Hi there, Solopreneur! 

Happy Wednesday, and welcome to issue #31 of Solopreneur Doorway, your weekly insight and inspiration to turn your skills into solutions people buy.

Share the newsletter with your solopreneur friends!

This week’s issue is a 4.5-minute read.

📣 New Section Arriving Next Week

I love reading about real-world business models and borrowing ‘what works’ from successful enterprises.

Discovering and breaking down these diverse business models (good and bad) across industries helps us overcome hurdles in our solopreneur adventures. From Apple, to WeWork to start-up ventures, there are myriad real-world examples and lessons for us to absorb.

Starting next week, I’ll highlight a current, vibrant story (and business model) that I’m confident will help us identify and improve an essential facet of our solopreneur models.

Stay tuned…

Now, on to this week’s topic:

How to Increase the Conversion Rate of Your Discovery Calls

🚀 How to Quickly and Easily Increase Your Conversion Rates for Your Discovery Calls

It’s incredibly frustrating to watch a potential new client disappear from a video discovery call without getting the “Yes, let’s work together!” I don’t like missing out on a new client opportunity, and I know it’s painful for you, too.

⚡️ Consider this:

• You send out 20 email invitations per week for discovery calls
  

• Your conversion ratio of email invitations to discovery calls is 8:1
  

• Your conversion ratio of discovery calls to clients is 5:1
  

• 80 emails per month = 10 discovery calls = 2 clients
  

• Each client generates $500 of revenue
  

• These ratios generate $1,000 per month of revenue

Those numbers are enough to create a ‘so-so’ side hustle. They won’t give you the revenue you need to be a full-time solopreneur.

😕 I made 191 mistakes during the first year of operating my solopreneur finance business.

One of the biggest and most devastating was ignoring the data the financial services industry provided me on conversion rates.

My healthy ego and MBA education convinced me I could ‘outsmart’ the finance industry ratios and build my business with fewer, everyday prospects. HUGE, painful mistake.

📉 After the first six months, I studied my conversion numbers (prospects: clients) and realized my conversion rate was awful.

I was approaching too few prospects, talking with the wrong prospects, and then beating my head against the wall to figure out why I had so few clients.

I finally accepted the finance industry conversion ratio of prospects : clients and then went to work on improving my results. I also put in motion 3 changes to generate approximately 40 to 50 new clients per year.

I encourage you to apply these steps to improve your new client metrics.

• 🔬 Shrink the market for your discovery call emails
  

• 🛠 Improve your preparation for your discovery calls
  

• 👂 Change your ratio of listening : speaking on your discovery call

Shrink the Market for Your Discovery Call Emails

Step 1 for improving your discovery call conversion ratios is to discover your ratio.

• How many emails do you need to send to receive a ‘yes’ for the discovery call?
  

• How many discovery calls do you need to yield a new client?

If you’re lucky, your industry may already have general ratios you can apply. Yet, I’m positive your ratios will change in years 1, 2 and 3 as you analyze your data and hone your processes.

Step 2 is to shrink the market for your discovery call emails.

Let me explain.

Instead of sending a discovery call invitation via LinkedIn to every small business that you think needs a graphic designer, zero in on the small businesses within a specific sector that you understand and who exhibit similar characteristics.

Examples:

• New SaaS companies that work within financial services
  

• Seasoned solopreneur coaches who target career changers within a certain demographic and industry
  

• New podcasters who are launching a program within topics you understand and where you can demonstrate expertise

When I approached all prospects with an invitation to improve their personal and business finances, my conversion rates were abysmal. As soon as I started to focus on a niche I understood (university faculty and administrators with 5 or more years experience at a specific university), my conversion ratios quickly improved, and my new client numbers accelerated. 😃

Since my dad was a professor I understood the pros and cons of university benefits. I was confident I could help university faculty and administrators make smarter fiscal choices to improve their financial landscape.

🔑 Focus on a market that you enjoy and understand. Become the authority in your sandbox.

Your knowledge of the industry and the BIG problems your offer solves in that sandbox will resonate in your emails.

The next step is to make 100% sure you ‘over prepare’ for your discovery call.

Improve Your Preparation for Your Discovery Call

I recently hopped on a Zoom call with a business consultant who specialized in marketing and digital advertising. He made 2 HUGE mistakes on our call.

• He had no idea what type of business I operated 
  

• He had no knowledge of how I currently promote my business

⚙️ In the same way a surgical team prepares for a challenging medical procedure so should you prepare for every discovery call. It’s essential your prospect immediately believes you understand the intricacies of their industry and, specifically, their business.

Sure, you’ll have to ask questions to uncover the deeper challenges for each prospect, yet you can easily prepare for each discovery call with a few hours of research.

• Visit your prospect’s website and make notes on how they position themselves to solve client challenges (graphics, copywriting, SEO, etc.) What is their current ‘strategy’ and process for the area in which you specialize?
  

• Read and listen to their social media posts (LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok). Where are they falling short in the areas that you want to address?

Once you have a list of specific questions, you’re ready to jump on the discovery call. Now, it’s essential that you maintain the right ratio of listening : speaking once the call begins.

Listen for 90% and Speak 10% During Your Discovery Call

The same consultant who wanted to help me improve my digital marketing spent 90% of our discovery call telling me what his firm could provide and 10% listening to me give a brief overview of my business. Painful!

Active listening is perhaps one of the biggest advantages you can bring to your discovery calls.

Since you have a specific list of target questions to ask based on your due diligence, you can spend 10% of your time asking the right questions and 90% of your time listening to the prospect’s responses:

Today’s landscape for gathering the right prospects and converting them to customers is 23x tougher than was a few years ago. If you want to be the Sherlock Holmes of prospects and the Steve Jobs of recurring revenue consider these takeaways:

• Shrink the Market for Your Discovery Call Emails
  

• Improve Your Preparation for Your Discovery Call
  

• Listen for 90% and Speak 10% During Your Discovery Call

Stay curious and keep opening doors.

-Erik

Whenever You’re Ready: 2 Ways I Can Help You

1. Your 1:1 Strategy Session: Let’s improve your business model and strategy. I’ll use my 14+ years of solopreneur and entrepreneur experience to listen, overhaul, and give you a new strategy you can apply.
   

2. A Free 30-Minute Exchange: Share the most pressing challenges in your business. I’ll provide you with immediate and actionable steps to improve your business model and strategy. In exchange, I would like to ask you a few questions about your solopreneur adventure so that I can improve my online offers. No sales.