How to motivate clients to move, so you can be more productive

Question: How do you motivate clients to move more quickly so you can increase your own productivity and tie up open projects?

Lori’s answer:

Ah, productivity tied to a customer’s timeline. Good question! Quick answer: Scarcity

You want to be responsive to the client when they need you. That is a good trait.

However you may find that your clients do not put as much value on this as you hope. It has been proven time and again that the busier and harder to reach you become (or are perceived to be) the more in demand you become. Honestly I’m still learning this myself, and it is a balance.

The best balance might be to be VERY accessible to the clients that pay for that (higher) level of service…

Here’s what I’d like you to do:

1. Send out a list thanking your past (or current) clients for their business. This letter will do two things:
   1. Let them know that with their help your business has boomed; you are more in demand than ever.
   2. To ensure the good clients like them (and note that you’d love to see past clients come back) get the service they deserve, that you’d like them to sign up now for your ______ program. For them,
      if they sign up by _______ it will be at no extra cost.
   3. Clearly state the cost of this added service so they know the value they are getting.
2. You may want to offer 3 tiers and mention them all in the letter, or this letter could explain only that top level and then you will follow up differently with those that sign up and those that do not.
   1. The risk in listing all 3 tiers is that most will migrate to the middle.
   2. The benefits of listing all 3 tiers can be a higher volume of total sign-ups AND less wear and tear on your time
3. Use an autoresponder email system and group the different customers by tier, so that you are engaging them in the future in a way that makes most sense to them… and training them to get
   your time via group email vs interrupting call, etc. and when it does then, map each aspect of the job to a key objective.

Later you’ll create a measurement system and a means to include your time in the calculation of customer profitability.