While talking with one of our clients this week, she told me, “I’ve made the transition from just selling single sessions and now people are working with me for six sessions or eight sessions… but then they think they are finished, even though there’s lots more to do!”
It’s worth celebrating the jump from clients doing single sessions to sticking around for two or three months. Depending on what you do, often you can have a much bigger impact through consistent, ongoing work with clients.
It also does wonders for your income, raising it considerably and making it more consistent.
Instead of spending an hour enrolling a client for a single hour session, which really means you’re spending two hours to get paid for a single hour, instead they stick around for 6 or 8, which can be a whole lot better for them and you.
That’s great and all, but what if you know you could work with clients for a year or more? How do you build a client relationship that allows for that?
This is significant on many levels. Not only will your work be more impactful, but it radically changes the amount of marketing you need to do.
If you are ordinarily decently full with 20 clients, if they stick around for 6 sessions, 3 months, then you need 80 clients/year. But if each client works with you for a year, then you need only 20 clients a year to make the same income. Radically different.
Here’s how I answered my client’s question:
Note: Not everyone works like this, and so if your model is working with clients for shorter periods of time, that’s great! However, what we’re talking about may still apply. Perhaps it’s not a year, but maybe you could ideally work with clients for another 4 weeks longer than you are now. That could still change the above scenario from needing 80 clients/year to needing 60 clients/year to make the same income.
How about you? Would you love to have clients sticking around for months or a year or more?
Tell me about your experience! Ask your questions!
With gratitude,
Mark Silver
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
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www.corporatehostagenomore.com
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If you’re income is inconsistent, some months okay, some months not quite enough, and if you were reaching enough people then your schedule would be full, then you probably need Expand Your Reach. This is where you learn to build your platform, your website, and connect with a much larger audience.
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3 Responses
This is great, Mark, very helpful. I have this kind of structure in my own business, but have lost sight of the second part, and this is a great reminder of how to gently bring the focus back to it. I also find that I have an internal pressure to get my clients “done” as quickly as possible, with some idea that they will be impatient otherwise. But it’s really me who is trying to “over-perform”…
I haven’t had to deal with this issue as a coach yet, but as a practicing psychologist, when the issue arose I was able to step aside from my personal concerns and address it in service to the client. I hope to be able to do this as a coach under a lot more financial pressure than I ever was as a therapist. I think that’s the sort of stance that enables you to do your best work, and that my keeping my personal stuff out of it made it easier for my clients to come to their own decisions without needing to react to me.
This resonates very strongly in my heart, and though I do have a 6-9 session commitment as a starting point, I do think people look toward that as the ending point. So I love the idea of talking about the possibility of ongoing work and points of evaluation right up front. This will be better for both of us. Thank you for these messages that are so clear and confident. It gives me strength and confidence to stand in what I know to be true.