Do your clients know what you’re doing for them? Not just the deliverables but the results?
Think about when you hire a personal trainer. There’s a public side, and a private (“secret”) side.
Get Results for Clients + Sell Them More Work
Personal trainers have two jobs:
- help you reach your health goals, and
- keep you signing up for more sessions.
Just like your agency, the personal trainer is doing both sales and consulting.
If your retainers don’t include success metrics—uh, why not?—add this soon. And add this to your reporting process.
You risk losing clients if they don’t know what they’re getting. Let’s look at an example.
Are You Showing Your Clients the Results?
I recently advised a client whose agency did content marketing for a law firm. Her client was considering another firm for PR services and didn’t realize that their package already included doing PR pitching.
My client mentioned her work had helped the client increase unique visitors to the law firm’s website by 25% year-over-year.
I asked, “Does your client know that?”
Let’s be honest, you need to spend part of your time justifying your existence. If clients don’t see you doing the work—and don’t attribute results to you—people aren’t going to renew. (And remember, your client is the Hero in their story—you’re the Guide.)
The “Appearance of Clean”
When you volunteer on the Dover Harbor railroad car, you’re responsible for keeping the public spaces tidy. One of the training managers on the Dover Harbor introduced me to the idea of the “appearance of clean.”
The “appearance of clean” means you want to do most of the cleaning behind the scenes, but you should do some cleaning in front of passengers. Since we focus on impeccable service, you want clients to see you working on making things look nice.
Showing bits of the process demonstrate our commitment to service—and help downplay situations where we might slip along the way. It’s part of Warmth & Competence.
Summary for Your Agency
Here’s the short version:
- Understand that you have two jobs: do the work, and sell clients more work (where suitable).
- Show clients the results you’re getting for them, in their language. They can’t guess.
- Give peeks into your process, to help demonstrate value.
Question: How do you tell clients about results?
