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When you were new in business, did you ever experience the Imposter Syndrome?
Its very common in professional services. We have a sense that we are doing good work for our clients, but we’re not yet fully in touch. As you might imagine, and maybe experienced firsthand, this can impede your growth for a while.
However, this is not just a phenomenon that only newer folks experience. After one of my seminars, an advisor with 20 years of experience confessed he sometimes doubted the value he brought to his clients. Therapy ensued! (smile)
In this blog post, I want to provide you with a process that you can use to make sure that you, and everyone in your firm, understand your full and complete value. This knowledge will have a direct impact on your ability to serve your clients and attract more of just the right clients.
Then, I’d like to share a note I received from one of my clients explaining how he views his value.
3 Big Steps to Understanding Your Full Value
This is a great exercise for you to do with your entire team. Everyone will be able to contribute, and you’ll be amazed at how jazzed everyone will get about all the ways you bring value to your prospects and clients. This is so much more than just creating an elevator pitch, though this type of short statement should come from this work.
STEP 1 – Determine Every Point of Value
Examine every aspect of every process you bring to your prospects, clients, and strategic partners. Look at before they start working with you, how you onboard them, and how you continue to work with them.
What questions do you ask that provide value? What do you teach? What behind-the-scenes things do you do that they never see?
If this doesn’t produce several pages of items, then you’re either not getting granular enough or you have a lot of work to do in how you serve these folks.
STEP 2 – Check with Your Clients
Identify 6 to 10 clients who have experienced your value and would be willing to help you work on your business. Schedule a meeting – maybe treat them to a nice meal during the meeting or at a later time – and go through this list.
See what they might add that you hadn’t thought of or how they might express it in words that could be great messaging to use in your marketing efforts.
Not only will you pick up a few items from them, their perception of your value will be enhanced even further.
STEP 3 – Review with Your Marketing Hat On
Now it’s time to think about what items or categories of items you want to feature in how you talk about your value to everyone. Now you have the raw material for great messaging for your website, LinkedIn profile, and other collateral materials. Now you can craft shorter statements for everyone in the firm to use in different types of situations.
Do you ever wonder if you truly make a difference in the lives of others?
About the only time I get choked up is when I’m watching a movie with a scene about a father and his daughter.
Here’s an exception. Check out this note I received from one of my clients:
Bill – You have changed 100’s of thousands of lives. You have helped life insurance agents sell 100’s of thousands of policies that probably would not have been sold because they learned how to be a more productive because of you.
You kept a lot of them in the business longer than they would have been and some, like me, in the business for decades. You are probably directly attributable to the sale of 100’s of thousands of policies over almost 25 years.
100’s of thousands of children are sleeping tonight without the knowledge that if tomorrow is the worst day they could have ever imagined, they will still go through life with financial dignity.
Their Mom or Dad had a good life insurance agent and that agent went to the school of Bill Cates.
Now I never doubt the value of the work I do. I have told my team many times over the years that when we help one of our clients acquire more new clients, we’re helping them bring their important value to the world. We do our important work by help you do more of your important work.