Navigation

Featured

Selling

Pencil Selling: A Powerful Technique for Building Engagement and Buy-In

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 9th, 2010.

One of the most powerful techniques I've come across for building relationships with clients while you're selling to them is the concept of pencil selling.

It's also one that I've almost never seen anything written about.

In fact if you google “pencil selling” then 90% of the results you'll find are about awful, pushy, cheesy techniques used in answer to the powerplay command in an interview of “sell me this pencil”.

But pencil selling is completely different. It's about building engagement and trust with a potential client through the sales process.

The Wrong Way to Do a Sales Meeting

When most professionals meet with a potential client to discuss how they might be able to help they typically come armed with a brochure or a big pack of slides. We consultants are the worst with the latter – often seemingly trying to batter a client into submission with the sheer weight of our slides.

These presentation materials are a sort of comfort blanket. They provide certainty for us. We've had time in advance to think them through and perfect them. They look professional.

But in reality, they actually stand in the way of building a relationship with your potential client. Of really engaging with them.

And sometimes we get even worse – we take a laptop into the meeting and present slides from there – putting an actual physical barrier between ourselves and the client.

Now I've nothing against maybe leaving a brochure behind after you leave. And maybe the odd pertinent slide (if you've already discussed with the client something you're then presenting ideas on).

But in an early sales meeting, your key objective is to engage with the client. To get him or her to open up and share with you what their real challenges are. To delve into them and pull out the impact so they're motivated to do something about it. To get them to commit to moving forward to the next step with you.

You won't get there by presenting at them.

And that's what having pre-prepared slides inevitably does – you present them. And presenting means you talk and they listen. The exact opposite of the dialogue you want.

Now you'll know from my other blog posts on selling professional services that being able to ask smart questions is one of the absolute keys to engaging a potential client.

But at some point, as a professional, you need to start sharing your own ideas and tentative thoughts. You need to be opening up the client's thinking.

This is where pencil selling comes in.

The Pencil Selling Strategy

Simply put, pencil selling is where – in your meeting with a potential client – you sketch out ideas and concepts which illuminate and enhance your discussion with them.

And I mean that literally, not metaphorically. Getting out a pencil or pen and sketching out a concept on paper.

In practice, what it looks like is that you position a blank pad of paper between you and the client (you are sitting next to the client aren't you? Not opposite.)

Then depending on what you're discussing, you sketch out a diagram which pulls together some of the concepts you've been talking about. And you use it to illustrate your thinking.

So if you're talking about improving their product launch capabilities – maybe you sketch out a rocket and talk about how the product itself is the fuel in the rocket. But how you also need a guidance system – your segmentation and marketing so that the rocket hits its target. And then your performance measurement and management system is like the radar – spotting obstacles ahead and adjusting the flight.

Or the client is talking about building a stronger organisation – so you sketch out a greek temple with a series of pillars representing the major components (business functions, perhaps) supporting the roof (their goals). And of course, you sketch in the foundations and talk about what they need to be in an organisation (people, culture, technology, etc.).

Or maybe you sketch a simple 2 x 2 diagnostic and hand the pencil to the client – asking them to show where they are on the map.

The possibilities are endless. the key is that you use the diagram both to illustrate a point or concept – and as an engagement device to get the client interacting.

You want them to make their additions to the diagram. To “get their fingerprints on it” and begin to take ownership.

How much more effective is that than showing some pre-prepared slides about who you are and what you do which they know anyway because they looked at your website?

Mind you – it sounds difficult.

How do you make up all these different diagrams and diagnostics on the fly?

Of course, the secret is: you don't.

You have a repertoire of diagrams and diagnostics you can use repeatedly with minor tweaking.

Think back to recent client discussions. How many times have you been asked the same questions? How many times have you described the way you run projects, or what the three core components of a marketing plan are, or what makes organisations creative?

Most of us probably have half a dozen or so core concepts which we repeatedly use with clients in slightly modified form.

Rather than (or in addition to) turning those into bullets on powerpoint slides – spend some time figuring out how to draw them out as quick diagrams you can recreate with clients.

Then try it out next time you meet a client. You'll see how much more effective it is at building a relationship and getting the client energised and interacting with you than presenting a bunch of slides is.

Featured

Selling

Why Are We So Afraid Of Selling?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on November 1st, 2010.

Selling Professional Services is tricky.

Most professionals intensely dislike selling. In fact, I'd go as far to say that a great many fear it.

The thought of having to sell ourselves brings butterflies to our stomachs, makes our palms sweat, and triggers all sorts of negative thoughts:

“I didn't do years of training to have to go out and sell”.

“I'm the expert here, people should be coming to me, I shouldn't have to beg for work”.

“Selling is beneath me”.

In fact, some professionals can't even bring themselves to call selling by it's proper name. They call it business development or even marketing. When really they mean selling: engaging with potential clients and persuading them to hire you.

Why do we get such intense emotions when it comes to selling?

The most common response is that it's “fear of rejection”.

But that's far too simplistic a view. What on earth is “fear of rejection” really? We get rejected all the time. What are we really afraid of?

In my experience, there are multiple factors.

Sometimes we're worried that we might damage client relationships by being “too pushy” and asking for sales.

Sometimes it's because we have a very negative stereotypical image of salespeople. The sales people we've come across are the Ricky Roma, Willy Loman “used car salesman” types and we don't want to be like them. (Apologies to all the professional used car salespeople out there who of course aren't at all like the stereotype).

But the issue I see more often than not is that we're worried what others might think of us. We're worried that by “selling” we might come across as desperate. We have a self image of a highly successful professional we want everyone to buy in to.

Of course, we make all sorts of excuses and rationalisations. The time isn't right to call. A direct mail sales letter is “unprofessional”. Clients' don't respond well to being asked for referrals.

We're none of us immune to this. I did – and to some extent still do – this all the time. I have to catch myself when I start talking to myself like this and shake myself up.

Next time you find yourself thinking like this, take a step back and consider whether this is the reality – or whether the real issue is that you're worried what the client or prospect might think of you.

And then think about how much preserving that image is worth to you. Is it worth limiting your career for? Is it worth risking the livelihood of your business – and your family for?

Sometimes we just have to get over ourselves and get on and do what's needed.

Featured

Strategy

How to be in the Right Place at the Right Time

Posted by

Ian Brodie on October 12th, 2010.

Some professionals always seem to be in the right place at the right time to win new clients.

They just happen to call a potential client when they really need help. Or they bump into them in the early stages of decision-making. Or the client remembers their face and calls them first when they need to chat over an issue that ends up turning into a project.

Luck?

Most likely not.

Very many professional services are Demand Driven. Clients only buy them when they have a real, pressing need (unlike, say, a luxury good where potential customers can be persuaded they want something even if there's no deep underlying need).

And nowadays, even if there's discretion over timing, clients are increasingly resistant to sellers' efforts to “push” services at them. They are used to buying on their own terms, if and when they feel the time is right.

So we could say that the secret to selling professional services is in the timing.

If you can engage with a potential client when the time is right for them – then you're in pole position to win the work.

But how on earth do you know in advance – and from “outside” – when the time is right?

Here are a couple of ideas that can help you be “in the right place at the right time”:

1. Spot a Need in Advance

Sometimes it's possible to spot an emerging need even before a client realises they have one. There are sometimes external signs that “something is about to happen” which allow the professional to know when to make contact with a potential client to be there when they need you.

For HR consultants for example, the announcement of a merger or acquisition often signals that a couple of months down the line, the companies involved will need HR support to sort out the “fallout”. Conversely, however, by the time a merger is announced, it's usually too late for an M&A specialist to get involved – they'll have been hired well before the public announcement.

2. Be Easy to Find

When needs sneak up on clients (as is the case with many “distress purchases” like insolvency services or litigation) they don't invest the time in advance to build up relationships with potential service providers. Instead, they wait until the need hits them and then start (quickly) looking around.

Smart professionals know where their clients look for help. Chances are for most clients it's not the Yellow Pages. It's google, and it's referrals from trusted sources.

Find out who those trusted sources are for high potential clients, build a relationship with them where you demonstrate your capabilities and get them to like and trust you – and you're well on your way to getting the lion's share of referrals.

And, of course, make sure you rank well in google for the keywords that clients search for when their need arises.

3. Nurture Relationships

In very many cases, although we don't know exactly when a need will become urgent for a potential client – we do know which type of clients are most likely to need our services – and which will make the best clients.

In these cases, building a relationship with that high potential client in advance of their need becoming urgent is your strongest strategy by far.

Think week-in, week-out: how can I help them? How can I add value? What useful material can I send them? Who can I introduce them to? What can I invite them to?

You won't find something for them every week – but by reviewing their needs every week you'll make sure you're alert to things that would be useful to them. And so you'll find something most weeks.

As you begin your relationship, think: what specifically must they know and feel about me to feel confident hiring me. Make sure that over time you address these factors.

For less high potential clients – automate the nurturing process with an email newsletter.

Doing this means that when their need finally arises, you'll be the first person they think of.

You won't win every piece of work. But you'll win far more than your fair share.

And eveyone else will be thinking “they always seem to be in the right place at the right time”.

Featured

Get Clients Online

How to Get More Clients Online: Part 3 – Make it Easy to Become a Client

Posted by

Ian Brodie on September 26th, 2010.

So far we've talked about how to get visitors to your website and how to nurture relationships with them online so that they build trust and confidence in your capabilities.

But how do we get them to actually buy? To become paying clients?

Well, to a certain degree, our nurturing activities will have built our relationship to the point where we're the first person they think of when they have a need and they're ready to buy.

But we can do more than that.

One of the barriers to clients hiring consultants, coaches and other professionals is that we often don't have an easy, low cost, low risk, entry level service for them.

This applies both offline and on. but it's particularly important online.

The truth is that despite all our efforts to build trust and demonstrate our capabilities, clients will always perceive an initial piece of work with us to be risky.

Yes, we've showcased our expertise in our articles, blog posts and newsletters. And they've perhaps got a sense of who we are from our emails and maybe even some videos.

But it's still a big risk.

And the more costly and complex an initial engagement with us is, the more risky it seems.

And unfortunately, we often exacerbate this perceived risk by not having an easy, low cost way of doing business with us.

Often the only way to engage with us is to take our $1,000 per month coaching services. Or to hire us for a £20,000 consulting project.

Having such a high initial entry point turns a perceived risk into a huge one. Online especially so as the potential client will have had less direct contact with you.

But what if your potential client had a low cost way of hiring you or using your services? I'm not talking about heavy discounting to get an entry point. I'm talking about crafting a small, but highly valuable service that can be delivered at little cost to yourself but which will give the client more first hand experience of working with you.

This could range from short benchmarking exercises and assessment projects to creating online training courses, private membership sites or even the traditional online ebooks.

Look at it this way: who's most likely to buy your high end coaching or consulting services: someone who you've never worked with before but you've put a lot of effort into selling to, or someone who joined your online training site, then upgraded to a group coaching programme and who then came to one of your weekend retreats?

Creating a “product ladder” – a series of ascending value products and services – like this does three wonderful things for you:

Firstly, it allows a broader range of people to experience working with you and hence qualify themselves for buying your more expensive services.

Secondly, it essentially turns your marketing into a paid activity. You're marketing your higher level services primarily through your lower level services. All you have to focus on is getting people to make the easier step of getting on the first rung of the ladder and from then on they're paying you as you entice them up to the next step. Contrast this with the difficulty of trying to persuade them to jump to the top step right from the bottom.

Finally, because you now have a steady flow of qualified prospects for your higher level services flowing through your “system”, you can create more costly (and more value-added) higher end programmes. You might struggle to sell (say) a $20,000 programme cold, but to clients who've already got tremendous value from your $10,000 coaching group it's not such a big leap.

Now creating this ladder of products and services is not necessarily easy. There are some professions where the range of services you can offer is restricted (law springs to mind). But with a little creative thought you can construct a series of escalating value products in most professions.

It's also worth thinking about how you can introduce services which overcome the traditional geographic and time restrictions which most professionals face.

Offering telephone coaching, for example, frees you up from having to be physically near to your clients. And electronic products – books, videos, private membership sites – free you up from a direct exchange of your time for money. With these services, you can begin to deliver 1 to many and get a much higher return on your time.

Once you've defined the steps in your product ladder, you then focus your online efforts on selling the service at the bottom rung. Since it's low cost it rarely needs a huge sell. Then focus on delighting the customers of that service and market your higher level services to them.

It's a whole lot easier and more effective than trying to sell that huge consulting project cold.

Featured

Get Clients Online

How To Get More Clients Online: Part 2 – Build Relationships

Posted by

Ian Brodie on September 5th, 2010.

This is the second in a series of posts on how to get more clients via online approaches for your professional business. It's written specifically with small and independent consultants and coaches in mind – but the lessons are applicable to other professional businesses.

Relationship Building: The Missing Link

If you've been looking into internet marketing for any time you'll no doubt have heard the “secret formula” for success on the web – traffic x conversions.

It's a statement of the blindingly obvious really: to get business on the web you need to get visitors to your site and convert them into customers. In some ways it's about as insightful as telling an offline retailer that the secret of success is to get customers into their shops and persuade them to buy.

At least it's succinct and it helps to focus your activities.

But for getting consulting, coaching or other professional services clients online – it's not sufficient.

The trouble is that unlike buying a book on amazon or even a TV from an online electronics store, clients aren't going to buy complex, costly, intangible services after just one visit to your site.

Before clients have the confidence to hire you to perform a high value, high impact service for them they need to be convinced you understand their issues, you have the capabilities to help them, and that you'll be a good fit to work with them and their team.

That confidence isn't going to be built in one visit to your site.

You need multiple interactions. And the deeper those interactions are, the more the client's confidence will be built.

This is a big gap for most professionals. Visitors to their site passively consume the content, but there’s nothing to engage them and start up a relationship with them. Nothing for them to interact with – except perhaps a lonely contact form asking visitors to make contact if they need their services.

In fact, there are many ways to build relationships with website visitors. You can encourage comments and feedback on your blog. You can run surveys. You can create a forum for discussion around specific topics. You can encourage them to link up with you via social media. Anything that takes them beyond being passive consumers of the information on your site to being active participants.

Active participation and interaction is the key to taking your relationship to the next level. The more they feel they’re communicating directly with you – not just reading your material like they’d read a book from a distant author – the stronger your relationship will get.

For most professionals, the simplest way to get more interaction and more direct communication is via an email “newsletter”.

I put newsletter in quotes, because although that’s what they’re most often called – in fact their focus shouldn't be on news. Updates from professionals with news on what’s happening in their company, who’s moving departments, which clients they’re working with, and the latest services they’re offering are typically filed straight in the trash by clients.

But newsletters which share useful information about the area in which the consultant is an expert – and which the client needs ideas and support in – are read with enthusiasm and filed where they can be found.

Not by everyone, of course. Not everything you send out will be valued by all your subscribers. But keep producing valuable, insightful material and you’ll find you engage much more with your potential clients.

They’ll start emailing you. Thanking you for your material. Asking you questions. And eventually, contacting you about your services.

And, most importantly, since by signing up they've given you permission to pro-actively contact them – you're not reliant on them remembering to come back to your website and remembering how to find it. You can actively keep in touch and nurture your relationship with them – you're in control.

This was really brought home to me a few months after I started producing my own newsletter.

I noticed the number of emails and contact form submissions I was getting from potential clients had gone up. So I tracked back the communications from a few of the recent enquires which had eventually turned into clients.
Over half of the emails had come within a few hours of the person contacting me reading the latest edition of my newsletter.

It wasn’t the first newsletter they’d had from me. In most cases they’d signed up a few months previously. They’d read a few issues of the newsletter and clicked through to a number of other articles.

But reading the latest issue of the newsletter in each case had “tipped them over the edge”. They’d been convinced I knew what I was talking about and had contacted me with details of a particular issue they wanted me to help with.

And notice – in each case they contacted me. I wasn’t pushing anything at them. Over time the articles on the website and the newsletter had convinced them I was the right person to help them.

As you can imagine – that makes the sales conversations with these potential clients an awful lot easier than if I’m pushing and promoting, or up against other equally well positioned competitors.

There’s a saying in the world of online marketing that “the money is in the list”.

I hate the saying. I hate calling valued potential clients who’ve chosen to receive communications from you a “list”.

But the meaning behind the saying is absolutely true. Your valued subscribers are your greatest asset online.

Featured

Get Clients Online

How To Get More Clients Online: Part 1 – The Power of a Content Rich Website

Posted by

Ian Brodie on August 29th, 2010.

This is the first in a series of posts on how to get more clients via online approaches for your professional business. It's written specifically with small and independent consultants and coaches in mind – but the lessons are applicable to other professional businesses.

The Power of Content: My Story

About three years ago I first started out trying to do more online with my consulting and coaching business. Back then, few consultants or coaches were getting any sort of business online – but I was convinced from my experience wih other service sectors that it could work.

And I knew that if I could make it work for me it would pay huge dividends. It would free me up from having to invest a ton of my time into going out, networking, having meetings, making presentations, schmoozing and other time consuming business development activities.

And I also believed strongly that if I could attract leads for my business via the web, they could be more qualified. Rather than me having to knock on doors to persuade people I was the right person to work with, I wanted people coming to me already predisposed to hire me.

But my early attempts weren't a huge success.

I paid big bucks for a fancy website. It wasn't bad either – it followed what was considered best practice at the time. It talked about who my clients were, the problems I helped them solve and the results they got from working with me. It described my services in benefit oriented terms and showcased testimonials and case studies.

It had pretty much everything.

Well, everything except clients.

Almost no one came to my site (despite paying for some search engine optimisation work). And those that did come didn't hang around for long.

Now being a bit of a geek at heart, this annoyed me.

I wanted to know why not. I wanted to know why some websites could get thousands of visitors and could convert many of those visitors into paying clients when mine couldn't.

My first clue came when I created this blog.

I started it for fun really, and as a creative outlet for my ideas on business development. But within a few months it was getting more traffic than my official “corporate” website.

And people were emailing me. Leaving comments on the blog telling me how helpful the articles were. I emailed them back and we began to build relationships. That had never happened with my “corporate” site.

Soon, other bloggers were linking to my blog and recommending it.

As more and more sites linked to my articles and blog posts, my blog rose up the search engine rankings. It got more and more traffic – both directly, and via searches. Visitors kept engaging. When I started a newsletter they engaged even more.

And then I started getting emails from people asking me about how I could help them in their business. In other words, clients were coming to me. Not because of my fancy corporate website. But because of my simple, content-rich blog.

And that's the lesson here: the most important factor in the success of a website for a consultant, coach or other professional is the quality and depth of the content on that website.

Now most professionals' websites are simply “brochure sites”. They describe what the professional does, who they work for, the benefits they bring to clients, etc. And that's fine – if the potential client is coming to your website explicitly to check you out and see whether you're a good fit for them.

But the truth is that the vast majority of people aren't out on the web looking for us specifically. They're out looking for ideas, solutions and resources. In other words: content.

High quality content helps us get clients in three key ways.

Content drives traffic. Other sites are more than happy to link to high quality content on your site as it adds value to their readers. Whereas they have no motivation to link to your site if all it has is descriptions of you and your services – no matter how well written.

Content drives engagement. Visitors to your site stick around and explore if they find useful content. If all there is is a sales pitch for your services they click away pretty quickly.

And content drives credibility. As a professional, clients need to know you have the expertise and experience to help them before they'll consider hiring you. Sharing valuable content which gives them insight and helps them improve their business proves your capabilities infinitely more than any claims you make or even any testimonials you might have.

In short, having the passion and energy to consistently create valuable content for your website is THE biggest driver of online success for professionals.

Featured

Strategy

How to Nurture Business Development Capabilities

Posted by

Ian Brodie on August 13th, 2010.

I'm currently on vacation in France, sipping on Stella Artois and musing on why the French always seem so much more sophisticated than we Brits.

For holiday reading I'm skimming through Malcolm Gladwell's latest book – “What the Dog Saw” – a collection of some of his New Yorker essays.

I like Gladwell. Sometimes his research is a little sloppy, but he's always thought provoking, challenging and often very insightful. Great for holiday reading: not too heavy.

On of his essays is on the challenge of hiring people for jobs that are different from what they're currently doing now. He uses the example of trying to select quarterbacks for the NFL.

Apparently, quarterback performance in college football is a notoriously poor predictor of success in the NFL. Because the opposition is shorter, smaller and slower than you'd find in the NFL, quarterbacks have much more time and options. They can just stand and pick out passes to any of their receivers.

In the NFL they have far less time. Huge linebacks descend on them, they have to move before throwing, anticipate where the defence is going, and have fewer open options.

As a result, quarterbacks that excel at college level aren't necessarily equipped to do well in the NFL. The same isn't true for other positions where the skills are similar – just at a higher level.

Similarly, it turns out that qualifiactions and courses are incredibly poor predictors of how good teachers will be in practice. Being able to engage with children, to “command” their attention and spark their interest in learning has very little to do with the academic qualifictions teachers pursue in college.

So what does all this have with business development in professional service firms?

Well, the challenge many firms have in trying to find and grow effective business developers is that the early careers of most professionals don't involve much business development, or the practice of the skills needed to win work.

In fact, in many professional firms, because of the obsession with billable hourse, all activity other than fee earning client delivery gets crowded out. “High performers” have often sacrificed all non-billable activities like building fledgeling client relationships on the altar of billing more time. So when they're eventually called upon to win work for the firm, those “high performers” often stumble.

Other firms try to identify “selling skills” by looking for extroverts and people with the “gift of the gab”. They're essentially using the stereotype many people have of a “typical salesperson” to try to identify those in their own team with potential to succeed at business development. In reality, however, there's no evidence to suggest that extroverts are any better at selling than their more introverted colleagues.

So what's the secret? How do you identify people who will make good business developers?

There's only one way to find out: test.

Give all your associates the opportunity to practice selling skills. To go out and form relationships with potential clients. To actively nurture those relationships over time. To convert those relationships into sales.

Give them training and mentoring. Monitor their progress. Then select based on actual performance at business development – not on technical performance or what you think the characteristics of good business developers are. Select on actual performance.

Far too many firms select too early, based on the wriong criteria. They think they know who's got “the right stuff”. But they don't.

Casting the net much wider in your search for rainmakers seems like an expensive strategy. Wouldn't it be better to focus training, mentoring and experience on the ones most likely to succeed?

Well, it would. But the truth is that you just can't tell from a professionals early career just who is likely to succeed at business development. Very often it's not the high flyers or superstars. Sometimes it's the people you'd least expect. So you must cast the net wide.

But the returns from this approach can be huge. Excellent business developers can bring in an order of magnitude more business than the average: sales of 5x, 10x or more that of their peers isn't unheard of. And that's certainly worth expending a bit more early on to get.

Featured

Marketing

How To Build Yourself As The Authority Figure In Your Industry

Posted by

Ian Brodie on August 7th, 2010.

Today's article is a guest post from Travis Petelle of Breakthrough Business Solutions. Travis has picked up on my ideas on Authority Marketing and shares some excellent tips on how to build an authority position in your business.

Building yourself as an authority figure in your niche could possibly be the best thing you could do for your business. It promises easier sales, more prospects knocking at your door, and overall a much simpler time getting what you want. Expecting this respect to just fall in your lap is foolish at best. You must take action to build yourself as the authority and that's what I wanted to cover in this article.

As Ian stated in his article, Authority Marketing: The Essentials, becoming the authority is more than just having the expertise. There are plenty of professionals with expertise in your industry available. Each one of them probably has about the same amount of knowledge and expertise in the subject. What's going to make you different? What's going to allow you to stand out from the rest of the crowd and have people begging to hear more from you. Building you as an authority will.

There are a number of ways to do this. You could add simple things to your website, create masterpieces that help your audience, or get hosted in several locations. Allow me to show you some great tactics that could easily increase your credibility and authority in your industry.

Instant Authority Builder – Become An Author

Writing a book and getting it published in your industry is one of my favorite ways to build authority. I often work with doctors, lawyers, and other professionals, and one of the main projects we focus on is making them a published author. When the public sees this, they instantly think of you as a higher authority. You are instantly seen as knowing more then others in the subject. It also opens the door to media coverage which I will get into later.

Becoming a published author isn't as difficult as you might think. If you aren't much of a writer, you can always hire a ghostwriter to help you get what you know down on paper.

Depending on your industry, you might find it difficult to get a book published by major publishers. There's an easy fix to this as well. Get your own book published. Amazon offers an easy to use service that will publish your book for a relatively cheap price. Just having that physical product with your name on it is what builds the authority.

Don't Be Afraid To Speak In Public

Public speaking is a great method to build your credibility and the influence you have on prospects as well. The reason it's such a powerful method is because you are helping the audience. Public speaking is all about informing others. In a consultant's example, once you show one member of the audience how to double his business by contacting his database, he will start talking to his friends about what your speech did for him. The power of referrals is tremendous and public speaking is a key step to fast referral building.

Make Good Friends With The Press

When you generate attention from the press, your authority will quickly build in your industry. Even just a simple newspaper article about your business or a guest spot on a radio show can and will get customers knocking on your door. There are always new stories developing that are related to every industry. The key to grabbing the attention of a reporter or radio producer is creating a captivating angle on these stories. Once you offer them something their readers will enjoy, they will keep an eye out for your name and what's going on with your business. Having a book and doing speaking events really helps put you in the press's spotlight as well.

Building Authority From Your Website

You all know how important your website is in today's market. It's where 9 out of 10 customers of any service or industry research before they buy. This is why it's so important to begin the process of building you as an authority from your website. It's the first place they are going to look to learn more about you. Here are some simple things you can do to help start building that authority:

Add Association Logos – BBB, BNI, Local Chamber of Commerce, etc.
Adding logos of places like FedEx, UPS, and USPS helps. These companies spend a lot of money to market themselves and just having their logo can cause credibility to rub off on you.
Have methods of payment accepted logos such as credit card logos. Shows you have been approved by 3rd party vendors who have spent millions building their credibility and they have approved you. You could also add PayPal or other online checkout logos if you accept internet payments.
Offering a powerful guarantee and make it a logo.
List a local phone number and a toll free number if marketing out of your area.
Post icons that show as seen on Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Bing, etc…
Include any awards you have earned even if it's not directly associated with your work. Charities often award these type of certificates, etc.
Any press release or news story featuring you or your business should be on your website.
Splashing testimonials across your website in random locations shows that what you do works.
Celebrity endorsements will rock your credibility even if they are just industry specific celebrities. Having pictures of you shaking hands with the celebrity etc.
Contact page including a picture of your office or building, Google Map, Fax , etc.
Link to Secretary of States office with YOUR business listing
A video of you speaking about your industry will boost your authority as well.

Becoming an authority in your industry is key to creating a highly successful business. As the authority, people come searching for you…not the other way around. You get the opportunity to start turning down clients instead of wondering where the next one will come from. So, get out there and start learning how to influence people.

This was a guest post by Travis Petelle. He is the president of the consulting firm, Breakthrough Business Solutions.

Thanks Travis!

Featured

Mindset

How Not To Keep In Touch – IBM Style

Posted by

Ian Brodie on August 4th, 2010.

It's important that you keep the contact details of your prospects and customers up to date. But here's an example of the wrong way to do it…

I got a phone call a couple of days ago from IBM – or rather from one of their offshore call centres.

Is that Mr Brodie?

Yeah, that's me.

Can I confirm your address please?

Hang on, who is this calling?

I'm calling from IBM. [Now sounding quite annoyed]Can you confirm your address please?

Er, no.

I'm sorry. Can I confirm your address please so that IBM can contact you?

Actually, no. I don't think I want IBM to contact me. Bye.

Now there are many things wrong with they way they handled that call. But the biggest thing it brought to mind for me is the huge shift in my (and most other people's) willingness to put up with these sorts of calls over the last 5 years.

5 years ago I'd have been most obliging. I'd have given my details over so that IBM could get their stuff to me.

Today, not only do I not particularly want to give over my details in case I get sent junk – but I even feel resentful that they're wasting my time with the call.

Today, if you want to get anything from me on a call – even answering a few quick questions, I'm going to have to feel I'm getting something of value in return. In fact, I need to know that within the first few seconds of the call or I'm already tuning out and thinking of ways to get rid of you.

I don't think it's just me. We're all incredibly short of time these days, incredibly cynical about why people want our details, and incredibly intolerant of being “sold to”.

So next time you or your team need to make a call to get some information from a client or prospect; think how you can actually make the call valuable to the person you're calling rather just a drain on their time and energy.

If you want to confirm their address, for example – offer to send them a free report in a subject area of interest to them. That way they get something in return and it's logical that you need their address to be up to date.

Want to carry out a client survey to get feedback on where your firm can improve its performance? Offer to create an individual action plan as a result showing how you'll improve your performance for them.

Anything you need from them: give them something back in return.

Otherwise each non-valuable communication is one step further to them becoming an ex-client.

———-
What do you think?

Are we all less tolerant these days of communications that don't add value to us?

Or is it just me getting grumpy in my old age?

I'd love to hear your views – drop me a comment in the comments box below.

Thanks!

Featured

Strategy

Reducing Switching Costs: A Key Strategy for Accounting and Other "Ongoing Service" Providers

Posted by

Ian Brodie on July 28th, 2010.

I exchanged a few emails last week with Direct marketing legend Drayton Bird (how's that for a name drop!).

I helped Drayton out with a little bit of advice when he wrote his huge book on Direct Marketing for Lawyers, and we were discussing the differences in business development for lawyers vs accountants.

Apart from the differences in stereotypical personalities (words vs numbers, for example) one of the key differences is that typically legal services are purchased as a one-off whereas accountants are hired as an ongoing service.

The typical challenge for accountants (or anyone providing these sorts of ongoing service like outsourcers, secretarial or managed services) when trying to win new business is that of unseating the incumbent.

It's often felt to be so difficult that many accountants focus their efforts on identifying “new blood”. New companies without an existing accountant, or companies who've outgrown their current service provider.

While there are some strategies to unseat an incumbent – such as entering in an uncovered niche and expanding, or leveraging a change in management – there's one aspect of this competitive situation that's often overlooked: that of the switching costs.

The sad truth is that most people stick with their current service provider not because they're delivering a fantastic service – but because the thought of switching seems so painful and risky.

It's actually quite difficult to be hugely different or better when providing basic accountancy services, for example. So often, even though an alternative provider might be a bit better than the incumbent, clients are unwilling to switch because the benefit is outweighed by the potential pain. They'd have to teach the new provider all about their business – all the little nuances their current provider has learned over the years. And if they get things wrong, the costs of incorrect tax submissions or an inaccurate report on the state of cashflow, for example, could be very costly.

So we generally stick with our current provider – even if we can see better alternatives.

The typical strategy in these situations is to try to persuade the potential client of just how wonderful and just how much better your services would be.

But in many ways, that's the wrong way to come at it.

A better strategy is often not to try to increase the perception of benefit (which is difficult to prove anyway) – but to decrease the perception of the costs and risks of switching.

Offer a dedicated switching team to take over the account and make sure everything happens smoothly. Show the client your detailed process for the switch which will make sure nothing goes wrong. Offer a guarantee to meet the costs of any errors caused by the switch. And show testimonials – not just of how great your services are – but of how easy and painless it was to switch to you.

That will usually have a far bigger impact that trying to make yet more claims about how great you are.

What could you do in your business to decreease the fear of switching? Drop me your comments below.

Older Posts Newer Posts