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Finding potential clients
- What events/triggers at a client's business might prompt them to consider hiring you?
- How can we reliably find prospective clients (non-event based)?
- What conferences might your potential clients go to?
Understanding the client's situation
- What makes your client's business difficult? What challenges do they face internally and externally?
- What do your clients want for themselves personally, what they want for the company, what do they hate, what they fear, what frustrates them? etc?
- What problems would a client have to make them want to work with you?
- What options does the client have to address these challenges other than engaging you? What are the pros and cons of each?
- What about this industry do you think is broken?
- What does the client stand to gain if they "get it right?" Quantitative or qualitative benefits both.
What you do & How you do it
- If every business is an experiment to make your industry better, what is your hypothesis? What do you believe your business can improve upon in the industry and the world as a whole.
- What do you do for your clients? (elevator pitch & longer extended version)
- What are the "pillars" to your business?
- How do you do it? (step by step details with timeline, client input, and staff roles)
- How fast can the client expect results or at least certain milestones?
- Who does what between the client and you? (detail out what your staff does vs what the client's staff does)
- CEO Quote - What is your "if you (client) do X, Y, and Z really well (which we help with), you'll experience ___ as a business owner." quote?
Client benefits of engaging you
- What are all the ways your client's business benefits from what you do?
- Who at the client will benefit from working with you?
What it's like engaging you
- What is your sales/consultation process and timeline? (list out each call's name, length, and objective)
- Do you offer any free advice/analyses before working with a client?
- Do you offer multiple engagement levels? What are they?
- What are the next steps when a customer is ready to start?
- What is the payment structure?
- What is the worst case scenario for your client if things don't work out? How hard is it to part ways?
Who are you
- What's the personality of your staff like? (Be honest because the client will figure it out eventually) Are you playful? Are you constantly curious? etc.
- Who is the owner and what is he/she about in their personal life?
- Why did you as the business owner start this business? What do you enjoy/like about it? What problem did you see that you wanted to fix?
- Who is the team, what are their various roles?
- Where is the team located/where do you work?
- Where do we do business? (where can clients be located)
- Your favorite nuggets/quotes of wisdom
- What are your business' values? (think ethics but also how you run a "tight ship")
Why clients should work with you
- Why do you think you win deals? Why do you think your current clients chose you? Think of specific clients. List out each reason.
- Why should a client TRUST you and want to work with you? (your experience/what makes you different)
- What are some metrics or noteworthy things that show the scale/size of your business?
- There's typically multiple ways to solve any problem, what are the ways to solve these problem besides working with you?
- Why are you better than your competitors?
- Why are you better than doing this in-house/automating/delegating/eliminating?
- List out what you think are all the benefits of working with you
- List out what you think are all your "Selling Points."
- If someone referred a client to us, how would we reward them?
Define an ideal client and a bad fit
- What types of clients do you work with and NOT work with? (think industries/verticals)
- What characteristics make a client a great fit? (green flags)
- What characteristics make a client a bad fit? (red flags)
- Who are your best 3-5 clients right now? What do you love about them? More than just being nice and paying on time.
- What are minimum and maximum thresholds that a prospective client must meet for you to work with them?
- What roles/titles at your clients are involved in the decision process?
- What roles/titles are involved once a client is engaged with us?
- What does a client need to do for this partnership to be maximally successful?
Objection Responses & website FAQs
- List out all the questions you've been asked during a sales call or demo? No matter how frequently they're asked.
- Can you charge less or a different fee structure?
- I've been burned before, why will this time be different?
- Who is NOT a good client for you?
- How long does it take for you to deliver results?
- What if we decide to cancel?
- Can you guarantee results?
