Advise Your Customers

Procuring business can be as much about connecting with our [potential] customers as it what we know or can do for them. So while we don’t want to give away intellectual property or too much of our valuable time, we should also consider educating our customers as a way to connect with them and gain their trust. I’m often surprised at how this subtly slips by so many consultants or independent contractor who assume that taking time to educate their customers means they will have just “given away” their job or a chance at revenue. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the opposite is more often the rule than the exception. Remember that customers hire you for many more reasons than simply what you know or the problem you can solve for them. They hire you because they lack the time to do what needs to be done, or know that they don’t know enough to get something done as efficiently, or even what pitfalls to avoid. They may also hire you because they need someone independent to handle the job. All of those are good reasons to hire someone else to do it for them.

When advising customers, it’s also important to set some boundaries so that they don’t abuse your time trying to learn. They don’t usually do this on purpose but may do so out of curiosity or intrinsic interest. It’s also important to know where to draw the line on giving away too much information. Give a little, especially early on in the sales process but don’t let it go too far, if you starting getting uncomfortable with it, then it’s probably reaching the limit. Remember, we all do some work for free (advising), the question is how much.

So while I’m not advocating spending too much time teaching it has, in my experience, provided me an excellent opportunity to up-sell my services though I use the term “up-sell” loosely. Typically, I have been able to show customers why there is more to what they are asking for than what they originally thought, meaning it’s going to be more work and potentially more expensive but not without significant value added.

So don’t short-sell your self by not accounting for the time you’ll also spend teaching your customers. Draw clear boundaries on how much time you spend teaching but be sincere and they’ll likely become a long term client. Again, it’s about building that relationship. Become and advisor they can trust and they will become a client you can count on.