If you think all the organic farmer has to do is wait until fall to harvest truckloads of delicious tomatoes or corn or squash for her clients, think again! That farmer has worked hard all year long to prepare for that week or two of reward.
She prepared the ground following last year’s harvest.
She planted seeds in the spring.
She watered and fertilized and protected her fragile crops from pests and drought and poor weather.
And finally, after months of work, she enjoys the results.
Your business works the same way, and if you take a page from the farmer’s playbook and nurture your prospects, you’ll soon be reaping the rewards, too.
Preparing the Ground
This is your brand, your voice, your very presence in your market. If you’re just starting out—like that farmer after her harvest—you’ll spend your time simply becoming visible to your prospects, being present and getting acquainted the demographics and psychographics of your ideal client. (If you want to learn strategies for getting to know your ideal client, click here.
Hang out with other experts in your niche. Join forums where your ideal clients spend their time. Build a website and start your mailing list. This is the prep work that will form the foundation of a solid business in the future.
Planting the Seeds
Your seeds are your content and products that solve a specific pain, challenge or obstacle. (Want suggestions to quickly pinpoint the pain, click here.) When you’ve accurately defined the pain then with each blog post you write, every product you create, you’re planting a seed you can harvest later. You’re establishing a solid know, like and trust factor with your prospects that will convert them to clients that buy from you over and over again.
In fact, you’ll likely find that blog posts you wrote years ago will continue to bring in new clients year after year, with no further help from you. Products can be refreshed and sold over and over again, or reworked into new offers. Podcasts, videos, ebooks and more all continue to work for you, month after month, year after year.
When you think about it that way, it’s easy to see that planting seeds is a critical part of every business.
Nurturing Your Crop
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just “sell it and forget it”? Unfortunately, that style of business rarely works. The hard sell, pressure cooker approach isn’t going to entice your prospects. Using soft sell techniques which includes nurturing, will serve you – and your clients – short term and long term. (click here to learn more about soft sell techniques.)
To create a lasting, mutually beneficial relationship with your prospects, you must spend time nurturing.
- Stay in touch with your email list
- Create groups in social media and meet-ups
- Update old blog posts with new ideas
- Study your stats to improve your traffic and conversions
- Continually expand your knowledge to reinforce your expert status
- Share trends, links and case studies
- Refresh, update and improve your product or service to match the sophistication of your ideal client
- Engage in market research, poll clients and prospects, conduct surveys asking for their input and opinion
It doesn’t take much effort to update your blog posts or tweak your products, and the rewards can be fantastic.
Of course, being a farmer is a long-term investment. The work you do today may not pay off for weeks or months to come. But with a strong history of consistent “farming” in your business, you’ll soon see that those long-term rewards are paying off consistently as well.
I’d love for you to share what was most beneficial for you.
Did you enjoy this series on knowing and attracting your ideal client?
Would you like more posts that are series like I did this month?
This brings us to the end of this series of posts. I’d love to know:
Has not really knowing your ideal client derailed your efforts to produce results?
What’s helped you decide to go deep and get into the you’re your prospects are experiencing so you can be the solution they absolutely need?
What are 3 action steps you can take to nurture your prospects so that they become loyal clients?