Topic: Client Relations
Time Investment: 5 Minutes
Suggested Product: BizRevamp®
Want to know how to respond to an inquiry without desperation?
Desperation stinks it’s unbecoming of a person and business owner. Let’s take the desperation out of the responses that we have for inquiries and apply just a little pressure and get them in the door with these tips.
So you have absolutely nothing on your calendar and you get an inquiry. You quickly send back a response and give information and then you don’t hear back. It’s kind of like in dating when you have this desperation that stinks off of you. It’s kind of a turn off. How do you approach and appropriately respond to a client without getting this desperation across to them? In marketing, take into consideration when responding to your inquiries that by having a limited resource and a limited amount of time, you can use this to your advantage to get people in the door without seeming desperate. Who cares if you are laying on the couch eating bonbons or watching scandal for the 500th time? Clients don’t need to know that you are just laying around and have all the time in the world. On the flipside of that we also don’t want so busy that we are out of reach.
The Power of Scarcity
So how do we balance this? It’s simple, it’s learning how to use the power of scarcity. In the way that you respond to people and allow them to come to their own conclusion. My favorite response to make a client feel a little bit of the pressure of scarcity, because my time is scarce, I only have a limited amount of time and a limited amount of clients that I take. I may have an open calendar right now but they don’t need to know that. I just need to allow them to have the perception that I am busy, but not too busy. So how do you respond? Simple! I just tell them that I only have certain dates available within the timeframe that they’re looking at. If they, then respond that neither of those will work we can open up and engaging conversation to figure out what would work without letting them know that we are wide open. By telling someone that you are wide open makes it seem like no one else is rushing to book you. That doesn’t work!
Consider black Friday, why does it work so well? Because the discounts are for a limited amount of time, it’s in a scarce amount of products or spots available. It puts a little bit of pressure for people to engage in the promotional aspect of black Friday. This is the same perspective that we want to take here. Instead of responding to an inquiry “oh yeah my February is wide open”, which you could use if it was a close friend or your mom but, the person inquiring doesn’t need to hear that. If they told you that they want the month of February and you honed in on the best time of day to shoot or you already have a set time of day, respond with at least two times max. These are the times and dates that I have available you could maybe throw on three, but you don’t want to give too many options. Then it starts getting this back-and-forth and wiggle room and you start losing that scarcity element.
Come up with a way you can respond kindly to inquiry and keep that desperation stink off of you. Put a little bit of pressure on them without seeming gimmicky so that you can manage your own schedule and get them in the door the way that you want them to do on your terms.
Want more awesome marketing and business tips head over to the lawtog.com and get signed up. You can get exclusive offers in your inbox and also get a push when new information is put out.