How To Get Social Media Clients (That Value Your Time)

Finding social media clients that value your time is an important part of growing your agency yet it’s a taboo topic most people don’t talk about 🤷‍♂️

In this article, we’ll cover how to gain respect for your prospects and take charge of the client relationship.

Get Prospects to “Apply” to Work With You

As a Social Media expert or Certified Social Media Director, no matter where you meet a prospect, whether you are cold calling them or you have known each other since you were kids, you must have them apply to work with you.

Yes, that’s a MUST, especially if you want to get social media clients that value your time. We honestly believe that this is the best sales process for Social Media freelancers and agencies.

Why an application process?

When you get someone to fill out an application to work with you – you reverse the sales process! The application process places you in the position of an expert. It presents your service as scarce and sought-after, reinforces its value, and subliminally convinces the prospect of your worth.

Simply put, you’re immediately overcoming some of the biggest obstacles associated with landing new clients. That alone makes this the best sales process in my books.

How to Create An Application Form

You can manage and create all sorts of forms with ConvertBox. We love it because it's fully customizable, looks good, and you pay once and get lifetime access!

You can create personalized offers to your visitors with slide-in notifications, full page takeovers and pop ups to the right visitors at the right time.

Track conversions, run split tests and much more.

ConvertBox is by far the best application form software.

Do not ask about their cost per acquisition, lifetime customer value, net annual profit, and such. It’s too much information for them to know or share with you at this point. Save those questions for the sales conversation.

What questions to ask on your application form?

When it comes to conversion rate optimization the less form fields the better. But when it comes to getting qualified leads the more information you get the better!

I try to keep the application short, use multiple choices, with at least one freeform question with a big paragraph size field for prospects to type lots.

Examples of questions to ask on your funnels application form

• Name, Email, Phone, Website, Company
• Number of Employees, Annual Revenue, Funding Raised
• What results do you want to achieve from social media?
• How much additional revenue would you like to make?
• How much have you invested in social media?

ConvertBox allows you to have a custom URL redirect after your prospect submits the application form. If your goal is to get contacts on a call I recommend redirecting them directly to your call scheduler (Calendly, ScheduleOnce, etc). After implementing this we found a lift of up to 20% from the application form to calls booked.

Qualify Your Prospects Before The First Call

Also, ask prospects to complete your application form before getting a call. Be clear about the next steps! When they have completed the application, you will review it and they will be informed by email if their application was approved. If you approve them, send them a link to schedule a discovery call with you.

This way, the application qualifies your prospects long before they get on a call with you. With a few simple questions, you can find out if they are a good fit for you to work with and understand how serious someone is about working with you.

Now, this is NOT some deceptive sales hack to get clients to work with you left-right, and center. DO NOT start doing business with anyone and everyone that fills out the application form. You are looking for social media clients with whom you are highly likely to have a mutually beneficial, profitable, and long-term relationship.

Look for applications that have long, detailed answers. Don’t waste time on those who skimp on details. If you’ve got an application with one-word answers, just forget about it.

What to Say On The First Client Call

So, you’ve got a list of people and companies you’re interested in working with, or you are simply wondering how to get your first social media client? But, if your Facebook feed looks anything like mine, it can seem like everybody and their dog is a Social Media guru…

The social media management space is filled with people advertising their social media services, blindly pitching left and right. So, how do you cut through the noise? What can you do to stand out and communicate your level of expertise?

Going in with an action plan and clear goals (plus a few well-scripted lines) is the best way to start a winning conversation. Read the rest of this article to learn an approach that has an amazing track record in my books, and it can help you get your first social media client.

How to Take Charge Of The Conversion

“Hi, (name) I’m just going to ask you a few questions to see if or how I can help you. You can ask me whatever questions you want. At the end of the call we'll see if it makes sense for us to work together. Does that sound fair?"

What you’re doing here is telling them you have a plan for the call - and you're making the decision of whether or not you're going to work together.

Let your conversation unfold naturally as you aim to understand their position and establish your credibility and authority. Don’t be afraid to give away a few gold nuggets of free advice – it’s another way for you to showcase your expertise.

Build credibility by weaving your credentials and resources into the conversation. For example, “I have 10 years of experience”, “I have a case study where I created a 300% ROI”, "I have a great resource I'll send you after this call".

Even if you are just trying to get your first client, there are authoritative things that you can mention without BS'ing.

You don’t need to close the sale on this first call.

Remember that you are building credibility and a relationship. You might not even know if you want to work with this person yet. You may feel the urgent need to close the sale, but trust me: you’d rather not have a client than end up in a messy situation.

What Questions to Ask Your Prospect

Three key things you want to understand during this conversation include:

1. What is their offer?
2. Who is their target audience?
3. What is their cost per acquisition?

The “offer” is the main product that they advertise, the one they are trying to sell. How they sell it is another issue: they may or may not have a “magnet” in places, such as an introductory offer, a trial, or a freebie.

The target audience is who they are serving this offer to. If they don’t know these, or their understanding of their target audience is ambiguous, do some market research afterward to find out what other people are doing that works.

You can figure out their cost per acquisition by dividing the money spent on advertising by the number of sales they’ve made. For high-ticket items, the average acquisition cost through Facebook ads is $200-$300. People who are not using digital ads, or who make sales in person, understand what their time is worth. How much time do they spend on sales activities and what is the payoff?

Understanding these key items will allow you to assess if a business has a profitable niche.

How to End A Call With Your Prospect

When you ask someone for advice you immediately create a good impression. By using the words “I was wondering if you could help me out”, you also trigger the psychological queues of reciprocity. As in, your prospects are highly likely to feel involved in what you’re doing and participate.

Way better than “Hi, I’m a Social Media Marketer, would you like to pay me money for services?”, isn’t it?

A word of warning: if you ask for their advice in an area of expertise in which they aren’t experts, this will have the exact opposite effect. So, simply do not ask for their opinion on what kind of marketing strategy they think would be better.

Finally, at the end of the conversation, if you feel that you want this person as a client, you’ll lay down a call to action, which is to apply to work with you. It may sound something like this:

“Well, Mr. Jones, I appreciate you taking the time to answer these questions for me, this conversation has been a big help. You mentioned that you don’t have time to manage social media for your company. I’m confident that based on your offer and target, I could make you money on social media. I’d like you to fill out a quick application so I can better assess the amount of impact I will have for you.”

With a well-crafted introduction and a clear call to action that’s supported by your established credibility and authority, you’ll be fully set to get your first social media client, or continue to grow your client list indefinitely!
Have you tried this before? What do you think?

Conclusion

In short, if you are a social media consultant that wants to stand out of the crowd, this application process is not optional.

What say you? Are you going to start using the best sales process to land your future clients?

For more information, check out the following guides:

• Self-Marketing: Get Clients via Social Media
• How To Use Psychological Triggers That Make People “Buy Now”
• Stop Selling and Start Interviewing – Your First Call with a Client