More Clients Memorandum

This email nearly didn’t happen

Posted byIan Brodie on March 31st, 2019.

I'm writing this email at 1.39am my time at my Mum's house after having a few issues getting here to say the least.

I moved away from the North East 30-odd years ago. And to be frank, my knowledge of local geography wasn't all that great even when I lived here.

So I only really know two ways to get to my Mum's. The A189 or the A1.

When I drove here late last night and found that both those roads were closed I was in a bit of a pickle.

Satnav was no help. It just kept trying to send me down closed roads.

And the diversion signs sent me from one closed road to another.

Eventually, I did that thing you do when you're playing adventure games: I tried every route possible and finally found one that got me close enough that the Satnav kicked back in.

Which was lucky as the car was warning me it was running on pretty close to empty.

And since no near-disaster should be allowed to happen without a business lesson being learned from it, here's mine…

The multiple diversions were probably easy to navigate for locals who knew which side roads eventually joined back up to the main ones. But to someone unfamiliar it was pretty much impossible and I had to rely on guesswork.

And very often, when we're trying to explain the benefits of what we do to potential clients the same sort of thing happens.

Because we're “locals” who are deeply involved in our work, it's obvious to us how each little feature results in a big business benefit.

So we often just talk about the features and the stuff we think is clever and assume it's obvious what great results they'll bring.

But to someone who isn't a local like us, it's as clear as my route last night. ie, not clear at all.

Don't assume your potential clients can easily jump from being told about the features of your services to what it means for their bottom line.

Spell it out for them. Do the “mental heavy lifting”.

You've been on this route a hundred times before – they haven't. So guide them.

More Clients Memorandum

Marketing *can* be much simpler than you think

Posted byIan Brodie on March 24th, 2019.

If you want to be able to win clients without spending 24 hours a day working on marketing then you absolutely need to keep things simple.

But how?

For me, a large part of the answer is about what we think marketing actually is.

If we have a complicated view of marketing, we'll do complicated marketing.

And these days complicated views of marketing are constantly being pushed at us. We're told we need to persuade, to engage, to retarget, interact and a whole bunch of other “must do” tactical stuff.

The technology is complicated. The recommendations on all the stuff you need to do to “influence” people is complicated.

But I don't think it's needed really.

At its essence, marketing is simply getting people to want what you have to offer.

A lot of that starts with making sure you're offering what people want. And that's often overlooked.

If you're not offering something people really want then you're forced to do a lot of complex marketing to get them to want it.

Start with something they already want and your job is much easier.

Next, you need to get their attention.

Advertising legend Bill Bernbach said “You cannot sell a man who isn't listening” and he's absolutely right.

You get their attention by doing something interesting, different, and potentially valuable to them. This is where having a strong and distinctive point of view works wonders. And where your free lead magnet comes in.

But to *keep* their attention you need to do a little more.

Your communications need to be not just valuable, but interesting and “entertaining”. Not necessarily laugh-a-minute, but out of the thousands of emails, videos, podcasts and social media posts they could be consuming, they need to stick with yours.

Finally, now you've earned and kept their attention, you need to be able to clearly communicate what value they'd get from what you have to offer.

And I think it's as simple as that.

The more experienced I get at marketing the more I realise how smart our clients actually are.

They see through gimmicks.

They may “fall” for clickbaity email headlines – but they lose trust when they realise what happened.

They might take action if you hammer them with deadlines and scarcity and bonuses that are magically going to disappear tomorrow. But they'll do it begrudgingly and it'll hurt you in the long term.

And they're not fooled by big businesses with mission statements about supporting communities who then avoid paying taxes in the countries they operate in. 

People don't like to be tricked and fed spin.

But show them something interesting, new, valuable or fun and they'll give you a bit of their attention.

If it turns out to be worthwhile they'll give you some more.

And they'll listen if you honestly explain why you think they should buy what you're offering.

Simples, as our meerkat friends would say. 

More Clients Memorandum

Great service is *not* a differentiator

Posted byIan Brodie on March 17th, 2019.

If you ask professional service providers what sets them apart from others in their field the answer you'll get about 80% of the time runs something along the lines of…

“It's our service.”

Or “we're more client focused”. Or “we treat our customers better”.

The problem is, everyone says that.

Do you really think your service is that much better than everyone else's and that they're just lying about it?

I know you have testimonials and feedback from clients saying how great your service is.

So do your competitors.

And even if your level of service was streets ahead of your competitors, it's hard to prove it. Your clients never really know until they experience it.

Your primary differentiation needs to be more tangible.

Promise a higher level of results than anyone else. Or a service no one else delivers.

Offer additional benefits from your service no one else offers. Or get your clients the results they want but without the undesirable side effects they get when they get those results from anyone else.

Or use a proprietary method for getting results that's visibly different to how others do things (this is especially useful if your potential clients have tried other approaches before and they haven't worked out).

Sound difficult to figure out?

If they can do it for something as simple and commoditised as toothpaste, you can certainly do it.

Higher level of results: think Crest in the 1960s when it was the first toothpaste clinically proven to reduce decay.

Additional benefits: toothpaste that cleans your teeth and freshens your breath. Or whitens your teeth.

Without unwanted side-effects: non-abrasive brands.

Proprietary method: fluoride, baking soda, or these days hydroxylapatite. 

If they can give toothpaste differentiators you can surely to goodness come up with some for your own business that aren't just the generic “we give good service”.

More Clients Memorandum

How I got to work from home instead of Paris

Posted byIan Brodie on March 10th, 2019.

Years ago, when I was still an employed consultant, I was running a big Pan-European project for a client based in Paris.

They were a great client. We did great work.

But the travel was wearing me out.

Each Monday I was on the 6.40am flight to Paris. And I got home late Friday evening. Every week for 18 months.

Eventually, I decided enough was enough. I scheduled a meeting with my senior client and told him I was going to find someone else to run the project.

He told me that wasn't possible. They wanted me to run the project.

“But you know, Ian” he said. “We don't need you here every day of the week. Half your team is in different countries anyway and you mainly work with them over the phone”.

He was right. And I just hadn't figured it out.

I'd assumed that they wanted their project lead to be there 5 days a week.

Turns out they didn't. They just wanted a successful project.

I assumed my only option was to quit the project.

It wasn't.

I just needed to talk to them and we worked out that 2-3 days a week on site was enough for me to spend the right amount of time with their key people to ensure the project succeeded.

The same thing happens time and time again to most of us when we work with clients or when we're talking to them about working together.

We keep quiet about our needs and what we want. We make assumptions about what they want. We don't tell them what would be best for us and so we don't give them a chance to work something out.

Whether it's your marketing or your delivery work: talk to your clients openly. Tell them what you'd like. You'll be surprised at how often it's easy for them to give it to you and how happy they are to do so.

And, of course, encourage them to do the same and be open with you about what they want too.

More Clients Memorandum

How you can replicate my first big success online

Posted byIan Brodie on March 10th, 2019.

The first time I did really well with my online marketing happened sort of by accident.

I'd been doing pretty well and had decided to launch a new online product as an entry point to Momentum Club, my online membership program.

I'd planned out the product and it ticked all the boxes I'd been told were needed: low cost, easy to buy, perfect lead-in to the membership program.

The only challenge was, I had a hard deadline.

We were off on a cruise round the Med in a few weeks and once we set sail I wouldn't have any way of recording videos or doing much at all online really.

So everything had to be up and running by the time we left.

Needless to say, with a week to go the new product wasn't ready.

Once I started making the videos I realised I needed to rethink what I was offering to make it really actionable for buyers. And that took a lot longer than I'd planned.

So with three days to go before the cruise, I took the decision to change tack.

Instead of launching a brand new product I took one of my existing and popular products and rejigged it a bit.

It didn't meet all the perfect product criteria. It was way more expensive than I'd been told I needed. And it was a much bigger and more comprehensive course that in theory ran the risk of dampening demand for the membership program because it had so much in it.

But it was ready.

So as we left for the port I pushed the button on the Facebook Ads campaign promoting the product and the upsell to Momentum Club.

A day or so later we pulled in to our first port and I was able to get reception on my mobile phone.

And in my inbox were the first 4 sales. Including one who'd upgraded to the membership program.

Phew!

The same thing happened as we pulled in to each port: get on the network, check sales, see some, yay!

That campaign was hugely profitable for me and built up a core of members for my program.

But frankly, if it hadn't have been for the hard deadline of heading off on a cruise I suspect I'd have taken months and months trying to create the perfect front-end product.

Instead, I built real momentum simply by reusing something I already had.

There's a good chance you can do the same.

Maybe not exactly the same. But the point is that you don't need everything perfect to get results.

You don't need the perfect product at the perfect price.

Just something valuable your clients will love.

And honestly, who really knows what the perfect price or perfect product is? When I eventually did make that perfect product it didn't sell anywhere near as well as my makeshift one.

Do something quick, learn from it, build momentum, do the next thing.

More Clients Memorandum

Break free from the tyranny of tactics

Posted byIan Brodie on March 3rd, 2019.

If there's one thing marketing experts agree on, it's that there's only one way of marketing that works.

The problem is, they don't agree on what that one way is.

Speak to one and he'll tell you that if you're not doing Facebook ads you're an idiot.

Another tells you email marketing is the only reliable marketing tactic. The next one you speak to says email is dead.

And still another says that online is for losers and that you need to be doing direct mail or networking or presentations or blah blah blah.

I can't speak for everyone, but my experience has been this:

»» Almost every marketing tactic can work for someone

»» No tactic works if you don't get good at it

»» Flipping from tactic to tactic because yet another expert tells you it's the only way to go is a surefire route to failure

Some approaches definitely fit some situations better than others. And a little common sense should tell you what you need to know.

For example…

• Local breakfast networking groups are probably not going to be much use if you want to break into corporate clients.
• If you can identify your ideal client by industry or job title, Linkedin is probably going to be a good route for you.
• If the majority of your clients aren't ready to buy when you first connect with them then follow-up via email marketing will probably work for you.

Here's the important point: think for yourself.

Don't just jump onto a new marketing tactic because someone says it works for them. Think through whether it will work for you.

And remember that great execution of the second best marketing tactic will easily beat poor execution of the best one.

In fact, great execution of the seventh best marketing tactic will beat poor execution of the best one.

More Clients Memorandum

How to solve the nurture dilemma

Posted byIan Brodie on February 24th, 2019.

I think pretty much everyone intuitively gets the idea that only a small percentage of your contacts are ready to become clients at any point in time.

And that you need to nurture your relationship with them so that when they are ready, you're their first choice.

However, what most people do to nurture relationships usually falls into one of two camps: neither of which is effective.

First, there's the show-off.

The show-off is all me, me, me.

They'll send you links to case studies of their clients. They'll tell you about the awards they've won or the amazing results they've got.

What they won't do is send you anything you might actually find useful. 

As a result, most clients try to avoid them. They don't return their calls or even open their emails.

The second camp is the “helpful” type.

This person is all “you, you, you”. They really do nurture their relationships by trying to be helpful to their potential clients. Sending them useful articles, introducing them to valuable resources. 

This is a good thing. It means their potential clients appreciate them. It means they'll answer their calls and open their emails.

But it's not enough.

Put it this way: no matter how many articles you send me from the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry, there's no way I'm going to let you do brain surgery on me until I see some evidence that you're an expert. Not just a helpful person.

To win clients successfully you have to solve the dilemma of being able to get across your capabilities, expertise and results – without it just coming across as showing off.

Because if it does, no one will listen.

Yet you can't just be helpful. Because, although people will like you, they won't buy from you.

You have to artfully combine both approaches.

Lead with value. Be helpful. But do it strategically. Help in ways that demonstrate your expertise. That allow you to show the results you get.

Don’t just send people useful articles. Send your articles  that show you're an expert.

Don't just send a list of 5 ways of getting their team to work better. Show them how one of your clients implemented those 5 ways and the results they got. 

Same learning and value for the client. But now it's raising their perception of you as an expert and someone who gets results.

Without showing off.

More Clients Memorandum

Better, easier email

Posted byIan Brodie on February 17th, 2019.

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Welly Mulia of new email marketing service BirdSend about how to use email marketing win clients and sell online training.

You can listen to the interview (and check out the bonus infographic, interview summary and full transcript)  here:

>>> Ian's Email Marketing Interview <<<

One of the questions Welly asked was about how to find your own style for your emails and this is such an important topic I wanted to talk about it a little here.

One of the big mistakes I see people making – and frankly which I've fallen into many times myself – is flip-flopping between styles.

You've probably done this yourself. You're told the best way of doing email is to broadcast daily, so you try that.

Then someone else says use autoresponders, so you do that.

Then someone else says it's all about “gain, logic, fear” or infotainment or “soft teaching” or a whole other bunch of techniques.

So you try one, then another. And never really get any results.

The truth is that there isn't “one best way” to do email marketing (or any marketing come to that).

Lots of different ways can work – if you get good at them and if they're a good fit for you.

It's a bit like playing tennis. 

There are aggressive players and defensive players. Serve and volleyers and baseliners.

And different types of style work best on different surfaces.

But it's almost unheard of for a successful player to serve and volley one week, then play baseline the next.

It's incredibly difficult to be a skilful proponent of more than one style.

Same with emails. Much better to find a style that works for you (and your audience) and stick to it.

Of course, that begs the question “how do you find a style that works for you?”

My experience is that the best way is to read a lot of emails. Subscribe to a bunch, see a range of different styles and find one you like.

Don't copy it, of course. But learn from it.

Maybe you'll write short, entertaining emails. Maybe you'll do longer more informative ones.

Maybe yours will be all stories. or more conversational. Maybe quite sales focused. Maybe a slower build.

Within your target market, some people will love your style. Others won't.

But no one will like an inconsistent flip-flop between different styles.

You can hear me talk more about this, along with:

• How to get people to buy even when your email sucks
• How to build a 5-year monster email sequence without pulling your hair out
• How to combine sequence and broadcast emails to engage with your subscribers
• The 2 types of course sales
• How I got started with email marketing and wrote my bestselling book Email Persuasion
• The #1 roadblock for online course creators
• How to talk to your target audience even when you don’t have a customer
•  How to know if your idea for a course sucks
• My #1 advice to build a successful online course business

>>> Click here to hear my interview <<<

– Ian

More Clients Memorandum

3 reasons people don’t buy from you

Posted byIan Brodie on February 10th, 2019.

There are only really three reasons people don't buy from you or hire you to help them.

Understand which is the main one for you and you're halfway to getting them to buy.

Problem #1 is that they don't want what you're offering.

Not that they don't need it. Not that they wouldn't want it if they knew what they'd get from it.

But right now they're looking at what you're offering and thinking “meh”.

Or even “that sounds good”. But sounding good doesn't get the sale. They have to want it and want it now.

This is typically the problem that most people who work in fields where the bottom-line impact of what they do isn't immediately obvious.

You coach leaders. Those leaders perform better. The whole organisation performs better. Sales go up, costs go down, share prices go up.

But it's all a bit nebulous.

As someone holding onto the purse strings I want something more solid. I want to see that if you train or coach my people I'll get a clear and pretty immediate ROI.

If you can't tell them that based on your previous work then you might get some sales from people who buy into what you do. But the bulk of clients who are much more pragmatic won't buy until they can see clearly how you will make their business or life tangibly better.

Problem #2 is that they don't believe you.

This is a problem that people like me who sell more tangible benefits often have.

If you work in a field like marketing or sales that directly delivers more revenue. Or one that directly delivers cost savings. Then it's pretty easy to get people to want what you're offering. Just tell them the results they'll get.

The problem is, often they won't believe you.

They've been told the same thing time and time again and it didn't happen.

So you need to prove to them why it will work this time with you. How others have got the results they're looking for. How your approach is different.

The best thing to do here is get them some results before they have to pay you. Then they've seen it with their own eyes.

Problem #3 is that the time isn't right.

They want what you have. They believe you can deliver it. It's just not priority #1 right now.

Or there's something else they have to get sorted first.

Or one of a whole host of reasons why now is not the right time.

This is the most pernicious reason we all face. 

There are a few things you can do to accelerate the process.

For example, if there's a deadline on your offer. Or if you can help the client see that things are going to get much worse if they don't act now.

But often, the time just isn't right.

And by “often” I mean 60, 70 or 80% or more of the time.

That's why follow-up is so important. Nurturing a relationship over weeks, months and years so that when the time IS right, you're in pole position.

That's what can make the biggest difference to most businesses.

So which of the 3 big problems do you face?

And what are you going to do about it?

More Clients Memorandum

Is conventional marketing “wrong”?

Posted byIan Brodie on February 3rd, 2019.

If you've been on any marketing training before (especially as taught by online marketers) you'll have no doubt been taught to focus on your client's “pain points”.

Find their pain.

Talk about it. Highlight it. Twist the knife.

Because psychology tells us that people are much more motivated to move away from pain than move towards gain.

Er…OK…

That may be true, but what a depressing way to do your marketing.

The world has enough pain and uncertainty in it these days without us spending our time prodding our clients' wounds to make them feel bad so we can sell them our solutions.

I'm going to suggest that maybe focusing on inspiring your clients and talking about how good things could be if they hire you isn't such a bad thing.

Apart from the fact that it's rather more uplifting to do that sort of marketing, it might even be more effective.

Think of the very top brands in the world.

Look at any top 20 or top 50 list. You'll see brands like Apple, Google, Disney, Coca Cola, Mercedes, BMW, Nike, Louis Vuitton.

Does their marketing focus on their customers' pain and twisting the knife?

Not as far as I can see.

Their marketing is about aspiration. About a world that's better with their products in it. About how great your life will be if you just bought from them.

Their marketing is a far cry from conventional wisdom about pain points and twisting the knife.

Maybe ours can be too.