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The "Potting On" Strategy For Winning Clients

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 29th, 2012.

Winning Clients With The Potting On Strategy I spent a few hours in our main greenhouse today “potting on” some tomato, cucumber, and pepper seedlings.

For non-gardeners, potting on is a critical activity where you transplant a young seedling from a seed tray or small pot to a larger pot. It gives the roots of the plant more room to grow and more compost to grow in.

If you don't pot your seedlings on they can become weak and “leggy” with not enough space to expand and not able to pull enough nutrients from the compost.

Business relationships often need “potting on” too. Whether you're trying to nurture face to face relationships with people you meet at events or online relationships with newsletter subscribers.

Everyone talks about “keeping in touch”, but it takes rather more than that if your goal is winning clients.

It takes more than just a quick chat at networking events. Or occasional emails to tell people what you're doing.

Winning Clients is about Nurturing Relationships

Just as plants need more nutrients and more space to grow and bear fruit, you've got to build more depth into your relationships if you want them to bear fruit too.

Before potential clients are going to be ready to hire you they have to have deep confidence in your capabilities and trust that your relationship with them will work out. That won't just come from casual conversations at events. But it might come if you invite them to see you present. Or you send them an article you've written. Or they talk to some of your previous clients.

The key to winning clients is to take a planned approach to your nurturing. Just as an expert gardener knows what a plant needs to flourish, so an expert business developer knows what a client needs before they'd be ready to hire them. And as they grow, that's exactly what they give them. In just the right amount, at just the right time.

When the relationship needs “potting on”, that's what they do.

So, how are your gardening skills? Do you know what your client relationships need to flourish and bear fruit? Do you have plans in place to give them that nourishment?

———-
Image by “Katemonkey”

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Marketing

Marketing Presentation Tips: Holding Your Audience's Attention Right To The End

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 25th, 2012.

Marketing Presentation Tips Ever had that awful feeling that you're losing your audience? They start looking distracted. Perhaps even fiddling with their blackberries. There seems to be nothing you can do do get their attention back.

And yet you know that if you're doing a marketing presentation, you need them to be concentrating at the end when you make your call to action. If no one's listening what hope do you have of getting them to follow up with you afterwards?

I'm going to share with you a little tip that will help you keep your audience alert and paying attention.

But first let's look at why it's so difficult to keep your audience awake…

Sadly, the attention span of most audiences is about 20 minutes. After 30 minutes of the typical presentation many are flagging badly. After 40, you've lost most of them.

And unfortunately, 40 minutes is the typical length of most keynotes.

The end result: most marketing presentations fail miserably to achieve their objectives.

Well, unless their objective was to get the audience to rush off at the end.

Keeping Your Audience Paying Attention To Your Marketing Presentation

What causes an audience to lose their attention?

Sometimes it's the skills of the presenter. A presenter who continually “ums” and “ahs”, speaks monotonously, and distracts you with annoying body language is always going to struggle.

But sometimes even very good presenters can lose your attention. In those cases the issue is often the structure of the presentation.

You see, we humans are made to keep on the lookout for the unexpected. A twig snapping or leaves rustling outside the cave that might indicate a predator is about to pounce.

If we hear that twig snap, we're on alert. We pay close attention to everything we see and hear. Adrenaline pumps through our veins keeping us wide awake.

But when we see that the twig was just our neighbour from the cave next door we relax. We know what the mystery was. We stop paying attention.

They use this all the times in horror films to scare us witless. They set up the scene. The potential victim hears a noise in the house. We're on edge waiting for something awful to happen. They keep us on edge, then…

It was only the cat. We relax.

Then boom, the axe murderer pounces and we all jump up in shock.

We can't help it. When we think we know what's coming, when the mystery has been removed: we relax and stop paying attention.

And this happens all the time in presentations.

The presenter starts by summarising what he's going to tell us. Then in the first few minutes he makes his main points. The rest is elaboration, evidence, variations on a theme.

Important stuff. But the moment we decide we know what's coming, we switch off.

If there's no mystery, there's no attention.

Have you ever started reading a detective novel or watching a “whodunnit” and someone gives away the ending?

How often do you read to the end of the book anyway or watch the full TV show?

If you're anything like me, pretty much never. The suspense, the mystery has gone. it's impossible to pay attention.

It's like that with presentations too. But with a twist.

Far too many presenters give away the ending too soon. Once they've “told 'em what they're gonna tell 'em” there ain't much mystery left.

If your audience think there's nothing new coming, their brains are hardwired to relax and stop paying attention (paying attention is hard work – you need to reserve it for important times when something new and dangerous might be coming).

So how do you turn this knowledge into an attention keeping marketing presentation?

Set up your main points at the start – but don't reveal them. Tell people you're going to reveal the 3 surprising secrets that the top ad agencies have kept to themselves for years (or whatever) – but don't tell them what those secrets are up front.

Use the “but first…” technique that I did at the start of the article to keep people anticipating the big reveal.

And once you've revealed your key points, if you have more to say you need to do something else to keep them paying attention.

That's the “twist” I mentioned above.

And I'm sure you've guessed by now, the twist is teeing up a new mystery to keep up the attention level. By saying “there's a twist”, for example.

Add these elements of structure to your marketing presentation and like a good mystery novel, you'll have your listeners hanging on until the very last word.

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Marketing

The Most Important Skill In Marketing

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 23rd, 2012.

The Most Important Skill In Marketing

What's the most important skill in marketing?

Your networking skills? Copywriting ability? Creativity? Ability to deliver a great presentation or to get referrals?

All important skills. But I believe there's something way more important.

It's the ability to put yourself in your client's shoes.

To think like them. Understand what they want and need. What they feel. What angers them, what fills them with joy.

You can be the greatest marketing strategist in the world. Have the best execution skills. But if you don't deeply understand what your clients are looking for then your marketing is going to miss the mark every time.

And I don't just mean the obvious.

What they need is often straightforward. And they'll often tell you what they want too (not necessarily the same thing as they need).

But understanding why they want it. The real motivating factor that they can maybe only half articulate themselves. That's the real key to marketing communications that resonate.

You can see the impact of such understanding and empathy in a non-marketing example here

Understanding what they fear is vital too. They may absolutely want what you've got, but they won't buy if they're worried you don't have experience working with people like them. Or that your business is too big, or too small. Or that you'll be too tough on them. Or too soft. Or a whole host of other concerns they may have.

If you don't know what those concerns are, you can't deal with them.

And you've got to know what else is on their mind and what else is going on in their world.

I was speaking to a client recently who described a conversation he had with a CFO where the executive showed him his email inbox. “I get 30 emails from consultants and coaches wanting meetings with me every day” he said. “If I don't know them already, I delete them”.

Try emailing clients like that. Or cold calling.

Offering an email newsletter on your website is fine if your clients don't have a 100 other people doing just the same. If they do, you need to be offering a lot more to get their attention.

Clients don't view your marketing in isolation. Your marketing appears in their inbox, doormat, ears or eyes along with thousands of other messages daily. If you don't understand what else they're being exposed to how can you hope to do something different and grab their attention?

All good marketing starts with a deep understanding of your client.

And that's why I say it's the most important skill in marketing.

Agree? Disagree? Love to hear your views – drop me a comment below.

———-
Photo Credit: Mike Licht

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Get Clients Online

Email Marketing for Coaches and Consultants

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 20th, 2012.

As I wrote in The Truth About Email recently, email marketing is still one of the most powerful tools any business can have in its arsenal.

But what about email marketing for coaches, consultants and other professionals?

Will it work for us?

After all, most of the email marketing you see focuses on promoting products. Yes, there's an element of giving value and relationship building. But by and large it's about offers.

And that style of email marketing won't work for professionals.

Our long term goal is to sell our high value services – not low value products. And before a client's going to be ready to hire us for those high value services, we need to have built up a high degree of credibility and trust.

That doesn't happen overnight. And it doesn't happen if most of your emails are promotions.

The best way for a professional to use email marketing is to use it to nurture a relationship with high potential clients. To give value and so build credibility.

The way I like to look at it is “what would an email from a trusted advisor look like?”

So imagine getting an email from one of your trusted business advisors. Maybe it's your accountant, or a consultant you worked with once before. Maybe it's an ex-colleague whose advice you value.

When they email you, what's in it? What does it look like?

Trusted Advisor Emails

Well, chances are it will often contain valuable insight a lot of the time, of course. And it won't be generic advice you could hear parroted anywhere like “work on the business, not in the business”. It'll be specific to your situation and your goals.

It'll be written personally too. Your trusted advisor won't write to you like they don't know you or you're some kind of anonymous prospect on a list. They'll write as a friend writing to a friend and using language that reflects that.

It won't be formal and stiff. It won't feel like they spent hours carefully constructing it to get the wording exactly right.

(Even though they might need to spend hours to get it to feel like that!)

And it won't feel like they're selling to you all the time.

If they suggest a course of action, they'll give you the reasons. But they won't turn it into a sales pitch.

And they won't be serious all the time either. The people I value advice from have become friends. Every now and then they send me something lighter too. A link to a joke or a video that amused them.

Now I'm not saying your email marketing should consist of a string of jokes. But I am saying “lighten up”. You want people looking forward to your emails, not thinking it'll be a burden to read them all the time.

The Secret of Effective Email Marketing for Coaches and Consultants

And that's really the secret: write like a trusted advisor.

Use the content a trusted advisor would use. Valuable, insightful business advice that builds credibility and trust.

Use the format a trusted advisor would use. A simple, plain email with no fancy graphics that looks like a human being sent it, rather than a pretty template that looks like a big company with a graphics department sent it.

And use the style a trusted advisor would use. Write like a business friend. Short sentences. Short paragraphs.

Contractions (e.g. “it's” not “is is”), slang and abbreviations where appropriate.

Exactly how you'd speak to a business friend if you were advising them over a coffee.

All the data says email marketing can be incredibly effective. But you need to do it right. You need to focus on building to win a long term client relationship, not a short term sale.

So, what's your experience of email marketing been? Has it worked for you? What are your secrets of success?

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Marketing

Marketing Quiz…

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 17th, 2012.

Bob Dylan Quick marketing quiz for you…

As a buyer, are you more or less likely these days than in the past to hang up the phone if you get cold called (irrespective of what's on offer)?

Are you more or less likely to tell an assistant in a shop that you're fine when they approach to ask if you need some help?

Are you more or less likely to research a purchase before ever speaking to potential service providers?

Are you more or less likely than in the past to search for a real expert (wherever they may be) in something you need help with rather than settling for someone nearby who's OK?

If you answered “more” to one or more of the above questions (my guess is you probably answered more to them all) then here's the real question:

If that's how your behaviour as a buyer has changed – how has your marketing changed to reflect the fact that your own buyers will have changed in the same way?

———-

Image: Dylan, of course, from the cover of The Times, They Are A-Changin'

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More Clients Memorandum

What are we REALLY frightened of?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 15th, 2012.

We're back looking into the deep, dark (and vitally important) recesses of why it is most of us struggle in the implementation phase of marketing rather than the ideas phase.

Here's one I'm sure you've heard before: “fear of rejection”.

In theory, what's holding us back from approaching potential clients is our fear of them saying no.

I'm not so sure.

I think that's too simplistic a view.

What on earth is “fear of rejection” really? We get rejected all the time. What are we really afraid of?

My experience is that we don't mind “secret” rejection. What we worry about is what other people think.

We're worried that by “selling” we might come across as desperate.

We're worried that people might think less of us if we have to ask for work.

We're worried we'll seem like some Ricky Roma, Willy Loman or “Del Boy” type.

We have a self-image of a highly successful professional we want everyone to buy into. Ourselves included.

Of course, we make all sorts of excuses and rationalisations. The time isn't right to call. A direct mail sales letter is “unprofessional”. Clients don't respond well to being asked for referrals.

But underneath it all, the reason we don't act is that we care more about what people might think of us than the consequences (as we see them) of inaction.

We're none of us immune to this. I sometimes find myself second-guessing my own marketing. Writing to project an image I want to portray instead of writing as the real me.

How do you fix this?

One way is to “turn the tables”. Imagine the thing it is you're hesitant to do is being done to you.

So imagine you were being asked for a referral by someone who'd done some great work for you. Would that seem unprofessional or pushy? Not usually. Not if they did it in the right way at the right time.

Or how about if you received a letter from a business laying out how you could benefit from their services. Desperate? Or just normal everyday commerce.

Nine times out of ten you'll see that you wouldn't be put off by being on the receiving end, so there's no reason why you should be worried about being the sender.

And that one time out of ten? That's the time to rethink what you were planning to do.

A second, powerful way is to use the Value in Advance strategy I've talked about before. If your lead generation always gives valuable information or help to your potential clients (via a free report, and audio or seminar for example) then there's no way you could be seen as being a pushy salesperson.

The third method is harder to do – but probably better for you in the long run.

It's to get over yourself.

Stop caring so much about what others think and focus on what needs to be done to build a future for you and the people you care about.

Because at the end of the day, it's your effectiveness at marketing that will do more to impact your success than anything else.

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More Clients Memorandum

What it REALLY takes to get more clients

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 8th, 2012.

Hope this week has treated you well :)

Today's email was going to be about some interesting things I've being doing with online lead generation. But a couple of conversations I had during the week caused me to rethink.

The truth is you've probably had enough marketing ideas and tips from me in my emails and blog (and all the other newsletters and blogs you read) to last a lifetime.

Yes, it's always nice to hear the latest clever tweak or a new twist on marketing.

But the real reason most people aren't getting the clients they need isn't because they're short of marketing ideas or suggestions.

It's because they're struggling to implement those ideas.

Sometimes the issue is not knowing, out of all the different things you could be doing, which are the critical few that will bring the biggest results. I'll be talking about this soon.

But for now, I want to talk about a problem I see many people suffering from. One I've always struggled with myself.

It's where you know what to do. You even know how to do it (at least well enough).

But for one reason or another you just never find the time to do it.

Client work gets in the way. Or those important emails. Or expenses. Or maintaining your presence on social media by answering questions in groups. Or keeping in contact with people on Twitter. Or any one of a host of things which in truth is nowhere near as important as the marketing thing you're avoiding.

For me, I've found that the root of this type of avoidance behaviour is because I find some elements of marketing just – well – harder than others.

Writing is fairly easy for me. And I've learned to enjoy playing with websites and online stuff. But picking up the phone and calling someone: not something I relish.

And the kind of deep thinking you need to do to create new products and services and figure out what exactly your clients need, while not exactly painful is certainly very hard work.

And so often it doesn't get done.

Not that I don't realise I have to do the tough stuff eventually. But I manage to convince myself that I don't have to do it now.

Keep telling yourself that every day and pretty soon that important task just hasn't got done.

You might find the same with some of the marketing tasks you know you should be doing but just never manage to do. The ones you feel the least comfortable doing.

What I found helped me break the cycle was to clarify for myself the impact of that task and link it to my overall goals.

So, for example, when I found I needed to make a bunch of calls to potential clients that I didn't feel so comfortable doing I calculated how many of those calls I would need to make on average per day to hit my revenue goal (assuming a certain percentage turned into clients).

I then wrote that number down in thick marker pen on a post-it note and stuck it above my computer.

Every time I thought about checking email or doing something easy instead of making those calls I just looked at the post-it note and got a stark reminder of what I needed to do to get something I really wanted.

In fact, the post-it technique worked so well I still use it today for all my critical-but-not-so-easy tasks.

Give it a go yourself. Just clarify for yourself the connection between what it is you need to do but keep putting off and a big important goal. Then stick that note prominently within sight where you work.

You'll be surprised at just how effective it is.

In next Sunday's email I'll be talking about what “fear of rejection” really is (at least in my experience), and how to overcome it.

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Get Clients Online

Business Blog Writing: How To Create Valuable Content

Posted by

Ian Brodie on April 6th, 2012.

business blog Probably the biggest question I get asked about blogging for business is how to come up with ideas for blog posts. Here's my method:

Creating Content for a Business Blog: Getting Ideas

It all starts with building deep understanding of your ideal clients.

Do research and surveys. Ask new subscribers questions. Spend a day in their life doing what they do. Draw up “pen pictures” of typical clients.

Get inside their head somehow.

Then brainstorm their goals and aspirations (in the areas where you can help). What they'd like to achieve. Who they look up to and admire, who they'd like to be like.

And then move on to where they are today: their problems and issues (again, in the areas where you can help). The day to day challenges they face.

Then take a piece of paper and in the top right hand corner write in a little summary of the goals and aspirations you identified. In the bottom left do the same for the problems and challenges they currently face.

Then draw an arrow joining the two.

That's the journey you're going to take your potential client on should they hire you.

Now look at that journey. Think about all the steps your client is going to have to make to successfully achieve their goals. And think about all the potential barriers they're going to have to overcome to get there.

Write those steps above the line on the map, and write the barriers below the line. Try to brainstorm as many as you can. It doesn't matter if all your clients will have to do all the steps, or will hit all the barriers – try to make the list as comprehensive as possible.

That things on those lists of steps and barriers are going to be what you write about on your business blog.

The first big barrier they face (or “speedump” as I like to call it, as the goal is that they get past it!) will form the core of the lead magnet you use to motivate readers to subscribe to your newsletter or other communications. But the other steps and barriers are perfect candidates for blog posts and newsletters.

So it could be that – to take leadership development as the field – a potential client for leadership coaching might have barriers like a lack of confidence, they might not know what their team needs from them, they might not have a clear picture of where they want to take their organisation. All these can make great topics for a business blog.

Next, I add to the mix what I believe the potential client will need to know and feel before they're ready to hire me. As well as providing ideas for blog posts, the “know and feel” factors can guide me to how I should write the post.

For example, If I decide that potential clients need to know and feel I've worked with people just like them before they'll be ready to hire me, then I'll try to cover many of the points using client case studies. And I'll make sure they get to see who they client was so they know whether someone in their situation was able to achieve great results by working with me.

I keep this “masterplan” for the blog near at hand when I'm writing or trying to come up with ideas. I don't use it every time. Much of the time I'm just inspired to write on a specific topic,

But having it nearby and reviewing it whenever I'm stuck for ideas is really helpful. It gives me the confidence to know that if I can write good content in these areas, then my business blog will work to help me bring in clients.

And don't forget: to learn how to turn those ideas for business blog posts into valuable content fast – tune in to my webinar with Danny Iny on Fast Easy Blog Writing.

Click here for details.

———-
Photo Credit: Andy Piper

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More Clients Memorandum

Dpes your marketing pass this unusual test?

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 25th, 2012.

‘ve been running a simple little “test” on my marketing that's surprisingly accurate at predicting what's going to work and what's not.

It's not infallible of course. Life (and marketing) just isn't that simple.

But it does give me a pretty reliable guide to what elements of my marketing are going to be effective and which I need to rework.

I think it might work for you too.

But before I tell you what it is, I'd like to explain a bit about why I think it works.

The Battle For Your Attention

I'm sure you've heard this before – but it's true. We get bombarded with more marketing than ever before these days. An order of magnitude more than even just a few years ago.

As a result, we've learned to ignore most marketing.

We either avoid it like when we fast-forward through the ads on Sky+ or Tivo. Or we ignore it like banner ads on websites or the flyers that drop out of magazines.

Out of all the email newsletters you subscribe to, for example, how many do you really read?

Probably not all that many, right?

As a result, the biggest challenge we face in marketing isn't connecting with our customers. There are more ways, more marketing channels, more options than ever before for getting our message to our clients.

Our biggest challenge is getting their attention. Getting them to actually take notice of our marketing and take action.

So What Gets People's Attention?

Why would you willingly give your attention to a piece of marketing?

Well, our attention often gets diverted for a short time by the shocking, or the shiny and new.

But for something to consistently capture our attention, it has to be valuable in some sense.

On my shelf at home, I've got a copy of an advert for a financial magazine that's years old.

Why? Because there are 12 pages of useful articles in that ad (followed by 4 pages describing the additional value you'd get by subscribing).

Which newsletters do I read?

The ones that provide me with valuable information in important areas of my business and life.

Essentially, every time I watch something or read something I make a judgement in the first few seconds: is this going to enhance my life somehow?

If I don't get the feeling it is, I'll switch it off, close it up or contrive to ignore it.

If I think it's got something useful for me, then I'll give it my attention. But by something useful I don't mean it's promoting something useful – it has to have something useful in it itself.

Valuable Marketing (to you) is Marketing that Adds Value (to your clients)

So that's the simple test I now apply.

Every letter I write. Every email I send out. Anything that goes up on my website.

I ask the question: “is this piece of marketing actually valuable in its own right to my potential clients?”

If it is, I know it's got a good chance of getting some attention. If it's not, I know I really ought to redo it somehow to add in the value that'll get it opened, read or watched.

You should try asking the same question for your own marketing.

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Selling

The Secret of Ethical Selling

Posted by

Ian Brodie on March 23rd, 2012.

Ethical Selling: Three wise monkeys What's the secret of being able to sell ethically without being manipulative, salesy or pushy?

Marketing.

No, seriously. It's marketing.

Here's why:

Why Marketing is the Key to Ethical Selling

Let's think about what might cause someone to sell unethically. To manipulate or push someone into buying something they perhaps don't really want or need?

Or to bring it right home, what might cause you or me to sell unethically?

I'm a nice person. I'm sure you're a nice person. In fact overwhelmingly, most people I know are nice people.

None of us wants to sell unethically. So why might we do it?

Selling is a pretty simple process when it comes down to it. You sit down with someone, disucss their problems and challenges, goals and aspirations. You talk about what it would take to solve or achieve them – and what the impact would be. Then you discuss how you might be able to help and whether you're a good fit for working with them.

Why might that conversation stray and become manipulative?

The answer is desperation.

If you're the only potential client a professional has met for a month and he needs you to hire him so he can pay the mortgage and feed the kids, then the chances are that even if you're not a perfect fit, he's going to try to “sell” you.

Desperate professionals overstep the mark. If they really need the sale, they perhaps claim their service is that little bit better than it actually is. They ignore some of the alternative options the client could take even though they should really mention them. They try to get the client to sign up quickly, instead of when the time is right for them.

So if it's you, how do you stop that desperation causing you to sell unethically?

Well, you either develop an iron will…

Or in the real world, you remove the cause of the desperation.

And that's where marketing comes in.

Marketing makes sure you have a service that's in demand. That lots of potential clients want and need and that will deliver great value to them.

And marketing makes sure you have a steady stream of leads – more than you need – so that when you sit down with that potential client, he's not the only one you've seen that month. You have a backlog of potential clients to see.

And that way, when he's not a perfect fit, or the timing isn't right for him, there's no need for you to push or drive for a sale you really shouldn't be pushing for.

You can do what's best for the client and move on, confident that the bills will still be paid and little Johnny will still have plenty to eat. Because there's a steady flow of high quality leads coming in to your business. If this one isn't right, the next one will be, or the next one.

Truth be told: ethical selling is pretty easy if you've got more leads than you need.

So marketing, good marketing, is the key to ethical selling.

–> By the way, one of the very best resources on behaving (and selling) ethically is Charlie Green's Trust Matters blog. Lots of very thought provoking articles that will help you come to grips with this tricky topic.

Ethical Selling (and much, much more) at the Trust Matters blog.

——–

Photo Credit: Anderson Mancini via Compfight

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