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This beats pitching every time

Posted byIan Brodie on April 22nd, 2018.

Nobody wants to be pitched at.

You know this from your life outside of work. We don't willingly invite people in to pitch their services at us. In fact many people have signs outside their houses telling salespeople exactly where to go.

Yet when it comes to work, we often forget that there are alternatives to pitching stuff at clients. Much better ones. All it takes is a little thought.

Example: one of the easiest “sells” you can get is for existing or ex clients to buy more stuff from you.

But how do you offer that stuff to them?

If you just call to ask for a meeting to talk about some of your other services they might value you're basically saying “let me come and pitch at you”.

Not surprisingly, you won't get many people saying yes.

It's similar with asking to find out more about their business. They know what's coming, and there's no value for them in telling you all about their business and their issues.

Instead, put a bit of time into how you could make the experience valuable to them.

You still want to find out about their issues that you could help with. You still want to show them some of your services they might value.

But instead of a pitch, turn it into something where you share valuable information in those areas.

A simple example would be to create some case studies from clients you've worked with who've made improvements in the areas that you think your other clients would like to improve too.

And then offer to come and share those case studies and show them what these companies did that enabled them to make those big improvements.

(Please note: by case studies I don't mean the usual salesy nonsense you often see on websites that just basically says what the client problem was and the improvements you got. There needs to be real valuable information in the case studies about what they did and how they did it. Something the people you present it to would find useful).

How much more appealing does that sound than an offer to come and talk about their business or tell them about your services?

Lots.

They get useful insights that will help them. And, of course, if they're interested you'll end up talking about their issues in that area and your services that might help them. 

But with no pitching needed.

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“I’m on your side”

Posted byIan Brodie on April 15th, 2018.

When you're worried or struggling with something, there's no more reassuring phrase you can hear than “I'm on your side”.

You don't necessarily need a solution or an immediate answer to your problem. You just need to know you've got someone in your corner looking out for you.

Friends normally perform that role. But you can do it as a service provider too.

If your clients really feel you're on their side: that you understand them, want them to succeed and will do your very best to help them – then that creates a tremendous amount of loyalty.

Because if your clients know you're on their side, they'll try to reciprocate and be on your side too.

That means not only will they be loyal, they'll promote you to others and defend you against detractors.

What can you do to show your clients you're on their side?

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Trashy comedy marketing

Posted byIan Brodie on April 8th, 2018.

I'm writing this email sitting in our lounge on a Saturday evening with a trashy comedy playing in the background. One of Owen Wilson's less successful exploits.

And as I racked my brains trying to think of a subject to write about, I realised there just might be a lesson in that trashy comedy.

It's not a classic by any stretch of the imagination. Nothing I would have paid to see. But it's kept me amused for an hour or so. And I'm glad I watched it.

And you know what? Sometimes our marketing can be like that too.

Not every blog post we write or email we send has to be a work of genius. Not every conversation needs to be sparkling. Not every follow-up needs to inspire your client to start working with you right away.

Sometimes a bit of light entertainment or a heartfelt message or just a call to say hi is just what the doctor ordered.

So don't beat yourself up if not everything you do is the epitome of insight and knowledge in your field. You need those super high-value pieces too, of course. Just not all the time.

And in fact, your audience doesn't want to have to put on their thinking cap every time they get something from you. Like me tonight, sometimes they want something a bit lighter.

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Don’t reply – do this instead

Posted byIan Brodie on April 1st, 2018.

I don't know about you, but every now and then something I see in an email or posted on a website or on social media will get me really riled up.

Usually, it's when the author is just plain wrong. Like today when I read an email talking about how all marketing is becoming content marketing because of something Starbucks said (and missing the point that Starbucks were using the word content to mean traditional adverts, not what most people call content marketing).

Or the blog post that looked at the data on the best time to send emails and wrote off the fact that the highest opens and clicks were at weekends because “fewer emails get sent then” (yes – and that's exactly why you should send at weekends).

Sometimes I'll even reply to those emails or blog and social media posts to “correct them”. I can write a veritable essay in response to someone when I'm worked up!

And that's such a waste of time.

If you want to be seen as a leader in your field it should be you doing the publishing and having people respond to you – not you doing the responding.

In fact, if I took all the energy I've spent responding to other people's content I'm sure I could have written a couple of books by now. 

But for some reason, it's easier to respond than it is to initiate.

I'm getting better these days. I sometimes catch myself about to start writing a minor masterpiece in response to someone and think “hang on, maybe this would be better as an email I send out or a post of my own”.

I'm going to suggest you do the same. Rather than responding to things, initiate them. Use your energy in ways that are going to make you more prominent, not ones that are going to draw attention to others. 

(Even if it means you don't reply to my emails ;) )

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What’s the point of marketing?

Posted byIan Brodie on March 28th, 2018.

I've been a little quiet recently.

Partly because I'm in contemplative mood at the moment, pondering the meaning of life, the universe and everything.

And partly because Kathy's got me working behind the scenes on marketing for her latest Early Years Summit.

Watching Kathy's summit progress is fascinating. It's commercially successful, but it's much more than that.

For her audience (early years practitioners and educators) it's one of the few chances they get to experience free high-quality training from leading experts in their field. So when we run ads promoting the summit instead of the normal muted or sceptical response we get people enthusiastically sharing the ad with their friends or commenting on how much they're looking forward to it and how brilliant the last one was.

And when we post up screenshots of the day's videos and ask people what they learnt, the #1 message that comes through is how inspired people feel as a result of the summit.

Inspiring 10,000 or so people every six months is a pretty neat thing to do I think.

Which brings me back to the question “what's the point of marketing?”

If I look in my inbox at the emails from the dozens and dozens of marketing people I follow, a huge number of them just focus on the bottom line like it was the only thing that mattered.

Subject lines today include thing like “How I went from struggling to 2.5 million in sales”, “How to break through $1 million in organic sales” and all sorts.

And when I read their emails the central tenet seems to be that it's your job to do whatever it takes to “get the money”. And that if a ton of money is rolling in, you must be doing the right thing.

Now I'm not going to get all soppy here and say that money isn't important. Without money, most of us simply wouldn't be able to do what we wanted to do.

But sometimes it seems we lose track of what we really want and end up doing what others tell us is best.

I see coaches who love working with people 1-1 waste months of their lives and tons of money trying to create online products because some guru has told them they “shouldn't be exchanging time for money”.

I've seen great consultants switch from helping people to setting up Amazon businesses and trying to succeed in the cutthroat world of e-commerce because the guru they followed decided that selling courses on Amazon was more lucrative for him than selling courses on how to become seen as an expert.

I often look at all these emails in my inbox and all the amazing courses out there and think “wow – if I just did that…”. If I just did a big high-end event I could make millions. If I just did a little tripwire funnel I could make millions. If I just…

Yet whenever I've done what seemed the easiest or the most lucrative I've done OK – but have always ended up switching back because it just didn't meet a real need inside me. And it just “wasn't me”.

I love my membership program. I don't like working 1-1 so much. I love writing emails and making videos. I don't like reaching out to new people or anything with the word “cold” pre-appended to it. 

We all have preferences and things we're good at. And things we want to achieve that are more than just money. Maybe yours is to inspire thousands like Kathy's summit. Or to make a difference to a few important people. Or just to have a bit of fun.

The point of marketing is to ensure you're able to achieve your goals in ways you enjoy. So make sure you use marketing that lets you do that, rather than marketing that's worked for someone else with different goals and different preferences.

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Every client engagement should have one of these

Posted byIan Brodie on March 25th, 2018.

Do you do “post-project reviews”?

Not necessarily anything fancy, just giving some time for free to your clients after your work with them has finished to come back and review how that work went.

Done right, they can be both a great source of feedback and also a brilliant source of new work.

“Done right” means that you don't just focus on the work you did. That's important and feedback on it will be useful to you.

But far more useful to your client is to discuss what they need to do next.

What did they learn from your work together that they should apply to new projects?

What are the key barriers they're currently facing to continuing to make progress?

What's their vision for what comes next?

Not only are the answers to these questions helpful to your client, they also “tee up” the opportunity for you to talk about working together again.

What could be more natural after they've just talked about the barriers they face and their vision for the future than to talk about how you might be able to help them with that.

It's often difficult to get into a sales discussion without it feeling stilted. But in this case it's the most natural thing in the world.

So make sure you take advantage of it and get those meetings scheduled for every piece fo work you do.

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Two shortcuts to loyal clients

Posted byIan Brodie on March 18th, 2018.

OK – so right at the start before jumping in to shortcuts I want to say that obviously if you want loyal clients you have to do a great job for them and make it a brilliant experience.

That's your baseline. You can't just “hack” your way to loyal clients – you've got to do things right.

But there are some areas you can especially focus on to make it more likely that satisfied clients become loyal ones. And perhaps even into referrers or promoters for you.

The first is to make sure they get some kind of quick wins.

Even if it's something small, getting results fast gives you confidence. It means that for the rest of their relationship with you they'll assume things are going to work out well. They won't second guess or doubt.

And because they look at everything through a positive lens, every small win will seem bigger. Every setback, just a minor roadblock on the route to success. They'll stay with you through tough patches when they might have bailed if they hadn't had those early successes.

Or to turn it around, if you don't get them some results quickly then they might not stick around long enough to get the big, long-term wins they signed up for.

The second thing you can do is to quickly get them interacting with other people like them who are part of your community.

There's something very reassuring about knowing you're not alone. That others are going through the same things as you. That there are people you can talk to who are just that bit further on their journey than you.

Once your clients become active members of your community they'll gain value from those interactions themselves rather than just the work they do with you. They'll feel part of something bigger rather than just having a transactional relationship with you.

That community could be face to face: an invite to a free client and/or ex-client workshop.  It could be online in something simple like a Facebook group or forum. Or it could be a virtual mastermind for your clients using Skype, Zoom or one of the myriad of free video conferencing tools we have these days.

That interaction with others and the sense of community it creates is much stronger than you could ever get just by doing a great job alone.

And frankly, it's not that difficult to do if you put your mind to it.

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The authority from Lynemouth

Posted byIan Brodie on March 11th, 2018.

Back when my Mum was growing up in the little mining village of Lynemouth she used to sit on the school bus next to a kid called Sid Waddell.

Now if you're over 40 and British you'll know exactly who Waddell was. For over 30 years he was the “voice of darts” on British TV. He was so synonymous with the sport that when he died in 2012 they renamed the trophy given to the PDC World Champion as the Sid Waddell Trophy.

Sid was a smart kid. He won a scholarship to Cambridge. And as the biographer of many of the greats of the game his knowledge of darts was pretty strong.

But Sid wasn't the leading authority on darts just because of his expertise. There were plenty of darts experts. Sid had something more than that.

Firstly, he was a true champion of the game.

At Cambridge, he fought tooth and nail to have darts become a recognised sport worthy of a coveted “blue” (the award you get for representing the college in a match against Oxford) and managed to get it to “quarter blue” status. He championed the cause of darts with the BBC and then Sky Sports, helping it become one of the most televised and watched sports in the UK.

Secondly, he had personality.

His love of the sport shone through in all his commentaries. And he was known for his over-the-top quotes when describing matches…

“The atmosphere is so tense, if Elvis walked in, with a portion of chips… you could hear the vinegar sizzle on them.”

“William Tell could take an apple off your head, Taylor could take out a processed pea.”

 “When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer … Bristow's only 27.” (on Eric Bristow winning his 4th World Championship)

“Look at the man go: it's like trying to stop a water buffalo with a pea-shooter.”

“If we'd had Phil Taylor at Hastings against the Normans, they'd have gone home.”

If you're setting out to become known as an authority in your field you could do a lot worse than learn from Waddel. Rather than just focusing on your expertise, let your passion shine through. Become a champion for your clients and what they do. And if you can add a bit of humour into your work, so much the better.

It'll make you memorable.

And being memorable is the hallmark of an authority.

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Everyone’s an expert these days it seems

Posted byIan Brodie on March 6th, 2018.

I heard an advert on the radio earlier today for “Volatarol: experts in pain relief”.

Now Votarol is an over the counter gel you can get in any pharmacy or supermarket here in the UK. So I began to wonder who these pain relief experts were and where you could find them? Presumably not standing next to every tube of Voltarol on the shelves.

And it's a drug that's been around pretty much unchanged since 1973. So it's not as if there's a team of pain relief boffins beavering away in R&D somewhere to consistently innovate the product.

But it just goes to show the power of being seen as an expert when they're using that line to sell over the counter pain meds.

So if pretty much every Tom, Dick & Harry is claiming to be an expert, how do you set yourself apart if you genuinely are one?

The answer isn't to claim you're an expert. It's to demonstrate you are.

That's the real value of blogging, lead magnets and email marketing for us consultants and coaches.

We're never going to attract millions of visitors or hundreds of thousands of email subscribers through our content – it's too specialist (and we probably couldn't cope with those numbers anyway).

But what we can do is use our content to prove our expertise to the small number of people who are perfect as clients for us.

So whenever you're blogging or writing emails or creating a new lead magnet, don't just take the quick and easy route. Don't just recycle the “same old same old” that everyone else is saying. Get your own unique ideas and insights out there to prove you really know what you're talking about.

That'll make a real difference.