Number fourteen: Avoid Chitchat
Good day, I'm Troy Dean from Video User Manuals and Agency Mavericks, and this is the 101 Ways to Elevate Yourself and Demand Higher Fees, a practical guide for WordPress consultants to start attracting better quality clients, work on better, more interesting projects, and get paid better fees. Now, let's go elevate.
Number 14, avoid chit-chat. I know this might sound really obvious, and I know that we need to do a little rapport building when we first walk into a client meeting and say, “Hey, how's your day been? How's business going?” but I would avoid getting stuck into a chit-chat conversation about the latest sporting scandal, or the latest political controversy, or whatever's going on. I would try and get stuck into the meeting straightaway. Have your agenda pre-written so that you control the meeting and try to get stuck into doing business straightaway.
It sends a message that you are serious about what you do, that you actually care about their business, you want to get them a great result, that you're passionate about what it is you do, and you're not there, more importantly, you're not there to chit-chat and be matey-matey. I mean, as I said, I know that we need to build rapport and we need to be friendly and warm and, you know, genuine with people, but you're not there to have lots of small talk about world affairs because that's the kind of thing you do with your mates. And I don't want you to be mates with your new clients at this stage, because I don't want you to have to give them mate's rates.
So, you're a business consultant. This is a business relationship. It's a business transaction. We are not mates at this stage of the game, so avoid excessive chit-chat. And in the next episode, I'm going to talk about something that is really, really obvious, but I have seen some WordPress consultants get this totally wrong. What is it? Well, you'll need to listen to the next episode. Until then, go elevate.
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