I am sure you have read many articles (and probably some I have even written myself!) On what you should do to be successful in your professional business. But today I'm not going to talk to you about what you should do but rather about what you should avoid.
Without much further ado, shall we go? Here you have…
3 bad ideas (what you should NOT do) if you want to be successful in your professional business
Bad idea # 1 - Have low rates
Cheap services equals poor quality services. It's that simple. Perception is everything. Also, if your rates are so low that you can't stop thinking about how you will pay the bills, you will surely stop focusing on what is really important: serving your customers.
How to correctly define your rates? I summarize two tips about it:
First, your rates must be according to the transformation or the results that your services promise. When the rate is very low, people begin to doubt if it is a promotion or a pricing strategy, or perhaps the service is not as good as it looks…
Second, your rates must allow you to be highly dedicated to your customers. You set the limits of your services, correct, but it is essential that you think about what your client needs to achieve his goals (whatever he has asked you for help with). Because if you cannot offer the right thing because you need to have more clients to pay your expenses, then your services will not be good and attractive, and in reality what you must change are your rates.
Bad idea # 2 - Accept clients who are not "ideal".
When we talk about "ideal customer" you already know that we are talking about the target customer, the one for whom all your business and services have been created.
Once your business has an ideal client, it is a bad idea to work for anyone who is not, simply because "maybe I can help him." If, in the first place, you thought you could help him, then it would have been part of your target market. If it is not, there will be a reason.
For example: I help professionals and entrepreneurs who sell their knowledge and services and who want to enhance their professional business through the power of the internet, to reach more and better clients and thus obtain high incomes. In other words, if someone sells products, they are not my ideal client. I always say that you cannot sell your services or your knowledge with the same strategies that sell T-shirts. Apply perfectly backwards. For something there is specialization. The more you cover, the less you specialize and the less you can be that "expert" that the one who is your ideal client is looking for. And if you are not the expert, he will go with another who is.
Bad idea # 3 - Give away your services
It is one thing to give "something" and quite another to "give it all away". Balance, as always, is the most difficult and extremes are sometimes as tempting as they are harmful.
It is an excellent strategy, and there are several articles in which I mention it, which is to share small doses of your knowledge with your followers. Not only does it help you to get to know yourself, but it also allows you to connect with people who are your ideal clients to get to know them better, to know what they need, how they react to this or that information you share, etc. In addition, it also helps your potential clients to have a “small sample” of what it would be like to work with you. On repeated occasions that I have had “face to face” conversations with new clients, they have told me that they felt that they knew me for a long time, because it was “as is” as they read me in the articles. That's great.
But a very different thing is to give it all away. You can give free advice through an article, a post on your social networks, a free download resource (a video, a report, an ebook, etc.). But personalized delivery (customized solutions) must be part of your paid services. If you give them away, what incentive do you give your customers to pay you? And what message are you giving to those who have already paid to receive what you are giving to others for free?
Bonus track
A phrase that I like to share with my clients when we start working together is:
If you don't ask a baby to learn to run before learning to walk… why do you ask your business?
It is a very bad idea to pretend to have results before what the evolution and time of your business allow. The only thing you will get is to get frustrated and think that you are doing something wrong. When you are not really doing anything wrong, when your strategies are in order you only need time for them to unfold, for your clients to know you, like you, trust you and finally buy from you. And in this process it is essential to make decisions for the moment in which your business is.
And you do you think? Do you have any other “bad idea” that you have tried in your business and want to share with us? Have you experienced any of these "bad ideas" firsthand and impacted your business? I would love for you to share it in the comments below!
