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Your business really IS different. Here’s how to figure out what will work

Posted byIan Brodie on September 4th, 2016.

Good marketing is based on timeless principles that apply across all businesses.

Deep understanding of your ideal clients, a clear and compelling value proposition, giving value in advance, nurturing relationships. Doesn't matter what your business is, these will all work for you.

But you also need to adapt your marketing to the specifics of your business: the clients you target and the products and services you sell.

In next Sunday's email I'll talk about adapting your “voice” to fit your clients. This week though I want to talk about a simple technique for adapting content marketing to fit your business.

There's an awful lot written and talked about the importance of content marketing. Some of it very good. Some of it just tosh.

The problem is that very many writers on content or online marketing only really know the marketing business. They've never worked for real bricks and mortar businesses, or even non-marketing online businesses.

As a result, they're blinkered. They see techniques that work for marketing businesses and they assume they work for all businesses.

For example, I recently read an article saying how the bar has been raised and we need to create even more content these days, and it needs to be longer and more in depth than ever.

Now I'm a big fan of encyclopaedic content. In many fields it gets shared and linked to more than any other type of content. That's certainly the case in the world of marketing.

But I'm skeptical that every business needs to post as frequently and do such in-depth content as a marketing business.

Here's something you can do in your business to see what will really work for you when it comes to content marketing: reverse engineer what is already working for others.

Don't just take the word of the marketing experts at face value. Check what's really succeeding in your marketplace.

When it comes to content marketing, what's the purpose of your content?

Partly it's to build credibility and trust with potential clients. But it's also to attract them in the first place by getting found in the search engines and getting shared on social media.

And you can measure that.

Think of some of the keywords you'd like to be found for and search for them on Google. Then study what appears in the top 10 results (look for normal sites from your competitors or similar businesses to yours rather than things from Wikipedia, the BBC or Forbes magazine).

Look at the specific articles that appear in the results. Are they really long articles or short ones? Video or text or audio? Specific or general? Full of images or plain text? Are the articles simple lists of tips, case studies, in-depth analyses, personal stories?

Go over to Buzzsumo.com and look at the articles that are the most shared on social media for those keywords too and do the same analysis.

Then look wider at the sites they're from. How often are they posting new material? Are they very niche or do they cover a broad range of related topics?

All this will give you clues as to what type of content is working in your field to get shared and to get ranked on Google.

Then use that to guide the type of content to produce yourself.

Because if your audience is rewarding that type of content by sharing it and Google is rewarding it by showing it high on the search results, there's a good chance that's the sort of content that will work well for your business.

No guarantees, but a good chance.

And a far better chance than if you blindly follow what the marketing experts tell you “always works”.

Quick case in point: I googled “teambuilding techniques” and looked at the word count of the top 5 articles for that topic. Far from needing to write huge 2,000+ word articles as content marketing gurus would have you believe, not one of the top 5 articles was over 1,600 words and the average word count was just 873.

Try it for some of your keywords. You'll find that very often what it takes to succeed in your business is quite different to what the experts assume.

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This works better than any tips or techniques

Posted byIan Brodie on August 28th, 2016.

I'm a real sucker for great new tips, techniques, tools, shortcuts, “hacks” and other quick ways of getting better results from your marketing.

But the truth is that the big wins don't come from tips or tricks.

They come from getting the fundamentals right. Again and again.

Fundamentals like really understanding your ideal clients so your products and services are what they want (not just what you think they want).

Fundamentals like having something of value to offer potential clients before you ever meet or work with them, so you build credibility and trust quickly.

Fundamentals like follow-up and nurturing your relationships so you're top of mind when your potential clients are ready to buy.

Fundamentals like being able to  “sell” face to face, on the phone, or via a webinar or web page (and by “sell”, I mean help a potential client understand their problems, the potential solutions, and decide whether they'd be a good fit for working with you).

Master the fundamentals and the little tips and tricks will improve your results even further.

Get the fundamentals wrong and all the tips, tricks or clever techniques in the world won't hurt.

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Here’s to you

Posted byIan Brodie on August 21st, 2016.

I've been thinking today about what extraordinary lives we lead.

If you're reading this email than the chances are you don't live an ordinary “9 to 5” life.

You may well run your own business. Or be a professional dedicated to serving your clients. 

I'm also betting you've made some sacrifices. Given up plenty of time to get your business off the ground or go that extra mile to make sure your clients get what they need. Travel, long hours, tough, challenging work.

In fact, you probably make those sacrifices week in, week out. Working way harder than most everyone else you know. I've been there. I still am there really.

I don't have any magic tips for you this week.  I just want you to know how much I respect what you do.

I know business can be challenging at times. How sometimes the amount of stuff we need to do to succeed can seem overwhelming.

I hope my work helps you with that in some way. But always remember, your success is down to you.

So here's to you, and to every small victory on your path to success.

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Don’t be fooled by this otherwise good advice

Posted byIan Brodie on August 14th, 2016.

“If you're going to do something, you might as well do it right”.

I really like that saying and I try to apply it to everything I do. I'm rarely content with just being OK at things: I wan't to be really good or not do them at all.

By and large that philosophy has stood me in very good stead. But sometimes it can cause problems. Big ones.

If you're a bit like me, then whenever you want to do something in your business you want to do it really well.

But what if you're just starting out with something like email marketing? Or your website? Or doing sales meetings?

My preference would be to try to get the “perfect” website. To implement a really complex and high-performing email marketing funnel. To try to learn to handle every possibility in sales meetings so I get the best results possible.

It just doesn't work like that though.

You have to go through a learning curve.

Trying to implement an advanced email marketing system from scratch is like trying to learn to drive in a Formula 1 racing car. It's just far too difficult with far too much going on for a beginner.

It's the same with websites, sales meetings, doing presentations, pretty much any type of marketing.

You've got to learn the basics first and get good at them before you can progress to more advanced versions.

If you try to start at too advanced a level you'll struggle to make progress and often won't manage to get anything implemented at all.

Great though the idea is of “if you're going to do something, do it right”, don't be fooled into using it with your marketing. Start with the basics. get good results. Then work on improving.

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Perhaps the most powerful advice I ever got

Posted byIan Brodie on July 31st, 2016.

Back when I was consulting full time I was taught something that was hugely helpful in improving my effectiveness as a consultant. But something that's also stood me in good stead from a marketing and business development perspective too.

It's something I think comes from Mahan Khalsa's book “Let's Get Real Or Let's Not Play”.

It's: “If you feel it, find a way to say it”.

Sounds simple, but incredibly powerful to use as a guide to your interactions with clients.

Like many consultants, I'm quite a rational type. I'm not super comfortable with conflict or anger or other emotional issues that sometimes arise in any business relationship.

So when I picked up that my client might be concerned about something, or angry, or disappointed or whatever; I tended to keep quiet.

“Let's not open that can of worms” I'd think to myself as I swept the issue under the carpet and acted as if nothing was wrong.

And, of course, that's rarely the right thing to do. It usually comes back to haunt you. Bad feelings fester and grow out of proportion to their causes until they become much more destructive than if they'd been addressed early.

The “if you feel it, find a way to say it” principle ecourages you to speak out if you sense something is wrong.

“I get the sense you're not fully comfortable with this plan…”

“It feels like something else may be worrying you right now, is that right…”

Having the courage to say what you're feeling or sensing gives your client a chance to open up (if they feel OK to do so) and almost always defuses situations that could become out of hand if left unchecked.

It works in business development too.

Often we pick up that our potential clients might not be fully bought in to what we're proposing. Or they may have some objections to our solution. Or they might just not believe what we're saying.

Usually, we get a feeling that something's not right. But usually, we ignore it too, plough on through, get to the end of the meeting unscathed, submit the proposal, and then find out later we didn't win the project.

Far better to say what we're feeling. Give your potential client a chance to get any issues they might have out on the table so you can address them.

You're much more likely to win a sale as a result, rather than just bulldozing past their objections.

Try it. If you feel it, find a way to say it.

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Who do you really want as clients?

Posted byIan Brodie on July 24th, 2016.

I grabbed a beer and burger with an old friend recently who was telling me about a challenge he faced with an aggressive competitor.

My friend told me about how his competitor was essentially advertising with what he believed to be unrealistic claims. Essentially telling people if they bought his coaching they could grow their income 10x.

Apparently it wasn't an outright lie. The competitor had done it once in very favourable conditions with a client with a ton of untapped potential. It's just that it was unrealistic for 99% of the people who might end up working with him.

“How can I compete against someone telling people they'll get results like that?” my friend asked. “I get great results for my clients but compared to what this guy is saying they look pretty dull”.

And you know, there's not really an easy answer to this one.

But one way to think about it is to think about the type of clients those unrealistic claims will attract.

Unrealsitic ones is my guess. People looking for a silver bullet.

An easy sale. But a painful relationship. Especially when the results don't show up.

Behind the scenes, these guys who make the huge claims also have huge refunds and huge customer service issues. But they get enough “easy targets”  and enough people who blame themselves or who don't tough out the refund process to make it profitable for them.

Not the sort of business I want to run. I'm sure you don't want that either.

Most great clients don't believe those inflated claims and wild exaggerations. 

Don't worry about how others are advertising or promoting their business no matter how unfair it might seem. They'll get the clients they deserve.

My advice: focus your marketing on the great clients you want and on promoting your business in an ethical way with realistic claims that set up your clients for success.

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It’s not about you (and yet it is)

Posted byIan Brodie on July 17th, 2016.

I had a really interesting conversation recently which you might find helpful when it comes to branding and differentiating yourself.

I was talking (well chatting online) to a very smart Momentum Club member.

I was trying to make the point that when you're marketing, your communications should be very client focused. They shouldn't be about you and how you're better, they should be about your client and how they can succeed.

My smart client then remarked that while that made sense, the reason he hired me was because of me. He liked me and the way I did things. That was why he chose to work with me. So in a way, I needed to communicate about me, otherwise he wouldn't have known that I was the right person to hire.

But when we thought about it, we realised we were both right.

I had communicated about me and why I was different – but not overtly.

Every time I sent a useful tip, it communicated that I had value to add.

Every time I made a recommendation that was in my audience's best interest rather than mine, I was communicating that I cared.

Every time I was honest about where I'd failed rather than just trumpeting my successes, I was communicating I was the kind of person he'd like to work with.

So yes, you communicate about yourself and why you're better. But you do it through your actions and by demonstration, not by claims and by showing off. 

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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.