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March 23rd, 2006'Getting in front of the decision maker' seems to be the holy grail of the sales world. Most people think that the only way to secure meetings is through luck or cold calling. Yet there is an easier way.
The following steps are identical to the steps I followed on my journey to becoming a 'Client Magnet'. Eventually, I didn't have to make any cold calls, because all of my meetings were taking place at the request of qualified, ready to buy decision makers who had already decided that they wanted to work with me.
How to Get in Front of Decision Makers - the easy way
1. Focus on a specific niche because that automatically makes you a specialist and a certain authority.
2.Get known as an expert in your field by speaking at events and conferences populated by your target audience, write articles and get them published in trade publications read by your target audience.
3. At the end of your article or talk offer a giveaway such as a free report that conveys your expertise, and provides valuable useful content to your reader. Give this in exchange for the reader's contact details and permission to stay in touch over time.
4. Send a follow up sequence of messages (automated if possible) that drip feeds further valuable content to your prospect, and subtly conveys your expertise, your authority and lets them know about success stories other clients are having.
5. Resist the temptation to ask for a meeting immediately, the people who are really keen to meet you will call and ask anyway, the others may need more time to get to know you. Don't risk scaring them off by pouncing for a meeting immediately. Being 'needy' for a meeting hurts your credibility too, because in the world of selling professional services, there's an unspoken assumption that if you are any good at what you are doing, then your diary should automatically be full (I know that's not how it works in practice, but that's the bias you're up against!)
6. In at least one of your messages, offer a meeting, but make sure you outline all the potential benefits of meeting with you. It's got to be more inspiring than 'free consultation.' Ask yourself, what does the prospect stand to gain from meeting with you - even if he or she DOESN'T become a client immediately? Will they learn something new, get reassurance, have their awareness raised on a certain area? If you want to 'sell the meeting' you have to sell the benefits of the meeting.
7. Some people will respond immediately, others will need more time. Have a regular follow up (such as a newsletter like this) that keeps you in contact, and continues building the relationship with your prospects.
8. Get used to receiving calls from people along the lines of 'we're thinking of doing a new project a we're wondering how you can help us'. Enjoy meetings which have a completely different dynamic from the meetings you secured via cold calling, because you've been invited in as an expert, and the prospect is already 'pre-sold' and wants to work with you. Notice that your conversion rate is higher at these meetings.
9. Tweak the process. If you're not getting enough meetings, what needs to change? Do you need to get more people into your funnel at the front end, or do you need to improve your conversion process of prospects to meetings?
10. Enjoy the process as momentum builds and the 'snowball effect' kicks in. Enjoy being a 'Client Magnet' and able to pick and choose from a tempting array of potential projects.
Because of the steps involved in laying the foundation, many people shy away from the easy way. It seems like there is too much ground work involved! And maybe there is, in the short term, but you are laying a foundation that will continue to reap rewards over and over. And what's the alternative? Another cold call?
If you don't want to be at the mercy of random projects coming your way, and you don't want to be tied to a desk cold calling for the rest of your life, then this is definitely the path forward that I recommend.
Bernadette Doyle is dedicated to helping self-employed and small businesses become Client Magnets. Get her FREE report "7 Secrets of Becoming A Client Magnet and Attracting All the Clients You Want" by visiting Client Magnets.March 23rd, 2006Believe it or not, no one actually buys your service. No one buys coaching. No one buys consulting. No one buys financial planning. So what do people buy? Well, there are, in fact, two things people buy.
The first thing people buy is a solution to a problem.
People buy a service only because they believe it will solve certain problems and give them certain results. They are not buying the "how" of a service. Your service is simply the "how" you do it. Your service is the tool or method you use to solve problems and deliver results.
Do you buy a hammer because you just want a hammer? Do you buy a car because you just want a car? Do you go to the dentist because you happen to feel like being drilled? These examples show you that you are buying a solution to a problem; you are buying a result. You would not buy a hammer, a car or go to the dentist unless they all solved problems and delivered results.
Just suppose you focus on telling someone all about "how" your coaching and consulting service works and what it is. At the end of the conversation (if they are still listening), they will have a good understanding of your "how" but they'll be left wondering what problems you will solve for them and what results you will deliver.
If people do not know what problems you will solve for them and the results you will deliver, it is highly unlikely that they will buy your service. If however you focus on understanding their problems and the results they will get, you will be focussing on what people are buying and your chances of success will be dramatically increased.
The second thing people buy is YOU.
Once someone has decided they have a problem they want solved, they then make a decision as to who will solve it for them. If you have focused the conversation on telling them all about your "how" and what your service is, they will feel that you are focussed on yourself and your needs. When the focus is on you, people get the sense that you have your own best interest at heart and don't really care about them. They will start to think you are simply trying to sell them something, and all sorts of sales resistance will surface.
If you have been focussing the conversation on understanding their problems, they will feel that you have their best interests at heart. They will start to trust you and open up to you. They will naturally decide you are the person to solve their problems (assuming of course there are problems to be solved, etc).
So in summary, don't focus on selling your services. Instead, have conversations where you focus on understanding problems and then people will assume you know "how" to deliver results. The more you focus on understanding their problems, the more they will trust that you are the one they should be working with.
Tessa Stowe helps Coaches and Consultants stop struggling to sell, and instead attract clients like magic! Her FREE e-course tells you how: "Attract More Clients Naturally: 10 Simple Strategies That Work ... Even If You Hate Selling!" Sign up now at Attract More Clients NaturallyDecember 19th, 2005by Karen Saunders
Turn Eye Appeal Into Buy Appeal
It's the trade show of the year, and you're poised to meet, greet and network up a storm because the precise buyers for your product or services are here. Business card? Check. Sales brochures? Check. Product samples, informational literature, or other appropriate peripherals? Check.
But wait. Let's go back to item #1 - both in the list above and the all-important first step in creating a strong, lasting and favorable impression. In other words, what you looked like or said may not be remembered when potential customers are back home, but your business card will be in the pile he'll sift through to separate the wheat from the chaff; the business she'll want to follow up on.
What's your card saying about you? Here are some of the most common mistakes you've no doubt seen and reacted to negatively. Tossing the card into the wastebasket is inevitable.
Paper too thin. Card is wimpy and bends or crumples in your hand or briefcase. And screams cheap. Might be an indicator of your other business practices and products.
Pre-printed perforated cards you run through your computer printer. More cheap impressions, plus your card may look like dozens of others because of the limited preprinted designs available.
There's much more. Boring. Bad choice of type face and size. Too much or too little information. No focal point, muddy graphics -- the list goes on.
Your business card is often the first -- and perhaps only -- impression prospective clients may see. Will it encourage them to find out more about you and your business? Having a good logo design and a clean layout leaves them with a favorable first impression that you're a credible professional businessperson.
Following are 13 easy ways for you to do what the professional designers do; insider secrets about business cards that go right to your first impression and bottom line.
1. Create a focal point or central place that draws a reader's eye.
2. Allow white space to help balance the layout. Don't fill up the card with text.
3. Use a clear, strong logo that looks good when reduced in size on your business card.
4. Use a highlight color sparingly. Make sure colored elements highlights the one main message you want to convey.
5. Be sure the highlight color you choose is appropriate to your business. For example, using green on a lawn care business card would be far more appropriate than say red or orange.
6. Limit your selection of type fonts to no more than two, which may also include their "families." For example, a font family includes styles such as bold, italic, or bold italic versions.
7. Format text to be smaller, more compact, and more professional looking.
8. Choose appropriate fonts for your business, avoiding trendy, or overly embellished versions.
9. Avoid using all capital letters because they are more difficult to read, and look unprofessional.
10. Use a grid to align text and objects to each other.
11. Don't use illustrations that are too detailed or delicate, as they may look muddy when printed at a small size.
12. Stay away from amateur-looking or dated clip art (unless you are going for the "retro" look). Find good quality resources.
13. Select a beefy cover stock for your paper. Sometimes 80# cover is not enough. You can get a free swatch book from your printer or paper representative. The swatch book will give you the opportunity to examine and feel the various sheets for finish, thickness, stiffness, opacity (translucence), and color.
Impress your clients with your cards as though your business depended on it! Cards are small in size but huge in importance to your business success. Start employing these design tips to ensure your cards are doing the biggest possible job for you.
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Karen Saunders is the author of the book, "Turn Eye Appeal into Buy Appeal: How to easily transform your marketing pieces into dazzling, persuasive sales tools!” Karen has helped thousands of small businesses to increase their sales over the past 16 years using her award-winning marketing design strategies. For more free tips by Karen, and to learn more about the book visit http://www.MacGraphics.netDecember 5th, 2005by Julie Chance of Strategies-By-Design
When it comes to marketing, do you ever feel like you are at the mercy of the tides - following up on a referral here, chasing a lead there and more often than not ending up battered and bruised by the rocks along the shoreline? There is a simple solution. It is a solution that will put you in control of your marketing efforts and help assure a steady flow of prospective clients: develop and use a contact management database.
Now what could be simpler? And if you invest in developing your database, like an investment in a great stock or mutual fund, your return will be many times the initial investment. As with most things knowing what needs to be done is simple. Actually doing them or doing them successfully is a little bit more complicated. That is why so many of us have contact management databases like ACT! or Goldmine installed on our computers with nary a name entered in while we continue to be tossed about helplessly like a seashell in the marketing tide.
Gain control of your marketing efforts now!
Set up a contact management database - Pick a program - ACT! and Goldmine are popular contact management databases. Outlook may even work if you're just getting started. And coaches should definitely explore Client Compass www.clientcompass.com, a customized business management software including a client and prospect database, developed for coaches by coaches. Talk to other people in your line of business to see what they are using and what they like and dislike about the program. Give some thought to how you might use the database and what types of information you want to collect.
Here are some general things to consider as you start this process:
* Have one list. Setting up multiple lists for example one with everyone you met at one networking event, another with names from a second networking event and a third from a mailing list you purchased leads to duplicates that at best needlessly increases costs and at worst irritates your prospective clients with duplicate mailings. Be especially careful of this when doing mass e-mailing.
* Set up fields so contacts can be sorted in multiple ways. For example, you would want to include fields for the source of the name; the type of business the individual is in; which of your products/services they are most likely to be interested in; and whether they are a suspect, prospect, potential referral source, current client, past client, etc.
* Determine other purposes for which you may want to use the database. Client Compass for example has a multitude of functions helpful to managing a coaching practice including client and prospect information tracking, coaching call summaries, administration, marketing and invoicing. There's even a credit card billing option. Goldmine can be used to track both opportunities (proposals that you might have out and the status of the proposals) as well as active projects - especially helpful for consulting projects where multiple people may be involved.
* Be sure you can easily use the names for direct mail and e-mail purposes. The database program should have the capability to do merge mailings and e-mails to selected groups or the ability to export to other programs such as Excel so mail merges can be accomplished.
Invest in the technology and the assistance necessary to set-up a functional database system because this is one of the most valuable tools in constructing an effective marketing program.
Feed the database on a regular basis. The best designed database with all the latest technological bells and whistles is useless if it doesn't have any names in it. The primary objective of much of your promotional efforts should be obtaining contact information for individuals who fit the profile of your target customer. You can then enter this information into your database and begin the relationship development process with these individuals.
So how can you feed your database?
* Networking. When you are networking be sure to ask for the cards of the people you meet who could be prospective customers. In fact, it is much more important to obtain their card than it is to give them your card.
* Speaking. When you speak or do presentations be sure you have a mechanism for obtaining the names of the people in attendance. A door prize is one good way to do this.
* Writing. If you write articles be sure to invite readers to your website to sign-up for your regular newsletter or a free guide.
* Direct mail and advertising. With a few exceptions, the goal of direct mail or advertising should not be to make a sale. It should be to obtain contact information so you can continue to market to those individuals who have shown an interest in your services. Therefore your promotional pieces should be designed to get a maximum number of people with even a slight interest in your services to provide you their contact information. Giving away a free guide is one excellent way to accomplish this.
Obviously once you have contact information it must be entered into the database. The 500 cards you collected through networking activities last year aren't doing much good wrapped in a rubber band lying in desk drawer. If you get even a few business cards a week that need to be entered into the database it is well worth an investment in a card scanning program such as CardScan. Be sure the program you select allows export of the contact information to the contact database program you will be using. In fact, a program like CardScan could serve as the primary contact management system if you are just getting started. If adding names to your database is something you just never seem to get done the investment in some administrative support to accomplish this task can pay off handsomely.
Consistently nurture the names in the database. A great database with hundreds or even thousands of names in it is useless unless you actually have contact with the names in the database. This is a topic for another article or even a whole book. At a minimum there should be follow-up with every contact shortly after you receive their contact information (i.e. a note or e-mail to someone you met at a networking event within a few days of meeting them) and regular, planned contact with them at least monthly going forward. With today's technology much of this can be automated.
Protect this valuable asset. Your contact database is one of your most valuable assets. Be sure you protect it. Do regular back-ups and store these back-ups off site. For about the cost of a week's worth of Starbuck's coffee you can have all of your files backed up automatically each night and stored on a remote server. What would be the cost of replacing your contact database?
Get your feet planted solidly in the sand. Invest in developing, maintaining and using a contact management database to harness the power of the marketing tides and generate the leads you need to grow the business of your dreams.
© 2005 STRATEGIES-BY-DESIGN. Julie Chance is president of Strategies-by-Design, a Dallas-based marketing consulting firm specializing in marketing programs for professional service firms and specialty retailers. If you are interested in finding out more about how to gain control of your marketing efforts and assure a steady flow of prospective clients, Julie invites you to sign-up for their free marketing tips newsletter at www.strategies-by-design.com.November 22nd, 2005Has anyone ever said to you, "Your price is too high and I'd like a discount." In this article I outline two approaches for responding to this comment. One of the approaches even has the potential for you to make a bigger sale than you originally anticipated. Curious?
First, giving discounts in the right way may well be the most appropriate thing to do. Conversely, giving a discount in the wrong way can not only lose you a sale but could lose you all possible future sales from a potential client.
Read on to see what I mean.
Just suppose you say "yes" and immediately give a discount. What do you think this potential client now thinks?
* You seem desperate for the sale.
* I wonder how far you will lower your price. Mmmm, maybe I should ask for an even bigger discount than I originally planned.
* The price you originally offered was not the real price. Are you trying to trick me? Can I really trust you?
* You don't set a very high value on your own services if you are prepared to discount so quickly.
* You agree your price is too high. This is a problem.
* Next time I come to buy anything from you, I will ask for a discount again.
The problem with just giving a discount by itself is that you have given something away and have asked for absolutely nothing in return. You've just created a win/lose situation. The potential client has "won" a discount amount and you have "lost" it. Also, just because you've agreed to a discount doesn't mean you'll get the sale, in fact, quite the opposite. You may have damaged your credibility to the extent this person no longer trusts you or wants to do business with you.
Just suppose now that instead of giving the discount you ask them, "Why do you want a discount?" The response will help you understand what is behind the request. Then, depending on how they respond, you could use one of two approaches.
Approach One
This approach is useful if money really is an issue.
Instead of giving a discount, you lower the price by taking out something of value. This is a win/win choice. They get the lower price and you still maintain your price for a certain value bundle. You could say, for example, "If price is more of an issue for you, then I suggest that we take out X product/service." (Suggest taking something out of high-perceived value). The person needs to see that in order to get the discount they have to give up some of the value from your offer. Alternatively you could ask them for suggestions for what they'd like to take out. Or maybe offer a couple of suggestions. Your potential clients need to understand that there is a price for reducing the price!
Approach Two
You agree to give a discount provided they give you something in return. In exchange for a discount you ask them to give you something which is important or of value to you. That's another win/win choice. For example, suppose you offer consulting at $200 an hour, and someone asks for a discount. You could say, "I am prepared to reduce my rate from $200 to $180 an hour if you agree to an initial 100 hours of consulting." The client will receive the discount and you have received a commitment for 100 hours. Another example is giving a discount based on the client buying from you by a certain date, which is an important date for you (e.g. tax year end). The important thing is to ensure that whatever you do, it is a win/win situation and that the person is perfectly clear as to why you are prepared to give the discount.
I was once involved in a very large sale worth several million dollars. As usual, I was asked for a sizeable discount. I agreed to the discount provided the client made a commitment to purchase some other services at the same time (which they needed). As a result of being asked for a discount and the way I packaged my response, I ended up with a much bigger sale, double in fact!
I hope you're starting to see that when people ask for a discount, it creates a great opportunity for you.
(c) Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation, 2005. Tessa Stowe helps Coaches and Consultants stop struggling to sell, and instead attract clients like magic! Her FREE e-course tells you how: "Attract More Clients Naturally: 10 Simple Strategies That Work ... Even If You Hate Selling!" Sign up now at http://www.attractmoreclientsnaturally.com.
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