The Dos & Don’ts of Targeting Clients

I’m an advocate for unconventional marketing. I think too many of us (best case scenario) listen to people like me who tell you how to promote your small business. So it should stand to reason:

I have nothing against going searching for clients.

We all need clients to survive! That’s why we market (and why I try to teach you what I know: so you can grow your own business; that all ships might rise with the ride).

But,

(and it’s a pretty big but), there’s a right way and a wrong way to seek out clients.

You might be turning people off if you go about it poorly.

Seeking out clients is going to involve a lot of your time and energy to do properly. Be warned. If you’re up for the challenge, here are some of the most important things you need to know about deliberately searching out new business:

Don’t: Target people already utilizing your competitor’s services

Let’s pretend you’re a realtor trying to find new clients on social media.

You wouldn’t ask someone who just listed their house if they need a realtor, right? It’s evident they already have one!

Additionally, I would not advise trying to DM the people that follow another realtor competitor of yours (though in some cases it may work). That realtor already has a longer relationship built with that follower than you can; so unless you honestly really dazzle them and immediately provide social proof why they should follow you, you’re going to waste your time.

Do: Target people on peripheral services

Again, we’re a realtor on Instagram for the sake of this illustration.

Ask ourselves, “Who do people hire before they hire me?” Well, chances are they might follow tourist social media accounts in the area. Start by following their followers. If those people you’ve followed find value in what you do, they’ll follow back. Then follow the followers of restaurants in the city, and any other peripheral service that people might utilize around the time they need a realtor.

Don’t: Start off with a DM and nothing else

As someone who manages multiple social media accounts for other clients, it is mind-blowing to me how many people will message me and my clients out of the blue and immediately start self-promoting. It’s insane!

Know what an unsolicited DM from a stranger gets you? A delete and a block.

You’ve failed to do this:

Do: Like, comment, follow, and interact with

Yes, this is going to take time to do properly.

Social media means being social.

You want to game the system? You’re reading the wrong blog. I got nothing for you.

You need to actually like posts by the people you are targeting, comment on at least one of them, follow that account, and continue to interact with them over time (which, coincidentally, is our next do & don’t).

Don’t: Rush into a hard-sell

Holy man. It’s like a bulldozer running over you when someone immediately jumps into trying to sell you something.

Ever walked down the street of Manhattan (or any other major city) and had some people literally shove stuff into your hands? Flyers, CDs, souvenirs, anything? It’s brutal.

When you try to get someone to spend their money on you before you make any effort to get to know them, you perform a digital version of the shove-in-face interactions.

Do: Get to know them before promoting yourself

Like it or not, people need to be softened before they’ll even contemplate buying anything from you.

This means, again, being social. Get to know the people you’re trying to sell to. Interact with their posts over time, and build a genuine relationship.

You wouldn’t try to have a first-kiss with a blind date some 5 minutes after meeting, would you? So why would you try to sell someone something 5 minutes after they followed you?

If you can’t be bothered to learn about the people you’re following, you don’t deserve to have them care to learn about you. You might anyways, but it hasn’t been earned.

Don’t: Copy & paste a generic sell to multiple people

We’re going to assume you’re following me thus far + have implemented everything I’ve taught.

When the time comes around that you’re going to try to make a sale, don’t just have a boilerplate offer that you send to a hundred different people in 30 seconds.

It’s very obvious (if you’re someone who reads this blog and not a full-fledged professional) when a comment or DM has come from a template. It’s a gigantic turn-off and earns you nothing.

Do: Do your research + tailor your pitch accordingly

And, no, changing out the name of someone at the beginning of your generic pitch does NOT count as doing your research and tailoring it (although it’s a start).

If you can’t quickly draft a relevant customized pitch to someone, you don’t know them well enough to try to take their money.

Blow the pants off them (in the best way) by actually having done a bit of research before you send that DM that is the start of “hoping they might pay me.”

Don’t: Mislead or otherwise inflate your services

This is so common among boilerplate pitches that it’s very frustrating.

If you lie about your statistics, you’re in a very bad spot. Because:

Your clients will feel ripped off when they find out you can’t deliver on your too-good-to-be-true promises.

You assume that your potential customer is too stupid to notice when you mislead them with inflated metrics or false/misleading statistics.

Don’t do this. It’s so dishonest, and you hurt your industry as a whole when you knowingly cheat a customer. Unless you’re ok with this (and I suspect you’re not if you’ve gotten this far), don’t do this.

Do: Be honest and upfront about everything

If you can’t promise someone a flight to the Moon, then don’t! Be upfront about what you can do and what you can’t.

Your customer will have more respect for you when you tell the truth about what you can’t do, then they will for the second they believe in the lie of what you can do.

Only good things will come out of being honest. If you have to lie about what you can do, I suspect you have much bigger problems beneath the surface of your business. Pause and re-evaluate if this is you.

— — —

Hopefully all of this has given you a bit of a guide on how to target potential customers properly. If you take nothing else from this blog, here’s what I hope you remember:

When you target customers the wrong way, you subliminally indicate you are not as successful as you wish to be.

Think about it: would someone who’s got more than he can handle be reaching out to potential customers for more?

The answer: Hard no.

Successful people don’t have to go out looking for work (or, at least, that’s how it would appear on the surface). So be careful about the subtext in interactions you have with potential customers.

Once again - I have nothing against going searching for clients. We all do it! Me included. But if you aren’t going to do it the right way, you’re going to do far more damage than you are good.