The Best Way to Get Your First Clients

You’ve set up your website, are properly registered and insured, have some business cards, and are ready to go to work. Time for one of the largest challenges you’ll ever face with your concierge business: getting your first clients. No matter how good your website is, your first clients are not going to find you. You are going to have to find them. Here’s what you need to know.

 

First You Need to Understand Why this is the Best Way

Being a concierge means going into a persons home and handling things in their lives that are very private. It requires a great deal of trust. I’ve seen clients wills, divorce documents, love letters, naughty drawers, you name it. These clients wouldn’t have let me come into their homes and see these things if they hadn’t already formed some sort of trust that I was of high integrity, professionalism, and able to keep their secrets secret.

This means that your website, those flyers you’ve been envisioning, and putting your business information on various directories is not going to get you business. While your site legitimizes you and explains what you do, people won’t hire you until they know they can trust you.

So the kicker is, you need to potential clients to feel they can trust you BEFORE you contact them. How?

 

It’s all about Connections

Since you don’t have the business experience to lean on, you’ll need to lean on the recommendations of others. This means you want the recommendations of people who are a part of or connected to your target client base. Try to put yourself in your potential clients’ shoes: you have a lot of things of personal value to you and you are trying to find someone to help you organize/repair/manage them. Are you more likely to find someone in the phonebook with no track record or someone your friend, neighbor, or insurance agent recommends? I’m betting you’ll go for the recommendation.
So who to get recommendations from? Anyone that can get you a strong recommendation with a potential client in your target market or even a potential client. Think realtors, insurance agents, architects, interior designers, lawyers, personal chefs and anyone else that works for your target market and may have enough of a relationship with your potential clients to give you a legitimate recommendation. Also consider any family friends who are part of your target market and might be willing to help you. Hopefully you already have some names in mind.

You can also find a lot of great connections through networking groups. If you only visit, you don’t have to pay to join and can usually get the connections you need. You can usually visit groups 1-3 times for free and get business cards from all the contacts you need without committing to the group. While this behavior doesn’t help the group, it can help group members and is quite common. Also please keep in mind the being part of a networking group can be a great source of connections and support so keep an open mind if you come across a group you really like. Search for networking groups in your area and look at chapters such as BNI for more structured experiences. Don’t forget your business cards!

These are people that you want to build relationships with as they make an excellent network for your business now and in the future. Not only can they get you clients if you impress them, but you’ll likely be able to get them clients as well once you build your business. So think of these as longterm connections.

 

What to do with your Connections

You may have noticed that I’m saying ‘you’ a lot. The reason: a successful personal concierge business – one that will retain clients and make good margins – is predicated on personal relationships and, since this is your company, that means that YOU need to start it. Once you’ve proven the market and built the relationships, you can start bringing in staff who can help you maintain current relationships and build new ones.

Remember that if you are marketing yourself as a concierge, your primary selling point is that you can not only do _______ (something that is very helpful to your clients on a regular basis), but you can also do everything else (plan their events, run their errands, clean out their desks, etc.). Once you get to know a clients likes and dislikes, you’ll find that you will become more and more indispensable to them.

Now what to do with those connections you already have and get when you go to all those networking groups? Use them to make a “warm” call list of potential clients: Take them out to coffee and share talents and experiences. See what they think of your business idea and find out if they know anyone that could use your services or might be good to talk to. If they do, ask if they’ll give you contact information and if you can use their name when you contact the potential client. Learn what you can about why they think you could help the individual(s) they are thinking of. Remember that not all the people you meet with know potential clients for you, but they may have someone else for you to meet who could help you or a great idea for your business. Take these coffee dates as learning experiences no matter what comes of them.

Ideally, you’ll have at least two coffee dates a day while you’re trying to get your first clients (and continue doing a few a week to continue growing your business after you’ve won some business). Try to build a list of at least 10-20 potential clients through this process.

Now send these potential clients handwritten letters explaining who recommended you contact them, how you can help their lives (make it unique if you know specific details), and that you’ll call in a week to see if they’d be interested in meeting with you. Give it a week and call them. Remind them of who recommended you to them and ask you if they’d be interested in meeting with you for a free consultation so you can learn more about what they need and show them how you could improve their lives. Some may have never opened your letter so be prepared for them to be surprised by your call.

Since this industry is so heavily based on trust and relationships, getting that consultation is your best chance at winning the client.

 

What’s Next?

Hopefully you’ll get at least five consultation visits out of your initial round of calls. This would be unbelievable odds normally, but should be expected given that you were recommended to these clients by individuals they trust. If you do well on those consultation visits and show them a variety of services you could offer that would help their lives, you’ll probably have your first clients. Congratulations!

You can continue to use this process to keep building your client base and network. Also don’t forget to thank the connections that helped you win these clients and continue to maintain the relationships you’ve built. Helping those that have helped you will reap more benefits than you can imagine.

Once you have some clients, it is of utmost importance that you do a fantastic job and figure out ways to provide them services that they’ll call you back for. It’s much easier to keep existing clients than find new ones. And your clients are your best salespeople as they will recommend you with firsthand experience of your services to their friends. I actually ask my clients for recommendations after we’ve built strong relationships and most of my business has spread out from my initial clients.

Other Ways to Make Connections

By now I hope you understand that plastering a building with flyers or sending out mailers probably won’t get you business (even big business with well-known brand names know that mailers can only win them up to 3% of those they mailed offers out to in best case scenario) so keep on those connections. If you feel like you’ve exhausted your connections ideas or cannot go to one more networking meeting, you can also make connections through a variety of other groups, events, and clubs.

Try to think of where your target market would go and figure out how to get involved. Good places to start are museums, galleries, community services, golf courses, and private clubs. Get into these in a way that you’ll be seen as more of an equal and will get the opportunity to build connections with individuals. For example, you don’t want to be serving them drinks but could take lessons on a driving range, volunteer to manage a gallery event, or help run a fundraiser. If you also do something you care about, it will be a win-win!

For some of you, this is going to be a piece of cake as you may already have the connections or simply have the personality to get in any door. For others, this is going to make or break your business. Don’t lose hope and hide behind brochures and mailers as they will just cost you more money than they are worth.

I wish you all the best of luck and look forward to hearing how things go!

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Image adapted from Coffee in the Morning by chichacha.