How to hook a long-term Consulting Client
Acquiring and keeping Consulting Clients for the long-term creates a win-win situation, and this article will explain why, and how.
Fairly obviously, getting clients is critical to the success of a Business Consultant, Coach, or Advisor. Often overlooked by someone new to the profession, is setting up the right kind of relationship with the ideal type of client.
Since 2005, ConsultX’s founder, David Thexton has been laser-focused on learning everything about Business Consulting to build the very best consulting system. Carefully studying industry best practices, then monitoring the results and feedback of our internal network of Business Success Partners, we’ve developed a strong understanding of what is required for success.
Why long-term?
In the article Business Consulting: The ConsultX Approach, we dive into the benefits of long-term consulting. We’ll take a quick look at the most important ones below.
Benefits for you
(The Business Consultant, Coach, or Advisor):
Prevents the need to constantly find new clients
Allows you to build a high level of trust and authority with clients over time
This trust becomes a strong source of new client referrals
Gives the security of multiple sources of income as opposed to having individual assignments
The ConsultX Fee Structure will provide significant income growth the longer you are working with a client
You’ll experience the joy of seeing a business improve and grow.
Benefits for the Client
The Business Owner(s)
They will have the help of a Trusted Business Success partner who intimately understands their unique business
There will be defined visions, plans, and goals to work toward.
Their business will be improving and growing
As a result, their personal life and goals will also be coming to fruition.
As the saying goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ – nor can a business achieve significant goals in a short space of time. Over the long-term however, much can be achieved.
How is long-term Business Success structured?
As Business Success Partners, our mission is to drive a client toward their Business and Personal visions, primarily by improving the profit, growth, and value of their businesses.
To do this, we use a 3-phase process – taking the client from where they are now, to where they want to be.
After a client has been acquired and a plan for improvement created, the Consultant will work with the Business over the long term to help manage performance and implement improvement.
Phase 1 - Client Acquisition
One of the most important aspects of starting a new consulting business is acquiring clients. With this in mind, we’ve been improving our system to ensure everyone can find and sign clients quickly and effectively from the get-go.
The ConsultX system is based on a three-meeting process designed for you to find out all about your Prospect's business, build a personal relationship with the owner, diagnose the profit leaking from the business and create a win-win proposal that works for both you and them.
Phase 2 - Plan Building
Once you’ve got a client, you’ll work with the business owner and management team (depending on size) to analyze the whole business, then completely re-engineer it. You’ll work to produce a comprehensive business plan that is broken down into manageable tasks and milestones to take the business from where it is now, to where it’s going in 3-5 years.
Alongside the business plan, you’ll look for avenues of the business to ‘Boost Profitability’, improving their situation and covering your cost very quickly.
Phase 3 - Ongoing Performance Management
With a clear direction and the wheels of profitability moving, you're ready to manage the performance of the business and implement the business plan on an ongoing basis. Each month you’ll meet with the owner and management team to manage performance and drive the business toward the long-term vision.
This implementation is critically important to achieving the Business Plan and personal vision that will result. It’s also the aspect that is almost always under-achieved by the Business owners and managers. As a Consultant, you’ll be in charge of facilitating the implementation to bring the business vision to life.
How do you keep a client for the long term?
Here are seven strategies that we’ve tested and proven to get and keep ideal clients – ones that stay on for the long term.
1. Build the relationship on trust
The foundation of any good relationship is trust. By building personal trust with a lead or client, you’ll quickly be seen as a Trusted Advisor, who’s ideas, guidance, and recommendations are accepted and taken on board.
2. Set a long-term expectation
Even before a business owner is a client, it’s incredibly important that the conversation is about the long term. This sets the expectation up for a long-term engagement.
3. Deliver Results
This bit isn’t rocket science. If you want to be kept as a Business Consultant (and paid for it), then you’ll need to be delivering tangible results to the business. Ingrained in the ongoing performance management will be a review of the growth and success that the business has achieved since you’ve been on board.
4. Make yourself an invaluable part of the business
Going one step further than being trusted and delivering results is making yourself invaluable to the business, or the business owner. This involves keeping your eyes open for opportunities and solutions that will create a significant impact on the business, or the business owner.
5. Spend one-on-one time with the Business Owner(s)
To solidify your professional relationship, it’s important to get personal with the business owner. This should involve a combination of one-on-one meetings where you dive into their progress as the business evolves, and social meetings, beyond a completely professional setting.
6. Say what needs to be said
At times, you’ll need to keep the client accountable, provide education, or set them straight. These conversations should be spoken from a place of honesty and trust but never avoided when they’re required.
7. Celebrate the client
This is the fun part, but it also makes it exciting to have you around. This can be as simple as opening a bottle of champagne when you’ve successfully hit a milestone or a gift to show you appreciate them.
How long can you expect a client to last?
The exact time will vary, but you can expect to be with a client for 3-5 years as a minimum if you’re working with the long-term in mind, with many going much longer.
Some client relationships naturally conclude, often businesses sell, situations change or goals are achieved.
In our network, the longest client has been 10 years and is still ongoing.