy, she had old business cards with the phone number crossed off and written in pen, she used a hotmail e-mail address for business instead of a dedicated domain name and her e-mail newsletter was really vague.

It was difficult for me to tell her this, but no one else was telling her, and that’s why she was paying me, so I bit the bullet. (She was glad I did.) I told her that potential clients were probably not working with her because she wasn’t walking her talk. The image she was portraying was not one of a serious business coach who could help people jumpstart their business.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this often comes straight from the “cobbler’s kids don’t wear shoes” syndrome. Often we’re so busy working on our clients’ issues; we barely have time to work on our own. (I too have been known to need to carve serious time to work on my own marketing, after-hours, so I’m not throwing stones here.) But in this case, it was extreme and it was keeping this poor business coach from attracting ANY new clients.

We cleaned up her act by having her spend some time on her own business as if she were her own client. We scheduled a set number of hours per week where she would work on cleaning up her act and start walking her talk.

Your Assignment:

What message are you sending out about your business? Are you walking your talk?

• Make a list of things you would INSIST on seeing if you were your potential client wanting to hire someone in your industry.


• Do you fulfill all of these criteria? (Be a hard grader. It’s really worth it.) If not, start working on it ASAP.


• Hire someone to help you and keep you accountable.


• Live your life like your message and getting clients will become big-time easy. You’ll just ooze inspiration, motivation, and solutions!

To find out more about ways to attract clients in your practice using proven, tried-and-true marketing techniques, check out www.TheClientAttractionSystem.com for more info on the ultimate Client Attraction self-study manual.

© 2006 Fabienne Fredrickson

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.

When a Prospective Client Doesn’t Sign Up, ‘Bookend’ Them

When a Prospective Client Doesn’t Sign Up, ‘Bookend’ Them
By Fabienne Fredrickson

No matter how good you are at closing the sale, sometimes a prospective client doesn’t bite on the first sales conversation. But instead of letting them walk away and never hearing from them again, you can use a technique I developed to stop them slipping through your fingers.

Sometimes, a prospect needs some time to make the decision on whether or when they’d like to start working with you. What I’ve noticed over the years is that when this happens, almost always, the sale never happens, probably because life gets in the way and what’s out of sight, is out of mind.

So I’ve come up with a fantastic remedy for this, which, in addition to my fool-proof closing the sale script, helps me close the deal 90% of the times I use it. I’ve called it “bookending” and here’s how it works.

Often, at the end of our initial consultation, prospects tell me that they need to talk to their spouse, need some time to decide, or want to ideally start in 2 months. Instead of letting them walk away without a plan, I propose scheduling a 5-minute “check-in” call with them to see where they are in their process.

Often, I’ll ask whether they need 3 days, 3 weeks or 3 months to make a decision. Usually, the answer is next week, so we’ll set up a 5-minute chat for next Tuesday, at 3pm, for example. I explain this will help us follow up with each other, without having to play phone tag or having to follow up with one another unnecessarily.

The great thing about this technique is it puts a (self-imposed) time limit in the prospect’s mind as to when THEY would like to make the decision, and obviously, you let them choose when they’d like to have that 5-minute chat.

I essentially came up with this because I really dislike following up in this situation. It makes me feel like I’m chasing after them and I don’t feel this is Client Attractive. So instead, we agree they’ll call me on set date and 90% of the time they do, and out of those times, they don’t feel pressured, they’ve had time to think about what we talked about, crunched the numbers, and are ready to make a decision to move forward.

It’s a great tool, especially since it doesn’t make me have to pressure anyone into the sale! Whew!

If for whatever reason they don’t call during the time of your 5 minute check-in appointment, you can then call them or e-mail them asking if anything went wrong. This usually puts the prospect into a mode where they feel obliged to get back to you, as THEY were the one who missed the appointment. Again, this is much more Client Attractive and ends up saving you a lot of time.

Your Assignment:

If a client doesn’t sign up on the spot, make sure to ‘bookend’ another date so you don’t have to follow up on each other for weeks. Use it as a “let’s see where you are in your decision-making process then.” It works like a charm.

If you need to start closing the sale 90% of the time too, you’ll want to get a copy of the ‘Closing The Sale’ script I use detailed in the Client Attraction Home Study System™. Step by step, I take you through everything you need to do to pre-qualify prospects, get them ready for the close AND exactly what to say to turn them into paying clients. Get it today by going to www.TheClientAttractionSystem.com. You’ll also get hundreds of other ideas and resources to help YOU become a Client Attraction machine like thousands of my previous clients.


© 2006 Fabienne Fredrickson

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.