Number thirty-nine: The window of opportunity is closing
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 39, the window of opportunity is closing. So this might seem a little bit arrogant and it might seem a little bit bold to do this, but if I've submitted a proposal to a client and it's been a couple of weeks and I haven't heard back and I've been sending them some emails and keeping them informed and I've sent them a link to a case study and I've been nurturing that relationship and I haven't heard. Instead of calling them and saying, “Hey, I'm just wondering if you guys are going to do anything on this project. Have you got any questions about the proposal?” Again, that's already positioning.
What I like to do is send them an email and say, or pick up the phone and call them and say, “Hey, I just thought I'd let you know, I'd really love to work on this project with you, but the window of opportunity for us to work together is closing pretty rapidly. My next three months are looking very busy, so if you guys do want to work on this project with me, now would be a great time to make a decision or let me know what's going on, because otherwise I'm not going to be available for another three months.”
Now, that might not be true. And I can tell you there have times in the past where that has not been true for me. I've sent that email anyway and I've been a little bit nervous and thinking, “Oh my God. What am I doing?” But I'm absolutely determined to not do what everyone else does. So this was an experiment that I tried and it works. Because it usually is the prompt that they need to get their act together internally and say, “Right, we need to make a decision on this. Troy's not going to be available for another three months. He's just sent this email through. What's happening with the website?”
And they'll come back and they'll either say, “Sorry, we've just been dragging our feet here. We're ready to go. Where do we push the button?” Or they'll say, “Look, we're just not ready to do this right now. You're the man for the job, but it's not going to happen. We're going to have to wait three months. Come back to us then or we'll come back to you then.” That's totally cool. Or they'll say, “You know what? This is just not going to happen. You're not the right person for the job. We're going to go elsewhere.”
At least you know. Either way, you know. The timing is going to be different for everyone. It's up to you as to when you feel comfortable doing this, but again, it's a positioning exercise. I'm not just sitting here waiting for you to come to me with your project. I'm busy. I'm in demand. I don't know if you've heard, but I'm a WordPress consultant and WordPress, pal, is one-sixth of the internet, so there's plenty of work around. As I said, even if there's not, you're just starting out and you're trying to build your client portfolio, that's okay. Have the confidence to send this email and say, “Hey, my next three months is looking pretty busy. Do you want to work on this project, because now would be a good time to do this? Otherwise, I'm going to be out of action for the next few months because I've got a few projects that are about to land.”
In the next video, I'm going to talk about why you should make a product. Until then, go elevate. Make sure you subscribe to the 101 Ways podcast in the iTunes store. Just search for 101 Ways to Elevate or visit us at wp101ways.com and download the free 101 Ways eBook.
