Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for July, 2009

It’s the big question. Should you offer a guarantee? The marketing gurus will assure you that guarantees increase customer confidence and therefore sales, but many of the small business owners I talk to are concerned about the potential costs of refunds, and attracting unscrupulous customers who will receive the goods or service but then take advantage of the refund option. So what should you do?

In my opinion, there is no contest here. After over 11 years of being in business, I believe that guarantees are essential, for the following 3 reasons.

1. It’s A Question of Business Ethics…

While there certainly are dishonest people who will take advantage of your guarantees, the majority of people, in my experience, are good and decent and have genuine reasons for requesting refunds. Think about it, wouldn’t you rather those customers were talking to YOU, giving you suggestions to improve your product and service, than running around all over town bad-mouthing you? It’s been shown over and over, that a complaining customer who gets their problem resolved, is actually MORE loyal than a customer who never had a problem in the first place. So just from the point of customer relationship, you MUST offer a guarantee.

2. The Extra Sales You Generate Far Outweigh The % Of Returns

Many business fortunes have been built (and resurrected) on the strength of guarantees. Lee Iacocca turned around Chrysler when he said ‘If you want to know who builds them better, take a look at who guarantees them longer.’ I know what you’re thinking. That’s a big car company and has no relevance to you as a small business owner? Not so. Whatever business you are in, offering a big, bold guarantee inspires confidence.
A guarantee is your way of saying to your customers, ‘I’ll take the risk’. For a hesitant prospect, the guarantee can be the deciding factor that finally nudges them into action. I know you might be concerned about people ‘taking advantage’, and the truth is, there are a couple of low-lives out there who will. But ultimately the extra sales you will make will far outweigh the number of returns (genuine or not).

3. If YOU Can’t Stand Behind Your Product Or Service, Then Who Can?

If you are selling a product or service that you cannot strongly and fairly guarantee, then maybe you should find something better to sell. Even if you are in a situation where results are dependent upon the client, you can find something to guarantee eg ‘If you complete all the assignments, turn up to all the sessions and STILL don’t get the promised results, then it’s free.’
Even if you are selling something where the results CANNOT be easily predicted because there are so many variables, you can find SOMETHING to guarantee eg ‘you’ll never be kept waiting more than 10 minutes for your appointment’, ‘if at the end of the one hour session you don’t feel like you’ve just had a weekend away, then it’s free.’

The bottom line is guarantees WORK, and if you aren’t using them in your business, you are almost certainly missing out on sales and opportunities, So what are you waiting for? Go guarantee something!

Do any of the following sound familiar?

• ‘My appointment book looks empty. I’d better do something to drum up business fast’
• ‘When I’m working on a project, I stop marketing and selling, then when a contract comes to an end, I can find myself in a lean patch’
• ‘My income is unpredictable. There is a lot of ‘feast and famine’.’

If any of these comments resonate with you, then you’re not alone. I would estimate that over 90% of the people I meet are marketing themselves REACTIVELY, ie they only start looking for business or opportunities when the pipeline is empty. That’s not good for a couple of reasons. First because by the time things have reached this critical stage your expectations and needs are unrealistic, cash-flow has dried up, so you have little or no budget to transform the situation, and your desperation drives prospects away like a skunk at a laydees tea party. The good news is every one of these situations can be prevented – with a little planning on your part.

I want something different to you. I’d like to help you manoeuvre yourself into ‘prospect abundance’ a position where the demand for YOU and what you offer outweighs your ability to supply it. Because then you truly will be master or mistress of your own destiny. Does that sound like an impossible dream? It doesn’t have to be.

Marketing is not rocket science. There are certain steps you can take to ensure a steady stream of prospects.

You need a system! A ‘system’ can be as simple as a postcard that you send to a client after the first meeting, or a letter that gets sent out 6 days after the intial enquiry. Or a system can be more complex, for example a timed series of a dozen or more different communications with a group of prospective clients. Regardless of complexity, being able to say that you have a system in operation means that you have a specific, effective strategy being carried out with religious discipline and without your constant supervision. Good systems are the heart and soul of good marketing.

Most of the people I meet have very few, if any, true systems. Their marketing efforts are random, haphazard and reactive. Not surprisingly, so are their results. ‘Spray and Pray’ is NOT an effective marketing technique. Lots of business falls through the cracks because of chaotic, confused, inconsistent follow through.

The trouble is, trying to explain the importance of marketing systems to someone who is desperate for business is a bit like trying to teach a drowning person how to swim. And, I won’t hide it from you, setting up systems takes effort.

But, in my experience, the pay-off is huge. The time you invest setting up good systems will reap dividends over and over again.

But only if you put them in place.

One of the most important systems you can put in place is a prospect contact system. This will increase the frequency of your communication with prospective clients, demonstrates consistency, helps you to benefit from the principle of persistence – but without getting burned out, helps you to benefit from the principle of ‘top of consciousness’ and prevents prospects from being lost or forgotten.

I recommend that you plan for at least 10-12 contacts per year with every person. And preferably a mixture of types of communication. So don’t just restrict yourself to email. It could be a mixture of letter, phone, face-to-face, newsletter, article reprints and postcards.

Put this in place, and I promise you, the results will by far outweigh the efforts and costs of putting it in place. But make sure you start now. Don’t wait until it’s too late!

When I started my business back in 1996, I had just recently completed some training in the area of NLP, neuro-linguistic programming. I had worked as a salesperson for a few years and my plan was to provide sales training based on NLP.

Well you know the old saying…if you want to make God laugh, show him your plans! I quickly realized that I wasn’t the only person in the world to have had this idea. There were already lots of people knocking on doors to talk about NLP to improve sales, and many of those people had more experience, and better contacts. What did I have to stand out?

Well, I did have one thing working for me. In my previous job as a New Business Salesperson for a telecoms company, I’d had to do cold calling. Although I hated it at first, I’d actually discovered some techniques that really made a difference, and because managers in that company noticed that I was both comfortable and effective doing cold calling, they asked me to help out members of their team (remember this was still when I was an employee. So I delivered some training internally within this company, helping people to get motivated and have more success on cold calling.

So instead of making myself a general NLP sales trainer, I just focused on one thing that I knew people wanted. And I knew people wanted and needed help with cold-calling because I’d worked for so many sales managers who were tearing their hair out trying to get their sales people on the phone. And I knew that most sales people complain about having to make appointments and cold calling, and they always think that somebody else should do it for them. So I knew it was an existing issue in companies, and I knew that I had something that could help.

So my first lesson in business was to learn to align and package my services and expertise in a form that people actually wanted. If you’ve been encountering indifference or rejection, you must ask: “What have I been offering to companies so far, what’s the feedback been?” And you need to be willing to adapt both the content and the form of what you are offering, if necessary.

This week I want you to answer the following question honestly. Are you packaging your services and expertise in a form that people want? How do you find out what people want? Well, you listen to them and you pay attention to what they’re already buying. If you’re targeting a certain sector, you absolutely need to be reading those trade magazines, attending trade events and meetings and find out what people are bothered about and what their biggest problems are.

If people are telling you that what you’re offering ‘isn’t a priority right now’ that means that something else is. Figure out what that is, and if it’s something you can help with, that’s your starting point.

If you find the whole process of finding new clients and customers difficult and painful, there is a solution – do a lot more business with the clients and customers you do get so you need less of them.

That may require you to think very differently about the business you are in and what your clients really want from you. For example, I recently spoke to a market researcher who wanted to expand her range of services, but could not see what else she could offer to her existing clients. As I delved deeper into her business, it quickly became apparent that the main reason people were hiring her was because they wanted to better understand their customers’ needs, so they in turn could increase customer satisfaction and sell more!

I could instantly see a whole series of opportunities for this market researcher. First offering ongoing support and accountability as her clients implemented the findings of her research. Next, given that what her clients really wanted was to retain their existing customers and prevent lost business, what else could she offer to help them achieve that goal? Could she offer additional programmes that helped her clients measure and improve customer retention?

The point is, as long as this woman was putting herself in the ‘market researcher’ box – she would remain blind to all the additional needs and problems facing her existing clients. But by expanding her definition of the business she was in – not just a market researcher but a customer retention specialist, the opportunities would expand too. And because she already has an existing relationship with her clients – they trust her and have paid for her services already – it will be a lot easier for her to sell additional services to them than it would be to go out and find a brand new client.

Bottom line? More income with a lot less work.

The biggest obstacle you face applying this idea to your business is your own imagination. If you have been defining yourself by your skill-sets eg sales trainer, coach, complementary therapist, then your first step must be breaking beyond the label you have put on yourself. Think about what your clients and customers really want and what else you can offer to help them achieve that.

For a long time my favourite recommendation for quick cash-flow and jump starting a business was to offer an event such as a workshop or seminar. But over the past couple of years, this suggestion has been edged out by my new favourite cash-flow booster – teleseminars. If you aren’t already offering teleseminars, then I hope this week’s article will have you seriously considering whether you should add this lucrative income stream to YOUR business. (And even if you are already offering teleseminars, you’ll pick up some tips that will help)

1. All you need is a phone. You DON’T need special equipment to deliver teleseminars, all you need is a phone. At the time of your designated teleseminar, you and the participants dial in to a set phone number, and you’re off! You’ll need a bridge line that connects all the callers to you. Many companies now provide this service free. 

2. Decide whether to offer FREE or PAID events. Actually you can do both. When I started offering teleseminars, and was learning how to structure and deliver them, I ‘got my feet wet’ by offering FREE teleseminars. It was a great way to connect with potential clients. After building my confidence by offering free events, I started offering paid teleseminars designed around a specific outcome. Eg ‘How to Charge What You’re Worth and Get The Fees You Deserve’, ‘How to Quickly Grow Your Email List’. More recently I’ve been using FREE teleseminars to preview and promote my upcoming ‘Information Empire’ Workshop.

3. What’s in a name? Recognising that many of my subscribers are time pressed, I wanted to offer short, focused sessions that would deliver high-quality content to achieve a specific outcome. I wanted to distance myself from ‘free teleclasses’ that are high on fluff, but low on content. So I decided to call my sessions ‘Masterclasses’, limited the number of registrations to ensure maximum interaction for participants, and included some added value extras (see point 5)

4. Maximise registrations. If you already have a list, then many of the registrations will come from your existing clients and prospects, but if you don’t have a very big list, then you’ll have to put in some extra effort to promote your event. Here are 3 options to get you started: advertise in an e-zine read by your target audience, postcard mailings that drive recipients to your online registration page, fax broadcasts that do the same.

5. Add MORE value. Your relationship with the participants doesn’t have to end after the call. You can add more value (and therefore charge more) by offering email support (for a limited time), follow up sessions, and/or critiques. The possibilities are endless. Think about what your prospects really want to achieve as a result of your teleseminar, and then design a solution that helps them get there. Eg for a masterclass I delivered on starting email newsletters, we included ‘how-to’ videos that demonstrated the technical aspect of formatting and sending a newsletter.

6. Ask the experts. I’m a big believer in seeking out help when I want to master a new area of business, so I invested in several programmes to learn how to design, promote and deliver teleseminars. It was an investment that paid off – BIG TIME. Since taking this training, I’ve made as much as £1980 per HOUR (yes, per hour) offering teleseminars, and that doesn’t include the subsequent profits made from turning the recordings and transcripts into a standalone product.

This is the second part of a two part article.

5. Get Them To ‘Raise Their Hands’

You know WHO you are targeting, and you’ve discovered WHERE they are hanging out.  Now HOW can you get them interested in what you have to offer?

TIP – don’t start selling immediately – that will trigger sales resistance and close down opportunities for good.

Instead, focus on sharing some value and building the relationship. I like to offer some form of free information such as a free report, e-book or teleseminar to encourage the prospect to find out more about me in a low risk way. Make sure that whatever you are offering is aligned to a key goal or problem that your target prospect has.

6. Follow Up

Now that the prospect has ‘raised their hands’, you need to expect and plan for the fact that the MAJORITY of people will not buy from you after your first contact, so you need to follow up. The most important things are that you vary the way you follow up, keep adding value, and always, ALWAYS invite the prospect to take the next step. (Sounds obvious I know, but you’d be surprised how many people forget to do this.)

For one of my products, I have a sequenced follow up of 18 messages sent over a 90 day period. Some people buy immediately, most take longer to make their decision. But with thorough follow up you can prevent missed opportunities from slipping through the cracks.

7. Close The Sale

Depending upon your sales process, you might be closing the sale in person, or you might expect your webpage or sales letter to close the sale for you. (I prefer the latter because it’s more easily duplicable). Whatever your process, you need to provide ALL the information that the prospect needs to make their decision with confidence.

Leave anything out and the sale will stall. Your biggest obstacle at this stage is procrastination, so make sure you give people a REASON TO ACT NOW such as offering an extra ‘sweetener’ like a bonus or added extra to nudge them into action.

8. Make Additional Offers

Thought that when you’d landed the client your work was done? Not so! The bulk of your profits will come from additional sales made to existing, satisfied clients. So what should you offer next?  Let your clients be your guide.  After they have used your initial product or service, they are likely to have other issues, problems and/or needs arise.

How can you help them with those subsequent challenges?  As long as you have done a good job and exceeded their expectations with your first transaction, you are well on the way to a mutually profitable business relationship for both parties.

The most commonly asked questions by visitors to my website is ‘How do I get new clients’?  This is part one of a two part article covering the 8 essential steps to getting new clients.

1. Get Clear on WHO You Are Targeting

If you don’t know WHO you are targeting, how can you know WHAT to offer them or WHERE to reach them? If you are vague about this, you will pay the price later in terms of wasted time and/ or money. If you try to serve ‘everybody’ then you may find that you don’t appeal to ANYBODY. This first step is vital for laying the foundation of your whole marketing approach. If you don’t spend enough time on this step you are building your business on a weak and shaky foundation.

2. Understand What They Really Want

People don’t buy because they understand what YOU do, they buy because they feel UNDERSTOOD. When you truly understand your prospects’ hopes, fears, desires you are well on the way to making the first sale. So how do you figure out what they really want? Listen! Pay Attention! My first successful niche was for B2B salespeople who needed to set their own appointments. I understood that they wanted help with both effective techniques and motivation because I had worked side-by-side with many of these people and heard them complain about their struggles to reach decision makers by phone.

3. How Can You Help Them?

The closer you can get to their desired end result, the more successful you will be. Successful marketing is about really understanding what people want, and then giving it to them. Most people approach marketing the other way round. They decide what they want to offer, and then try to convince people to take it.

So this step is about getting creative and designing a solution that is impossible to refuse. For example, instead of offering personal training at £60 per hour for a indefinite period of time, why not offer a ‘Lose 10lb in 6 weeks’ package that includes personal training, nutritional advice and maybe even motivational materials for a set fee. Instead of offering life coaching at £300 per month, why not offer packages that meet your prospects’ needs eg ’90 Days to a New Career’. The more tangible and specific you can make what you offer, the more successful you will be.

4. Find Them

Most people think that finding new clients starts here, and try to skip steps 1-3. But the effort you put in on the previous 3 steps will really start paying off here. What you need to bear in mind is ‘affordably reachable’. Start looking for websites, publications, meetings and associations, online discussion groups where your target prospects are ‘hanging out’ in significant numbers. If you can’t find these, then you aren’t looking hard enough OR you’ve picked a niche that is too hard to reach, and you’ll need to go back to step 1.

Coming Tomorrow: Part 2 of ‘How to Get New Clients’

Whether you are already well established in your business or just starting out, I suspect that deep down you know you have gifts and talents that can really make a difference to others. In an ideal world, you’d spend the majority of time doing the work you love to do, with a steady stream of clients knocking at your door as and when you want them. The reality, however, can be somewhat different, and the whole process of finding new business can be a time consuming challenge full of uncertainty.

Some would be entrepreneurs are so intimidated by the idea of finding clients that they never put their dreams into action. Others start promising businesses, yet give up disillusioned by the frustrating lack of clients. Some die-hards persist, but at great emotional and financial cost as the uncertainty about attracting and maintaining clients takes its toll.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a way to reverse the sales process. Imagine a situation where instead of having to go out and chase new business, qualified buyers are seeking out YOUR expertise. Imagine putting your marketing efforts on ‘automatic pilot’ so the right work turns up as and when you need it. Imagine being able to pick and choose which projects you want to work on. Can you imagine having the confidence to turn down work that doesn’t meet YOUR criteria?
Here’s a metaphor that nicely sums up this approach. There are two boys in a garden. Both of them want to catch birds. One of them is frantically chasing after birds; the other just stands still holding out birdseed in his hand and waits. Instinctively, most of us recognise that the second boy will be more successful. Yet most sales techniques used by businesses today involve some form of ‘chasing’ with the net result that prospective clients are scared away. In this article you will discover how the birdseed approach can help you attract rather than chase clients, and even get them eating out of your hands!

‘But that doesn’t apply in the business world’, I can hear you say. ‘If it were that easy, why don’t I already have all the clients I want?’ Well there are a few possible answers. Some of us have entered the commercial garden, but forgotten the birdseed! Others haven’t even taken the birdseed out of the packet. Some of us have the birdseed in our hand, but clenched so tightly the birds can’t get to it. If you are to adopt the latter approach, it’s important to spend some time selecting the right birdseed. So what’s your birdseed? To answer this question you need to know who you are aiming to attract, so that you are offering the birdseed which is most tasty and appealing to your target clients.

First, take a moment to think about your prospective clients.

What are their concerns and fears? What problems are they struggling with right now? What are their hopes and desires? Be willing to think laterally as you think about what is most important to them.

The next step is to align what you have to offer with their most pressing concerns and needs.

How can you help your target clients even before they become a client of yours? It’s important to emphasise that you already have skills, knowledge and expertise that is valuable to your prospective clients.

The trouble is most of us take what comes naturally to us for granted, and completely underestimate the value of what we know to our prospective clients. Not only is what you know very helpful, you could be using it to attract your prospective clients, by packaging your knowledge and expertise in a form that meets one of their current needs.

The fact is, when you match up what YOU have to offer with the people in the world who most need it, there really isn’t much selling or convincing to be done. Investing time figuring out what is YOUR birdseed is one of the best things you can do to ensure that you have a never ending stream of clients knocking at YOUR door.

Many people assume that list building can only be done online. But what if you’re targeting people offline? Well, the rules are exactly the same, it’s just the media that has changed. For example, well before I used to have opt-in pages and a lead and sales generating website, one of the methods I used to have was a 24-hour recorded message. I was advertising offline, and if I was advertising in a classified ad, I would include a telephone number that would send people to a recorded message.

The content of the recorded message that they would listen to was very similar to the content you’ll see on my opt-in pages today. And so it’s really working with the same information but just providing it in a different format. Now, do you need a 24-hour recorded message? Perhaps, because it all comes down to who you’re targeting and whether they are easily reachable online. If they are online, then I would say start with the opt-in page and use that method because of cost considerations. But if you’re targeting people that aren’t easily reachable online, you have to consider the different offline methods. These included recorded messages, direct mailing, postcards and classified ads.

With a 24-hour recorded message you’re advertising and directing people to your recording by giving them a telephone number where they can call,  listen to it and then leave their details at the end so you can send them information. That’s a method that I have used in the past and it works.

Another offline method is to use a postcard. Once again the postcard could include pretty much the same content which is in your opt-in page but has been reformatted and laid out on a postcard. At the back of the postcard you include a space where they can fill out their details and mail it back to receive your free information. You can even combine this with online methods by offering a freebie if they register (opt-in) on your website. This will cut costs if you know you can send them something via email rather than through the post.

These examples are essentially the offline application of the squeeze or opt-in pages. The principles are the same ones that are used online and you will notice that it’s exactly the same information but it’s just being reformatted or repurposed and used in a different media.

Your ‘ethical bribe’ is basically the bait you offer to get people’s contact details. It can take many different forms like a free report or a teleseminar, a downloadable recording, a downloadable book or booklet or might actually be something physical that you send through the post like a booklet or CD. Or it could be an online video. Another ethical bribe that I’ve used is an e-course.

Now, what should you be offering? Well, the form that your ethical bribe takes is less important than the overall promise of your ethical bribe. So your ethical bribe needs to offer a solution or give a promise that matches one of the biggest wants of your target audience.

If for example you’re targeting women over 40 and you’re going to help them lose weight and maintain their ideal figure, then it might be a free CD on how to lose weight without dieting. The title of your ethical bribe is really, really important. I actually think it’s more important than the form that it takes. You need to ask yourself, ‘What is it that my target audience is really hungry for, and what can I offer out there as bait to them that’s going to hook them, that’s going to get them excited?’. So the title is really important.

In choosing which particular format your ethical bribe should then take, there are a few things that you need to consider. First of all, it should be congruent with your overall marketing. For example, one of my marketing mastermind members has a website which promises instant pain relief. She offers people a teleseminar which is an hour-long listen. I told her that this is not necessarily a fit. If you’re offering instant pain relief but then people have to listen to an hour of teleseminar to get the benefit, maybe a 3- minute online video would be more suitable and fit in with that instant promise.

It should also suit the needs of your audience. Another one of my clients targets lady golfers, and one of the things she has noticed is when she speaks to lady golfers and asks them for their email addresses, she typically gets the husband’s email address. This ascertains that for her, an e-course as an ethical bribe won’t be suitable for those lady golfers who don’t have their own email address. So for her list she should consider something physical that she could send them.

Your ethical bribe should be congruent with what you’re doing overall and should suit the need of your audience. It should also suit your needs and be easy to create and low cost for you to deliver. For example a free seminar can be quite expensive and you won’t use that until you have grown your business in size. You shouldn’t have to spend days or weeks on putting together your ethical bribe. If you’re offering something in the marketplace that you know well, it should be quite easy for you to put together quickly.

Overall you want a title that should be promising something that is going to be really tempting to your target audience. The form of your ethical bribe should be congruent with the overall marketing that you’re doing, easy for you to create, and low cost to deliver. That’s getting your ethical bribe right.