Jason Leister: Working With Clients Like A Ninja (Part I)

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Almost two years ago, I started martial arts training—a mixture of Eskrima, Pangamot, Pencak Silat. During the first few weeks of training, it became clear to me that there were several things about this art that were completely counter-intuitive.

When you have no idea how to fight (I didn’t), your natural reaction to someone coming at you is to move away from the oncoming attacker. Sounds obvious right?

So if someone is coming at me with a stick, my natural reflex is to lean back and dodge it. Turns out that’s a great way to get yourself killed!

I quickly learned that when you have someone coming at you, the smart thing to do is to enter into their space and engage from there. Like I said, when you’re starting out, this feels totally wrong.

So over the months, I’ve learned how to “enter” into my opponent’s space and then do my thing. Instead of waiting out on the fringes trying to dodge a hand, a knife, or a baseball bat(!), you enter into the space of the attacker and take control.

There are quite a few different entries and an unlimited number of variations, but the goal is the same. And the results are amazing. The entry kind of sets the stage for the next step. It’s almost like the seed from which everything else comes.

This is exactly what happens when you begin the conversation with a prospect or new client. The future success you will have grows out of the way you enter the relationship. The way you enter sets the tone for everything that is to come. So that means you need to be extremely deliberate about how that plays out.

I wish I had known just how important this was when I first started consulting. But I didn’t. And because of that, I constantly got myself in annoying situations with clients.

When you truly understand the value of the entry in a new client relationship, you will never again fall for the “we’ll pay you peanuts now, but if it works out, there’s a lot more business coming your way…” line again… EVER. Because you’ll know that an “entry” like that does not contain the seeds of future success. It will actually steer you away from success.

In fact, entering a client relationship that way contains seeds for annoyance, frustration and too much work for too little.

The entry is about building the box of perception. Your actions at the beginning of the relationship build the boundaries of that perception in the minds of your clients.

You want to be very careful about where those boundaries get placed—because once they are built, they are very difficult (almost impossible?) to change. This is why it’s tough to drastically raise your rates with an existing client.

Once they’ve put you in a “box” about what rates you should and should not be getting, it is quite tricky to redefine those boundaries. I wouldn’t even bother trying. It just runs counter to human nature. There’s an enormous amount of inertia to overcome to change someone’s belief about something.

So here are a few foundational principles that I’d recommend you think through regarding your “entry” into the world of your clients. These are things I’ve learned over the years, primarily by doing the opposite of most of them.

PRINCIPLE ONE: Be The Tortoise

I’m not the most patient guy in the world, but I’ve learned that when it comes to engaging clients, slower beats faster. You would think you want to close the business while “the iron is hot,” but moving too quickly just sends a bunch of the wrong signals if you’re selling YOURSELF.

It jumped out at me the first time I read Dan Kennedy’s Trust Based Marketing book where he said something like, “The longer you can delay the sale, the better off that sale will be.” I’ve found that to be completely true.

You want to be pursued. And that’s never going to happen if you run straight towards your prospect in an effort to close the business.

Take your time (despite your circumstances), move slowly, move deliberately. It will pay off over the long run.

Check back next week for the next three principles…