A Simple Way to Increase Your Client List

If you’d like to increase your client list, in any industry, and want to do it in the simplest way possible, read on. Be warned, though: it requires extreme patience, probably to the level that if you have enough money to cover your life during this period of patience, you have enough money to not have to work anyway.

Two more warnings: to implement this strategy, you’re going to have to be friendly with at least one person and you’re also going to have to already have one client.

Now that I’ve lost most of my audience with the you-have-to-be-patient-and-friendly warnings, let’s proceed.

This strategy can apply to any company in any industry. For the sake of simplicity, let’s say you run a sole proprietorship that writes copy. How do you increase your client list?

You already have one client and are friendly with at least one person at that company. This is good. You write words and they pay you money. Everyone is happy (except you, because you only have one client and thus are poor). But we’re going to change that.

Here’s what you do: wait.

Yes, wait. That friend you have who works for your one client is eventually going to find a new job with a different company. And guess what? You’re in. You now have two clients, assuming you did good enough work for your first client to remain in their purview after your friend leaves. And that you became friendly with at least one or two more people at that company when you had the chance. You did do that, right?

Let your friend get settled at the new place for a couple weeks, and then pounce. “Hey, friend, remember how much you love me? Let me work for your new company.”

Look at you, rolling in the client list. Just a couple more job changes for other people, and you’ll be set.

See how simple it is? All it takes is an indefinite amount of patience and a sliver of friendliness on your part. I know what you recent college graduates are saying: “This is way easier than all that networking garbage people are always talking about!”

Well, the joke’s on you, wide-eyed youngsters, because this is networking, slowed down to the pace of (insert your own political-themed joke here for the sake of election season). Imagine how quickly your client list would expand if you didn’t rely on just one person you knew to change jobs. What if you knew hundreds of people? How quickly could you expand your client list then?

That’s right: much faster. Networking works, folks. When I was 21 and fresh out of college, I was hoping to prove the theory wrong, too. But now, here I am, old and decrepit, vouching for its effectiveness.

Meet people. Be nice to them. Do a good job. Or, just wait. Someone will change jobs some day.