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5 ways to create content your subscribers will want to read

Posted byIan Brodie on July 10th, 2016.

Whether it's emails, blog posts, videos, articles or whatever…coming up with decent content on a regular basis is tough. To help you get going, here are 5 methods for coming up with ideas for content that will actually be interesting to your audience.

Method 1 is to tell a personal story about a problem you had that they also are likely to have (like coming up with good ideas for content :) ).

As long as it's a problem they have or can see themselves having they'll pay attention. And the personal story adds that little bit of drama and builds empathy.

Method 2 is to share a client success study. Be careful here – you don't want to invoke jealousy. Instead, show the difficulties the client went through and what they learned (and make sure the learning is usable by your audience).

Method 3 is to reflect on current events. If there's something interesting in the news, feel free to use it as a springboard to talk about something in your field. The connection has to be obvious rather than shoehorned, of course. But feel free to use anything from serious news to the latest celebrity gossip. Any topic that's hot right now will get attention and interest.

Method 4 is to go back to basics. Show your audience how some of the fundamentals that everyone's forgotten about can be the key to success.

Method 5 is to do what I'm doing here. Simply make a list. We like lists. Top 10 (or any number) lists add interest to what might otherwise be a boring topic. Your audience is always interested in what you see as the top 10 or top 5. They might agree or disagree, but either way, they'll pay attention.

When it comes to creating your next piece of content, try one of these 5 methods – it'll make life much easier than staring at a blank sheet of paper :)

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Sometimes you know, sometimes you don’t

Posted byIan Brodie on July 3rd, 2016.

I think it's close to impossible to be successful at winning clients if you don't have an excellent feel for how they think: what they want and need, what they believe in, their hopes and fears.

And very often the easiest and best way to get that feel is if you're very much like your clients.

If you're like them, you share their wants and needs, so you don't have to spend an age figuring them out – you just know.

That's certainly something that helps me. As someone who's done consulting and coaching for over 20 years now, 10 of them in my own business, I kind of know how other consultants and coaches think and feel.

But while that commonality is very useful, it's easy to forget that you're not like your clients in every respect. Or that you're not like all of them.

For example, for years I thought that no one would be willing to pay for a high priced program from me where I worked with them personally.

Because my preferred way of learning is to read and experiment myself (and because to be perfectly honest, sometimes I'm a bit tight), I found it difficult to believe that people would be willing to pay what seemed like a small fortune to work personally with me to help them achieve their goals.

And indeed, high priced programs aren't for everyone.

But there are very many people who do prefer this style of learning. Probably rather sensibly they feel that by working with someone closely and getting feedback they'll make much faster progress.

And it turns out I rather like working with these sorts of people.

Yet for years I didn't offer a program like this, simply because it's not something I'd buy myself so I assumed no one else would want to buy it.

Big mistake!

Even if, like me, you're very like your clients. Don't assume you're like them in every respect, or that you have the same wants and needs as all of them.

Make sure you sanity check your assumptions, otherwise you could be missing out on very lucrative opportunities just because they reflect a need you don't have yourself.

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Unexpected marketing lesson from double-glazing

Posted byIan Brodie on June 26th, 2016.

Kathy and I had a lady round from our local glazing company to quote us for new double-glazing for our kitchen recently.

The meeting was pretty uneventful. She was nice, talkative, knew what she was doing.

We had a comedy moment when she plucked up the courage to suggest that we didn't bother with making the top windows openable as neither Kathy nor I were tall enough to reach the handles :O

But apart from that, pretty uneventful. 

Later on that day she left us a message with a quote. Kathy and I briefly looked at each other. Contemplated shopping around for a cheaper quote. But quickly said “nah” and phoned back to put things in motion.

I'm sure we could have haggled to get the price down, or price-shopped elsewhere.

But frankly, the quote we got was reasonable, and it just didn't seem worth the effort to shave a few hundred pounds from the price.

Later on, I realised there was an important lesson in the experience for anyone thinking about their marketing and wanting to get premium prices for their products and services.

The lesson: charging a premium price is less about your sales ability than it is about focusing on the right customers.

While our sales lady was perfectly pleasant, the reason we didn't shop around wasn't because of anything she did. It was that it didn't seem like a great use of our time. We were the reason she didn't have to discount or negotiate.

One thing I've noticed in business is that most people don't pay enough attention to who they sell to. It's almost like they just take whoever happens to be right in front of them and then invest all their time and effort into convincing them to buy, whether they're a great prospect or not.

They'd be much better off investing that same time and effort into getting themselves in front of people who are much more likely to buy, who need less convincing, and are much less likely to try to haggle and push the price down.

Of course, I don't mean they're literally selling to anyone who happens to be right in front of them. But more often than not they haven't really investigated who would be the best market for them. Who really gets the most value from what they do and would, therefore, be willing to pay more for it.

And when a potential client shows an interest, it's rare that they thoroughly qualify whether they'd be a great client. They see the “bird in the hand” and decide it's best to stick with them rather than aiming higher. 

Now in truth, it's difficult to confidently turn away a potential client unless you have a high degree of confidence that a better one is just around the corner. And that comes from having an effective lead generation system in place.

The two go hand in hand: generate lots of great leads and qualify hard so you're focusing your precious time on your best possible clients. People like me and Kathy who aren't going to waste your time or push you hard on price because we recognise the value of what you're doing and we have better things to do with our time than saving a little bit of money in comparison with that value.