For consultants, having clients with whom they are in alignment positively contributes to the delivery of high-quality results and overall client satisfaction. It also creates a more enjoyable work environment, which in turn increases the likelihood of a continued relationship and even referrals.
It’s why Zoetica Media founder Kami Huyse said that finding the right clients to work with “is a big deal” and admits she has “always had a high expectation of my clients and I often say that at Zoetica… we are an extension of our client's team.”
In a recent livestream, she shared the winning process for how consultants can identify and work with their dream clients.
Dream Clients Lead to Better Outcomes
Kami is adamant that dream clients lead to better outcomes – for both you and your client. “If you guys jive together, then you're going to do more together,” she says. “Usually the people are hiring you as a consultant because they can't do all that work themselves or it's not their specialty or whatever.” She suggests everyone “understand what you're good at, what you love, and then only work with those kinds of clients.”
She adds, “Many years ago I just stopped working with people that I didn't want to work with, and I'm very clear about who I want to work with and what I want to do,” noting, “I love challenges, so I'll take on clients that I feel challenged by, that I feel like I can help them, and that I feel like I can do something amazing for them.”
Acting from Fear Leads to Failure
Kami warns that fear is a big reason why consultants take on mismatched or bad clients.
“We have so much fear as a consultant because… you may be looking at your bank account and you're looking at your payroll, if you have one, and you're thinking, ‘how am I going to do this?’” she says.
Kami understands the power fear can have on a consultant’s decision-making abilities, admitting that she’s herself fallen victim to it in the past. “I myself have taken on clients out of fear, from time to time, and that has always, always, always led to failure. So I don't want you to find yourself in that same position. Fear equals failure.” She therefore encourages others to “ resist those [fears] because they will always lead to a difficult road.”
As a warning to others, she shares the main four types of mistakes she has made in the past:
• Operating out of a feeling of fear that you won’t have enough business coming in through the door and therefore desperately looking for anyone to fill the gap, rather than finding the right client.
• Wanting to please everyone, especially someone you like, and then offering to help them even if it’s in an area that’s not your strength.
• Wondering if your business will be a casualty of failure rather than success and therefore making decisions to avoid bad outcomes rather than making decisions in pursuit of good ones.
• Incessantly comparing yourself to others out of fear you don’t measure up to the competition, rather than focusing on what you excel at.
Practical Steps for Getting Great Clients
Kami suggests a multi-step process to finding and keeping your dream clients.
Step 1: Be clear about your values. “Create a document [or] whatever you have to do to outline what your values are,” she suggests. In writing things down, you will gain clarity. “Who do you want to work with? What kind of work do you want to do? What kind of impact do you want to make? And one of the things I say is that aligned values equals aligned profits.”
Step 2: Clearly outline your brand voice. “Your clear brand voice, that's in your materials, it’ll go on your website, it's going to go everywhere. It will equal aligned clients,” she notes. “The only way that you can attract aligned clients is by developing that brand voice so they know who you are, [because] that brand voice is really a version of your voice.”
Step 3: Align your content with your brand voice. “It's like a one-two punch. You have a brand voice, [that’s one], and then two is figuring out the content that would attract your ideal, perfect, dream client,” she explains. “The way that you do that is you understand your clients, you understand their problems, you understand who they are, you understand what's going through their mind. So that's why it's really important to think about who you're trying to help and being clear about that.” Think of content as anything you create or use to promote your brand, “whether that be going to events, whether that be your blog, whether that be videos, [or] whether that be just a post on LinkedIn.”
Take Action
To learn how to define and create your own brand voice and put it into action, sign up for Kami’s free upcoming Brand Voice Blueprint Workshop: Attract and Captivate Dream Clients. You’ll learn how to craft a powerful brand voice that is uniquely you. Secure your spot!