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Follow up is for losers?

Posted byIan Brodie on March 9th, 2014.

It's no secret that follow-up is one of the absolute keys to winning clients. Only a small percentage of the potential clients you get in contact with are ready to buy when you connect with them.

So you need to follow up to build credibility and trust and to be top of mind when the time is right.

Here's something rather more surprising:

Some of the very best people to follow up with are the ones you lost business with. Here's why:

Firstly, with potential clients who chose someone else rather than you,  our natural reaction is to ask for feedback, send a snarky reply questioning their evaluation, then never contact them again.

But the truth is that clients often have second thoughts after hiring someone. Sometimes it doesn't go as well as they'd hoped and they have to find an alternative.

If you haven't kept in touch, there's not much chance of them picking you as the alternative.

By keeping in touch I don't mean repeatedly nagging them to see if they've had any problems. I mean continuing to nurture your relationship just as if they were a high-potential prospect.

Remember, they may have made a decision to hire someone else – but at least they've made a decision to hire someone. That means they have a problem or goal big enough and urgent enough to warrant addressing. And they're willing to spend money to address it.

So if things don't go well with their first choice they'll need to find an alternative fast.

That's where a strategy of proactively adding value pays dividends.

Send them useful, insightful information in the areas they're working on and you'll be the obvious person to turn to should they need help. And even if things go swimmingly with their current supplier, it sets you in the right light for the future.

And that nurture strategy also applies to clients where you decided you weren't a great fit or that someone else could do a better job than you.

People often say that if you turn down work you'll gain the respect of the potential client and they'll recommend you to others.

I've found that although they may start off with that intention unless you keep in touch and top of mind, those good intentions often fade as other priorities begin to occupy their mind.

So whether your client chose to go with someone else, or you chose not to proceed – keep them on your nurture list and keep adding value.

Pretty soon that loser will be a winner for you.

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Why your words are sometimes unimportant

Posted byIan Brodie on March 2nd, 2014.

Being a marketing person I sometimes spend a lot of time agonising over words.

The headline on your website. Subject lines for emails. The lead on a sales letter. What you say is the key to whether people buy your products or services.

Or is it?

In our sort of businesses, I've found it plays out a little bit differently.

When people join Momentum Club, they don't do it because of anything clever I've written on the sales page.

They do it, I believe, because they've got great value from my emails, videos and blog posts and they believe they'll get even more from Momentum Club and from getting more direct support from me.

It's the same for you. Your clients are persuaded more by your actions than by your words.

Your words are still important, don't get me wrong.

But what's more important is that value you deliver to them up front. The way you treat them. The confidence you give them that working with you would be a winning proposition.

Next time you think about your marketing, don't focus on what you can say to convince them you're the right person to hire. Think about what you can do to prove it.

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Are you a shining light?

Posted byIan Brodie on February 23rd, 2014.

Have you ever noticed how some people just seem to stand out?

Tom Peters in the world of consulting for example. Whether you agree with everything he says or not, there's no doubt he makes a huge impact.

Charlie Green in the world of trust. Tom Searcy in the world of winning big deals.

These are people who have the courage to stand up and say what they believe in. What they think is the right way to do things in their field.

They don't just go with accepted practice. They push the boundaries.

They don't just say what people want to hear. They tell them what they need to hear.

Many businesses talk about differentiation. About having a USP.

But it's all just so many words unless you have the courage to stand up and share your message.

To be a shining light. A rallying point for others who come to feel the same way.

I'm not much of a fan of macho leadership. But I am a huge fan of courage. Courage to stand up for what you believe in.

Courage to say out loud “this is how it should be” and open yourself up for criticism.

I don't necessarily mean standing up for a big world changing agenda. I mean the issues your clients face day in, day out.

Are you out there showing them a better way? Or are you waiting for them to come asking for your advice (a quick hint: they're probably not coming).

In times like these many of our clients are desperately waiting for a shining light to lead the way.

It could be you.

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Rant!

Posted byIan Brodie on February 23rd, 2014.

I filled in one of those forms recently that you sometimes get when you're signing up for a free report. What's your job title? How many people are there in your organisation? What's your biggest challenge with marketing?

Sneaky one that last one.

I typed “finding the time”.

The minute I pressed enter I felt guilty.

“I just can't find the time for marketing” is one of the excuses I hate the most when I hear other people use it. Or sometimes “I'm struggling to find the time to do this course to improve my marketing”.

It's self-deception, of course.

Unless we're working 16 hours a day seven days a week then there's something else we're filling our time with. “I can't find the time for…” really means “It's not as big a priority for me as…”.

And if watching TV, going out with friends, relaxing with a good book is more important than getting more clients then that's OK. If improving the consulting or legal skills you're already good at is what you'd rather do then that's OK too.

But let's be honest about it.

The same goes for me too. When I said “finding the time” I was really just admitting that I was prioritising other things.

If you want to get more clients you need to invest in learning marketing and then doing it. And your investment of time is almost always far more important and far more of a challenge than any money you need to spend.

Now there are some techniques you can use to get more productive and make the most of your time. And some forms of marketing give you more leverage than others.

But eventually, it comes down to a decision on priorities.

When I was setting up Momentum Club I spoke to another consultant who'd set up his own membership program about nine months previously to get his advice. I asked him about how he managed to create all the content without cutting down on his current marketing and client work.

His answer was “I didn't”.

“I cut back on client work for a while and took the hit financially so I could get the material developed. And I didn't have a social life for a while. But I knew this was the future of my business so I prioritised it”.

As I pressed send on that form and realised what a cop-out answer I'd given when I typed “finding the time” I resolved never to use that excuse again.

I hope you won't either.

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The Know, Like and Trust Myth

Posted byIan Brodie on February 16th, 2014.

“People do business with people they know, like and trust”.

You've heard it a million times.

It's true. Of course it is. But it's also a lie.

The lie is in the implication that the only way to win business is for people to know, like and trust you first.

Now that used to be true.

The traditional way of doing business in the professions was to get out and network. Build relationships with people who could be clients for you or who could refer you and vice versa.

Knowing, liking and trusting came first. Then when you had a need you asked the people you trusted for their opinions on who could do the best job to help you.

It's a style of doing business that favours the extrovert. The person comfortable socialising and schmoozing. Making those initial know and like connections.

Plenty of people still do business that way. Perhaps even the majority.

But more and more people don't.

You're probably not reading this email because you knew me, liked me and trusted me right up front.

You probably subscribed because you thought there'd be value in one of my free reports. And then hopefully I built credibility and trust over time.

Value came first. Then liking and trust.

It's a way of doing business that people like me who aren't extroverts can master. Maybe you fit into that mould too.

If we're experts at what we do, we can share our expertise up front and find an audience who then grow to like us and trust us over time. And we don't need brilliant social skills to make it work.

We just need to take what we do, what we're passionate about, and turn it into a form that can reach our ideal audience.

Maybe it's a presentation. A book. A series of videos, a podcast or free report.

Form is less important than what we put into it and the value we share.

Value first.

Most people struggle with marketing not because they don't know what to do. There's no shortage of advice on marketing tactics.

Most people struggle because they don't enjoy doing what they're advised to do. So they don't do it well or they don't do it at all.

But giving value first by sharing what we love doing is a strategy almost all of us can enjoy.

I hate giving elevator pitches. But I love sharing my knowledge and experience.

I get much better results doing the latter than the former.

And I think probably you will too.

More Clients Memorandum

Controversy + Facts = Traffic

Posted byIan Brodie on February 9th, 2014.

I had a bit of fun a while back writing a blog post about a little observation I'd made.

I'd noticed a large number of courses being promoted on various forms of social media. Yet when you went to the home page of the social media expert teaching the course, most of the real estate on the page was given over to getting you to subscribe to their emails rather than anything to do with social media.

You can read the post and look at the examples yourself here.

What was especially interesting to me though was the buzz the blog post got. Nearly 150 social shares in 24 hours, and double the normal website traffic I get on a single day.

I think it was the combination of the slightly controversial topic (highlighting the discrepancy between what some experts say and sell, and what they actually do) together with facts backing up the piece.

It's easy to have a controversial opinion. To disagree with the status quo or accepted wisdom.

But it's far more powerful if you have data and facts to back up your argument.

In my case it took about 30 minutes to take screen shots of the various expert websites and to highlight what they were prioritising on them. After that the blog post wrote itself.

Could you do something similar in your field?

Pick something that's been nagging at you or annoying you – and do the research to confirm or deny your opinion.

It's a no lose situation. You're either going to find stuff that backs up your opinion and elevates it into a rock solid blog post. Or you're going to find your opinion is wrong – in which case you've learned something useful.

Why not take 30 minutes today to get that research done so you can create that killer blog post you've been wanting to write for ages?

More Clients Memorandum

What do you stand for?

Posted byIan Brodie on February 2nd, 2014.

The first rule of marketing is to focus on your client – address their “What's In It For Me?”.

Help them achieve their goals, give them something they need.

But beyond our basic functional and economic needs, most of want a bit more in life.

Most of us don't just buy Apple stuff because of what it does and because it's easy to use. Those are kind of givens. We're also buying into that whole “cool” image.

And likewise, many people won't buy Apple because they don't want to buy into that image.

Over here in the UK consumer journalist Martin Lewis has built a huge following as the “Money Saving Expert”. Not just because his consumer advice tips are good (they are). But also because we see him as someone who's on our side.

He doesn't just give us advice. He goes to the high court to fight against unfair bank charges on our behalf. He goes to parliament to lead a campaign for better financial education for our children.

He stands for something more than just good advice. And we buy into that.

Selling his website for £87m recently is an indication of how valuable standing for something has been for him!

Now I'm not saying that you should make up something to stand for just to try to get a following. People will see through that pretty quickly.

But the truth is that we all have things we believe in. Causes we'd like to champion.

Putting meaning into your marketing is a matter of allowing those things you believe in to be visible. Sharing more of who you really are.

Doing that builds stronger bonds with people who feel the same way.

I get lots of emails from subscribers. And many of them don't just say “that was really useful” or “I got great results from that”. They talk about how my philosophy of giving value in advance really resonates with them.

Or how moving from trying to sell all the time to building trusted relationships makes them feel good about marketing.

When people buy into more that just the benefits they get from working with you, it makes them more loyal. And more likely to spread the word.

To do that you have to open up. Weave what you believe in into your marketing.

More Clients Memorandum

Are you too risky?

Posted byIan Brodie on January 26th, 2014.

Are you a risk taker?

I'm not really. I know it's supposed to be a great entrepreneurial trait, but it's not really me.

But even accepting that risk taking can often be useful in business, there's one time when risk is definitely a major disadvantage.

It's when people are thinking of referring you.

When someone refers you they're putting their reputation on the line. So they just won't do it if they feel you're too much of a risk.

Great to take risks in your own business if that's your thing. But make someone feel like they're taking a risk by referring you and it just won't happen.

So how do you make people feel like you're a safe bet?

Person by person.

Clients and ex-clients are probably already there. They've seen you in action and know what a great job you do. Sometimes though, they're just not connected to enough potential clients for you.

Colleagues, contacts, business partners and friends are often better connected to the people you'd like to work with. But since they've not seen you in action they may think of you as a bit of a risky proposition.

Not that they don't trust you. It's just they've never seen you in action the way your clients have. So they don't quite have that confidence.

So work one at a time to change that perception. Invite them to a seminar you're running. Or send them an article you've written. Or introduce them to some of your best clients.

Anything to make sure they know what a great job you do for your clients.

In short, make yourself a less risky proposition. You'll get more referrals as a result.