Step 5 is the final technique. It is Relationship Development. There are seven tactics for optimum growth. They include:

1. Make it personal – never a group
2. Send emails: individuals en masse
3. Pick up the phone
4. Make office appointments
5. Send gifts and thoughtful pieces
6. Drop by for conversations
7. Initiate events of mutual benefit – for example, treat them to a meal or drinks to discuss issues they are facing and how you can help them.

This concludes my series on tips to successfully engage executive clients. I hope you find it helpful in growing your practice. Looking for additional resources? Visit my site for audio interviews, my mentor program and more: www.visionaryleadership.com

Step 4 is Negotiating Value-Based Fees. There are three rules to do this. If you do it right, you have the capacity to move from mediocre to exceptional in your ability to generate value and charge for it.

1. Start and end with outcomes
2. Mutual agreement of result(s)
   - be clear
   - to the point
   - make it a shared responsibility
3. Value-based fees

Put these tenets into practice by creating an action plan for raising your fees, zeroing in on value your clients will gladly pay for, and taking your practice to the next level in the fee progression strategy.

Need help to accomplish this? Consider attending my January 12 one-day workshop for a full review, “How to Acquire Clients/ Value-Based Fees.” The program will run from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm in Washington, DC. Get details: www.sethkahan011212.eventbrite.com/

And check into my next post for my final thoughts on how to engage executive clients. It involves relationship development. Tune back in for details.

Step 1 is Preparation
Step 2 is Meeting Executives

Step 3 is Engaging Executives – there are seven guidelines to win leaders attention. They include:

1. Do your homework
2. Put yourself in their shoes
3. Treat them with professional respect
4. Identify value
5. Co-create value
6. Respect time
7. Talk outcomes

It’s a straightforward approach. Give it a try. Start the conversation about how you can help them achieve their goals. And tune into my next post for tips to negotiate value-based fees for your services.

Step 2 is Meeting Executives – there are four rules to attract leaders who are ready to act. They include:

• Only attend events where your position is favorable (for example, you are featured as an expert, or you are participating as a peer)
• 90% of CEOs only show up at CEOnly Events
• You can die from exposure
• Be a force of nature – create your own events

I’ve created a number of CEO events to address today’s issues — leadership during economic uncertainty, global expansion & international partnerships, engaging Hispanics, association trends and two 1-year long CEO leaders forums that included 4-8 participants.

How did I attract them? My ingredients are simple. They include sending an exclusive invitation, holding the event in an exclusive location (for example, at The Willard). Creating a PowerPoint with well-developed content and powerfully delivering my presentation.

What event could you offer executive clients to help address their needs? Try my approach to get a foot in the door. And read my next post for tips to engage them.

Five Steps for Acquiring Executive Clients

Step 1:  Preparing, A Fourfold Foundation

1. Support on the home front
2. Mentoring to accelerate the return on your efforts
3. Participate in a community of peers
4. Cultivate self-compassion

Preparation includes creating amazing results that turn executive heads. To do this, you need to focus on value. Not the process, not the time, nor the outcomes. It’s critical to develop, practice and deliver intellectual firepower that exhibits a public persona of professional interest. Back it up with collaterals which impress and deliver actual value.

Some examples in my line of work include authoring Fast Company’s expert blog, Leading Change; being a contributor to the Washington Post, On Success and the American Express OPEN Forum. I also author a weekly newsletter, Monday Morning Mojo on executive intelligence.

Put your collaterals to good use. It’s your opportunity to impress, deliver and attract leaders.

Tune into my next post for the second step to acquire executive clients. It involves meeting execs.

There are 3 major growth strategies for independent firms to achieve breakthrough business success. They include:

1. Create dramatic new value for existing clients
2. Expand your services while narrowing your scope to increase brand intensity
3. Move out to cover a broader region for greater impact

Make these efforts and you will successfully engage clients to grow your business. Give it a try!

1. Build a personal map of relationships; go broad and shallow
2. Select target groups and go deep
3. Think in terms of social networks
4. Practice activation; notice what goes viral
5. Identify your connectors
6. Build solutions for key groups and give them away
7. Identify and pursue “gateway activities”
8. Mold unique personal experience into new solution sets for target groups
9. Focus first on traction, second on delivery
10. Deliver amazing value; don’t hold back
11. Identify key phrases that describe needs of your target groups and generate undeniable results
12. Adopt a cause and lead the charge with results that matter

Put these techniques to use to cross the threshold to a new performance level. Check out my final post for growth strategies for independent firms.

These are the four biggest reasons most entrepreneurs fall short of their business potential: 

1. No experiential reference frame – never done it before
2. No mentoring – no “how to”
3. Fear of failure or success – don’t even try
4. Hesitation due to not getting it right – due to hesitation, responses consistently take too long

Consider addressing the above scenarios to move to a new level of performance. It’s the prerequisite to moving ahead. Stay tuned to my next post for tips to expand your network of clients.

Bullseye marketing goes straight for the perfect outcome. Develop the ideal match for your needs by targeting the best market for your service. Cultivate the ability to focus on the desired outcome and it alone. This helps you lower your labor intensity to only those actions which will bring exactly what you are looking for – allowing you to free yourself to focus your aim on the center target to accelerate engagements.

The second tool to get things moving is to Find Clients Ready to Act.

There are always leaders ready to act. Make it your job to find them, and be found. Employ the following to grow your clients: 

• Go through your best client list and send them each an email that says, “I have been thinking about your work and have 3 ideas for improving your business.” When you call be ready to share, but also ready to listen. Initiate engagement, then build conversation.
• Create a special offer. For example, “I am making a special offer for my favorite clients this month. I have room for three engagements and will make you a priority if you respond to me in 7 days.”
• Get the word out.  Identify the networkers in your life and let them know you have availability and are actively looking.
• Conduct a referral campaign. Check in with existing clients, ask them to share your name with friends and customers.
• Create a symposium for high-level clients. Do it all in 3 weeks: put it together, invite them and carry it out.

Use these tips to become an expert marketing tactician. Clients will follow. 

My next post wraps up my series on jumpstarting business. Check back in for my final thoughts.