Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for June, 2010

There are many ways to become a client magnet. Here are 20 proven methods that will help you to achieve astonishing business results.

•    Carefully choose the niche that you want to be known as an expert at.

•    Learn everything there is to know about your declared area of expertise. Go through the experiences and learn the lessons, connect with a mentor and then put it into practice to be successful. Only then can you teach and help other people to do the same.

•    Pick something that you’re passionate about; when you’re passionate, that really shows through.

•    You will make a greater impact in a place where you genuinely have some value to offer.

•    Realize that you don’t have to try to get every person you ever encounter to become a client.

•    Build your relationship with the people who have already “raised their hands” and expressed an interest in your product or service.

•    Focus your effort and energy on people who are pre-qualified to buy. It is more pleasurable to work with and for them than to try to convert people who will never be interested or will never be qualified to buy your services.

•    Approach your tasks with the right energy. A positive attitude will resonate with your clients; conversely, so will negativity.

•    Be a congruent model for success by focusing on and being committed to your prospects and clients.

•    Use one-to-many methods for connecting with clients and offering services, as much as possible.

•    Put systems in place to start building your list.  Then continue to grow and improve your lead generation systems.

•    Know the principles behind offering ethical bribes, such as a free report, and have processes in place to handle responses.

•    Incite a call to action by creating a sense of urgency for people to sign up with you or purchase your offer. Deadlines work well for this.

•    Don’t underestimate the value of affiliates and joint venture partnerships.

•    Be consistent. Systematize and automate your process so that you can make money even when you aren’t working.

•    Use articles, teleseminars and social media to increase your exposure and the perception of you as an expert.

•    Use quality software to build and maintain your websites and blogs.

•    Always offer an upgrade with every sale.

•    Build relationships by following up with the people you meet at networking events right after the event.

•    Offer something for free or do a product giveaway at an event, collecting contact information in exchange for entry.

Implementing just some of these strategies today will add many more prospects to your list and take you closer to a more profitable business.  When you’ve applied them all, you will be a true client magnet.

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Consider your role as a consumer. When you’re shopping, do you look at the products first, or the price tag first?

If you looked at the price tag first,
retailers would pick up on that and simply offer a collection of price stickers inside the front door. You would choose what you could afford, and then the actual product would be a surprise – possibly an unpleasant one.

You don’t shop that way, and neither do the people that you have identified as your perfect clients.

Prospects want to know your prices, but unless your prices are preceded by the benefits that you’re offering, consumers will have nothing to gauge those prices against.

Follow these four steps to eliminate your fears in revealing your price. Gain the confidence you need to make the most out of your requests for cash:

1. Present what you’re offering. Answer the timeless questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Keep it simple. If you make it too complicated, those raised hands might start to return to laps.

2. Summarize the benefits. Because you’re offering specific solutions to specific problems, this step should turn on light bulbs in your prospects’ minds. This is the step in which you convince them that you are their answer.

3. Introduce the price. By now, your listeners or readers are absorbed in what you’re offering. The benefits are foremost in their minds, as is the question of price. Reveal your pricing while the question is still in their minds; and before it reaches their lips. Perfect placement of price revelation makes it comfortable for you and acceptable to your audience.

4. Map out a direct route for the money. Make it crystal clear how easy it will be to sign up, jump on, or join in on your program. Prospects should leave your teleseminar, your sales page, or your conference without any questions about how to participate. Or, better yet, they should leave already having signed on. Make it possible for them to sign up immediately. Make it easy for them to do so.

When your appeal is placed correctly, while all of the most fantastic points of your product or service are fresh in the minds of your audience, you will not only feel more confident in asking for money, but your prospects will have more confidence in their spending.

After you identify your sea of raised hands (those people whose problems you can solve, and whose interests you have piqued), you’ll need to devise an effective method for telling them how much cash they will need to jump onboard.

The steps I’ve outlined here make up an excellent plan for starting to ask for money. As you proceed, you will learn to tweak your own presentation to meet the needs of the people in your particular niche. You will learn to identify the exact moment in time when they are most receptive to pricing, and when your presentation best complements that revelation.

When considering how to properly sandwich your asking for money in your presentation, consider your own shopping habits. You see the product. You consider how it could benefit your life. You look at the price tag. You proceed to the check-out. You leave the store with the satisfaction of knowing that you fashioned your own shopping experience.

Give your prospects that luxury. Take the time to learn about what price placement gets the most lucrative results for your business. You’ll soon discover that timing is everything – especially when it equates to money on your pocket.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

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Do you dream about creating an amazingly successful business?

Do you have a plan mapped out inside your head?

Do you dream about creating an amazingly successful business?

Do you have a plan mapped out inside your head to get it started?

Or are you looking for miracles to make your dream a reality?

Whether your starting out with your business or planning for growth, both of these seemingly conflicting concepts
need to co-exist inside your head.

It is very important that you have realistic expectations.

If you don’t have a budget and you don’t have any spare time, can you really expect to make an extra £20,000 a  month from your business? While it is certainly possible to earn that much money, you’re going to have to invest a certain amount of your time, effort, and money to make it happen.

But before you do anything at all, you need to have a plan. What I would like you to do right now is to take a moment, grab a sheet of paper, and draw a long line on it.

At the first end of that line, write the words “me today.” This represents where you are now. At the other end of the line, write down the words “1 year” and “revenue target.”

Write down whatever that number is that you want to reach in one year’s time. It could be £100,000, £250,000, £500,000, or even a million plus. When you have this goal clearly expressed on paper, then you can work out the steps you need to take to get there.

The first step toward reaching your revenue target is to take stock of your current assets. Think about your time, resources, and money.

If you find that you don’t have an abundance of all those assets, don’t panic. Consider the marketing concept that addresses the balance of money and time and creativity. If you’re short in one area, expect that you will need to put in more effort in the others.

So if you’re short on money, for instance, you will probably need to spend a lot more time to get your business going. If you’re short on time, then you’ll probably think about outsourcing from day one in order to maximize the hours you can devote to reaching your goal.

If you’re short on both, then you need to put your creative juices to work.

Don’t let any of these scenarios deter you. Building your online business and earning the income you desire is a very realistic and very attractive prospect for you. An online business has a very low in startup cost. The overheads are low. And, the percentage of profit that you get to keep is high. Keep your expectations and your evaluation of your assets realistic.

At the same time, it is also important to remember this other concept –

Believe in miracles.

In fact, plan on them. This may appear to contradict keeping your expectations realistic, but really, it doesn’t. It is harder to quantify, but there’s definitely a magic in just getting started. Doors are going to open that you can’t even imagine right now.

Until you get started down that road toward your goal, you have no idea where it is going to lead you. Once you actually take physical steps on that path, the universe will take 10 steps toward you.

Balancing your realistic expectations with your belief that miracles await you will tip the scales in your favor and assure you a very successful year ahead! Go ahead, set your expectations high, plan for the future AND always remember miracles await you.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

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The principle behind being a client magnet is that people want what you’ve got to offer, they realize that you’re an expert, and they want to get onto your mailing list.

But, how do you make that happen?

Simply put, you need to be seen as an expert in your field.

People will then go out and look for you. They will actively search you out and ask to be added to your list.

But first, you need to know how to establish yourself as an expert.

•    Choose your area of expertise carefully.
Maybe your passion is working with divorced women, but you decide to become a marketing coach for businesses, because that’s where the money is. Your passion isn’t with businesses, but they aren’t as financially challenged as divorced women.

You have to decide what you really want to be known as an expert at. Is it business marketing, or helping divorced women? You should follow your passion. Choose your area because of your passion; don’t choose your passion because there’s a niche for it. Your passion will reflect in your attitude. That is what will resonate with clients and make you attractive to them.

•    Choose a topic where you can add value.
There’s no point picking a group of people, or deciding on a niche, if you have no proven track record in that area.  You need credibility; proof that you’ve done what you are professing to be an expert at. How can you teach it if you haven’t experienced it?

You will have the most impact if you genuinely have some value to offer. People will see this when they read your tips or your articles. When they see that you can add some value to a topic, they will want more of what you have to offer. That’s how you attract a following.

•    Write articles.
Articles work very well, both as a way to showcase your knowledge in your area of expertise, and as a means of promoting your business. I have articles posted all over the web. When you create articles, offer them to other businesses that tie into the same clientele as yours. This will increase your exposure. The more people are familiar with your name, the more you will be viewed as the expert.

•    Teleseminars
Just by promoting a teleseminar, you indicate that you are an expert with valuable information that people need. There is also something about having a timeframe and deadline that increases the perceived value of teleseminars in people’s minds. The need to sign up for something you’re doing creates a sense of urgency in people, and they don’t want to miss it. Teleseminars are great for both establishing your expertise and building your list.

•    Social Media
MySpace, Facebook and Twitter are great ways to build a following. As your following increases, so does your image as the expert. And simultaneously, you will also put things in place that will drive more people to your website, and build your list.

By following these tips, you will establish yourself as an expert and make your business so attractive that clients will seek you out. The impact on your list and on your business will be continual growth and success.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

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Think of your business as a building. Perhaps you’re just starting out at the foundation level, or maybe you’ve climbed to the third storey. Wherever you are, when you want to add more storeys to your structure, you need to support the building.

Your support is like scaffolding. It’s the first thing that’s needed when a building is going up. And it’s the first thing you need to help you grow your business.

There are several different types of support structures that you can put in place. These are the things that will protect you and help you to focus on your business.  With these 5 support structures in place, you will be ready to grow your business to new heights.

1.  Set Boundaries… It can be very useful to set boundaries in your client relationships.

Do clients ring you whenever they like and expect you to drop everything for them? If that’s the case, you can’t have the time and energy you need to focus on working on your business. You need to have some boundaries in place, where you allot certain times for responding to clients’ calls.

2.  Manage Your Time On Your Terms … You can be so much more productive if you set definite times for when you are working and when you are not working.

For example, I work three days a week. Everyone in my house knows when I’m working, so they don’t interrupt me. People don’t ring me during those hours. If they do, I won’t answer the phone And when I’m in my time off, I’m not working. These are really clear structures that I adhere to.

3.  Work With A Schedule… This is be a great way to stay on track and focused on getting things done.

Put everything that you need to accomplish on your calendar. Make sure to block out enough time for the task, and stick to it. Whether it’s a meeting, a phone call, working on your blog – include it in your schedule. When you see that each item has its own set block of time, you will be able to focus more clearly. This is amazingly helpful in keeping from feeling overwhelmed.

4.  Build A Team… If you are mired down in day-to-day tasks that keep you from working on your business, consider hiring an administrative assistant or virtual assistant.

You may think of this as an expense that you can’t afford. Reverse that line of thought and consider it as an investment instead. By delegating the routine tasks to an assistant, you will free yourself to do the work that will bring in clients and grow your business.

5.  Get Emotional Support… Encouragement and support from the people in your personal life goes a long way toward keeping you motivated in your business.

Perhaps your partner is busy, or your family doesn’t understand what you are doing. If the people close to you don’t offer enough inspiration and support, you may begin to feel frustrated and become less productive.

Should this happen to you, look to other sources for the motivation and encouragement that you need. A mastermind group or other similar group of like-minded people will boost your confidence and help you in countless ways. In addition to emotional support, they can offer specific business knowledge and advice.

So consider all of the structures that can support you as your business grows. It’s critical to have these in place so that you can be productive and concentrate on your talents and expertise.

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If you’re eager to share your brilliant expertise with potential clients, starting a blog is a great option for you. It’s also a fantastic way to generate more income for your business.

How will an online blog help you to increase your revenue?

While blogs were once used primarily as outlets for expression and basic journaling, they now also serve as a very useful tool for making money online.

Once you’ve established yourself in your field, your blog postings will enable you to connect with your audience, gain their trust and develop a loyal following of readers. Some of those readers will then translate into paying customers.

You may be very familiar with blogs, and may even be a loyal reader of some – perhaps this one – but if you’ve never created a blog, the concept may intimidate you. However, let me assure you – once you understand the basics of blogging, you’ll see how valuable it can be to your business.

Michael Dunlop, who ventured into online blogging at age fourteen, says that starting one is nearly idiot-proof. He puts it very simply – a blog is easy to create; then you just start adding content, building traffic and making money.

He grew his refurbished website, www.RetireAt21.com, to 160,000 visitors each month over the course of only five months. It is currently the largest site for young entrepreneurs.

To be as successful as Michael in blogging requires two initial things: quality software and quality content.

Knowing the best software to use when creating your blog will give you an edge over the competition. Poorly programmed blog sites don’t rank as well in search engines. Michael highly recommends using WordPress for your blog software because it will help your site outrank others that aren’t using this software. Being ranked higher than other sites will give you a lot of advantage. People always tend to click on those links first.

WordPress is also easy to use. With many features that can be customized, it will help your blog to stand out among the thousands of other more generically programmed sites out there in the virtual world.
That is the name of the game. The higher your blog ranks and the more it stands out, the more visitors you will get.

The other aspect that will set your blog apart from the rest is its content. Plenty of people write and post blogs daily, but how many are really profiting from them?

The difference between the blogs that make money and the blogs that don’t is the value they provide. When you write your blog, write about something new, give something valuable to your audience or package your information in an interesting way. As an expert in your own right, the information you have is valuable to your readers.

Using the right software and taking the time to share and present your expertise are the keys to a valuable and successful blog.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

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Meet Bernadette’s online business mentor Yanik Silver.

Instant Profit Boosters – one of the things Yanik is known for is squeezing out additional revenue and profits from absolutely zero additional marketing budget, visitors or customers.

Yanik will show you how to look at your website and business to identify immediate profit increases.

Don’t miss this call!

My Next MARKETING* MASTERMIND Call

Tuesday, 22nd June, 2010

8:00pm UK Time (3pm EASTERN, 12 noon PACIFIC)

TOPIC:  *Instant Profit Boosters*

This call is FREE for my hundreds of Marketing Mastermind and Stepping UP! members. They also get the CD and transcript of this call at no extra charge, plus a tonne of other member benefits – such as access to our online members forum.

Not a member?  Click here to join the Marketing Mastermind Group today so you can take advantage of this call and all the other member goodies each and every month.

I look forward to “meeting” you on our call.

Best Wishes,
Bernadette Doyle
www.clientmagnets.com

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Do you remember the story of the Elves and the Shoemaker? The Shoemaker and his wife were very poor, until a pair of elves began making beautiful shoes for them overnight. The Shoemaker was able to sell the shoes for a lot of money, and became rich and famous.

I sometimes feel like I’m in a similar situation to the Shoemaker.

I first experienced the power of this a couple of years ago when I sent an email that was copied to two people, one in India and one in Australia. In this email I gave instructions for a specific project, the first part of which had to be completed by one person before being handed over to the second person for completion.

And from that single email, while I was sleeping, the project that needed to be completed and the webpage that needed to be uploaded just happened. So when I woke up the following morning, it was really like the elves had been working overnight and doing the work for me.

And it’s so easy for you to invite the same kind magic into your business. All you need to do is start outsourcing routine tasks.

So where should you start with outsourcing? First of all, ask yourself where you have profitability blocks in your business. To work this out, answer the following question:

“My business would make more money if I could do more of _______.”

You already know what the answer is. You can spend more time marketing. You can spend more time developing products and programs. You can spend more time writing your web copy. You can spend more time developing a newsletter.

Then ask yourself this question:

“I currently spend most of my time on ________.”

The answer to this will help show where you are putting your time that you don’t need to. This will likely be one of the first areas where you’ll going to get a quick return on outsourcing.

For example, when I first started out, I found that I was spending more time updating my webpage than I wanted to. It wasn’t part of my vision for my business, and I wanted to use my time in a way that would generate more income. So I found people who do that for me for less than £10 an hour. It was a no-brainer to pay someone else to do that and win back that time which was put towards growing my business. Now, I’m in the position of knowing that while I’m asleep my website is being updated for me.

And today I have seven people around the world working on different parts of my business, which is something I would never have anticipated when I started outsourcing.

One unexpected benefit of outsourcing for me was that I hired someone who was also working for another person whose business was at a more developed stage than mine. This person was a tremendous resource because she had insight into a business that was 18 months further down the road from mine. That’s just one area where a virtual assistant can really start to add value, because they’re bringing in outside knowledge and they’re exposing you to ideas or suggestions that you wouldn’t have got on your own.

You need to think about what you’re ready to turn over right now. You need to be both physically ready and emotionally ready to outsource. If you’re someone who in the past has tried to outsource and has experienced a big disappointment or has been let down, then understandably you’re going to be cautious about outsourcing again. You’re going to want to ease back into it gently, to build your confidence back up.

What you need to do is write out an initial job description or scope for the work you want done. Be specific about what results you want. You want this to be outcome oriented. You want to think about what you want done and in what timeframe. Start to think about the skill sets this person is going to need, and whether it’s reasonable to find these skills in just one person or if you’re going to need a team.

And while I don’t know where you are with your particular business, I still say that it’s never too soon to start outsourcing.

And the fact is that you’re already outsourcing lots of things. You’re outsourcing the legal aspects of your job. You’re outsourcing your website hosting. So, to be correct, the question is really about how much more you should be outsourcing.

Don’t you want to be able to go to sleep knowing that the magic elves will come in during the night and take care of your work for you?

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Once your teleseminar is over, the income stops, right?  Wrong.

Whether you’ve chosen to conduct a free or paid teleseminar, it’s only the beginning of your earning potential.  One of the things you can do to keep the money rolling in is to have your teleseminar transformed into a product to sell.

Maybe your participants want to see what they’ve just heard, in writing.  Or, maybe the teleseminar wasn’t conducted at a time that was convenient for them, but they’d still like to learn about your topic.  Or, maybe they’re anxious to share what they’ve heard with their friends, in concrete form.

If you choose not to offer a transcript of your teleseminar, there’s no telling how much profit you could be losing.  Here are some guidance points for creating a transcript, and drumming up additional cash flow:

• Create a sales page for your transcript. Your teleseminar’s registration page’s text can serve as a basis for this.  You’ll simply need to add some graphics and fulfillments.  A standard webpage will never sell a transcript.  You’ll need real sales language…the kind you used to fill your teleseminar.

• Record your teleseminar. You can request that this be done through your phone service provider, who can send you an MP3 recording afterward, or you can purchase a recording device (like an Olympus WS-100) to record it on your own.  Then hire a transcriber to put it into writing.

• Hire someone to edit the transcribed text, so that it more closely resembles an article, with headings and sections, so that readers can easily access the information and sections that they’re most interested in.  Typically, transcriptionists will type text that runs on and on, from one subject to the next.  Segmenting the information, and removing conversational elements, will make the document more reader-friendly.

• Hire a graphic designer to design a document cover for the transcript. This image can also be used in the sales letter.

• Decide if you’d like to offer digital transcripts on PDFs, or if you’d like to ship out hard copies.  Whatever your preference, hire someone to handle distribution (like 1ShoppingCart for instant, digital copies, or a company that specializes in creating on-demand hard copies, as orders come in).

• If you’re planning to distribute paper copies of the transcript, don’t sink a boatload of money into stocking shelves with copies waiting to be sold. It’s more cost-effective to have copies created on-demand.  Even though it may cost a bit more per copy, you won’t run the risk of losing your money in unsold, warehoused copies.

• The price of your transcript should range from the same as the cost of the teleseminar, down to a 25 percent discount.  Don’t price the transcript higher than that of the original event, but at the same time, don’t devalue the information just because it’s not live.

• The selling of your transcript doesn’t have to end when you hang up the teleseminar phone.  To the contrary, future customers might be interested in owning transcripts from teleseminars that took place before they were onboard.  Run promotions occasionally, highlighting a transcript.  Or, insert a blurb in newsletter, directing readers to a particular transcript’s sales page (choose a transcript that’s relevant to a current event or some other topic outlined in your newsletter).

Your teleseminar is like a flower seed.  You plant it, care for it, and enjoy its benefits once it matures.  But once that flower withers, your enjoyment of its advantages doesn’t have to end.

Harvest the seeds from that flower.  Plant those seeds by mentioning the availability of transcripts as you close your teleseminar, create transcript sales pages, insert newsletter blurbs, and promote your transcripts as the profitable products that they are.  Continue with this practice, and soon, you’ll have an entire garden filled with a rainbow of limitless income.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

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Individuals look at products all day – on television, in newspapers, and in magazines – but unless you can find a way to make your product or your service appeal to the needs of those viewers, your efforts will score little more than halfhearted viewership.

I’m often approached by business owners wondering how they can make their businesses visible to as many people as possible. My immediate response is always, “Have you first thought about what your audience wants?”

You cannot convince prospects to want what you have to offer simply by being visible. You must quench a thirst. You must satisfy a need.

Here’s an example that I often use to illustrate this point:

A dog food conglomerate recently found itself, despite being a leader in the promotion category, losing market share. Puzzled by this turn of events, the company’s new chairman called a mandatory meeting of every salesperson, marketer, and researcher within the corporation. His face reddened, his fist pounded…someone needed to figure out where they were going wrong. Did more money need to be committed to promotion? Were they reaching the wrong audience with their marketing efforts?

The seasoned business men and women were unable to muster the courage that it took to voice the root of the problem. But one young tenderfoot intern had the audacity to announce, “Mr. Chairman, the dogs don’t like the food.”

The dog food company’s audience was hungry for a better tasting food, not a new promotion approach. No number of banner ads, coupon offers, or endearing commercials would resurrect what had been lost to taste. This mistake bore the sole responsibility for the market share loss. More PR, advertising, promoting, and marketing would prove to be bottomless money pits for the already declining dog food shares.

If you find yourself in a situation such as this, or if you simply want to avoid falling into a similar situation, consider the following:

Get to know your end user. Do the grunt work and the research that it takes to really get to know your consumer. When you know that person, you can better solve his or her problems.

Promotion is important, but try not to be sidetracked with becoming visibly dominant too early in the game. You must have the goods to back up all of the hype. You must be able to deliver on promises, or customers will not return.

Remind your consumer about their problem, and how you are going to solve it.

You can’t market the unmarketable. Ignoring substandard products or services that don’t solve a real, modern-day problem can never end well. It can be difficult, but often, business owners need to back up and reroute from their original product vision.

Find the value in what you’re offering. If the biggest selling point doesn’t appeal to your ideal customer, then nip and tuck that product or service until it satisfies a wish, a want, or even better yet, a necessity.

When you’re honest about your product, like the young dog food business intern, you tackle the root of a problem that has the potential to rear up and cause havoc in your business.

Promotion is tedious. It not only takes large amounts of your time, but it can seem like an Olympic-level sport. It’s expensive; and if it’s embarked upon too soon, it can seem fruitless, leaving business owners exhausted and disheartened.

I’ll always believe that your product is ultimately your biggest selling point…not brightly colored ads or once-in-a-lifetime deals. It can take a while to learn this. Even some of the most successful business owners had to learn the hard way.

I don’t want to see misplaced promotion negatively affect your bottom line or your energy level. Find a need. Quench a thirst. And do it all with your product – not empty claims. This is literally your first step to success.

Bernadette Doyle specializes in helping entrepreneurs attract a steady stream of ideal clients. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, sign up for her free weekly e-zine at http://www.clientmagnets.com

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