Why You Can’t Build A Business With One-Time Clients

Ocean, Debby Boone, David Soul, Brownsville Station…and the list goes on
Who would’ve predicted the artists behind Smokin’ In the Boy’s Room or Don’t Give Up On Us, Baby -given that they both enjoyed a monstrous amount exposure on most FM radio stations in the 1970s- would  disappear from the music scene as rapidly as they appeared?

Is your business headed for the same fate as these one-hit-wonders? It might be if it’s full of one-time clients.

Ah, the all too often fate of ‘one-hit-wonders’
Members of the 70s folk-rock group Ocean thought they’d hit the big time when Put Your Hand In the Hand was released in 1971. So did Debby -daughter of crooner Pat Boone- when her soundtrack title song from the movie You Light Up My Life topped the charts in 1977. I remember walking into the Boy’s Room in high school and experiencing Brownsville Station’s Top 20 Hit personally in 1973.

These one-hit-wonders learned a painful lesson
You can’t build a successful career on one hit. Similarly, you can’t build a successful business one-time clients.

Reasons why you can’t build a business on one-time clients:

1. You need an inexhaustible supply of new clients. Very few business owners choose this business model. Instead they find themselves in this same situation and then do everything they can to attract that endless stream of new clients. But this is exhausting in itself. You burn out and give up. Anyone would. I’ve been there and I know how painful and defeating living in that space can be.
2. You to shift from attracting clients to chasing them. This takes a lot of energy. Imagine trying to catch a bird; you can quickly exhaust yourself in the process unless you have a secret weapon: The right birdseed. If all you have in your business are one-time clients, you’re too busy chasing clients to properly service your existing clients.
3. You reinforce the one-time client phenomenon. Because clients only buy your first product or service -and you’re too busy chasing them to develop new offerings- you limit your business to a one-solution shop. This only serves to reinforce the one-client model. You’ve become the problem.

One-time clients are like one-hit-wonders
They’re here today and gone tomorrow. If your business is full of one-hit-wonders, you’re limiting their experience, their deeper success, and your own business potential.

What can you do about it?
It’s possible for even one-hit-wonders to make a comeback. And like the rockers of yesteryear, your comeback depends on several factors: choosing the right material, matching it with the right audience, but more importantly, reducing the risk associated with your second hit.

It all comes down to risk
Your choices remain the same; identify what’s causing your one-time clients to balk at your next offer and then address the core issue that triggers the risk-response. That’s where PCS can help!

Tags: Blog Posts, Risk