How Can You Win Clients Over?

How Can You Win Clients Over?

Sean: How do you stand out in a client pitch amongst the competition?

Client pitch is all about the client. It’s all about the client. If you’re able to read the client well, make them laugh, communicate well with them, connect with them, that’s it. That’s how you stand out because there’s so many people in client pitches that really suck. They’re really bad in pitches. They just read the PowerPoint, read from a script, or they have memorized the script already, the FAQ is in their head and they just answer it, you know, frequently asked questions by the clients. They don’t even connect. So people who connect, that’s really important. That’s how I stand out because I make sure I connect to the people I talk with. I make sure that I make them realize, aha, yes, that’s true.

When people actually tell you you’re right, those two words, that’s very important. When they tell me in a pitch, “you know, Sean you’re right.” I know I have them. Because rarely will you tell someone you’re right unless you really agree with them. Sometimes people will say yes and that’s it. But, you know, yeses I find are cheap. Yeses I find are cheap. Especially in a pitch when people are saying, yes, it’s cheap. They probably said yes to the last guy, last girl, who pitched. But when they say, “you’re right, you know, you’re right”, that’s how you know you got them.

So connecting with your, I would say purchasers or the C-level executives in a pitch that is critical for you and you have to hone that skill. Connecting with people is a skill. Taking the time to communicate with them so that they really understand what you mean, that is a skill that you can hone.

Question from Mitch. Can you share with us any pick-up lines or conversation starters you use to break the ice with someone you want to do business with? It can be virtually or in person.

Pickup lines, I don’t have pickup lines. But conversation starters, usually when I meet with them, you know, sales is all about relationship building. Usually you can start with, “hey, what do you do? Hey, by the way, what do you do?” Right? You introduce yourself and usually that’s what you’re going to be asking. For me, that works really well. That’s actually what I use, I don’t know, like 95% of the time. “Hey, by the way, what do you do?” And you can also qualify the, is this a potential target market, is this a potential client, based on the answer that the person gives you. So yeah, that works.

Here’s the thing. People love to talk about themselves. That’s true. A hundred percent. People love to talk about themselves. Very, very rarely would you find someone who doesn’t like talking about himself or herself. So asking them, “hey, by the way, what do you do? Hey, what’s your business? What’s your family business?” That works really well.

It’s not a pickup line, but it’s definitely a conversation starter. And if you read the book by Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, you just have to focus on asking your counterpart, negotiation counterpart, or your potential client stuff about themselves. Don’t talk about yourself, just learn as much as you can about the person. That’s also how you connect with them. I’m just connecting it with the question earlier.

When you’re in the pitch and you’re one of the people pitching for the project, that’s how you connect with them. By knowing a little bit more about each of the people that you’re pitching to, that’s how you connect. You know them better, that’s already an advantage right there. So asking them, hey, what do you do, knowing about their hobbies, knowing about what they love, that’s going to get you the upper hand already. So yeah, simple. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be just simple. What do you do? By the way, what do you do?

What are the essential types of content for digital marketing?

There’s a lot of content that you can do. So I know that our previous guest, Toni Aquino, did TikTok and that’s really how she was able to disseminate content about personal finance and investing. That’s her platform. Marvin Germo also does the same thing. Carlo Ople right now is on TikTok. So there’s a lot of content that you can do. That’s a video. That’s a short video. That’s only one to three minutes long. But they also do really well on YouTube. They also do really well on Facebook and that’s long form video content.

Then there’s also the written word, which for me is my preferred way. Writing blogs. I write blogs. I publish my thoughts, still written. I’m quite shy, so TikTok, I haven’t got into the bandwagon on TikTok yet, although I hear a lot of good things about TikTok. They say the organic reach is really good. It’s just that I find it hard to do it. But I could do it. I think I do that as well.

The point is there’s a lot of content that you can do. There’s a lot of content you can get into, different types of platforms as well. There’s a written podcast. This podcast is an audio first podcast. So in Spotify, it’s just audio. You’re just going to listen to this podcast, but we also translate it into YouTube, which is an audio and video platform. And then we actually transcribe this podcast and publish it on the blog so that it can be searched for and found by people who are typing on Google about, you know, questions they have in mind that the podcast addresses.

So one recording, one episode turns into three different types of content platforms, written, video and audio, and audio only for me, this podcast. That’s it. Like one shot. So there are so many types of content for digital marketing that you can do. For SEO Hacker, we focus on the written word because people still search. And I mean, Google’s top 10 listing on the search results are all about the written word. For the most part, it’s all about the written word. So that is still one of the best types of content for me, for digital marketing. And people still read, people still read, they might read shorter, their attention span might be a lot shorter, but they still read. So just make your stuff short, concise, true, and really valuable. That works.

Another question from Patrick. No bias aside. What was the most difficult website SEO Hacker has done with regards to technical challenges?

Well, the websites that ask us to develop systems are going to be the most difficult websites. So we’re not really a system development company. But sometimes our service is so good for some clients that they ask us to actually do some systems for them. There are clients today that we’re actually developing some systems for their website. It’s so funny.

But you know, that’s how extra mile we go. We go the really extra, extra mile for our clients just to serve them and make sure that they’re happy with us. So all the way to making some systems, I mean, that’s out of scope already of our services, but in order to make the client happy, we go out of our way to do it.

From Patrick. What do you think will be the impact of Apple integrating the permission on privacy for businesses like Facebook that tracks your activities?

I think that Apple’s move to ask permission, actually, that’s all it is. They’re going to ask permission from their users now for apps to track them, their behavior, their activity, cookies, I think that’s a pretty good thing. I think that’s a good thing, actually. I mean, I’m a marketer and I would love that data. Asking for permission is the right thing to do.

So it’s a privacy issue. It’s a gray area. Google, and a lot of tech companies have been lobbying for this. And a lot of politicians have lobbied against it as well. Privacy, right? So a lot of tech companies have too much. Remember when Facebook just made that snap in Australia and removed Facebook from Australia, it pissed the Australian government off. It really did. But you realize there that Facebook has so much power, right? Because suddenly emergencies in Australia didn’t have communication channels just because their Facebook page went down, they can’t use messenger. You realize how reliant you have been on Facebook when Facebook is gone from your country altogether.

But I think it’s the right thing to do for Apple to ask permission for access to this data. I’m sure Facebook will find a way for you to give your permission, kind of force you to give it, to continue using their application. That’s usually how it works, right? I mean, there are a lot of times that you can’t use an app if you don’t give permission to this, this, this, this, and this. Even if the app really doesn’t need that information for you to use it, but they just want to collect your data. So I think that’s how it’s going to play out. I might be wrong. Hopefully I’m wrong, but that might be how it’s going to play out.

From Patrick. What’s your take on Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality? Do you think we’re close to streamlining these technologies? What possible practical applications can we use them for in our daily lives?

AR and VR are really good right now for games. I know that we have a lot of VR games right now, and if you’ve ever tried one, it’s a really good experience, especially if the game is good.

Do you think we are close to streamlining? I think that it’s still early and a lot of the big companies haven’t caught up to it. That’s what I think. But once it hits mainstream, there’s going to be a lot of developments in those technologies, which is not happening right now because it’s not mainstream yet.

Maybe, because again, we have entertained ourselves to stupidity that a lot of people don’t actually think of exploring a lot of new technology right now because we’re just so entertained. We’re just so used to having things on demand and living life the best way we know how. That we don’t even take time to pause and think and explore as well. So, yeah.

But the applications are huge. I think we are in the very early stages when it comes to augmented reality and virtual reality. There are a lot of applications. And I think that a lot of companies can still use and, or, you know, startups could still innovate in these areas and launch products that are going to be a killer product that would just take over the market.

So yeah, guys, that’s all the questions. It’s a wrap. So actually we have really good questions today. I hope you learned a lot. So that’s it. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a great rest of the week ahead. And until next time, keep leading.