Show of hands – how many of you like talking about money with your clients? I know, it’s a conversation that most of us would rather avoid. Your client never wants to talk about money, and either do you. Wouldn’t it be great if we could show up in front of our clients and say ‘Hey, we’re going to do x, y or z for you’ and the client is going to say, “Oh great, I’ll pay you $500/hour for that.” What a wonderful day that would be. I’ve never had a client tell me that. And I’m betting you haven’t either.
So you’re going to have to learn to talk about money in a comfortable way. I’d like you to try on the idea of starting to talk about money as if it doesn’t matter. And it needs to genuinely not matter. It doesn’t mean that you will do the work if the money is not right, but the conversation can’t be influenced by your need for the money. This isn’t an easy thing to do. It’s hard to turn off the need for money in our opening conversations with prospective clients; especially when you just did Quick Books ten minutes ago and now you’re going to a client meeting.
The life of an entrepreneur isn’t always easy. There you are, and you’ve got eighteen things due this week, and you’re in front of a client that hasn’t paid you yet; you’re moving money around from your savings account into your checking account; you’re wondering who you can get away with not paying until you get your check. I get it! This is everybody’s situation, not just yours.
And you’ve got to put all of that on a shelf somewhere and show up and say, “I’m here to serve you. I will do whatever it takes to help you be successful.” That’s what people want to hear.
Focus on servicing your client and the money will follow.