Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for the ‘Customer Retention’ Category

What if you could enjoy genuine client abundance: all the clients you want, whenever you want, paying the fees that you want?  One answer is to only target those people who are truly interested in what you’re offering – those people with their hands raised in response to your proposed solution.

Though rejection is an inevitable part of business and life, it doesn’t have to be a dominating factor.  In fact, it can be a miniscule, barely noticeable speck in a sea of limitless clients.

You can’t sell to everyone.  You don’t have the time or resources to do so, and no single product will appeal to every member of any population.  In order to identify those who are most likely to buy, you need to devise a method to pick out the prospects with their virtual hands raised, who are ready to accept your single solution to their shared problem.

There are two types of disappointment when you try to sell to people who just aren’t interested.

• First, you might feel that you, yourself, have been rejected. It’s easy to convert rejection of a product into rejection of yourself, and without the tools to manage those feelings of rejection, negative effects can flow into your business dealings.

• Second, you might be able to sell your product to people who aren’t truly in need of it, or aren’t interested in it, simply because you are a smooth operator.  The consequence of this scenario will most likely leave you with a sleazy feeling, knowing that you’ve manipulated other human beings into doing something they weren’t comfortable with.

In order to increase your bank of yes and deplete your bank of no, it’s important to ask the population, “Who’s interested?”  When you do that, a percentage of the population will raise their hands.  Consider that group of raised hands to be your new sea of prospects.  Don’t worry about those who have kept their hands in their pockets – they would have had no choice but to say “no” anyway.  Though your product might be a God-send for some, it’s never going to be right for everyone.

Isolating the group with hands raised saves you time, effort, and the fortitude that it takes to recover from rejection.

Here’s the progression – from getting those hands up in the air, to optimizing their potential:

• Find a lead generation system that plants the seed, poses the thought-provoking questions, and sparks enough interest to spur interested people to raise their hands.

• Offer a free report. Ensure that your report aligns fluidly with your product.  Like a chain with all links unbroken, your message must be kept uniform and in order.  This way, you’ll ensure that the people you’re attracting are the same people who are likely to buy. Remember, your initial contact with prospects must align with what the market is searching for.

• Shift your marketing focus to those who show an interest in what you’re selling. They are your true ‘prospects’.  This is the group that is predisposed to buy.

• Tell the people with their hands raised why their instincts are correct. When hands are raised, it means that the owners of those hands have a problem, and they think you might have the solution.  Let them know they’re right.

• Keep your message (your solution to their problem) uniform from first taste to final sale. Your execution must be as groundbreaking as your great ideas.

Your product is wonderful, problem-solving, ingenious…and there is a group of people out there just waiting for it.  It’s your job to find those people.

Make the effort to isolate the hands that are raised, using a message that not only attracts, but delivers.  Doing the right things, in the right way, in the right order, puts money in the bank.  When you execute seamlessly from the beginning, you will learn to view the raised hand as a springboard to raised revenue…a virtual deposit slip for your growing bank account.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

FREE TELESEMINAR

How to Create & Sell High End Products & Programmes

Several of my clients have been experiencing BIG breakthroughs recently – largely because they are launching and selling high priced products and programs. The best thing of all is that the results are FAST. One client sold her first $12,000 the very next day after her first coaching call, another had a $20,000 week using this strategy.

We really can’t keep this a secret any longer – I actually believe we have a DUTY to share with you how they are getting results like this, so we’ve put together a special call to show you how it’s done.

Here are the details …

Thursday 25th March

8pm UK time, 4pm Eastern, 1pm Pacific

On this call, you’ll discover:

• How much YOU are leaving on the table by not having a ‘Rolls Royce’ offer in place

• The 3 biggest mistakes people make when designing and launching big ticket offers

• How to create a CASH FLOW SURGE in your business THIS week. (It’s easier than you think when you have the right strategies)

• How to find and attract the ‘premium’ clients who are willing and able to pay top dollar for your very best services

• Why you can’t sell these products and programs like you do other services – the key sales strategies that make the difference

If you’re ready to SKYROCKET your income in just a few short weeks, this call is for you!

Register NOW, and attend for FREE

http://bit.ly/SellingSuccess

See you there!

Best Wishes,

Bernadette Doyle
www.clientmagnets.com

P.S The beauty of creating programs like this is it really does enable you to work with the VERY best clients and serve them at the HIGHEST level. You are missing out if you’re not doing this, so make sure to join us on this call and find out how it’s done http://www.clientmagnets.com/cashflowsurge/

“Out of all the people I could hire, why should I hire you?” How would you respond, should a potential client ask you this question?

Simply telling them that you will work really hard and do a really good job isn’t really telling them anything at all.

You’ve got to be able to give clients practical, tangible and unmistakable reasons to choose you, and you’ve got to be able to pull those reasons out of your pocket at a moment’s notice.  Here’s how …

•  Identify the end results you have achieved for other clients. Whether your product or service can save a client thousands of dollars, help them to finally quit smoking for good, lose 15 pounds, or increase their business by 50 percent. Clients make their decisions based upon what’s in it for them. Spell out the benefits.

•  Make it clear that what they see is what they get. State the fact, in your marketing material and at sales meetings with potential clients, that the person they meet will be the same person who will deliver the service to them or their end users.

•  Stake Your Reputation. Make it clear that since you are quite literally staking your reputation on the services you provide, your standards, your efforts and your attention to detail are far greater than a provider who draws a paycheck from a larger company.

•  Be able to give the implications of the results your client can achieve in terms of time and/or money. For example, your ability to help other clients quit smoking saved them the cost of a pack of cigarettes a day; over the course of one year, they save X amount of dollars. Or, by purchasing your product, another client gained valuable hours of time, which he used to implement other practices that netted him X amount more dollars.

•  Cite statistics. Potential clients want to know that you are well-informed. Keep up on the latest trends and happenings in your industry. Be able to routinely give examples of studies that show the need for the type of product or services you are offering and the difference the implementation of them made to users.

•  Declare your expertise. The broader you claim your skills to be, the fewer clients you will attract. Clients want assurance that you are the authority on their area of need. Once they know you are, they will view you with confidence and place greater value on your knowledge and skills.

By the time you’ve finished answering their question, the only question potential clients should have left is why they haven’t hired you sooner.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. She publishes a free, weekly newsletter for trainers, speakers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

You know that you’re the best, but your customers need to believe that too. There are several ways for you to gain their confidence and trust so you can earn their business.

Sway potential clients in your favor by taking away the risk of doing business with you and making your offer irresistible.

•  Offer a  guarantee. Personally, I have a guarantee when I’m offering my products or workshops. There is some grey area here, however. Some of my higher-value coaching services are more time intensive for me and don’t include a guarantee. The reason I don’t offer one is that I don’t want to give people an opt-out clause. When these high-caliber people step up in a big way and want to get the results that a high level coaching from me can deliver, I want to know that they’re fully in the game.

It’s a big challenge to make a massive transformation or a big leap in business. You don’t want clients like these to be running for the door or the emergency exit the moment the going gets tough. So, in some cases, guarantees are counter-productive and could actually end up helping clients resist what you’re offering.

So, you have to decide whether or not a guarantee is right for your market.

•  Alleviate their fears. Sometimes people won’t sign on or purchase something because they’re skeptical that what worked for other people won’t work for them. You need to show them how, even if they may have failed in the past, this time they will succeed. Include additional follow-ups or features that your competition doesn’t provide to show that you can help them accomplish their goal or fulfill their need. Be creative and really give some thought as to how you can remove the risk for your potential clients.

•  Make your offer irresistible. Pile on so much value that there is just no way they can lose. Include all the things your targeted clients could possibly want so that they just can’t pass your offer by.

There are few different ways to do this. Quantify the benefits of your services. For example, if you’ve got a program where for a $1,000 investment, your client will be able to make or save $10,000 in the next three months, you need to tell them that. Don’t assume that they will figure that out. Quantify the benefits specifically.

If there isn’t an easy financial comparison in your business, you do need to dig a little because this can really help you and help your clients. They will be able to wrap their heads around what you’re offering and make an informed decision because you’re giving them all the information they need.

The more you quantify, make your offer irresistible, and remove risk, the more successful you’re going to be.

Bernadette Doyle is a marketing specialist who helps entrepreneurs become client magnets and attract a steady stream of their ideal clients. If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

“System Secrets” – How to run a million dollar business while working just 3 days per week

If there aren’t enough hours in the day to do all you want to do, you NEED systems that make things happen automatically. Over the past 12 months, we’ve been SERIOUSLY investing in systems and I want to introduce you to my ‘systems’ guru – Beth Schneider. Beth has played a key part in enabling me to run a million dollar plus business while working just 3 days a week.

*MARKETING* MASTERMIND Call…
Tuesday, 23rd February, 2010,
8:00pm UK Time (3pm EASTERN, 12 noon PACIFIC)

If you want to discover one or two simple processes that put much of your repetitive work on auto-pilot and have your business running like a well oiled machine tune into this call.

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 ton of other member benefits – such as access to our online members forum.

Not a member?  Then 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.

——

Bernadette’s Marketing Mastermind is a special members’ group set up to provide ongoing information, support and motivation to people who want to attract more clients and build a successful business. Already over 450 members strong – and growing – we want YOU to join us and have more success, money and fun in your business. You can read about the Mastermind group here: http://clientmagnets.com/marketingmastermind

Take a look at your calendar of appointments right now. If you’ve been applying the Client Magnets approach, you shouldn’t have much available space in that diary. Hopefully, you have a pipeline of prospective business that keeps your book filled.

So, getting clients isn’t a problem for you. That’s a nice situation to be in, isn’t it?

From the outside, it looks fine to be that busy. You may even be getting a decent daily rate for your time. The problem is, though, that while your client list continues to grow, the amount of time that you have to serve those clients does not.

Once you’ve gotten new clients to sign on, you’ve got to deliver results for them. And as your calendar fills up, it’s not uncommon to feel as if there isn’t enough of you to go around. You may find yourself thinking that there aren’t enough hours in the day to meet all of your clients’ needs. You may think the only solution is to do more work, to spend more time at it.

When you get to this point, you’re so busy trying to keep the wheels turning that the idea of having one more thing to do is unbearable. To prevent your business from reaching this unmanageable stage, act now to start building your information empire.

As more people approach you about your services and want to know more about what you can offer, the more important it becomes to figure out how to duplicate and leverage yourself in order to meet their needs.

I’ve heard too many people say, “I just want to focus on getting the clients in. When I’ve got enough clients, then I’ll start focusing on the products, or on automating the sales, or on setting up the ecommerce site.” But you don’t want to let your business get to that point. You want to act now.

You need to design a workable, customized roadmap, one that will get you from that situation to an information empire that will have you earning money in your sleep. A business in which you produce revenue without having to physically get up and see clients every day.

Think very carefully about your business offerings. Look closely at your products or services, and determine which ones can be repackaged to reach more clients simultaneously. Perhaps you’re planning a live event that can be recorded and sold as a CD on your website. Hire a virtual assistant to handle admin tasks so you can concentrate on the creative aspects of your work. Find the thing that you do best, and focus on that.

You have complete control over this. Your awareness, your decisions, and your creativity are the resources that will help you to deliver results that are not dependent on your time and how much you work.

Your willingness and ability to look at the situation differently will allow you to meet the needs and expectations of all of the clients who are anxiously awaiting your help.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

There’s a fact that can’t be escaped if your business runs on sales: the majority of people won’t respond to your first contact. Instead of being discouraged by that fact, though, it’s time to start doing the one thing that’s sure to increase your sales. Developing an effective follow-up strategy will put you ahead of your competition and on the road to more income.

You may be saying, “Of course you should always follow up!” but are you doing that in your own business? It’s surprising how many sales-based businesses throw away income by failing to respond when someone raises their hand in response to marketing.

Consistent follow-up has always been a factor in sales success, but today, more than ever, people are hesitant to hand over their cash until they trust you. That’s why establishing a follow-up strategy is so crucial. If you don’t respond consistently when someone expresses interest, why would they trust you with their business later?

If you aren’t converting enough prospects to customers, it’s time to review your follow-up strategy. You may find that changing one thing about the way you respond to interested prospects is all it takes to get your business back on track.

For example, a business owner recently complained she was spending far too much on advertising, without seeing a lot of results. A quick look at her prospect database revealed she’d had quite a bit of initial interest to her marketing, but wasn’t following up consistently. Because of this, she was constantly in search of new clients.

To turn things around, she chose a few dozen prospects who had expressed some interest but had never bought. Simply by reconnecting with this group, she generated an impressive amount of income in just a few days. Is there potential income trapped within your own client database for lack of follow-up?

Once you’ve admitted you’re not following up as you should, there are four effective ways to enhance your strategy:

1. Set up a Process: You may keep telling yourself you’ll find time in the future to stop and do your backlogged follow-up. Guess what? That time never comes unless you map out a strategy for follow-up, and then automate the process as much as possible.

2. Lead Them to the Next Step: They’ve raised their hands to show their interested, so what happens next? They may be asking for more information, but your follow-up response should always lead them toward buying. Invite them to sign up for your call, hire your services or buy your product, but don’t simply tell them more about your products!

3. Vary Your Approach: If all you ever do is tell the customer you’re still in business and then ask if they’re ready to buy, you’re going to wear out your welcome. Increase the value of doing business with your company each time you follow up with a prospect, and you’re more likely to be on their minds when they’re ready to buy.

4. Design Marketing for the Customer: It might be more convenient to do one-size-fits-all marketing, but it won’t generate what you want in sales. Clients have different triggers, so map out your marketing follow-up plan so that includes several trigger points. For example, some people respond to the promise of results, while others need the pressure of an expiring offer before they’ll buy. Planning progressive follow-up that touches on several trigger points will improve your client conversions.

You’ve worked hard to create products, develop marketing and research your target audience. Don’t let the ball land at your feet by failing to follow-up with interested prospects. Keep that momentum going by developing an effective follow-up strategy. The payoff will be more sales, greater income and a lot less work to build your client base.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Breaking through the income barriers that are keeping you from real success takes more than hanging out a shingle and announcing you’re in business. There are actually four essential income streams that flow together to create substantial revenue. Once you’ve learned how to create income from all four, the barriers to your success will soon be washed downstream.

Income Stream #1: The Entry Level Product
To build a solid income, it’s essential to have an entry level product that allows customers to get their feet wet without a big financial commitment. What this product is dependant on what need you serve for your clients, but it should ideally be something that doesn’t require any work on your part to deliver it.

Think of something you could offer prospects that can be created one time and then delivered without any additional time investment. This isn’t your “big package” product, it’s something that will give customers an idea what you can do for them when they’re ready to make a bigger investment.

Income Stream #2: The Higher Priced Product
Your next step is to create a single purchase product that requires a bigger financial commitment on the part of the customer. Think of it this way: you can continue offering an entry level product, squeezing all you know into something that you must sell a lot of to become successful. Or, you can offer an entry level product at a low price to give clients a taste of what you can do, and then offer a higher priced product that more accurately meets their needs.

This is, of course, still a one-time purchase, so there’s more work to be done to really meet the needs of your clients. But this higher priced product can be a tipping point to greater income and move you away from constantly cranking out lower priced products that take a lot of your time without producing much income.

Income Stream #3: The Continuity Program
It would be great if we could create one product that could meet the needs of every single client, but the fact is that our clients are dynamic individuals whose needs shift and change over time. Offering a continuity program allows you to meet those needs long-term. It means you’re willing to provide them with on-going service.

A continuity program is simply a subscription type service in which clients pay an on-going fee to receive your services. This type of program allows them the benefit of your knowledge over time to meet their changing needs. The win for them is that you’re available to help them solve problems that arise. The win for you is that you’re not constantly replacing clients who purchase one product at a time.

To build a solid income base and successfully serve the needs of more clients, you need to offer some type of continuity program.

Income Stream #4: The “Rolls-Royce Program”
When we talk about creating a premium product, it’s good to remember the 80/20 rule of business. That rule says that eighty percent of your business will be generated by twenty percent of your clients. With regard to your “ultimate solution” product, you’re going to apply that 80/20 rule twice. First, look at your client list and see who your top twenty percent clients are. Then look at who makes up the top twenty percent of that smaller group.

That “twenty percent of the top twenty percent” group is your target market for a product you’re not offering to everyone else. That’s because this group is known as your “hyper responsives,” or those people who can’t wait to buy what you’re offering next.

It’s fantastic to have that kind of client loyalty, but you need a way of consistently meeting their needs, because it can be difficult to keep up with their hunger for your products. Creating a way to provide more access to your abilities and talents, at a premium price, is the basis of your Rolls-Royce program.

As you can see, developing these four essential income streams can boost your business revenue past the barriers that have kept you down. Don’t limit yourself to one way of providing service to your clients. Meet their needs more accurately, and build a solid income base for yourself, by creating solutions that reach every category of client.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

One of the best tips I can give you about converting potential clients into paying clients is this: Add one extra follow-up step.
That step can make the difference in bringing that client to finally making a decision. It can bring in extra sales. That one extra email, that one extra card, that one extra phone call, can be the thing that brings in those extra sales.

It’s very tempting for you to give up too soon. I realize that, especially right now. It would have been really easy for me to give up too, when I wasn’t getting the sales I wanted for a recent event. It would have been really easy for me to say, “Okay, it’s tougher this year than it has been to fill events. I give up.”

That would have been so wrong for me to do, on so many levels. How could I have that kind of attitude? I simply can’t allow for that when I am trying to inspire and educate you and the rest of my clients. That’s not good enough.

In addition to that, what does it say about me if I’m not doing every single thing possible to ensure that the right people are in that room at that event? I know that it’s life transforming, and it’s my responsibility to make sure that every person that’s got any question about that event, receives an answer.

Although this took some planning and organizing because I was traveling with my children to Belfast at the time, I made the two hours for the phone calls that needed making.

I added an extra follow-up step and made it happen because it was important. It’s important that I walk the talk. It was important that I do every single thing to make sure the people who could benefit from that event benefited from it.

And that’s what I want and expect from you. When you think about what you’re selling, if you truly believe that what you’re offering is so great and can make such a difference, you should stop at nothing to make sure that the people who most want and need it are using it. Leave no grey area – inform them, educate them and get them everything they need.

Don’t make excuses to give up. It’s easy enough to create reasons for giving up too soon. You’re too cool for school; you don’t want to be seen as needy; you don’t want to be pushy. Except, those reasons aren’t reasons. They’re excuses – obstacles that you are putting in your own way.

If you’ve made the connection with prospective clients, presented your offering, followed up a couple of times – what more can you do?

Well, you could drop back, you could stop going that extra mile, which effectively says you don’t believe enough in yourself and your business to keep trying. My gut tells me that you won’t do that. That’s not good enough for you.

Be inspired and motivated to follow up, and do it more thoroughly. Think about the different ways that you might be able to follow up and how you could add another step to your follow-up sequence.

Stop at nothing when it comes to reaching out to your prospects.

Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com

If a hundred people express an interest in your business this month, how many of them will be paying clients by the end of the month?

Once someone has raised their hand and expressed an interest in you or your business, what is the process they go through to become a paying client?

If your answer is, “it depends,” or “it changes according to every client,” that’s a tremendous mistake. You can’t grow your business that way. You will only grow exhausted if you must be personally involved in every single sale.

This aspect of conversion is really, really important. Everything else you do may give you visibility, but it’s not going to convert client interest into paying business unless you have this conversion process in place.

All of the methods, all of those other things you focus on, all they will do in and of themselves is raise your visibility. They’ll let people know about you. But they are not, by themselves, enough to get someone to put their hand in their pocket, take out cash or a credit card and hand it to you.

It isn’t enough just to get your name out there. That alone isn’t magically going to bring you paying clients. To make that happen you must have a conversion process.

So, if you’ve been working diligently, and doing all of the things that you need to do to increase your visibility, but it’s not converting into paying business yet, you need to focus on conversion. Right now.

Focusing on the answers to these questions will help you to articulate your conversion process:

1. What am I actually doing to encourage people that are interested in me to spend some money with me?

2.  How easy or difficult am I making it for them to trust me to spend money with me?

3.  How well am I spelling out the benefits of what I’m offering so that clients want to spend their money with me?

4.  Can clients clearly see the return on investment they’re going to get?

5.   Can they see the improvements that they’re going to enjoy or the quality of life they’re going to enjoy as a result of spending money with me?

These questions apply across the board and the answers will help you to implement a process to convert interested consumers into paying clients.

© Bernadette Doyle, 2009

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