Ric Chapmans Story: From Broke to Business Clients – Part 3

It took some time, but in Part 2 of my story I finally conquered my fears by finally walking through the doors of a local business and asking for the manager. In hindsight I look back at myself and wonder how it was I worked myself up into such a state. It seems clear that it simply boiled down to talking with a stranger and this is a fear that many of us face, and I’m not talking just about us techs either. A lot of individuals have trouble overcoming this social hurdle and in truth I still get a little nervous approaching the new businesses today, but now aside from nerves, the emotion is now joined by excitement and anticipation and when things get going I’m actually enjoying myself. Getting to that point however isn’t without its trials and tribulations which we’ll round off today in Part 3.

Over the course of the following weeks I used every spare moment I could muster to walk into a business and attempt to remain on the premises for more than five minutes, sad to say I rarely succeeded in that goal early on and more often than not left empty handed. On occasion I managed to get some work. When that did eventually happen I was exceptionally ecstatic, often calling my wife to report on my great success. I quickly took on board that it’s also advisable to do this away from the business premises that offered the work. On two occasions I span round to find I was walking only slightly in front of the new client, needless to say things got off to an awkward start.

However it soon became obviously clear that the work I was receiving either came out of pity for my awful, nervous approaches or I was simply the result of impeccable timing. The work was almost meaningless. Troublesome Internet access (rebooted router), missing images of grandchildren (accidently moved to subfolder) and similar jobs that I received as a result of being in the right place at the right time. Call backs were all but non-existent. It was obviously clear that I still wasn’t getting it right. Perhaps I was completely wrong, perhaps businesses didn’t need people like me after all?

The birth of our little girl had me occupied for the following weeks after those early attempts, to be honest she still has me completely occupied, but then that’s no bad thing. We’re also close to nailing the Xbox Kinect voice commands, much to my wife’s joy. The thing about babies is that they often like to sleep throughout the day as well as erratic hours through the night. But these times offered a great opportunity for a little extra research, this research was a little different, rather than rely on Google, Bing or the Internet in general I set about researching the source.

For the first time I started calling the businesses I already approached in the previous weeks and now this truly was the light bulb moment. It’s quite extraordinary how many people from small businesses in the similar boat as yourself will simply want to help you. To be honest I had nothing to lose calling these people up and just asking and it paid off dividends! After only two calls I had garnered two key details, I was too nervous and I was approaching businesses of which I knew nothing about. Therefor I was nervously offering the wrong services to the wrong potential clients which resulted in looking unprofessional and out of my depth. (ouch)

Two very key failings that I needed to get under control, but this was perfect, I had something to go on. My wife looked on as I signed myself into every local event going, from business conventions, volunteering, a little public speaking and I even played my guitar out in public and once at a friend’s leaving do as he sang lead. I was nervous as hell, played awfully but I did it. I hit my fear full in the face and as a result I slowly got better at speaking with people.

My research took on a completely new approach, almost to the point that I was maintaining my own private business directory in house, and after a month I’d obtained accurate details for close to 100 businesses in the area. I was much clearer on the technical needs of these businesses and it started to show in my approaches, people were impressed that I knew so much about the business and it showed a new level of professionalism.

My nervousness and preparation were two very small links in the chain in a the overall process in getting those businesses to use my services and it would be another few years before I had a system down that really worked spot on, repeatedly. However the results are clear, you just have to look at my client list, the majority are now businesses. I can more accurately predict my monthly income, my debts are clearing fast and I spend considerably more time with the two people I care most about in my life.

The saga doesn’t quite end there though. Earlier in the year Bryce approached me about sharing this system with the goal of creating a digital how-to guide for technicians such as yourselves. This system took me a few good years of trial and error (mostly errors) but over that time I’ve managed to get the system down perfectly. Over the last several months working closely with Bryce we’ve developed something quite unique. Technibble’s first eBook: Get Business Clients in 30 Easy Steps.

These 30 steps start from the very early considerations you’ll need to face right through to the approach process and how to sway the odds in your favour for signing the deal. Side step the trial and error and get it right first time.

Right now we have a special launch price of only $37 USD for a very limited time, so get it while you can.