“The 3 Rs” of getting clients: Repeat Projects

We’re talking about “The 3 Rs” of getting (and keeping) clients.

  • Referrals
  • Relationships
  • Repeat projects

Yesterday, we talked about getting clients through relationships (https://kaidavis.com/getting-clients-relationships/). Today, we talk about how to get clients through your repeat projects. Or, rather, we’ll talk about how to get repeat projects from your existing clients.

If you need 10 projects/month for your business and have a 0% repeat project rate, that means you need 10 new clients for 10 new projects every month. However, if you have a 50% repeat project rate, every time a client works with you, there’s a 50% chance that they’ll come back to you for another project.

You go from needing 10 new clients each month to 5 or so new clients each month, with a significant part of your projects coming from existing clients.

Why sell to existing clients?

When you sell a project to an existing client, you skip most of the risk-related discussion involved in a project.

A lot of what we see as the typical process of getting a project are really actions to reduce risk that a client is having you take to demonstrate that you’re valuable and trusted:

  • Write a proposal → complete this small, initial task so we can see how you work with deadlines.
  • Provide references → demonstrate that you’ve worked on similar problems before
  • Discuss price → show that you understand how much time and effort this project will take and/or the value the project will contribute to their company

When you work with a client, you cross a Trust Threshold in your relationship. When you work on a repeat project with an existing or past client, you avoid all of the trappings that make up a typical project pitch. They know and trust you to get the job done, they just want to know what budget makes sense.

Typically, when I work on a repeat project with a client, we go from them requesting a proposal, references, pricing information, using their internal systems, etc., to them saying “We want your help solving EXPENSIVE PROBLEM. Can you send over a 1-page summary with payment links and when you can get started?”

Why?

Because we’ve crossed the trust threshold. We’ve gone from them saying “I don’t know who this Kai-guy is” to “We need Kai Davis for this!”

Trust.

As you increase your trust by working with the client, you lessen the need to do a lot of the pre-project work, like writing an extensive proposal or providing referrals or having long conversations about the price.

The more trusted you are, the easier it is to close the project.

The more you work with a client, the more trusted you become.

If you focus some of your marketing on marketing to your past clients, you’re marketing to people who (1) already know you (2) already trust you.

Rather than marketing to cold prospects and/or inbound leads, you’re marketing to clients where you have an existing relationship, presenting them with opportunities to work with you. They may pass: the time may not be right, there might not be money in the budget, they might be focusing on a different strategic objective, etc.

But that doesn’t matter. You’ll follow-up again. You’ll continue to provide value. You’ll continue to remind them, periodically, politely, persistently, that you are available to help their business grow. And then good things will start to happen.

“By the way, you gave me a piece of advice last year that made those “famine” times almost non-existent, and I wanted to tell you THANK YOU! You told me to revisit my former client list & touch base with them. Once I started doing this, I got so busy I almost couldn’t keep up. I really appreciate it.” — Kristine K.

Focusing on following up (http://outreachblueprint.com) and creating the opportunity for repeat projects makes it so you need less clients overall. When you add in repeat projects, you increase your client lifetime value.

Oftentimes, when this topic comes up, someone thinks the only way to offer this to their clients is through a monthly retainer or monthly service agreement. But that’s not quite true. With those options, you do get the guaranteed consistency of a monthly payment – but you need to create a service offering that takes doing monthly.

What if it was easy?

What if you just followed up with your past clients (or past leads) periodically and said “Hey – Do you need any help? I’m booking out NEXT MONTH and FOLLOWING MONTH and wanted to see how business is going. Just hit reply or call me at PHONE NUMBER.”

Not everyone would need work done now, but some would.

Not everyone would make an ideal client for a repeat project, but some would.

Not every potential project would turn into cash in the bank, but some would.

And you’d grow your business. Just through follow-up.

Want a client follow-up campaign you can copy, paste, and get started with? Check out the expanded and upgraded “Complete Edition” of The Outreach Blueprint (http://outreachblueprint.com).

Want a follow-up campaign to send to your former clients to get more projects?

Inside The Outreach Blueprint (http://outreachblueprint.com), you receive all the emails you’d need for a client follow-up campaign, along with guidance on generating a prospect list from your existing clients.

If your average project profit is $1,000 and the client list follow up email template campaign in the $129 “Complete Edition” of the Outreach Blueprint’s get you one additional project this year, you’ll have made a 675.19% return on your investment by buying The Outreach Blueprint’s “Complete Edition” (http://outreachblueprint.com).

Does outreach work? Does follow up with past clients work? Read this testimonial:

“By the way, you gave me a piece of advice last year that made those “famine” times almost non-existent, and I wanted to tell you THANK YOU! You told me to revisit my former client list & touch base with them. Once I started doing this, I got so busy I almost couldn’t keep up. I really appreciate it.” — Kristine K.

After revisiting her former client list and touching base with them, Kristine got so busy she almost couldn’t keep up.

In the “Complete Edition” of the Outreach Blueprint, you’ll receive a client follow-up outreach campaign you can copy, paste, and send to your former client list. What if you got an additional project within a month of buying the Outreach Blueprint (http://outreachblueprint.com). That’d be pretty awesome, huh?

If you’d like to get more clients for your business (or more projects from your former client list), then check out the updated and expanded Outreach Blueprint.

You’ll get everything you need to implement an Outreach Marketing campaign in your business and get more clients for your business: http://outreachblueprint.com

Excelsior!

— Kai