How to Convert More Clients and Save Time in Your Service Business
As small business owners, our time is so precious, so it can be frustrating when it’s spent on clients who never end up booking you!
Have you ever spent hours sending emails back and forth and jumping on ‘discovery calls’ with potential clients before realising you’re not the right fit, or have people ghost you after seeing your prices or availability?
I should add, it’s frustrating for BOTH of you - especially when it can be avoided by making some small time saving tweaks to your client onboarding process.
When you make these changes, not only do you end up converting MORE of the people you get on calls with or send proposals to, you also end up saving SO much time that might have been wasted on people who aren’t a good fit.
Prefer to listen? Listen to this blog post as a podcast episode on The Freelance Fix instead!
step 1: Get clear on your ideal customer
Improving your conversion rate starts with your marketing, and your marketing should always start with ensuring you have a detailed understanding of who your ideal customer is.
Trying to appeal to everyone or a very broad audience can not only have negative consequences on your brand (if you’re too generic, you won’t stand out from the crowd!), it also makes it harder for you when you’re trying to market yourself, because you’ll be trying to appeal to too many different people.
If you’re clear on your target demographics, their likes & dislikes, and where they like to hang out online, this makes it way easier to market to them!
Learn more about how to identity your ideal client and download my free Target Client CV worksheet.
Step 2: Ensure your marketing is appealing to the right people
In order to convert more people into paying clients, they have to be the RIGHT clients for you, which means the RIGHT kind of people need to be finding you.
Now that you’re clear on who those RIGHT people are (see above), you need to make sure that all your ‘brand touchpoints’ (places where people experience your brand) are appealing to those exact people. That means going through your:
Logo & brand
Copywriting & messaging
Social media platforms & content
Website content
And more, to check that they’re all speaking to the exact people who you want to work with (and who will want to work with you)!
Need help optimising your website? Download my free Website Audit workbook.
Step 3: Consider whether to display your prices
Deciding on whether or not to display your pricing on your website is an age-old question that everyone has their own opinions about. I personally prefer to display mine, because it means that I don’t need to waste time emailing enquiries who may decide they can’t afford me once I sent them my prices (it also wastes their time, and can feel embarrassing for them - I’ve definitely been on that side of things before and it’s just awkward!).
However, in some industries it just may ‘not be the done thing’. Though I would always say that just because other people in your industry don’t do it, doesn’t mean you don’t have to! They might also be having the same problem spending time on enquiries that aren’t going to work out, and it might actually set you apart from them.
I know that if I was hiring an interior designer, for example, I would be much more likely to contact someone who displays their pricing clearly on their website than someone who doesn’t, so that we don’t waste each others time and have awkward price conversations. BUT I may not be your ideal customer…
In situations where you are offering a higher end service, and your ideal customer is someone for whom money is not an issue for this service, then it may not be necessary to display your prices.
Step 4: Add FAQs to your website & detail what’s involved
It’s all very well having a beautiful portfolio based website full of imagery, but without a detailed ‘Services’ or ‘Work With Me’ page that explains exactly what you offer and what’s included in what you do, you may end up spending a lot of time replying to people who want something out of your scope.
Be as detailed as you can on your Services page about what people can expect, so that they’re clear before they get in touch with you about what’s involved.
Another useful thing to have in an FAQ page or section, which answers some simple questions like:
What is the process for getting started?
How long will this project take?
How does payment work?
How long until you can start / what is your availability?
Being clear on your availability on your website is a BIG one! I’ve had it before where I’ve gone through emails back & forth, and a 40 minute discovery call with someone, before we both realised that they expected me to be able to start in the next couple of weeks, when I actually wasn’t able to start for a couple of months. Very frustrating for both parties so now I make it as clear as possible on my website and in all my emails!
Step 5: Optimise your contact page
Your contact page is one of the most important pages as a service based business, so you want it to be optimised for bringing you the best ‘leads’.
I would always recommend adding an email address AND a contact form to this page (sometimes a contact form might glitch or not save, so you want a back up option for communication).
I would not advise adding a phone number here (unless perhaps you’re in the trade industry, where this is fairly common practice), because you may end up having unsolicited phone calls from people who YOU don’t feel are the right fit for YOU. And those phone calls could interrupt you at any point in your day, which is not ideal for productivity.
I’d also recommend making sure your contact form contains more fields than just ‘Subject’ and ‘Message’. This is too vague and often produces very vague answers, which doesn’t help you when the enquiry comes through and you’re deciding whether the project is a good fit.
Ask more detailed questions such as:
What service are you interested in?
Where are you based?
What are you currently using / what have you tried before?
Etc.
Step 6: Set up calendar booking software
You may be considering using a tool like Calendly (this is the one I’d recommend, they have a great free plan!) to give people to option to schedule call with you on selected dates/times in your calendar. These types of software connect with your own digital calendar (eg. iCal or Google Calendar) to display meeting time options for people to book (and you can set specific availabilities in the software as well).
I love tools like this for cutting out the back & forths of trying to find a suitable time for a meeting, BUT I would suggest considering the following if you’re planning to add this straight onto your website…
Do you really want ANYONE who lands on your website to be able to book a call with you? Perhaps they might they they’re the right fit for you, but if you were to take a look at their project, it might not be a good fit for YOU.
I personally like to be able to see when an enquiry comes in via my contact form, and then decide if it’s a project I want/am able to take on, and then organise a call with them. This means I can personally ‘vet’ each enquiry that comes in before my calendar being filled up with calls.
Once the enquiry comes in and it’s a good fit, I simply send an email back with more information about me, and at this point I send them the link to my Calendly for them to book a call.
This just saves me having to cancel any calls, as it feels more awkward once they’re already booked in!
STEP 7: GET ON A CALL AND STREAMLINE YOUR ONBOARDING PROCESS
Once the potential client has booked in a call with you, it’s of course up to you to get a feel for each other and ensure you’re able to work together in the best way during that call. I like to prepare a list of questions beforehand so that I know what I’m going to ask and don’t forget anything!
Then it’s all about providing a really smooth and streamlined ‘onboarding process’ once they’ve verbally confirmed with you, to ensure they end up properly committing to book you. This is something I’m covering in my new online course…
LEARN MORE ABOUT CREATING A STREAMLINED ONBOARDING PROCESS:
Join the Organised Business Blueprint!
My new online course for overwhelmed business owners wanting to streamline and build better balance in their businesses. We’ll be covering LOADS of ways to make your business more productive and effective, including how to use a project management tool (like Trello or Asana) to organise EVERYTHING in your business and life.
