In the last couple of weeks I've shared my thoughts on coming up with valuable ideas that your clients will find helpful and interesting.

So what do you do with them next?

I'm going to suggest not publishing them yet.

Instead, share them with a select group of potential clients.

Depending on the sort of business you're in, that might be grabbing a coffee or a phone call with half a dozen clients, ex-clients and potential clients.

Something like “I've been working on some new ideas for ways of improving your [whatever benefit they get]. It would be great to get your feedback on whether they make sense from your experience”.

Or you might share an outline of the ideas in your Facebook group or via email to a bigger group of people.

Either way, you're genuinely looking to get feedback.

But it's also a great way of getting your new ideas in front of potential clients without it feeling like you're trying to sell to them.

Instead, it feels to them more like they're getting exclusive, early access to something that might help their business.

I had a client message me after she did this with a new point of view we'd been working on. She simply bounced her ideas of a small number of potential clients and without her asking or pushing for it at all, a number of them signed up to work with her in that area.

(Nice for her, and nice for me as it more than paid for the cost of working with me within the first few weeks of us starting together :) )

But even if it doesn't turn into new clients immediately, it will strengthen your relationship with them and it will get you good feedback to improve your ideas before turning them into an article, a video or a new service offer.

That's the funny thing. We think it'll be better to impress clients by showing them something that's perfect and polished. So we lock ourselves away for ages (and sometimes never manage to get it finished).

But actually, we get better results by being more open and transparent with potential clients. Showing them our work in progress and getting their feedback.

And it's much easier to do things that way too :)