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One is the magic number

Posted byIan Brodie on November 9th, 2017.

The part of marketing that probably the most people struggle with is “first contact”. That magical moment where you make your very first connection with an ideal client, or ideally, they make a connection with you.

That could be them visiting your website. It could be you sending them a Linkedin connection request. It could be them hearing you on someone else's podcast. A whole myriad of things.

Which one will work best for you?

That's the wrong question really. 

You don't need the best method. You just need something that will work and that you can do.

And if you have a great lead magnet, the method you use to get it in front of people becomes less important.

You can use a lead magnet to get more referrals. You can use a lead magnet to attract web visitors via paid advertising. People will share a great lead magnet they get value from. You can offer a great lead magnet at the end of a live talk.

Great lead magnets make lead generation much, much easier.

How many lead magnets and methods of generating leads do you need?

For an established business it's best to have a few. But when you're getting going, one is the magic number.

I can't tell you the number of people I've seen going round in circles trying to build all sorts of fancy funnels with multiple lead magnets for different market segments. Add in flip-flopping between different ways of getting website visitors and trying a few offline methods too and you have a recipe for confusion and heartache.

Start with one method. Get it working well enough that you don't have to focus on it all the time. Then add another.

And don't get distracted by “experts” telling you that you need the next big tool or technique they're selling. If you can't get clients using the same core marketing methods that have worked for years then a fancy new method isn't going to save you: your problem is that your offer simply isn't attractive enough.

How many different ways of generating leads are you using right now?

How many would you say you've truly mastered?

If the answer to the latter question is zero, you need to cut down on the quantity and focus on quality.

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This simplifies everything

Posted byIan Brodie on November 7th, 2017.

This is my third email on the vital topic of keeping your marketing and your business simple, manageable and effective.

If you've read anything about marketing over the last decade or so, you'll no doubt have heard about “lead magnets”.  Reports, videos, audios, software or other tools that you offer for free to attract potential clients.

You might have a lead magnet already. Or you might not have quite got round to making one.

The trouble is, most lead magnets aren't all that effective.

There's been a tendency in recent years to focus on “easy to consume” lead magnets. Checklists, summaries or very brief reports.

And while it's useful for your audience to be able to consume your content easily, that's far from the most important criteria.

If you want to build credibility and trust, your lead magnet has to be hugely valuable to your ideal clients.

A few years ago Pardot did a study that revealed that 63% of people had been disappointed by content they'd received. And of those, 97% said it damaged their trust with the brand, 23% said they'd never read content from that brand again and 46% said they were only slightly likely to do so.

A lead magnet isn't just there to get an email address to allow you to start follow-up marketing. It's got to create huge value for your potential clients in a way that's not readily available anywhere else.

If your lead magnet is just a list of 5 tips they could get from anyone else then it simply isn't good enough.

A powerful lead magnet can work wonders for your business. Not only does it attract email subscribers, but you can use it as follow-up from presentations. You can offer it via direct mail. You can use it with a referral strategy to multiply the number of people who enthusiastically refer you.

Most important of all, if your lead magnet is genuinely valuable, it gives you confidence in your marketing. Rather than feeling like you're being pushy or self-centred when you market, you'll know that your lead magnet focused marketing is inherently valuable for your clients.

That will give you the confidence to do more of it rather than shy away from it.

It makes all of the rest of your marketing so much simpler when you've already proven you can add value and you've already built credibility and trust.

But for that to happen you need to invest time in creating a great lead magnet. Just hacking together a few tips or republishing an old article won't cut it.

It has to be the kind of thing that blows the socks off your ideal clients.

Do that, and you're halfway to having a paying client.

More Clients Memorandum

Do this to get better results

Posted byIan Brodie on October 29th, 2017.

Back when was heavily into magic, I learned something that made a big difference to my knowledge and skill as a performer.

It was something simple but profound I read from sleight-of-hand artist Michael Vincent.

He said, “Make it a policy that before you buy a new magic book, you master the one you're currently reading”.

These were in the days when we learnt things from books, of course :)

But the point was well made.

Magic hobbyists have a habit of buying book after book, video after video, trick after trick hoping that the latest shiny object will turn them into a miracle worker in the eyes of their audiences.

But in magic, real miracles come from mastering a few tricks and being able to perform them flawlessly.

Same goes for business, of course.

We all jump on board the latest marketing technique hoping it'll be the one that brings us a flood of clients without needing to lift much of a finger.

But in truth, clients come from mastering just a handful or core marketing principles. Principles that by and large we already know.

We just haven't put enough time into mastering the techniques we've already learnt.

So to paraphrase Michael Vincent, make it a policy that before you try to learn a new marketing technique or buy a new course, master the one you're already working on.

More Clients Memorandum

Do you stand for anything?

Posted byIan Brodie on October 15th, 2017.

As I've got older, I've found that when I buy something big, I look for something more than just the “what's in it for me” factor. 

That's especially true when I buy education or training about something I'm going to be doing myself. 

It has to “feel” right. 

Sometimes I might buy something purely to learn a technique or skill, but much more often than not I'll buy from someone I feel a connection with.

That connection might be that I like their personality or approach to life. Or I admire their ethics. Or they champion a cause I believe in too (like small business vs big business).

Often I find myself drawn to people who do things in a similar way to me. Who aren't natural salespeople and don't try to “optimise everything to the hilt” to drag every last penny out of their customer. I like to buy from people who seem to genuinely care about their clients succeeding and who'll forgo that bit of extra profit to make sure they do.

And, of course, that whole thing works in reverse too. Our clients are making the same assessments and judgements about us.

They're looking for people they can make a connection with. Who stand for something other than just making a profit.

Do you fit the bill?

I'm not suggesting you pretend to champion a cause just to get more sales. Or that you put on some kind of false personality in your marketing so that more people like you (they'll see through it, to be honest). 

What I'm suggesting is that we all have causes we support. We all have a particular style of doing things. We all have a personality.

Don't hide it.

Of course, you have to “have the goods”. You need to be able to deliver great results for your clients. But there are plenty of people who can do that.

Your personality, the way you do things, your beliefs. They can be the edge you need to win.

More Clients Memorandum

Has your business ever made you feel like this?

Posted byIan Brodie on October 11th, 2017.

I got an email recently from a long-time subscriber, a friend really, who shared some of the challenges she was facing with her business.

It's not that she isn't smart, or great at what she does (she's brilliant, in fact).

It's just that over time her business seems to have got more and more complex. She's added little bits here and there, tried some new ways of marketing, tried some more…and eventually all those little extras have added up to “a real pigs ear”.

The end result: she's “fed up with being constantly shattered and not really getting anywhere…”.

Here's the thing that you must understand about this: we all go through it.

It happens to me.

It happens to all those experts who tell you business is easy if you just buy their magic system…

No one is immune. 

It's just that some people are brave enough to admit it.

And it doesn't just happen when you're starting up or struggling. Even if your business looks like it's flying to the outside world; inside you can be running around like crazy wishing you could just escape somehow and enjoy life more.

I don't have all the answers, I get this too.

But what always helps me is simplification.

Whenever I find myself running around and constantly worn out I try to think about what I would do if I was starting again from scratch.

What's the simplest business model I could use?

Frankly, it's not my goal to build an empire and take over the world. Making a decent living, helping people and having fun is what I aim for.

So I don't need some hugely sophisticated business. I suspect you don't either.

For me, a simple model that works is to have something free to give away to get email subscribers, then to send some of my best tips and ideas by email on a regular basis and to offer a product that will help people implement my ideas and get great results from it.

I don't get any massive windfalls through that model. No sexy product launches or big paydays. I doubt it'll ever make me a gazillionaire.

Just a steady stream of satisfied clients and happy subscribers who appreciate what I do.

When I add extras and bells and whistles to that model, I get better results. 

But I also add complexity and work. Over time I get seriously diminishing returns. 

And my time and sanity mean a lot more to me than the extra money. 

So every now and then I do the exercise of thinking “what would I do if I had to start from scratch?” 

Every time I come up with a slightly different answer (after all, I've learnt new things and grown since I last did the exercise). But every time the answer is much simpler than the muddle I've ended up with.

I think that's healthy. I don't think we should be afraid to admit when we're getting overwhelmed. Most of us aren't gurus peddling an image of an easy life on a beach working just a few hours a day.

In the real world, we all get stressed and overwhelmed.

And going back to basics helps us all.

More Clients Memorandum

Why your marketing shouldn’t take so long

Posted byIan Brodie on September 24th, 2017.

One of the things that often annoys me when I'm reading marketing tips from other “experts” is the repeated insistence that as a business owner you should focus most of your time on marketing. 

Of course, marketing is vital. Without new customers, your business soon struggles.

But taking all your time? That's just not viable for solo professionals and small firms. Your number one priority is actually working with clients.

These experts seem so self-unaware that they don't realise their obsessive focus on marketing is a personal preference. They love marketing, so they want to maximise their time doing it.

For the rest of us who want to spend as much time as we can on client work, marketing is a vital necessity. Something we need to be good at.

But it's something we need to be efficient with. Something we need to get great results with, but in an 80:20 way. 

We need to focus on a small number of strategies that get great results for us, but that don't take up every waking hour.

I've stopped listening to gurus who just aren't like me. Their advice is well-meaning, but it doesn't work for me.

More Clients Memorandum

Do this and get better results across the board

Posted byIan Brodie on September 17th, 2017.

Confession time: I am ridiculously easily distracted.

Because I run my business by email and I have a few Facebook groups for paying clients, I find it rather too easy to flick over to check them out whenever my mind wanders.

That and checking the Newcastle United news and other trivia.

(I've just been tempted to check out the Newcastle news right now as I type this – but I came to my senses and resisted).

Important work requires concentration.

Writing. Thinking. Creating.

These are the things that earn experts their reputation and their clients.

And you can't do them at all well if you constantly flip over to check email (or Facebook or Linkedin or Twitter or whatever) whenever you're struggling for inspiration or have a moment's boredom.

That interruption will take you 15 minutes+ to recover from and get back in flow.

I don't think there's an easy answer or trick to improve your concentration other than to work at it.

Just like I did a few seconds ago: recognise when you're distracting yourself and you're tempted to get a “fix” from social media, google or email. Pause for a second. Get back to work.

And give yourself a little pat on the back for resisting the distraction.

The more you're able to do that, the stronger your concentration will get.

And the stronger your concentration is, the better your results will be across the board in everything you do.

PS For me, the best book for ideas on overcoming distraction and really focusing on doing quality work is “Deep Work” by Cal Newport. If you haven't read it I recommend you do.

More Clients Memorandum

This is the hardest – but vital – thing to do

Posted byIan Brodie on September 10th, 2017.

Consistency!

Argh!

So important, yet so difficult.

Maybe you've found that yourself .

I think we all know that doing marketing consistently is vital to avoid feast-or-famine cycles. Yet it's much easier said than done.

One of the keys, I've found, is to turn some of the simple but important marketing tasks you have into a habit.

By that, I mean that you only have limited brainpower and energy to put into your marketing. 

If you have to expend that energy rethinking the basics every time, you'll have none left for the big things that really do need your best thinking.

An example would be regular emails like the one you're reading now. Every week on a Saturday evening I sit down and write an email just like this one ready to add to my autoresponder sequence that sends out emails every Sunday morning. I've done it so often I get twitchy now if I haven't done it by late evening.

I don't have to think about when I'm going to send the email. I don't have to think about who to send it to or what sequence to add it to. 

I do have to think about the topic, of course. But by making everything else a habit, I've preserved my limited brainpower for the thing that's important. 

You can do the same with many other areas of your marketing. 

Instead of writing articles for your website or doing podcasts or videos when the muse takes you, do it on a schedule. If you meet someone at an event who could be a good prospect for you, you make sure you have a pre-defined set of steps you can go through to follow-up rather than having to think them through from scratch each time. 

The more of the basics you turn into habits or pre-defined procedures, the more consistent you get. And the more you can focus your energy on the genuinely new things you need to do.

That brings you better results in two ways.

Firstly, you don't “drop the ball” with the basic tasks. You market even when you're busy. You avoid feast-or-famine.

And secondly, you get better results from the tasks you put your extra energy into.

But what it takes is that initial focus and discipline to turn the basic tasks into habits

More Clients Memorandum

Don’t make my mistake

Posted byIan Brodie on August 27th, 2017.

I've just spent an hour messing about in my email system trying to figure out where on earth a bunch of visitors to my website are coming from.

I'm getting a regular stream of signups to a little automated webinar I set up a while back that runs once a week. The webinar is a good one, and I make sure I'm available when it's running to answer questions live.

The problem is, I thought I'd shut it down.

It promotes a program I no longer offer. So (I thought) I removed all the emails that promote it from my system.

Yet I'm still getting a signup a day on average. 

Somewhere there's still a signup link in my system. Yet for the life of me, I can't find it.

The root of the problem is that I over-complicated my system.

It's easily done. You think you're being clever. You add something in for every eventuality. You add an advanced version. You add in an extra bit in case people don't go for the first one. 

And before you know it you've got something so complex you can't even find the emails people are clicking to register for your defunct webinar. 

80:20 really does apply to your marketing. All the extras I added took a ton of my time but they really only added marginal revenue. 

They made me feel clever (at least until I couldn't find the offending email earlier today). But they didn't add much to my bottom line. 

You don't need the fancy stuff. Stick to the core.

More Clients Memorandum

To get a steady flow of clients you only need 4 things

Posted byIan Brodie on August 25th, 2017.

Have you ever felt a bit overwhelmed at how much it seems you have to learn, and how much it seems you have to do if you want to get a steady flow of clients?

It's no surprise.  

The world is full of people desperate to sell us their latest new trick, hack or tool that will apparently get us more clients at the drop of a hat. And they need us to think that everything we've done in the past is out of date and we need to get their shiny new thing instead.

And it's true that tools and techniques do need to evolve over time.

But in order to know what will work for you, you need to have a really solid foundation in place. And that's something most people don't have.

So they jump from shiny new object to shiny new object because they don't have a way of knowing what's actually important to their business and what's going to make a real difference.

In my business, I've found there 4 key activities you need to focus on to succeed in getting that steady flow of leads and clients going. And I've found the same activities work for my clients too.

The first activity is something you do yearly or quarterly. It's to get Focus.

Focus is about zeroing in on your ideal clients, building deep understanding of their problems, challenges, goals and aspirations, and creating a compelling USP that helps you stand out in the market.

Getting focused simplifies everything in your business. It means you have a message that hits the spot for your ideal clients and you just “know” instinctively what and how to communicate.

Lead Generation is the first practical step to building a flow of new clients. It's where you make that vital first contact and give “value in advance” to start building your authority with potential clients.

This is where the “shiny new objects” tend to distract us, because this is often the hardest part of marketing for most people. So this is where we have to be the most careful.

It's not like the people telling us about their fantastic new approach are deliberately misleading us (well, not in most cases). It's more that what works for them simply won't work for you because they're in a different market to you with different clients and different skills and resources.

That's why figuring out your focus is so vital: it steers you to the right lead generation approaches that will work for you. I advise sticking to one main approach you can master, and then having one approach you're testing out but not reliant on.

Next is Ongoing Nurture. Since the vast majority of potential clients won't be ready to hire you when you first contact them, you'll need to keep in regular contact to build credibility and trust.

If you work with a small number of clients at any time, this can often be done personally (though I'd advise being systematic about it). For larger numbers of prospects you'll need to automate more and this is where email marketing comes in.

Finally, you need to Win Clients. That means turning those nurtured relationships into paying clients. And to do that you need a method for getting into sales conversations with clients and for handling those conversations.

Four areas: Focus, Lead Generation, Ongoing Nurture, Win Clients. It's no coincidence they spell FLOW.

As long as you have one solid approach in each area, you're good to go. No need for shiny new objects or continually flip-flopping trying to find the next big thing. It'll simply work.

And the truth is that when you have all four areas working together, you don't need to be exceptional at everything. Doing one area really well is enough.

So if you've focused on the perfect ideal client and have a really strong USP, the rest of your marketing can be pretty average and you'll do OK.

Have a fuzzier market definition and “OK but not great” lead generation? If your Ongoing Nurture is brilliant you'll still be fine.

You don't need to be brilliant at marketing to get a steady flow of clients. Just make sure you have a strong FLOW based system with each of the components working well.