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Seriously?

Posted byIan Brodie on July 28th, 2013.

Kathy has this phrase she uses when I've done something wrong. Just one word.

“Seriously?”

I can tell from the intonation just how much trouble I'm in.

And sometimes other people or businesses get the phrase too.

We were in Wilmslow a while back and needed to grab a bite to eat. As our usual place was full we took a look at a new cafe that had just opened up.

It's based in an ex-bank – so looks a little bit forbidding. And the windows are so high up you can't see in without jumping up. A bit of a challenge for a cafe where seeing a full house of happy diners is one of the main ways you can tell if it's any good.

So you'd expect a sensible business to compensate by creating as much visibility as possible elsewhere.

Not a bit of it. Instead of a glass door where you could see in, it was heavily frosted with a fancy logo on it. So no way of taking a peek to see if it was the sort of place you'd like to try out.

Seriously?

And where cafes normally have menus either side of the door so you can see if they do the kind of food you want and if the prices are in the range you're looking for – instead we got more logo and a “now open” sign.

Seriously?

Kathy tried the door, but it seemed like it was jammed shut despite there being people inside. In the end it just became too embarrassing to almost have to force the door to get in so we left.

Seriously?

None of this is rocket science. If you set up a new restaurant you must make it appealing for people to come and try you out. Let them see inside and let them see all the satisfied customers.

Let them see what you have to offer rather than making them ask.

And for heavens sake, make it easy for them to get in the door.

Obvious for a restaurant. What about your business?

How easy is it for your potential clients to try you out? How easy to “see” all your satisfied customers?

How easy to see the menu? To know what they'll get from you without having to embarrass themselves by asking questions?

How easy to find you online and offline and actually get in the door?

It's easy to spot the problems with other people's businesses. But how many are looking at yours and thinking “seriously?”.

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Hey!

Posted byIan Brodie on July 21st, 2013.

There's a reason for me saying “Hey” in title which may surprise you…)

In the last presidential race, almost all of Obama's $690m funding came from fundraising emails.

And it turns out that his campaign team were obsessively testing different types of email behind the scenes.

They'd send out test emails to a sample of supporters with different variations of subject lines, amounts asked for – even fonts and buttons. Whichever raised the most money was then used as the main email to send to everyone else.

And they found out some pretty interesting stuff that we can all definitely learn from.

Firstly, a causal tone worked best. After the election was over, Toby Falsgraff, Obama's email director revealed that “The subject lines that worked best were things you might see in your in-box from other people”.

Nothing clever. No screaming headlines. Just emails that looked and felt like they came from your friends and colleagues.

In fact their best-performing headline way simply “Hey”.

Dropping in the odd mild profanity worked too. Again showing that we respond best to emails written to sound like human beings talking to us – not formal corporate speak.

And they also found that people were very happy to receive plenty of emails. “At the end, we had 18 or 20 writers going at this stuff for as many hours a day as they could stay awake. The data didn't show any negative consequences to sending more.”

So here's the thing. If frequent, casual emails work best for the president's supporters to raise the most funding – might something similar work for you?

When I work with clients on email marketing their initial fear is often that they need to send “professional” emails (and professional usually means boring and stiff).

But every time we test it we find that more casual emails – written to a “good business friend” get a much better response.

Try it.

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The 20% rule

Posted byIan Brodie on July 21st, 2013.

For years I've been teaching that if you want to run a thriving business you need to be spending 20% of your time on marketing.

One day a week. Two half days. 90 minutes a day.

However you cut it, you need to devote that 20% of your time to make an impact.

Sure, you can let it slide for a while. Live off past investments.

But in the end it'll catch up. You'll go from feast to famine.

One of the best decisions I ever made early on when I was setting up my business was to invest more than 20% of my time on marketing. More like 40% really.

And yet a lot of people I speak to struggle to hit 20%.

It seems like a vicious circle. You need to be billing all the time, so you can't spare any time for marketing. And because you're not marketing much, you have to accept whatever clients come along. Usually not the highest paying ones. So you have to bill all the time to make ends meet.

And so the circle continues.

If you're going to break the circle you need to make a sacrifice. (Sorry, the alternative of just getting lucky isn't something I'd recommend waiting around for).

That might be taking home a lower income for a while (or burning up some savings) while you build your pipeline and your marketing assets.

Personally I sacrificed time. When I wrote my first lead magnet, Client Breakthrough, I did it over a couple of weekends. And I'd regularly stay up beyond midnight after a long day working with clients to do a blog post or to study a training course on a marketing technique I wanted to master.

I still work pretty hard today. But the investment's given me a lot more freedom and a business that's not reliant on my personal time to make money for me.

Are you investing 20% of your time on marketing?

If not, and you see yourself in that vicious circle, how are you going to break out?

Don't just think about it or worry about it. Make a plan for how you're going to deal with it. Then do something about it.

Joining Momentum Club so you get a shortcut to the most effective marketing strategies for professionals might be a good start.

Dedicating extra time every evening to blogging, or creating a lead magnet, or working on your social media presence could help.

Getting out and meeting potential clients at events they attend will help.

But you gotta do something.

More Clients Memorandum

Yikes

Posted byIan Brodie on July 14th, 2013.

I was over in Geneva a whle back doing a marketing strategy workshop for a client.

As sometimes happens with workshops, we overran by 30 minutes or so. Combine that with a snarl-up on the roads on the way to the airport and I only just made my flight. Yikes!

In fact I had to run to the gate, and I was too late to check in my bags so I had to jettison all my toiletries on the way as, of course, you can't take liquids in your hand luggage.

As I collapsed in a heap in my seat before take-off, I wondered just how we'd managed to get so far behind.

The workshop was well planned and we'd been pretty much on track for most of the day.

But I just hadn't paid attention to the time when it got to the critical last hour or so. The team had come up with some great ideas and we allowed ourselves to get sucked into a few interesting but lower priority side discussions.

If I'm honest, I sometimes let the same thing happen with my marketing too. I wonder if you're the same?

It's easy to start out with a solid plan, but to get sidetracked by things that are interesting, or we enjoy or feel comfortable doing; but just arent real priorities.

You fiddle about with making your website looking pretty instead of focusing on the content. You get comfortable delivering a presentation again and again, even though it doesn't bring you any leads.

And while missing your flight is a pain in the butt, missing your financial targets because you let your marketing get off track is a whole lot more serious. A big “yikes”.

In the same way that I should have kept an eye on the time, you need to keep track not only of sales but of “lead flow”. How many initial contacts are you getting with qualified potential clients? How many meetings? How many people are opting in to your newsletter?

Whatever the right metrics are for you, check them weekly. Keep yourself on track. Don't end up metaphorically running through the airport and having to ditch any liquids you're carrying.

More Clients Memorandum

“I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more”

Posted byIan Brodie on July 7th, 2013.

If you're a certain age like me, you'll remember Peter Finch screaming that line in the brillant “Network”.

If you haven't seen it and you consider yourself any sort of aficionado of good films, you MUST watch it. It won Finch an Oscar for best actor, the first to be posthumously awarded. And well worth it.

In the film, Finch's character, an evening news anchor, learns he has just a few weeks left on air because of declining ratings. In his last broadcasts he starts ranting about what he sees wrong in the world and the program's ratings see a sharp upward spike.

Things don't end well for Finch in the film, but there's definitely something we can learn from the way that Finch resurrected his audience's interest by opening up his heart and talking honestly about what made him mad.

Now I wouldn't recommend ranting and moaning all the time. No one likes to be around someone who complains incessantly.

But every now and then it can be incredibly powerful to “tell it like it is”.

Especially when your rant about something also helps your clients.

If you're slaying sacred cows for example. Or fighting against sharp practices. Or warning them away from bad advice.

Or standing up for them when they're under fire (I swear I'm going to punch the next person who complains about consultants “borrowing your watch to tell you the time” when my memories of my consulting colleagues are all of them being completely dedicated to helping their clients succeed. And of staying in the office to ensure that success long, long after the clients themselves had gone home).

So shoot down some sacred cows in your industry. Tell your audience (email subscribers, blog readers, seminar audience, whoever) just how you feel about important topics.

It'll cement a strong bond with those who share your views.

It'll provoke a reaction amongst those who don't agree – and get you talking to them.

It'll position you as a leader in your field – someone prepared to take a stand for something they believe in.

And ultimately, that will draw more potential clients towards you.