Know, Like and Afford – video training

The idea is if you have your purpose crystal-clear, usually you get the clients you deserve. We say in Holland it’s meant as a punishment but I don’t mean it as a punishment! Getting the clients you deserve, is you attract the people who come to your purpose and it’s an unspoken thing, good or bad.

Some people come to me and I say; “You get the clients you deserve”. People get really angry and I don’t understand it, but you do. You put it out there, don’t you? Your purpose and what you want to do with your clients. What we always say is, you have to get the clients that you know, that you like and that can afford you. Know, like, can afford you.

Knowing means you know them deeply in their concerns and their ambitions. I always say I fell in love a little bit with all my clients. If I don’t have that sense, it’s really difficult to work with them. I find if I don’t like a client there is something else going on. I go to supervision, if it’s still going on, I think they should see a different supervisor.

Basically, you have to like your clients as well. If you’re not liking your clients you’re probably in the wrong business.

They have to be able to afford you – being able to afford you is a relative thing, of course, because all of us have sliding scales of what we were asking clients. There are probably people here who ask clients what they can afford, and they don’t ask clients what they’re worth. I mean what you are worth.

I urge you to turn around that formula. I have a colleague who traveled around the world like me, that’s how it started, and he’s become a furniture maker. This guy has gone to Australia and he makes six tables a year. He makes as much as he did as a consultant.

I’m very jealous! I asked him; “how did you do that?”. He said “I found the clients who could afford me.”.

The way he did it, is he said, “this is what I want to make in a year”, and he calculated backwards. He makes six tables a year.

It’s great…