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Do you want more clients?
Almost everyone answers "YES!".
But who -- exactly -- are you looking for?
When I ask this question most people come up blank.
Or at best have only a vague idea...
"Ah... someone who needs SEO services."
"A business owners whose website sucks."
"Anyone who can afford me!"
Is it any surprise you don't work with amazing clients when your criteria aren't clearly defined?
After all, if you don't know who you want to work with then anyone will do.
And the sad fact is most businesses just don't make very good clients. They simply don't have the budget, vision, passion, or personality to be fun to work with.
So you can't leave it to chance.
This is why I put so much emphasis on your ideal client criteria.
Get this nailed down -- then stick to it -- and working with clients can be a lot of fun.
(Not to mention extremely profitable.)
So I've just given you the first reason to avoid working with a client:
1. They are not your ideal client.
The more you say no to the clients you don't want, the more space you allow for the ones you do want.
Let's take a look at the other 4 reasons why you should AVOID working with clients...
2. Your gut says no -- every time I've gone against my gut feeling about a prospect, it's blown up in my face. They're always the one's who pay late, take weeks to make simple decisions, and are just a pain in the ass to deal with. Listen to your intuition and trust what your subconscious is telling you.
3. You can't provide enough value -- should go without saying, but it's worth repeating. And it ties in nicely to #1. If implementing your services doesn't make a big impact on your client's business, then neither of you wins. He's out your cost, and you're out the opportunity for testimonials, future work, and referrals.
4. The opportunity cost is too high -- low-level clients, work that's outside your core skills, small time one-off work... at the time it doesn't feel like taking on this type of work is an issue. And in the short term it might not be. But in the long run it can hurt you, big time. The time you spent fiddling with that $500 gig could have been spent building a marketing system to attract a bunch of $5,000 clients.
5. You need the money -- possibly the worst, yet most alluring, reason to take on a client. I've been there and it's not pretty. Looking back, in virtually every case I would have been better off to avoid taking on the client, and spent that time focusing on getting my fundamentals right.
Because there's a reason you're in the position of needing the money, and in many cases you can trace this back to not having systems in place to attract the right type of clients... in large enough quantities... consistently enough, to hit your goals.
Make no mistake, it takes work to clearly define your ideal client.
And brass balls to stick by your decision when things get tough.
Yet the more you focus on this, the more fun and rewarding the consulting business is.
Talk soon,
Kyle Tully
P.S. In week 1 of the Advanced Sales Training program you'll discover my 5-step process for the perfect sales call setup -- step 1 is how to create your ideal client criteria. Just one day left to secure your early-bird pricing before I close the doors and re-launch it to the public. Register here.