If you’re a self-employed individual, the owner of a small business or a professional practitioner whose problem-solving expertise and services are valued by others (i.e. your clients), I bet you know how good it feels to land a new client.

It’s a rush.  A good feeling.  Isn’t it?

But do you know how you generate a new client?

Mystery or Mastery?
Some people tell me, “I don’t know . . . I just seem to get them whenever I want them”.  I’m sure that’s gratifying to their friends who aren’t wizards and aren’t able to ‘manifest’ clients on-demand!

But many business owners or professional practitioners find that generating clients (or, ‘rainmaking’ as some prefer to call that function) is more of a mystery than a mastery.  They find that frustrating.  Maybe you can relate?

The Client Development Process
Thankfully, there is a ‘method’ to address the ‘madness’ of discovering that, despite your ability to solve problems for your clients, generating clients for yourself as easily and adequately as you might like . . . may not be one your strengths.

The Four Functions
Generating clients requires four (4) functions all working consistently on your behalf:

FUELING
This generates the ‘raw material’ or opportunities for you to generate new clients

QUALIFYING
This separates your opportunities into two groups: ‘real’ and ‘OMG’

CULTIVATING
This builds the ‘know, like and trust’ factor about you with qualified opportunities

CONVERTING
This is where you realize the value of your cultivated opportunities

In 2012, we’ll be spending a number of posts on each of these functions . . . to help you become more effective at developing clients . . . by design, not accident.  And, oh yes . . . you won’t need to be a ‘wizard’ to make this happen, either!

KEY POINT:
Generating clients is not a skill-set that you may have, BUT . . . you can learn to do it (and, we will!)