Seven Ways to Gain Clients

In real estate training, we called it the Rule of Seven. It’s a concept that transitions very well into your marketing efforts for any writing business, or for any business for that matter. It’s an easy one–contact seven buyers and seven sellers every day. For our purposes, we’re going to consider our buyers are potential clients and our sellers are past clients.

If you’re just starting out, you must be thinking, “I don’t have seven sellers!” Here’s where you need to use your imagination a bit. Consider a “seller” anyone who has asked you to do a writing favor, anyone at all. That includes relatives and friends. If you’ve written anything for anyone, those are your past clients. Payment isn’t figuring into this equation, so it doesn’t matter if you put a blurb in the church bulletin or you helped the neighbor with his resume. For this exercise, those people and those instances are past jobs for past clients.

Contacting them can be as simple as calling and asking how each person is doing. Better might be a brief email to each touching base and making sure they remember you’re a writer. Be subtle here–oversell to the neighbors or your pastor could label you a nuisance. Be friendly, and remember to hand them that new business card and ask them their honest opinion about how it looks. That does one of two things–it gets your professional contact information into their hands and it gets them intimately involved in your career. They suddenly feel a bit of a vested interest in your success if they make suggestions or comments and you take them seriously and thank them for the input.

Obviously, you won’t be contacting the same people every day. Make sure to contact the seven you have identified at least once every few weeks. Until your contact list grows, you’ll be putting more effort into finding current clients than contacting previous ones. (Note–if one of your “clients” helps you find another one, send a thank-you note or call and thank them.)

Contacting buyers is another matter. It’s easier than you think to find seven people each day to contact. The tougher part is making a terrific first impression so these people will remember you down the road.

Here’s one of several ways to go about it–start with a mailer to each of your seven people. Wait a week, then follow up with a call. Use a slow, friendly tone and introduce yourself. Mention that you’d sent a flyer and you were wondering if the person had questions. Give a very brief rundown of how you might be able to help–if it’s a marketing company, you’re available for the proofreading and other jobs that the staff doesn’t have time for. If you’re talking to a local business, you can write the press releases or copy for advertising pieces. If it’s a larger company, you could put together any internal communications pieces or help the staff with overflow work. Just make sure to keep your conversation brief and thank the person on the phone for taking your call.

Whom do you call? That depends on the size of the organization. If it’s small, call the owner. If it’s a large corporation, find the head of the Marketing or Communications department. Target both your mailers and your calls to this person.

Gauge the tone of the person receiving the call. If you feel the opening is there, offer to meet with him or her to show your portfolio or to discuss ways you can help. NEVER push like mad. In fact, it should flow naturally into the conversation, as if it were a joint decision. If it doesn’t go there, be patient. If you’re doing things correctly, you’ll be talking with this person in six weeks (or you could call back in seven, just to keep with the theme!). On follow-up communications, always keep the slow, friendly tone and simply ask if there’s anything pressing you can help with. More often than not, the answer will be no. You can then thank them for speaking with you and follow that conversation up with a thank-you note attached to your latest press release or brochure announcing your services or the kudos your other clients have given you.

It seems like a lot of work to make seven calls a day or to send out seven marketing pieces a day. However, it’s tried-and-true in my old real estate company. The company started as a very small, one-shop family enterprise. It’s now the largest realtor in the region. It’s because they practiced these techniques, which helped them to build a successful real estate organization. If it works for real estate, why can’t it work for you?