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Archive Archive for 2011

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Selling

What's Your Step #2?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 7th, 2011.

Keep Out! Would you like to grab a coffee some time to discuss how we might be able to help each other out?

No.

How about we meet up and we can talk about how we might be able to support your business?

No.

Could I schedule a short meeting with you where we can find out more about your business and see if some of our services might be valuable to you?

No.

Would you be open to a short meeting to explore your business challenges and how our solutions could help?

No, no, no.

Maybe I'm getting grumpier in my old age, but I just don't want to meet people for sales meetings any more. Nor do I want to have a coffee with potential partners who might be able to work with me some indeterminate time down the line. Nor do I want to discuss who I know that might be helpful for your business and vice versa, thank you very much.

Now I might say yes to some of these out of politeness to someone I know or as a favour.

But I don't really want to have these meetings.

Maybe you're a bit like me too. I'm desperately short of time. And my business is doing very well – so I have no desperate issue to solve that will spur me to have a meeting with someone who could help.

I don't want to have these meetings, because to be frank, I get no immediate value from them.

Telling you about my business so you can craft a solution to a problem I don't think I have doesn't do it for me. Nor does a plesant coffee where we discuss how we might help each other some time in the future.

I need value now. Instant gratification if you will.

If I'm going to give up my most precious and scarce asset, my time, then nowadays I'm only going to do it if I can see immediate benefit for me.

It doesn't have to be money in my pocket right now. In fact, I'm even willing to pay to go to events where I learn something important. And I'll spend an hour or longer on a webinar if I think it's going to teach me something valuable.

But an “initial meeting” where we just talk about my business in the hope you'll be able to come up with something that will help me (for a price, of course). No way.

And that's why I ask: “what's your step #2?”

Step #1 is easy. Step #1 is that initial connection with a potential client or referrer. You go networking and meet people. You send them a letter. You ask to connect on Linkedin. You get a referral from a mutual acquaintance. They visit your website.

We know how to do Step #1.

But what do you do next? How do you really engage with them?

What seems like a few short years ago, people were much more willing to have these exploratory initial meetings. If a consultant sounds sensible on the phone and they've done good work for similar companies to mine, it was worth spending an hour with them to see if they had anything of value.

I don't have that hour today. I need to know I'm going to get something of value in the actual meeting.

So Step #2s that work to get me engaged with you today are things like:

Inviting me to a seminar you're running on a topic of interest to me
Offering to share some benchmarking information on what my competitors are doing in a 1-1 meeting
Sending me a report or video with ideas I can immediatley apply to improve my business
Inviting me to a webinar where you show me how to do something I'm struggling with right now

In other words, you need a Step #2 that actually adds value to me right away.

I suspect it's the same for your clients. You need a Step #2 that adds value to them right away.

‘cos if all you have as Step #2 is an exploratory or sales meeting – we're not going to show up.

*** By the way – if you liked this post – do me a favour and tweet it or like it – or better still, add your comment

———-

Image via www.signgenerator.org.

Featured

Mindset

How Productivity Tools Destroy Your Productivity

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 28th, 2011.

I love gadgets.

I've bought every sort of smartphone right from the Treo through Windows smartphones to my shiny new iPhone 4.

And I love tools too. I must have bought every available to-do manager on the market.

So with all these productivity tech and tool purchases you'd have thought I'd become more productive, right?

Well, in the sense that I can now fill my downtime with activities, yes.

If I'm on the train or in a cab I can read my email. Using my online CRM I can browse my client and prospect details anytime, anyplace, anywhere. If I'm in the middle of nowhere I can still keep in touch with my Twitter buddies.

But the truth is that none of these activities are particularly vital for my business. They're not unimportant. But they're not crucial.

In essence, the tools have made me more productive at the mundane. They've allowed me to do “admin” when I wouldn't previously have been doing anything.

Or would I?

If I think back at what I really used to do when I was sitting on a train, or in a cab it turns out I wasn't doing nothing.

If I was on a train then usually I'd be reading. Learning useful stuff. Or thinking about a client or project – maybe planning or taking notes.

And actually, this is important stuff. Actually taking the time to think about my work and my clients or to improve my knowledge and skills.

Way more important than answering emails, tweeting or doing admin.

The fact that I'm “always online” with my iPhone has meant that I now spend more time reacting to events (email, tweets, even phone calls) than I do proactively thinking and planning. My ability to get access to this constant electronic stimulation has squeezed out the quiet time where I used to actually do some of my best thinking.

And it gets worse.

Being constantly online has conditioned me now to check my email when I'm a bit bored to see if something interesting has come in.

And usually it has.

Not something important. Probably nowhere near as important as the document or the plan or the idea I was supposed to be working on when I got a bit “stuck”. But interesting.

And if there's nothing interesting on email I'm sure there will be on Twitter. Or I could always check my website stats for the 20th time today.

Lord help me, I've even just checked email right now while I was in the middle of writing this blog post.

And who knows how bad I'd be if I had a Blackberry with that awful red light that tells you when you get a new email. I'm not sure I'd ever be able to resist checking what had come in.

In truth, we've got more productive at the things that aren't really important – and less productive at the thoughtful hard work that really is.

We're obsessed by “real time”. I had to laugh recently when otherwise-sensible social media guru David Meerman-Scott lauded the new development in Tweetdeck that meant you got instant updates rather than every 30 seconds. ‘Cos being 29 seconds behind the times is going to kill ‘ya…

Now here's the thing: I'm not saying all these productivity tools and technology are a bad thing. Even if they were, it's too late – the genie's out of the bottle.

But what we need to do – me especially – is learn to become their master, not their slave.

To use them when it actually is productive – not to oust otherwise productive activities because checking email is intellectually easier and more stimulating.

So next time you find yourself checking email more than a couple of times a day – or whipping out your Blackberry in a cab to check Twitter. Think to yourself whether this really is the best use of your time.

So how about you? Have you managed to tame your tools and use them really productively?

———-
Image by Jeff Kontur

Featured

Strategy

Practical Tips For Romancing Your Clients

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 27th, 2011.

Romance I often talk about the importance of courting your clients – investing in building a high quality relationship with them.

Great in theory – I don't think anyone would disagree with the concept.

But why do so few people do it in practice?

The truth is that romancing your clients is hard work.

It's a bit of a grind. And it's work that doesn't pay off immediately.

Consistency is the key – you need to be regularly in touch, not just calling when you need something from them.

Consistency requires you to be systematic. And I have to admit, I'm far from the most systematic of people by nature.

So this has always been a bit of a struggle for me. I'm always tempted to focus on shiny new toys rather than keep focusing on old friends.

To keep myself on the straight and narrow I've devised a simple system that even I can use to make sure I'm being consistent with my client nurturing activities. It might be helpful to you too.

There are three steps to it.

The first is to list and categorise your potential clients. I use a fairly simple approach:

I mark those clients who would be ideal for my business and who could bring me a lot of work as category A.
Potential clients who are close to ideal, or who are ideal but small and wouldn't bring me a lot of business I mark as category B.
People I've met who are interesting, but I don't yet know if they'd make good clients I consider as category C for now.

My primary method of keeping in touch with this C category is via my email newsletter (which, of course, my As and Bs also get).

The second step is to write down your goals for your relationship with your A and B category potential clients.

In particular, I focus on what I'd like to achieve with them (perhaps it's that they hire me for coaching, or maybe it's a big training project) and what they need to know and feel before they'll be ready for that.

So, for example, if I'd like them to become a coaching client, perhaps what they need to know and feel is that I understand their challenges and that I've got the skills to help them overcome them.

Maybe they also need to feel that I'd be a nice person to work with – we'd have a good time working together.

And perhaps they need to have confidence in their own abilities and that achieving the sort of goals they're aiming for really is possible.

Over time I've found I'm able to identify common patterns of what potential coaching or consulting or training clients need to feel to be comfortable hiring me – so I don't have to rethink this stuff from scratch every time.

I also write down what I know they're interested in and what would be useful for them.

Then the third step is simply to review my lists on a regular basis and take action.

For A category potential clients I'll look at the list of names, what I'd like to achieve with them and what would be useful for them on a weekly basis. For the Bs it's every month.

Then based on that reminder, I'll plan in some activities for the week where I do something to help progress towards my goal.

Sometimes it'll just be sending them useful information or inviting them to an event I think they'll benefit from. But it's better if I can be sure that what I'm doing is leading us towards the goal.

So if I'm sending them useful information, I'll usually try to make sure it's something that will build their confidence in my skills (an article I've written that talks about a client I worked with, for example).

Or if I feel they need to grow their confidence that what they're thinking of doing is really possible, I may send them a case study of someone who's done something similar.

I don't always manage to come up with something every week. But I do manage to come up with things often enough to build a good, strong relationship.

And thinking about them every week increases the likelihood that during the week I'll spot something relevant for them as I'll be more aware of what would be useful.

It's this regular drip-drip-drip of action that makes the system work.

We've probably all made lists and categorised our clients before.

I'm sure most of us have identified our clients' needs and interests and promised ourselves we'll use that information to build a better relationships with them.

But where almost all of us fall down is that we fail to turn that into regular action.

If you're not doing this stuff week in, week out, it really won't have much impact.

So if you're like me and this systematic nurturing doesn't come naturally – make sure you build yourself a weekly habit like this and plan it in to your schedule.

Because for the majority of your prospects, it won't be your first contact that turns them into clients – it'll be your 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th or more

Featured

More Clients Memorandum

How to choose the right tools for the (marketing) job

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 27th, 2011.

You know that old saying about how if all you have is a hammer, everything ends up looking like a nail?

(Apparently it was Abraham Maslow of “hierarchy of needs” fame who first coined the phrase back in 1966, although Drayton Bird tells me that Mark Twain was saying something similar even earlier).

Business owners (and frankly, far too many so-called marketing experts) tend to be like that too.

We have one way of marketing we know about so we use it in every available circumstance.

Far too often, we head off to that networking event because it's easy, we'll meet some friends, and it doesn't require much thought or preparation. And because it's what we've always done.

But is it the best use of our time to bring in new clients?

Choosing the right marketing and lead generation approaches to connect with your specific clients in a way that maximises your chances of a positive outcome is a real art that requires considerable thought.

But I've got something for you that I think will help.

It's my Marketing Menu.

The marketing menu is my run-through of the top lead generation approaches for professionals, with details of what they are, when they work, and simple strategies for making them work more effectively for you.

If you click here…

…you'll get to a presentation based on a training video I developed a little while back for my private members coaching site.

Feel free to download it, and use it to help you think through what's going to work for you and get you connected to those ideal, high paying clients you're love to work with.

Featured

Authority Marketing Podcast

Authority Marketing Interview: Charles Green

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 19th, 2011.

Charles Green, leading authority on Trust in Business explains how he found his niche and grew his reputation.

This is the second in a series of interviews with leading authorities and experts from the world of consulting and coaching.

Charlie is recognised globally for his expertise on Trust – yet as he explains in the interview, he didn't set out with the deliberate intention of building an authority position in this area. However, the approaches he “accidentally” used are certainly ones that aspring authorities can reproduce to build their reputations.

Click here to subscribe to the Authority Marketing podcasts in iTunes.

To find out more about Charlie and his work on trust and professional services, head over to:

http://trustedadvisor.com/

Enjoy!

Featured

Strategy

Superpleasing Your Way to Success

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 17th, 2011.

Most marketing focuses on how to attract and win new clients.

But once you've got 'em, how do you get 'em to stay – and to buy more from you?

Here's an idea introduced by David Maister in his classic work “Managing the Professional Services Firm”. It's the concept of “superpleasing”.

We all know that getting more work from existing clients can be the most profitable source of new business. They already know us and trust us – and we've (hopefully) done good work for them.

So it should be a much easier sell to get them to buy more from us – provided they need the other things we're offering.

Sadly, in most businesses and also for individual practitioners – we focus most of our marketing effort on much lower payoff activities.

Running an advertising campaign, trying to cold call new prospects, or networking to meet new people, for example.

It just seems kind of sexier to focus on brand new clients than it does to build our relationships with our existing and previous ones.

And when we do try to market to existing clients, we often go about it completely the wrong way.

We equate marketing with meetings and “schmoozing”. We invite the client out to an event. Or we arrange for our managing partner to meet them to “chat them up”.

Those are the things our marketing budget is geared up for – events and non-billable time.

Now there's nothing wrong with these activities. Sometimes they're just the right thing. But more often than not there's something much more effective you can do with your time and money.

Think about it from your client's perspective instead.

If you were your client, what would be more valuable to you, what would demonstrate the commitment of a professional more, and what would prove their capabilities more: a chat with the managing partner, or the professional massively overdelivering on the work they're doing for you?

99% of the time, clients will go for the latter.

So instead of spending our marketing time and money schmoozing our current clients – we should spend it “superpleasing” them.

Instead of spending time with clients at a social or business event, or in “marketing meetings” – spend it on the project you're working with them on and do an even better job than you would have done otherwise.

Instead of buying an advert or putting on a marketing event – spend the money to arrange a value-added session with your client's management team where you show them 5 new ways of implementing the results of your work and getting a better ROI.

In short, spend your time and money in any way you can think of so that the client not only thinks you did a great job for them (which should be the baseline) but that they think you've done the best job of any service provider they've hired.

Ever.

Don't think marketing – think value for your client.

Now you can't do this for every client. You need to focus on the high priority ones who have the potential to give you lots of new business, or strong referrals to other potential clients.

But if you superplease them like this it's the strongest way of getting them to buy more and to reccomend you with enthusiasm

Featured

Authority Marketing Podcast

Authority Marketing Interview: Tom Searcy

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 12th, 2011.

Tom Searcy explains how he established himself as an authority in the field of Winning Big Sales.

This is the first in a series of interviews with leading authorities and experts from the world of consulting and coaching.

The purpose of the interviews is to identify how they established themselves as authorities in their fields. What marketing strategies they used (or whether it happened by accident). What their advice is for other budding experts who want to build a reputation as a leading authority.

This first interview is with Tom Searcy who many of you will know as the author of Whalehunting and RFPs Suck! Tom's recognised globally as a leader when it comes to winning big sales.

Tom's been touring Europe running seminars for senior executives as part of establishing a European office in Switzerland. I caught up with him in a coffee shop in Manchester – so apologies in advance for the background noise on the audio. The content is excellent though.

Click here to subscribe to the Authority Marketing podcasts in iTunes.

To find out more about Tom and his work on winning big sales, head over to:

http://www.huntbigsales.com

There are some great resources there: articles, blog posts, podcasts, etc.

Enjoy!

Featured

Mindset

The SACI Principle

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 8th, 2011.

Stepping Stones When I was developing a recent training course I put in a tiny little section on what I call the SACI principle.

I have to admit, at the time it was pretty much an afterthought. A few minutes of filler I thought.

But the feedback I got told me it was something more.

And the more I reflected on it, the more I realised I was onto something. I'd accidentally stumbled ont a really important point.

Let me explain.

You see, we all like secrets. Silver Bullets.

We all want to know that one elusive thing that's gonna change everything. Turn everything around.

“It's not your fault”. How many times have you heard that before someone tries to sell you the latest, greatest silver bullet?

“It's not your fault. You see, you didn't know X”.

It's super alluring. The thought that if we just knew X – that one elusive thing – then we'd be a huge success.

Of course, there is no X. No one mystery or secret that's going to change our lives.

But that doesn't stop us wishing for one.

How often have you been on a training course or read a book hoping to learn a new secret only to be disappointed?

“I already know that”. You think. “Nothing new here”.

But really, the question shouldn't be whether you already know it. It should be whether you already do it.

You see, we already know the things that will make us successful. They're not complex. They're not mysteries. They're not magic silver bullets.

They're simple things.

Things like regularly keeping in touch with prospects and clients.

Things like regularly going out and networking (if that's a strategy that works for us). Or regularly getting up on stage to present. or regularly writing blog posts and articles.

The secret – if there is one – is consistency. It's doing these simple things week in, week out.

Success in business development is not determined by big, one-off, complex new strategies.

It's Simple Actions, Consistently Implemented that bring success.

And that's the SACI principle.

————

Image by Tim Green

Featured

Selling

Reason #3 You’re Losing Sales

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 5th, 2011.

Reason #1 is here, and reason #2 is here

So you've probed the client's issues and they're enthusiastic.

They've had an “aha” moment – you've shared new insights and thinking and they fully trust you're the expert in this field.

And you've explored the impact of the problem – you can see they feel the pain and they need to fix it urgently.

In short, they're sold.

What could possibly go wrong?

Reason 3: You're Selling to the Wrong Person.

This, of course, is particularly applicable when you're selling to large organisations.

Often, the person you speak to initially is either the person you found it easiest to get through to (if you initiated the communication) or the person most interested in solving the problem (if they reached out to you).

That's not the same as the real buyer.

If fact, these days, there's rarely one simple buyer for very large purchases – there's a group of people who all influence the decision in one way or another.

And it's your job to figure out who these people are and make sure you've got them “covered” – preferably by having met them face to face.

How do you find out who these people are? You ask.

Of course, you don't say “who's the real decision-maker around here?”. That's not going to make you any friends.

But during the process of your sales meeting – usually near the end when the potential client you're speaking to is enthusiastic and ready to roll, you need to ask them about their buying process:

-> Who here, apart from yourself, needs to be involved in this decision?

-> What's the process from here for important decisions like this? Who's involved?

If you don't know the answers to these questions you're “selling blind”. You could very well close the sale, but not win any work because behind the scenes, decisions made by people you don't know and have never met go against you.

Nowadays, of course, it's not always possible to meet all the key decision-makers and influencers.

Stricter procurement policies often bar you from speaking to anyone outside a small group if you're taking part in a formal bid process, for example.

If that's the case you have two options.

You can work with the clients you're allowed to speak to (and who are enthusiastic supporters) and coach them to make your case to the key decision-makers. Essentially teaching them to sell internally the way you would.

Or, you might want to consider whether it's worth investing in this bid.

Chances are the incumbent or one of the competitors on the bid already knows the key decision-makers and the odds will be stacked in their favour.

In this case, you may be better off investing your time in another opportunity.

Either way, you need to know who the decision-makers and influencers are and what their role is to make an informed decision on how to approach the sale.

‘Cos if you're not selling to the right person, your chances of winning are slim.

Featured

Selling

Reason #2 You’re Losing Sales

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 23rd, 2011.

Reason #1 is here, and reason #3 is here

I get excited by solving client problems.

Can't help it. It's in my DNA somehow.

I bet it's in yours too.

It's what makes us good consultants, coaches, lawyers or whatever our profession is.

But it can also let us down when it comes to selling.

Does this sales meeting scenario ring a bell?

You build rapport with your potential client. You ask insightful questions. They talk about some of the challenges they're facing.

Bam! Your problem-solving skills kick in. You identify the root cause of their issues. Their eyes light up as you hit the right hot buttons. You've got the perfect solution for them.

They get interested. You talk about how you might work together. They get enthusiastic. They really want to proceed…

…then they ask how much.

You tell them your very reasonable fees – a fraction of what the solution is worth to them…

…and for some reason, it all falls apart.

You see, the problem is that your problem-solving skills kicked in too soon.

It's great to solve client problems. I have no qualms about giving them great advice and insight as part of the sales process. In fact I try to do so whenever possible.

But what I've learnt through painful experience is that if you jump to solutions before the client realises just how big their problem is – how much of an impact it truly has on their business – then you don't sell.

What's happening is that since you're an expert, you see straight away just how much that little morale problem actually damages productivity, staff retention and customer satisfaction.

You can take one look at their marketing and see how much money they're throwing away.

You can tell from a brief discussion about how they train their senior staff that their lack of leadership is impacting the company from top to bottom.

But they can't.

They're not an expert like you. So they just see a small problem with morale. They just think they need to beef up their marketing copy a bit.

They can't see how their dysfunctional leadership is damaging every aspect of their company.

And because they can't see this your reasonable fees look huge to them.

Gigantic.

A sledgehammer to crack a nut.

You know the rest. Much gnashing of teeth and knotting of brows later they either do nothing, try to fix it themselves, or go with someone cheaper (who doesn't really understand the issue).

Two years later you bump into them and they still haven't fixed it.

So how do you avoid this lose-lose scenario?

Before you jump into problem-solving mode you must work with your potential client to explore the impact of the problem or opportunity they have.

Not just superficially – fully. The knock-on and contingent impacts too.

And you need to help them see the impact for themselves – not just tell them what it is. Ask them questions to help them figure it out.

In many ways, it's even more important than drilling into their problem. Once they've hired you, you can do further exploration of the problem. But if you don't fully explore the impact, you're not going to get hired.

Now I don't mean by this that you exaggerate or manipulate. If through your questioning you discover the problem isn't really a big issue then you say so and move on.

But since you're the expert and they're not, it's your duty to highlight when things are a bigger issue than they realise.

And it's crucial to getting the sale.

Next, I'll reveal reason #3. Or go here to jump ahead.

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