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How to get a bumper harvest of clients

Posted byIan Brodie on November 29th, 2016.

We've just had the first big frosts of the season here in the UK, which prompted me to head out to the greenhouse to harvest this year's crop of chillies.

Bear with me by the way, there's a client-winning tip buried in here eventually :)

Last year was pretty hopeless for me chilli-wise. I grew a bunch of ultra-hot varieties but got hardly any chillies fruiting. So I overwintered most of the plants in our conservatory.

When it came to putting them back out in spring disaster struck – all the leaves fell off the plants and I assumed I'd put them out too early and killed them.

But no. Within a few weeks, plenty of new growth had sprouted. The plants came back bigger and stronger and put on tons of fruit this year for our best harvest ever. Here's a picture of the first batch:

Yum!

You've probably guessed the point of the story already, but it bears repeating.

When it comes to winning clients, you can't expect all of your prospects to convert into paying clients quickly just because you want them to. There's a natural cycle for most people that involves just as much nurture and just as much time as growing plants.

If I'd treated my chilli plants like most people treat their prospects then when they didn't have a prolific harvest that first year I'd have given up on them and not bothered watering or feeding them. I'd probably have literally left them out in the cold.

But often your very best and most loyal clients are the ones who take their time. Someone who makes a snap decision to work with you may well make a snap decision to do something else. Someone who builds a strong relationship with you first and then commits is usually in it for the long haul.

How do you handle long-term nurturing of potential clients? It's easy when we've just met someone to send some follow-up emails, make a call, maybe post them something.

But what are you doing 3 months, 6 months, 9 months or a year later to keep that relationship growing?

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The missing link in most USPs

Posted byIan Brodie on November 27th, 2016.

Having a clear, simple statement of what your clients get from working with you and how you're different to your competitors is vital for any business.

But a statement isn't enough.

You might claim you're the best at something, but why on earth should people believe you?

Creating a USP is a starting point. But what really gets you clients is when people start to believe it.

And in my experience, the very best way to get people to believe your USP is to demonstrate it week-in, week-out.

My USP is that I give my clients simple, practical advice on marketing that really gets results.

How do I get people to believe this is what I can do?

I give them simple, practical advice on marketing that really gets results every week in my emails, blog posts and videos. For free.

By the time someone is thinking about hiring me, they know exactly what I do because they've seen me do it dozens upon dozens of times. 

Do you clients really believe your USP? Do you demonstrate it week-in, week-out?

If not, you should.

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A hidden source of clients you might be missing

Posted byIan Brodie on November 23rd, 2016.

In yesterday's email on the “marketing critical path” I mentioned a number of key activities that have a big impact on your ability to win new clients.

Here's something we often overlook though: retaining or extending our work with our existing ones.

Getting more business with existing clients (or retaining them when they might have gone elsewhere) is every bit as valuable as getting new clients, but an awful lot easier.

Don't get me wrong: you need to have a steady flow of new leads and clients. You can't just keep doing more with your existing client base. 

But my experience has been that most of us are very focused on that new client side already and rather less focused on doing more with our existing clients.  

A little while back I created a little “retention checklist” for my Momentum Club membership program to help me make sure I was doing everything I could to help my members get the most from my program and so stay as members for as long as possible.

I've extracted some of the more generally applicable ideas here to help you think through what more you could be doing to retain and strengthen relationships with your clients:

1. Make a brilliant personal first impression – e.g. a personal welcome letter/video/tweet/phone call/gift.
2. Get new clients getting results fast – e.g. a quick win review, extra training material, diagnostic to highlight areas for fast results.
3. Deliver extra value at “drop off points” – identify the points that clients typically leave or don't renew and make sure you're delivering extra value at those points.
4. Make your content/training/communications easily consumable – e.g. checklists, templates, do things in bite-sized chunks.
5. Engage pro-actively – watch for drop off in communication and interaction and reach out personally to re-engage.
6. Provide additional value they'd miss if they left – e.g. extra client-only webinars and content, personal critiques and feedback, tools & templates, discounts on your other products and services, “grandfathered” pricing.
7. Create community – have a private forum/group for clients, encourage sharing, discussion, helping each other, arrange live meetups.
8. Inspire with success stories – e.g. interview clients and promote their successes, encourage testimonials.
9. Make renewing easy – e.g. auto renewals via direct debit, credit card.
10. Find out why people leave – e.g. do an “exit” survey or interview and fix the problems people report.

Implementing just one of these could have a big impact on your client retention.

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What’s your REAL marketing critical path?

Posted byIan Brodie on November 22nd, 2016.

In project management, they have a principle called the “critical path”. It's the set of key steps on the plan that if any of them were delayed, would delay the whole project.

Other activities can get behind schedule and the overall project won't be late, but any problems with the steps on the critical path and you're going to miss your deadlines. Conversely, speeding up the tasks that aren't on the critical path doesn't speed up the project – you need to save time on the critical path to have an overall impact.

There's an analogy in marketing too. Not a perfect one, but a helpful one.

There are some activities you do in marketing that have a big impact on the number of clients you win. And there are others that don't.

If you want more clients, you have to do more of the “critical path” activities or do them better. Doing more of the non-critical activities has very little impact.

Unfortunately, most of us treat all activities the same. Partly because we just keep doing what we've always done. Partly because some activities are easy to do on a regular basis (you go to that monthly networking meeting that never leads to any clients because you don't have to think about it and it's a pleasant event).

And partly, it's because we haven't really analysed which of our activities has the most impact. 

If you get out a piece of paper and look at where your last clients came from you'll undoubtedly see patterns.

It's relatively easy if you do most of your business online like me – you can track the sources of traffic and what people do before they become clients.

If your clients come primarily offline, make sure to ask them how they first heard of you if you don't know that already.

For me, the vast majority of Momentum Club members either join after watching my “How To Get More Leads and Clients” webinar or they join after being subscribers for a while and eventually the time is right and one of my regular emails triggers a purchase.

Where do most of your clients come from? If you don't know, you really need to. Understanding your marketing critical path is critical to make sure you're spending your time on the right activities instead of wasting time on things that just don't get results.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about a “hidden” source of clients most of us overlook that for most people is the very best place to focus your time.

More Clients Memorandum

How I’m productive with email

Posted byIan Brodie on November 20th, 2016.

Last Sunday I mentioned how damaging to your productivity and creativity it can be to get distracted by stuff like social media and email.

Email is particularly challenging for many of us as it's how we conduct a lot of business. 

I get questions from customers via email. Notfications from my websites and membership systems. Offers and discussions from business partners.

So I have to use email. It's not something I can avoid to be productive in my job. It's a core part of the job itself.

Now most of the advice I've heard on email productivity is to ration your use of it. Process your emails once in the morning and once in the afternoon, for example.

In fact these days I sometimes get “out of office” email messages from people I've emailed that basically says “in order to be productive I only process my emails once a day – I'll get back to you later”.

The problem is, that's not very responsive.

If I have a customer who can't log in to access their online training course, or a client who wants advice on an upcoming key meeting they're going to it's no good me getting back to them days later when it's convenient for me.

Part of the reason I've built up a decent following is because I'm very responsive rather than aloof and distant. You might do something similar yourself.

So for me I try to read my emails every hour to give me that responsiveness.

But if I'm going to do that I have to be productive at it. So I use a simple system that might work for you too.

Basically I try to process everything just once. One of the big email productivity killers is re-reading the same email multiple times because you read it once and didn't deal with it.

So I go though the emails in my inbox via a quick scan and either:

1. Decide I don't need to do anything with them – they were for information only.

2. Decide I need to take immediate action. So if it's something I can do quickly I'll hit reply or pick up the phone or do whatever action needs to be taken.

3. Decide I need to take action later. if it's something I can't do immediately or will take more than 5 minutes I log the email in my to-do system. I use “Things” on my Mac and by pressing Ctrl-Space it creates a to do list item based on the email with a link back to it so I can always find it when I do the task.

After I've run through all my emails like that I archive the lot to clear out my inbox.

So next time I log into email I only see the new ones. I don't waste time re-reading old ones. I don't lose any things I need to do because I either did them already in step 2, or I tagged them in my to do system in step 3.

And if I made a mistake and need to go back to any of them, they're not deleted – theyre just archived out of my main inbox.

Simple really. And easy to do.

But processing like this means I can be very responsive to emails in 5 minutes every hour.

Of course, if I'm busy I won't check email that hour.

But doing it this way means I can be productive, and I can offer a really responsive service to my customers and subscribers.

Hopefully that might inspire you to create a similar system for yourself.

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Could you do this?

Posted byIan Brodie on November 20th, 2016.

Last Sunday I talked about earning your audience's attention by doing a research project to create valuable intellectual property they'd want to hear about.

Hard work. High ROI.

Typically it's something you invest time in creating, then it pays dividends.

Here's something that pays off as you go along: starting a regular “show”.

A show can be anything from a weekly video, to a podcast where you interview other experts in your field. Or an email newsletter. Obvs.

Basically, it's something where you show up on a regular basis and share valuable content.

The regular schedule forces you to come up with useful information for your audience on a consistent basis. Either self-generated or through interviews or research. It's a powerful discipline that makes you raise your game.

And the regular schedule means your audience gets into the rhythm of “tuning in”.

A show like this works in a similar way to a research project in that it gives you credibility and it builds relationships with your audience of potential clients. But rather than being one big hit after your research is done, this happens step by step over time.

The upside is you're building credibility and trust from day 1 when you start the show. You may not start with a big audience, but you're having impact. And that impact will grow as you show up every week.

It's a powerful and effective habit to get into.

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There’s more to life than sales

Posted byIan Brodie on November 16th, 2016.

I “shocked” someone on Facebook yesterday.

Not that they realised they were shocked. They just couldn't quite comprehend what I'd said.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that they'd made some comment about how someone's public statements were foolish because they'd lose sales because of it. To which I replied that “perhaps they think there's something more important than sales”.

It took 3 or 4 repeats of my reply in different forms before they actually got what I was trying to say. They essentially couldn't comprehend that there might be something more important for a business owner than maximising your sales or profits.

Sometimes it's easy to fall into that trap. Pretty much every piece of advice we read about marketing is all about how to use this technique or that to get more sales. 

And I know people who use advertising they feel uncomfortable with (messages that push the edges of hype and truthfulness for example) but justify it because they get more sales or more subscribers that way. 

Or they've been told it's their “duty” to sell as hard as possible so that people will benefit from what they have to offer. 

It's not.

Possibly now more than ever it's important to recognise that the end doesn't justify the means. Selling more is never justified if you have to sell your soul to do it. 

And here's the thing: we don't need to “maximise” our sales. We just need enough. 

I know that I could get more sales if I marketed in different ways. My emails and my webinars give too much information for free according to many “experts”. But I'm comfortable with that. I'd rather give more value to more people and lose some sales than maximise sales and give less value. I sell enough to keep me very comfortable :)

My friend Charlie Green once said something that I think is so important in business and life. He was commenting on our tendency to say things like “if you do the right thing it'll pay back in the end”.

He made the point that you should do the right thing because it's the right thing, not because it's going to pay back.

That's stuck with me ever since.

So if you ever feel uncomfortable about advice you've been given on how to market or sell, listen to your heart.

You might be wrong. You might be being over-sensitive. It might simply be fear of rejection kicking in.

But if you challenge yourself and think it through and it still doesn't feel right, don't do it, no matter how effective you're told it will be.

Do the right thing.

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Hard work…but pays huge dividends

Posted byIan Brodie on November 13th, 2016.

Last Sunday my email was about how the best way to get the attention of your target clients is to earn it by having something valuable and interesting to share with them.

Easy for me to say, of course. But interesting, valuable material doesn't grow on trees.

You have to create it.

The way most people create material – be that reports, videos, presentations, books – is they lock themselves in a room and reach inside for ideas that they hope people will find useful.

It can be really hard work. And if you've published a lot previously it can feel like the well has run dry.

Often a better way is to look outside. Do some research.

Not just a few google searches. Real research.

Think of a topic that's hot right now in your client base. Or one that's always important to them.

Then interview half a dozen or so typical clients or potential clients and ask them about that area. If you ask smart questions you'll get a ton of insight, and you'll be surprised how much people are willing to share.

Combine that with an online survey that you can promote via email or in a few Linkedin or Facebook groups where your clients hang out and boom – you've got yourself a whole bunch of unique, valuable content that your potential clients would love to hear about.

Of course, this takes work. It feels quicker and easier just to make a few calls or shoot off a few emails hoping to get meetings with potential clients.

But if you put the work in to your research project you'll get something that will make it 2x or 3x more likely that potential clients will want to meet with you. Because you've got something uniquely valuable and interesting to share.

And it'll give you lots of new material to use on your website or in presentations.

Hard work. Huge ROI.

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The secret of confident paid traffic

Posted byIan Brodie on November 10th, 2016.

On Tuesday I mentioned that paid advertising – particularly online advertising – is an effective way to break out of the hamster wheel of all your client winning being dependent on your personal activity.

But, of course, paid advertising feels very risky. That's cold, hard cash going out of your account.  

You may only have 24 hours in a day, but at least you get another 24 tomorrow! When your money runs out, it's all over. 

There are three common fears people have about advertising online.

The first is “does it work at all for my sort of business?”

That was a valid concern back when Google Adwords was the only game in town. Not everyone sells something that people actively search for.

But with highly targeted advertising options on Linkedin and Facebook you can reach pretty much anyone these days. 

The second fear is “will I mess it up and lose a fortune?”

That's a very real risk if you don't learn how to use the platforms properly, including making sure you have sensible caps on budgets. 

I've been there myself and paid for ads that send visitors to non-existent pages or pages that just didn't stand a hope of getting people to do what I wanted.

So you must make sure you learn how to use whatever platform you choose from a reliable source. 

And don't just rely on the training from Google, Linkedin or Facebook themselves. They'll show you the basics of using the platform, but not how to get the most from it. After all, they've got a vested interest in you spending more. Learn from someone who's successfully doing what you want to do (e.g. get leads for high-value services, get sales for online products, etc.)

The third fear is probably the biggest: “is it worth it?”

In other words, will the money I invest in advertising pay back?

Truth be told, this is a tough question to answer. It all depends, so you have to test.

It's relatively easy to test if your campaign will be profitable if you're selling low-priced products that sell quickly with little need to build credibility and trust. You can just run a small-scale campaign and within a few weeks count the sales and measure the return on investment.

If it's profitable you continue or ramp it up. If it's not, you try something else.

But when you sell high-value products or services with a long sales cycle it might take ages before you get a sale. And a small number of sales won't be statistically significant, you need many. 

Now one option is to reconfigure your business a bit so that you have a smaller, “easier to buy” way of starting to work with you. For example, a short analysis project to set the stage before embarking on a big transformation. Frankly, that's a sensible thing to do anyway. But it's not going to happen quickly.

So from the perspective of being able to confidently use paid advertising right now, the way to get a degree of confidence is to use rules of thumb and be very conservative.

One method is to look at the value of the leads you've generated historically. So if you've managed to get one new client worth on average $5,000 for every 200 online signups that means an online lead is worth roughly $25 to you.   

That means that in theory, you can afford to pay up to $25 per lead and still come out profitable.

But of course, that's theory. Just because a lead is worth that much historically doesn't mean your leads from paid advertising are going to be worth the same. They might be worth more or less. So it pays to be conservative.

So I might say to myself, “you know what, as long as I can get leads for $10 a pop I'm going to be safe”.

Then I can start a small ad campaign and if my cost per lead is over $10 I'm either going to stop the campaign or perform some serious surgery on it.

That gives me the confidence to start running ad campaigns knowing that I've got a big safety margin if they don't pay off as well as I'd hoped.

Of course, it might be that you're just starting up online and you haven't generated any significant number of leads and clients from online sources in the past.

In that case, I'd advise being even more conservative. Play around with some numbers and estimates for your typical client value and a conversion rate of leads to clients. Maybe you estimate that 1 in 100 leads is going to turn into an opportunity (e.g. a strategy call) and 1 in 3 of those is going to turn into a client. 

We're not trying to get exact figures here, just trying to get orders of magnitude.

If you find that your average lead value is in the $20+ range then the chances are you're going to be able to generate them for significantly less than that using advertising (my leads typically cost between $1-2 on Facebook, $4-6 for more qualified leads on Linkedin).

If your average lead value is only a few dollars, then it's probably not even worth thinking about online advertising until you can get that value up. Find ways of adding more value to clients so you convert more and they pay you more. Otherwise, advertising will never pay off for you.

Even if you never end up doing any online advertising it's worth doing this exercise. It'll give you a good feel for the “efficiency” of your lead generation. And if you replace the advertising costs with the cost of your time for activities like networking or getting referrals it'll help you see all your activities in terms of their return on investment.

Well worth doing.