Two Conversation Tools For Professionals To Attract Clients

This is not your grandfather’s elevator speech.

If you want to attract high-paying clients, it pays to have two great tools: a defining paragraph and a defining story.

Defining paragraphs and defining stories are essential for those in professional services such as accounting, dental consulting, financial services, management consulting, marketing and advertising, executive search services, software development, technology services, and law. Many a business owner can benefit from the right attraction phase conversations.

Nearly everything you do from a marketing perspective serves the attraction phase. This includes holding seminars, giving speeches, writing articles and books, networking, doing volunteer work and outreach on social media. Simply put, you want people to ask you who you are and what you do.

To move from the attraction phase to the meaningful conversation phase of business development takes brevity and clarity.

The goal of the attraction phase is to get a prospect’s ear, attention, or eye on your business. Professionals want prospects to hear a clear message, one that sparks a request for a further conversation. Then they can ask how you can help them.

Include your defining paragraph in all your attraction phase materials and networking. Follow this seven-sentence framework to craft your defining paragraph.

1. Your name
2. Your company’s name
3. Defining statement for your primary area of expertise
4. Defining statement for your secondary area of expertise
5. A credibility statement
6.  Your value statement
7. Your approachability statement

Commit this structure to memory. You need to see it in your mind’s eye. You will come to rely on it in a multitude of situations.

Here is an example from a retired author I worked with.

1. My name is Patti DiGangi.
2. My company is DentalCodeology.
3. I work with dental professionals to demystify coding through my workshops, webinars, and keynote speeches.
4. As an author, I also share my insights and expertise through a book series called DentalCodeology—little books of easily digestible stories about patients we see every day.
5. In fact, I just released my fifth book in this series called: A Gingivitis Code Finally!
6. As a result of my work, dental professionals report they are coding more accurately, increasing practice profitability, and improving the oral-systemic health of their patients.
7. On a personal note, my husband and I have explored 48 states in a motorhome. It took us 17 years, and we are still trying to figure out how to drive to Hawaii and Alaska.

The next tool you need is your defining story. Remember, human brains are hardwired for stories. This is a two-minute tale that explains why you do what you do. It leaves breadcrumbs on how you can help them.

Here are five perfect attraction phase opportunities to persuade with your defining story:

During an Initial Call to Get a Meeting. Never lead with your defining story. First have a conversation. You should never randomly tell stories, but instead use them at the right strategic time. Ask about their goals, what they are doing right, and what they see as the roadblocks they hope you can help them get past. At this point ask: “May I tell you a true story about how we helped a client get from where you are now to where you want to go?”

To Intrigue a Client During a Meeting. For many companies, business development is not a one-step close. During an initial get together you gather information and in the subsequent meeting you propose a course of action.

On Your Website or LinkedIn Profile. Get rid of that boring bio. Use a compelling defining story.

In Collateral Material. Don’t just tell when stories will sell. In your brochures and information kits replace drab case histories with persuasive defining stories.

During a Speech, Media Interview or Job Interview. Occasionally you might get an invitation to make a speech, give an interview to the media, or interview for a job. Illustrate your message with your pithy story.

Bottom line. Told at the right time, a defining story can advance the conversation from the attraction phase to the meaningful conversation phase. And that is where the business development magic happens.