FOUR PRACTICE BUILDING TIPS [Part I of two]
(September/October 2004 Issue)

Here are two tidbits that can help you build your practice.
TIP 1: Instant Thank-you Letters.
The engine that powers your business is referrals. Every referral has a source -- someone who knows and respects you enough to send a friend to see you. How do you reward your referral sources? The most immediate way is to send a thank-you letter the first time you meet with someone. But that gets pesky, and it can get lost in the myriad of tasks you go to after you've seen the referred prospect. Here's how to handle it on the spot not only more efficiently, but with the added bonus: more effectively, too.

You want the referral source’s experience to be a positive, pleasant one. Think about your own experience opening your mail. Which has more warm-fuzzy feelings a typed business letter in a #10 envelope, or a hand-addressed envelope the size of a greeting card? No contest! You'll open the card in anticipation of a pleasant experience. Someone cares! So, first of all, a thank-you card, even nicer than a letter. Keep a supply ready at hand; choose cards that have the inside blank.

Here's how to make that card even more powerful. If you bring a card to your first meeting, along with a stamped envelope, addressed to the referral source, you can create your thank-you letter right there. Write a quick "Thanks for sending [Jim] -- he's terrific!" on the card, and leave space for the prospect to write a note, too. At the end of the session, give the card to the prospect and say, "Here's how you and I can thank [Source] for thir referral. I've written a note in here from me. Would you also write your comment and mail it, please?"

That way the referral source
--knows you've met with the prospect,
--feels acknowledged for their effort to refer them,
--hears not just from you, but directly from the referred person how valuable it was, and, finally,
--they know this within a couple days of the meeting.

And bonus! You're done! You don't have to put it on your to-do list and [maybe or maybe-not] get around to it later. What a relief! Got a space-cadet type of prospect you don't trust to mail the card? Well, if you want to be doubly sure, you can ask the new client to write something then and there; have them put the card in the envelope and seal it so you can't read it, and then YOU put it in the mail. Alternatively, in that situation, you can write two cards; you write yours while the prospect writes theirs. Usually, you can trust the referred person to send it.

TIP 2: Make Employed Clients Do an Internal Campaign
When your employed clients start working with you, they are, in their minds, done with their current company. They wouldn't hire you if they thought their current company offered a viable way to advance their career. However, as skeptical as they are, it pays to have them do an internal campaign.

Internal campaign simply means they pick one aspect of the present job that they'd like to change and work out a plan to change it: different relationship with their boss, more money, flextime, etc. For the most part, its positive effect is limited to a little more confidence, a little less "victim" coming across in their job hunt. Sometimes, however, they end up not taking a new job at all. Either the external campaign was much harder than they thought, so they said, "This job ain't so bad after all," or else they really changed it to their liking and stay. So it can have any (or all, actually) of these three outcomes: less-victim, settling for what they've got, or making a significant change.

No matter which of those three happens, they'll give you at least some of the credit for things turning out better. That's what you want. Otherwise their external campaign can end and they think, "Wow, I paid my career advisor all that money for nothing."

What we do as career coaches is always valuable but sometimes not valued. Having it valued requires planning ahead and calling your clients' attention and action to your full range of skills, not just the job search.

Next issue, tips 3 & 4: "Your Elevator Speech," and "Don't Sell Your Services (Sell the OneShot)."

Jack Chapman is author of:
Negotiating Your Salary: How to Make $1000 a Minute
He is a career consultant in private practice and runs ongoing support and training teleconference sessions for career consultants in private practice.
He can be reached at 847-251-4727 or jkchapman@aol.com