Marketing Mondays: Remove the Risk and Land More Consulting Clients

Michael Zipursky | November 7, 2011 | View Comments

Want to land more clients and close more deals? Remove the risk.

Offering a guarantee shows confidence in the product or service that you provide.

The stronger your guarantee the more you eliminate the risk that your prospective client feels when deciding whether to work with you or not.

Scared that people might actually take you up on your guarantee?

Two thoughts:

  1. Fewer people than you imagine will actually ask for a refund, or whatever it is that you’re offering in your guarantee. Especially if you’re any good at what you’re offering (and I’m sure you are), you’ll find very few people will.
  2. If you’re not confident enough in what you’re offering to reverse the risk and provide a guarantee to your clients, maybe you should rethink the business you’re in.

Make your guarantee specific. Communicate your confidence in it. Watch your sales grow.

Risk breeds hesitation.

Hesitation creates procrastination.

None of those make you money.

Removing the risk does.

 

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  • Lawrence Joneson

    Short post but very powerful. Thank you. This is something I need to think more on doing.

  • Markus

    Is that too harsh saying you should not be consultant if can’t do this?

  • http://www.consulting-business.com Michael Zipursky

    Lawrence – thanks for the comment.

  • http://www.consulting-business.com Michael Zipursky

    Markus – it’s not that you shouldn’t ‘be a consultant’ it’s that you should really re-consider the value you are delivering to your clients. Being confident in what you offer is an important aspect of being successful in this business. And if you’re confident then coming up with a guarantee would be well worth your time.

  • http://twitter.com/BizEnrich Berry Zimmerman

    Here are two ways to reduce the perceived risk associated with a project:
    1. Set payment milestones for the client and allow them to terminate the project (without any penalties) at each milestone.
    2. Create a payment schedule with the same no-penalty permission to terminate the project at any time.

    Leave your clients a way out. Give them control of their resources (time and money) so they don’t feel trapped. Remarkably, the easier it is for the client to terminate a contract the less likely they will actually need to cancel the deal.

  • http://www.consulting-business.com Michael Zipursky

    Berry – great points and the case study of what mobile phone and cable companies are doing with “no-contracts” proves that concept as viable.

  • Tia

    I agree. If you show no confidence in what you offer a client is likely to pay somebody else who does even if a competitor’s quality of work is poorer.

  • http://www.consulting-business.com Michael Zipursky

    Great point Tia. The “best” product or service doesn’t always win. The “better” marketing, positioning and approach often does.

    Achieve both and success is yours for the taking.

  • http://www.consulting-business.com Michael Zipursky

    Great point Tia. The “best” product or service doesn’t always win. The “better” marketing, positioning and approach often does.

    Achieve both and success is yours for the taking.

  • Mark

    20 years ago, I offered this and not one client took me up on the offer. In many cases there were so many ah hah moments in the consulting process it wasn’t an issue. They more than got their money’s worth. Also, consider what you are asking for in a rate or project fee when compared to what they are paying for in tax prep and company legal fees (never project limited, always by the hour).

  • http://www.linkedin.com/in/brianrichardscanada Brian Richards

    I’ve been offering a money back guarantee for over 20 years and only had 3 clients take me up on it. It was a bullet-proof guarantee that risked both fees and or personal capital based on quantifiable results. The reason for so little interest is the measurement generally shows up the incompetence of the client staff. Only owners have shown interest and even then they’re scared of looking bad.

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