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Real engagement means…

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 22nd, 2018.

A couple of days ago I mentioned some nonsense I'd read in an article which purported to show you how to get more engagement from your emails but actually did nothing of the sort.

But it did beg the question, “so what actually does get more email engagement?”.

Well, let's start off by admitting that “engagement” is a hugely abused word.

Rather like “authenticity”, it's come to mean some sort of generic, ill-defined good thing.

So the first thing to bear in mind is that engagement isn't your goal.

If you're doing email marketing, your real goal is to get more sales (or perhaps get more people to contribute to your charity or whatever your business objective is).

Engagement is just a means to an end.

It doesn't matter how engaged your email audience is, if they're not buying you're wasting your time.

So with that in mind, I've found that three things lead to the kind of engagement that gets you more sales.

Firstly, if people aren't opening and reading your emails, they're not going to buy anything. So that's your first goal: get them to actually open and read your emails.

And the simplest way to get people to open and read your emails is to write about topics your audience cares about, and to write in an interesting way. Tell stories. Use unusual examples. Write about things your folks can relate to.

Secondly, the more your audience is used to taking action when they open one of your emails, the more likely they are to take action when you ask them to buy.

So make sure that almost all of your emails have a call to action.

Sometimes that can be small: hitting reply to say they've received something, liking something on social media for you, hitting reply to ask you a question or complete a survey.

If someone has taken a small action today, they're much more likely to take a big action later. They kind of get in the habit.

So make sure your emails have actions your readers can take, big or small.

Finally, what gets people to take that final big action of buying is simply that they're ready. All their questions have been answered and they feel comfortable buying from you.

So make sure that over time you've answered all the key questions someone would need to know and feel to be ready to buy from you. And make sure that you've shown them the value of solving their problems.

Some of that can be done through case studies. Others through an FAQ email or emails which answer questions people have asked you which you know your readers are probably asking themselves too.

And sometimes you can just ask them to send questions in to you and answer them in your next email.

Now those three points might not sound like engagement in the sense you often hear it talked about. There's not necessarily any liking or sharing going on.

But it's the type of engagement that leads to sales. And that's what counts.

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More Clients Memorandum

Start now, the bar is soooo low

Posted by

Ian Brodie on February 4th, 2018.

I reckon the best thing to give you confidence to properly get into email marketing is to sign up for the newsletters of some of your competitors and see just how bad they are :)

Honestly, it's almost like someone created a Wikipedia entry for email marketing that says “Just send some promos for your events and services every now and then. Or tell them about awards you've won and new clients you've signed up”.

It really is that bad at times. You can do much, much better.

A few years ago a friend of mine signed up for a course on “advanced email marketing” from a well known UK marketing guru.

The course came on a set of DVDs (yep, it was a little while back – though not as long ago as you might think, most of the world had moved beyond DVD by then).

My friend's verdict: “awful”. It was apparently the same basic content recycled a dozen times for a dozen different types of emails.

“You can send an email to your existing customers…”

“You can send an email to your ex-customers…”

“You can send an email to people who made enquiries…”

That's 3 of the modules right there.

But I honestly believe that awful though it was, the course made a lot of money for many of the people who bought it simply because it got them going and their competition was so weak.

Send useful information to your potential clients rather than straight up pitches or boring news and your emails will stand out.

Wrap them in a bit of a story or link to something interesting and people will enjoy reading them and keep coming back to them.

Add a call to action at the end to a related product, service or the opportunity to call you to get more useful info and you've got yourself a decent email marketing system.

Time to get started?

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More Clients Memorandum

How to get to decision-makers

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 28th, 2018.

How do you get to the decision maker in a client organisation?

It's a bit of a trick question, of course.

There's no one decision maker.

According to the latest research by the Conference Executive Board, an average of 6.8 people are involved in buying decisions in large organisations. More when the decision is big and important.

Of course, not everyone involved has an equally important role to play. But typically, most of us meet far too few people when we're trying to sell.

We tend to stay in our comfort zones and stick with the people we already know or who are the easiest to get to and the most open to meeting us.

And unfortunately, they're rarely the most influential people in the decision.

So if you already know someone in a client organisation, how do you “get to” the key decision makers? And how do you avoid it seeming like you're going behind people's backs or being manipulative?

I've found a simple 2-step strategy works well pretty much every time.

Step 1: identify and get to the person who feels the pain of the issue you hope to help them with.

No matter who you're talking to in a client organisation it's a perfectly legitimate and above board thing to do to ask who is feeling the impact of a problem you're talking about (or an unfulfilled goal) the most. It makes complete sense to want to talk to the person who stands to gain the most from ideas and solutions to the problem.

And if you've got something valuable to say about solving the problem (like the “high value briefing” I often mention) then it makes complete sense for whoever you're talking to to introduce you to that person. They're doing them a favour.

Step 2: Partner with the person who feels the pain and help them get the issue addressed

The person who feels the pain is strongly motivated to want to get rid of it. If they see you as the easiest and best way of solving their problem, they'll work with you to make it happen.

Now, of course, they won't be the only one involved in either the decision to get started (by hiring you) or in making all the changes needed to get the solution implemented.

So talk to them about what it will take to get this solution implemented. Who needs to be involved? Who needs to buy in?

If they believe you're on their side (which you should be) then they'll usually be open about the process and you can share your experiences on how others in their position you've worked with have managed to get this solved. Who they spoke to in their organisation. Who they had to get involved.

Rather than sneaking around on your own trying to meet and influence key decision makers so that you get a sale, focus on helping the person with the pain to manage their organisation so they get their problem solved.

If they trust you, they'll take you with them to meet the key decision makers. You don't need to go sneaking around.

I've found that this simple process of partnering works way better than any kind of clever strategies for bypassing gatekeepers and getting to senior people to sell to them.

If you partner with someone inside the client organisation who's motivated to solve a problem, they're far more likely than you to be able to get key meetings and to get buy-in from the right people.

Don't treat selling to a large organisation like a battle or chess game. Treat it as making friends and helping them.

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More Clients Memorandum

Nonsense I once wrote

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 21st, 2018.

If you want to make yourself cringe, try looking at what your website used to say a few years ago.

I've just looked at mine from late 2008 after I'd been in business a year.

Apparently “we are business consultants and advisors based in Manchester specialised in helping professional services firms achieve their business growth objectives.”

Wow. Consultants and advisors.

Not bad given there has only ever been the one of me.

And apparently, I helped professional service firms achieve their business growth objectives.

I think that means I helped them get more clients.

Back then I thought that language sounded professional. Now it just seems pompous.

But it's so easy to get lost trying to impress people instead of just communicating clearly.

And it's easy to tie yourself up in the kind of internal jargon you and your colleagues might use, but that makes no sense to your clients.

A while back, for example, I was at a conference when in all seriousness an advertising guy talked about how his work was all about “consumers having conversations with brands”. Apparently watching an ad on TV is “having a conversation with a brand”.

Last week I got a promo for a conference where a bio for one of the speakers told me she had “a real passion for creating assets within integrated campaigns”.

I don’t have a clue what an asset within an integrated campaign is, but I have a sneaking suspicion this person doesn't really have a passion for creating them.

Passion is what we have for music, art, our favourite football team and our wife. We might like and enjoy our jobs, but who of us really has a passion for “creating assets”?

So let's say what we really mean. Let's not pretend we're passionate about the mundane. Let's not try to sound like we're a big firm when we're not. And let's communicate in ways that our clients can actually understand.

I failed miserably at that in 2008, but I got a bit better over time.

It's not so hard when you stop trying to sound clever or professional or something you're not.

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Authority Marketing

The “trailblazer” path to authority

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 18th, 2018.

Today's email is about a path to being seen as an authority that's a perfect fit for those who are just that little bit worried about whether they have all the experience, qualifications or other magical characteristics needed to be seen as an authority by their clients.

I've seen other people talk about variations of this method, but I first came across it by observing comedian Dave Gorman.

If you don't know him already, Gorman is one of our most successful comedians here in the UK with a host of TV shows and best-selling books to his name.

Unlike other comedians, he doesn't stand centre stage with just him and a mic. He basically does powerpoint presentations.

But it's the unusual way he comes up with ideas for his act that's important and relevant here.

Where other comedians sit in a darkened room and scour their experience or imagination for ideas, Gorman does the opposite.

Instead of trying to think of interesting stuff, he goes out and does interesting stuff.

Some of the things he's done have involved travelling around the world to meet other people with his name. Living every day by following a very literal interpretation of his horoscope. Challenging the public to take him on at any game of their choice – from poker to darts to Khett to Cluedo to Kubb.

At every stage, he documents his adventures and then turns them into shows and books.

Instead of having to recast and reframe his existing experiences to give his “clients” what they want, he goes out and creates new experiences that do so.

And the bonus is that his new experiences somehow feel more real. Like his audience is getting a secret insider view into his world.

I'm guessing you're already jumping ahead to how that applies to authority too.

If you feel like you haven't quite got the experience that your clients are looking for to see you as an authority, then instead of navel-gazing, worrying about it or thinking about how to “spin” what you've got into what they're looking for – go out and do something that gives you that experience.

That doesn't mean you have to spend 5 years working in the trenches aiming to emerge as a fully-formed exemplar of the experience your clients look for.

It means you can do what Dave Gorman did. Go out and try things, document your experiences and share them with your audience in real-time (or close to it).

In essence, be a trailblazer for them. Do what they want to do. Be a couple of steps ahead and show them what it looks like, warts-and-all.

This strategy works particularly well in a changing field where new ideas and approaches are emerging all the time. It means there's always the opportunity to have things to share that are new and valuable (even if it's your insights into things you've tried that haven't worked).

You'll see me use this strategy quite a bit.

Pretty much all of my emails are about marketing strategies I've tried myself. And often they'll be things I've tried quite recently. Marketing kind of lends itself to that – the principles are timeless but the tactics change quite often.

But almost every field is open to this type of approach.

If you're a leadership coach, for example, and your clients want to know that you've been through what they're going through: why not take on a role in a non-profit and document your experiences as the “new leader on the block”?

Here's the thing…

Not only does this approach show you've got the experience your clients are looking for…

It shows that your experience is recent and relevant. You're dealing with the same issues they're dealing with right now, not relying on things you went through a decade or so ago.

And it builds empathy: you're just like them, but a few steps ahead.

And a nice side effect is that it creates an almost endless source of new and interesting content for you to share. And sharing that content allows you to showcase your expertise without it coming across as showing-off or just being a dull run-through of your credentials.

Instead, it's an interesting window into someone at the “coal face” of an area your clients are vitally interested in. The feeling that you're experienced and know what you're doing sneaks into their brain without it having to be an overt message.

And so it's much more believable.

After all, who would you consider an expert: the guy or gal who you've witnessed doing something, or the one who tells you all about how they did it years ago?

So even if you have a ton of experience already, the trailblazer method can be a great way of making sure you're much less of a best kept secret and much more front of mind with potential clients.

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Authority Marketing

Are you the authority your clients want?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 17th, 2018.

Are you the authority your clients want?

Or more exactly, are you the type of authority your clients want?

What I mean by that is that we all tend to respect a certain type of person and see them as “real” experts.

Some of us look at published authors and see them as the “real” experts.

Some of us see qualifications or academic credentials as denoting “real” expertise.

Others look to those with practical experience or who've got a track record of successfully helping others.

And very often the type of person we tend to see as an authority isn't necessarily the type of person our clients would see as an authority.

As consultants and coaches, for example, we tend to spend a lot of our time on self-improvement. We know all the top authors and academics in our field because they're who we learn from to stay at the top of our game. So naturally, those are the sort of people we see as authorities.

But typically our clients are a different breed. They spend more of their time “doing”, not learning. And so the type of people they see as authorities tend to be those with experience. People who've achieved the things they want to do themselves or who have helped others do it.

This rift between the type of people we might see as authorities and the type our clients might see as authorities creates all sorts of problems.

It causes us to worry unduly about whether we've got the right qualifications or whether we need to spend ages writing a book when in truth our clients really don't value those things.

Or perhaps we worry about not having been an ultra-successful businessperson ourself when in fact our clients care more about our track record helping others achieve success.

So the first step to becoming seen as an authority is to truly understand what type of people your ideal clients see as authorities.

That doesn't mean you should try to be something you're not. If your strength is your experience and track record, don't try to write a book just because that's what your clients value.

Instead, it means that you should bring to the fore and highlight those areas where you match what your clients look for in an authority. If they value experience and you have experience and qualifications, highlight the experience first.

And you should target those clients who appreciate your authority strengths. If you have comprehensive knowledge based on an extensive research project you did, don't target “practical” people who value experience and write off “academic” knowledge.

Above all remember that whatever your source of authority, there will be someone who values it. It's a matter of finding them and getting your positioning right so they instantly see your authority.

Next tip: the “Trailblazer ” path to Authority.

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More Clients Memorandum

Don’t stoop to their level

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 14th, 2018.

I sometimes despair at the outrageous claims I see others in my field making.

Like how consulting is an easy path to freedom and high income, and you don't even need any experience or qualifications.

Or that coaching is such a fast-growing business all you need are some Facebook ads, a sales webinar and a group program and you're set to make a million.

I bet you have people making outrageous claims in your sector too.

It's really frustrating when you see it and you know it's just not true. And there's a huge fear that you need to make similarly outrageous claims or no one will be interested in what you have to offer.

Don't stoop to their level.

Think about the sort of client those types of claim will attract.

Sure, even the best of us get suckered in from time to time by hopes of quick and easy success.

But most of us learn what's real and what's not after a few bad experiences.

So the vast majority of people who respond to outrageous claims are people who are brand new to the field and don't realise how unrealistic the hype is. Or they're people who are desperate and need something miraculous to pay off for them. It's their last roll of the dice. Or they're serial buyers of “stuff” and not do-ers.

These really aren't the people you want as clients.

Be confident that your ideal clients will usually see through hype. Keep your marketing honest and realistic and sensible clients who've been around the block a few times will respond well.

And those clients are way better to work with than the inexperienced and the desperate.

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Authority Marketing

Lots of ways not to win a client

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 11th, 2018.

On Tuesday I told you about how I flew to Geneva to attend a conference just to “accidentally” bump into a potential client so I could ask for a meeting.

And inevitably, although I got the meeting, it didn't result in winning a client.

I did a whole bunch of other stuff that didn't result in winning clients either.

I tried cold calling: no clients.

Networking: no clients.

I got interviewed on the BBC World Service, got quoted in newspapers like the Independent and the Telegraph. Even got quoted in International Business Week.

No clients.

Now I'm not saying those methods don't work. They absolutely do for some people.

I know people who love getting on the phone and calling people – even people they don't know. They're good at it and they get results from it.

Others are great at networking and really enjoy it.

Pretty much every method of marketing works sometimes.

The problem for most of us is we don't have enough time to wait for “sometimes”. We need something with more certainty.

That's where authority comes in.

Authority amplifies any form of marketing.

No matter what method you use to contact someone, you're far more likely to get a positive response from them if they've already heard your ideas and buy in to what you have to say.

If they know they'll get value from talking to you they're much more likely to agree to a call or meeting than if you're someone they’ve just bumped into or who's called them out of the blue.

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Authority Marketing

A long, long way to win a client

Posted by

Ian Brodie on January 9th, 2018.

There's a story I like to tell about the time I flew to Geneva to attend a conference that my #1 target client was speaking at, just so I could “accidentally” bump into him and try to arrange a meeting.

One the one hand it's a success story. I did indeed bump into that potential client and we did agree to have a meeting a few weeks later.

It's the kind of story macho salespeople like to tell about how far they're prepared to go to do what's needed to win clients.

But it's also a story of failure.

Although I ended up meeting the client, at our meeting the client told me that they intended to do a big project with someone else.

It was a project my firm at the time could easily have done. And we had a track record of successful work with them. But they had already decided to go with a competitor.

Had the competitor “out worked” me and gone to even further lengths to get their meeting?

Not a bit of it. They'd done the opposite.

Instead of spending their time chasing after clients desperately trying to get meetings to persuade them they could help them, they invested their time in building their intellectual property and positioning themselves as deep experts in what they did.

My client called them to ask for a meeting, not vice versa.

That makes a massive difference.

It was a much easier path for them to convince the client they were the right people to work with. In fact, they didn't really need to do any convincing. It was more a matter of confirming that they'd be a good fit for working together and agreeing on the plan.

Meanwhile, I was still desperately trying various backdoor routes to getting a meeting.

It was a big lesson for me.

Back then, the way to establish yourself as an expert was to write a book or get out on the conference circuit and do presentations.

These days it's much, much easier. There are a lot more ways of reaching the right clients for you – if you have something interesting and valuable to say.

The same principles apply, but more so. Getting your clients to come to you is 10x more effective than jumping on a plane to Geneva hoping to bump into them and persuade them to meet you.

And the best way to do it is to become seen as an Authority in your field.

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Get Clients Online

Why I ignore my own sales tips

Posted by

Ian Brodie on December 31st, 2017.

Over the years you've probably had a bunch of sales tips from me.

I'm sure I've told you that you need to sell the client on the problem before you sell them on the solution.

That you need to explore the impact of their issue so they see that it really is worthwhile hiring you.

That you need to pre-empt possible objections before they arise…and lots of other good stuff.

But truthfully, I hardly do any of that myself.

Not that there's anything wrong with the tips. Far from it: they're rock solid.

It's just that, well, I don't enjoy selling.

I can do it. Pretty well in fact.

But I don't like doing it. And over the years I've got to like it less and less.

I don't want to have to convince people they need to do something and that I'm the guy they should do it with. That's just not my idea of a fun conversation.

So over time, I've focused more and more on making sure my marketing nurtures relationships with the right people and gets the right messages across so that they've 90% decided they want to work with me before we ever speak.

That way our discussions become much more about me asking questions to make sure I can help them and that working with them is going to be something I'd enjoy too. I don't need to use all the sales tips you would normally use if you need to convince someone to work with you.

Is there some kind of magic I do that gets me talking to these sort of wonderful people who are 90% ready to buy?

Not really.

I start by talking to people who are 10% ready to buy in emails like this one.

Then I keep on sending my best ideas, thoughts and tips.

The people who value them eventually get ready to buy. The people who don't, drift away.

All it requires is consistency, giving your best and a little bit of insight into what sort of valuable information gets people ready to buy.

For me, its a lot better method than trying to “sell” people.

Maybe it will work for you too.

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