~by Haley Lynn Gray~
One of the smartest, yet scariest, things you can do in your business is to give away information for free to get clients. An educated consumer is a better consumer, and they will love you for the information.
If you are a painter, and you explain to people in minute detail how to paint their homes, what the best paints are, the best techniques, and how to make things look amazing, there will be some people who are going to take the information and go paint their houses.
On the other hand, you’re going to find a certain percentage of your clients who are going to realize that painting is a lot of work, and it requires a certain amount of skill, no matter how well they think they understand all the subtleties of painting. I understand perfectly well how to paint a room, but if I do it myself, it’s never going to look as good as if I hire an amazing painter to do it. And, I’m much more likely to go to the painter who has taken the time to educate me.
The savvy painter will take before and after pictures of their work to show clients, but they’ll also put together color palettes and show off how they will look in different situations. They’ll show you what goes together and why.
The same is true of many other businesses. In the senior care business, I want to educate my clients and their families so they understand what it’s like to run a home care business. They understand that finding and hiring the right caregivers isn’t like ordering off a fast food menu, and that it takes a great degree of skill to match a caregiver with clients. Some clients have very particular needs, and we have to be very aware of those needs, as well as any personality quirks.
This principle extends to business coaching as well. I can tell you all day long what it’s like to run a business. I can give you guidelines, hints, tips, and more information. For many people, that will be enough to get them started, but it won’t really be enough to keep them going and address all their concerns and needs they have about their business.
Marketing plans are a very individual thing for each business. Operations details are also very individual, and the processes that each business follows are unique to that business, very much like snowflakes. So, coming up with the perfect solution for a given business requires some problem solving and creativity. That’s where I come in for helping a business. I offer those problem solving and creativity skills to help grow a business and make it better.
It’s not that the ideas I provide aren’t available elsewhere, or that the combinations couldn’t be achieved by the business owner after some searching, but the experience that I offer brings value to the table, and it’s why my clients hire me. They hire me to make their problems go away, and no amount of sharing information is going to make them not hire me. In fact, the more I share, the more they trust me and want to hire me.
The same is also true for you and your business, believe it or not. Try being generous and giving in order to get, and I think you’ll be amazed at the results.
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Meet the Author: Haley Lynn Gray
Haley helps female entrepreneurs create a strategy plan for their businesses – so they can make enough money to spend quality time with their family, pay for their children’s dance lessons, pay bills – and not worry about where the next client is coming from.
Haley is a serial entrepreneur and founder of Leadership Girl. She helps other entrepreneurs build their businesses by sharing the benefits of her business education and experience through Business Coaching.
Whether you want to get a new business off the ground or expand an existing business, Haley can assist you.
Connect with Haley:
- Work with Haley: https://leadershipgirl.com/work-with-haley/
- Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/Leadershipgirl
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haleygray
