I recently returned from a fantastic holiday in Chile. Before I left, I visited a friend who jokingly remarked before I said goodbye ‘bring me back an alpaca’.
Despite the weirdness of this request, I decided to take as many Chilean alpaca photos for my friend as possible. And not surprisingly, I began to notice alpacas EVERYWHERE! National parks, wineries, farms, souvenir shops, chocolate wrappers, t-shirts, you name it, I saw an alpaca on it. But my absolute favourite alpaca sighting was a man walking his pet alpaca down the main street of Santiago (yes, Chile’s bustling capital city).
Comparing my 2013 holiday photos with the snaps I made during a previous Chilean trip, the level of alpaca in my photo album was ridiculous! It literally opened my eyes to a whole new aspect of Chile that I had never noticed before.
So in the four years since my last trip, had Chile experienced an alpaca plague? Of course not! It’s just a great example of how being receptive to a message means we start seeing different things in the world around us.
And we have all experienced this before. If we are looking to buy a new car, we start to take more notice of what cars our friends drive. When we are in the market for a new mobile phone, we start to take notice of what devices our fellow travelers are using on the train to work. The world is so complex that we can’t absorb everything. So our experience of the world is greatly filtered by what is happening inside our head.
So what does this have to do with you? Well every day, someone is making a decision that they need to see a new accountant, a lawyer or even a financial adviser. And the question you need to ask yourself is, what are you doing to make sure you pop up in their world when they are open to the message of engaging a professional?
It doesn’t mean you need to print your face on a billboard or be walked down the main street of your capital city. But what about the ‘word of mouth’ you generate with your clients and those in your network?
Every time someone talks about how great your service has been, every time someone forwards on a useful or entertaining email you have sent them or every time someone likes a post you have made on LinkedIn or Facebook – there are people are seeing it or hearing about it.
And whilst they might not all be ready to come visit you, word of mouth like this is what opens up conversations about who you are and what you do (particularly when someone is looking to engage someone like you!). This awareness of you is the first step in someone deciding whether they come and see you or not.
Ultimately, there is word of mouth happening everywhere around us. What can you do this week to increase the likelihood that you are talked about by one of your clients or noticed by someone? Every interaction you have is an opportunity to build goodwill and be instantly more referable.
Someone in the world is looking for you right now. What are you doing to make sure you are the alpaca that stands out in a bustling city?
This week’s article is by our Head of Client Service, Michael Back