A meeting with a prospective client is an opportunity that you should never take lightly. Regardless of how good you feel about your chances of landing their business, you need to give it your all and wow them from the start. While easier said than done, there are some strategic things you can do to position yourself in a positive light.
How to Wow Prospective Clients
When you’re competing against a number of other companies for a prospect’s business, you don’t have much room for error. The sooner you make a positive impression, the greater your chances of landing the account. Keeping this in mind, here are some ways you can make an impact:
1. Dress for Success
One of the first things a prospective client is going to notice is what you’re wearing. If you come in looking disheveled, you’re going to be viewed as reckless and unreliable. If, on the other hand, you look put together, first impressions will be largely positive. Make sure you always dress for success, no matter where you’re going.
2. Drive the Right Car
As superficial as it may be, the car you drive communicates an important message to those around you – including prospective clients. This is especially significant if you’re spending time driving prospects around. A comfortable, classy ride speaks volumes about who you are.
While you might not be able to go out and drop $75,000 on a brand new vehicle, you can always find cost-effective options that are just a couple of years old. Here is a list of 10 top luxury cars in 2017. They offer luxury at an affordable price point.
3. Come Up With an Elevator Pitch
“As self-employed individuals we are always asked what it is we do. Having a quick, interesting, powerful answer may lead to opportunities that we didn’t even know existed,” author Steve Strauss admits. “As they say, you only have one chance to make a good first impression.”
If you don’t already have an elevator speech, come up with one. It doesn’t have to be super long – just a 30-second spiel on who you are and what you do will suffice.
4. Keep Conversation Flowing
Some people are more gifted conversationalists than others. And as long as you have at least one of these people in a conversation, everything is fine. It becomes problematic when both you and your prospect are poor conversationalists. This can lead to painful lulls in discussion, which hurts your image.
Questions are the best way to keep conversation flowing. There are two types of questions: open-ended and closed-ended.
“The best place to use the closed-ended question is in a situation where you need to validate or confirm what you think is going on in your prospect’s world,” sales expert Tony Parinello writes. “Generally speaking, closed-ended questions: [Are useful to give feedback during a dialog; Can be used to obtain specific information and/or confirm facts].”
In just about every other situation, open-ended questions are preferred.
5. Exude Confidence
While there’s such a thing as being blinded by your own confidence, it’s imperative that you enter into sales and networking opportunities with as much self-confidence as you can possibly muster up. While success often breeds confidence, it’s also true that confidence fosters success. The more you believe this, the better your results will be.
Invest in Yourself
As an entrepreneur, there are lots of things you can invest in, but you’ll never enjoy a higher return than when you invest in yourself. While it takes time to transform yourself into a highly-effective, magnetic individual who consistently wows prospective clients, it starts with simple, practical choices. Hopefully, the ideas discussed in this article will give you a strong foundation upon which to build.
Richard Parker is a freelance writer and author at TalentCulture.com and Readwrite. He covers industry-specific topics such as Seo, small business solutions, entrepreneurship, content marketing, word Press development & web design. You can connect with him at Linkedin , and Google +.
