Being top of mind
Communication is a vital skill every professional needs to hone. It’s vital to have excellent communication skills because how well you communicate with your clients ensures you are ‘top of mind’. What’s more, the better your communication, the more they will think about you as being ‘the tops.’
How to be ‘top of mind’ depends on the frequency, message, channel and tone of your communication. Think about how to communicate effectively and in a way that resonates with the client. How you interact must also illustrate to them that you are an expert. However, you cannot sound like you’re boasting; you only need to touch base and share experiences.
Naturally, that’s the basic premise, and there’s more that you need to know to do all of this effectively. Let’s take a look:
Communication is the way to the top
The key to good communication is to frame conversations around the client. Even though you’re trying to get them to work with you, you shouldn’t talk about your firm as your primary topic. No offence, but they don’t want to know about your firm. What every prospect and client wants is for a firm to solve their problems.
So, if you’re speaking with them in person, the key is to listen, and talk only when you have something good to say that will be of benefit to the client. That’s all they want, and what you want is to have them as your client, which is why you need to do what they want. It’s as simple as that.
In addition to this, you need to work on building your top-of-mind awareness. What does this mean? It means you need to work towards turning yourself and your firm into something worthy of being considered at the top of mind for potential clients.
The way to do this is by creating content that will be valuable to them. What’s more, you need to do it regularly, or you won’t just fail at being top of mind, you’ll also fail at being remembered!
Naturally, you shouldn’t go overboard with the amount of content as that will yield the opposite of good results.
So what should you do? There’s a little trick I like to suggest to my clients – publish an interview with a client every quarter. Make sure that this interview showcases the background and successes of your client. The entire conversation should be about them, and it should have nothing to do with your firm. Even though you might be tempted to frame the client’s success as a result of what you did for them, don’t do it. It’s enough that you are the one doing the interview, and you’ll quickly see that people will gladly listen to it and you will benefit in reflected glory!
In essence, what this example demonstrates is the importance of showing people that you are there and available to help, not to boast how good you are and how they will benefit from your help. The more you focus on the other side, the more they will be glad to listen to what you have to say.
And remember, if you need help with this, feel free to reach out to us, we’re there to share our ideas and help you out in being at the top of everyone’s mind!