Adapt Your Language To Close More Sales

March 19th, 2010

You probably don’t talk to children in the same manner as you talk with adults. Your conversations with close personal friends are likely more intimate than those you have with professional colleagues.

Well, the same holds true for the language you would use to speak with corporate executives as opposed to their employees.

You need to identify the audience you’re working with and the environment you are working in, and then adapt your language and approach accordingly. The areas you focus on and the phrasing you use with end users won’t be the same as those you use with the decision-makers.

You need to understand who your client is and be very clear on what your message to that client is.

The words you use to attract the buyer – the company or the corporation – may be precisely the right words to persuade them to sign on for your services. You may offer them statistics about how poor feedback costs companies a lot of money, how aspects like ineffective meetings waste company time, or how poor communication and personal issues lead to low employee retention rates.

But, these are not the same words you would use when delivering your service to the end user. You don’t want to portray them in a bad light. Essentially, you’ve got two clients. The language that you use to sell your service at one level should be different from the outline of the training that you distribute to the staff.

It’s very important to have that awareness. What is going to motivate and excite the end user – the staff member – does not have the same value or criteria as what inspires the person who is signing the checks. You need to have the flexibility to understand what’s important to both groups and then separately speak to each group in way that motivates them.

The end result is the same for both. Ultimately your objective, and obligation, is to help to improve the company. And you are making life better for the person that attends your course or workshop.

If, for example, you know you can help companies improve the effectiveness of their staff meetings, you would present this to them in a different manner than you would to the employees who conduct and attend those meetings. Everybody wants to participate in more effective meetings, but everybody also wants to blame the ineffectiveness of their meetings on someone else.

In the language to promote the course to the company, you might cite statistics about how ineffective meetings waste X amount of money. You can even evaluate the cost of meetings. One unnecessary meeting could cost an organization thousands of pounds. Then you would sell the specifics of what’s covered in your course.

During the course, your focus wouldn’t be on the cost of meetings to the company, it would be on how employees can make sure meetings stay on track, how to handle confrontational situations or deal with difficult people. The focus would be on making the best use of staff members’ time and talents.

So you are, in essence, presenting the same thing – in this example, a course or workshop – to two different audiences. But, you can certainly structure your language and approach so that it meets with everybody’s approval.

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

Adapt Your Language To Close More Sales

Create Irresistible Products

March 14th, 2010

“I want to buy that.” This is the immediate reaction you want people to have when they first see your offering: You want them to have that reaction before they even know the price.

To make that happen, you need to create products that are irresistible. There are a few universal principles to develop truly appealing products.

1. Find a hook. Recognize the “miracle cure” the public is looking for, and present your product as the closest thing possible to that miraculous fix.

One example is Yanik Silver’s Instant Sales Letters product.  Yanik has achieved great success with this product. They are his “miracle cure” for people who need to create effective sales letters, but don’t have enough time to write them. So he put together some fill-in-the-blanks templates to make it easy to prepare sales letters.   Of course, clients may have to do some tweaking to make a template work for their specific purpose. But the point is, they work.  Even if the template needs to be revised, they’ve still got a Sales Letter. And that is very attractive to people with little extra time.  The Instant Sales Letter product is a hook for them – the “miracle cure”.

2. Focus on the content first and the format second.

When you are planning your content, think about what you’re going to cover rather than how you’re going to cover it. Don’t decide that you are going to offer an e-book or a teleseminar until you know what information you will be including.

The format should be secondary. It should be based on what makes the most sense for your market, and what fits best with the product.

As you are mapping out your content, outline everything that your product will cover. You don’t need to include every single detail you know about the topic. Include the information your prospect needs in order to get the results they want. Include the detail that will get their immediate attention because you’re providing the solution they need.

Brainstorm all of the things that your end user will need to get the results that your product will deliver. Write the question “what will they need” in your journal, or put it up in your office. It will act as a prompt for your subconscious mind to come up with the answers.  Use can these answers to create your outline.

3. Use the “why-what-how-what if” format.

Why is each particular point important?
What is the specific item or step in the process?
How will the user implement it?
What if things don’t go according to plan?

Using this format helps you to bring the pieces of your product together.  It allows you to edit as you plan. You are assembling what you already know, putting it together quickly and editing it quickly into a usable format.


4. Be flexible and open to the fact that your outline may change.
That’s okay. You will still have the main outline, the “bones of the structure”.  You can always move the main elements around until you get the right fit.

5. You don’t have to create your product in the order that you’re going to deliver it.

Create your product in the way that will allow you to get it done quickly. Start with the areas that are easiest for you. That will give you some momentum to keep going with the more challenging elements of your product.

Once you’ve paid careful attention to these points, you will be able to quickly create a product that clients will be clamoring to buy because it resolves their needs and wants.

Use these steps to get started on creating your irresistible product.  Give your clients what they are asking for, give them what they WANT!

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

Create Irresistible Products

Attracting Prospects to Your Sign-Up Page

March 9th, 2010

Once you have a great sign-up page and an irresistible offer, it’s time to create some traffic. A steady flow of traffic to your sign-up page is essential to your success. Here are several strategies that can help you quickly build traffic to your sign-up page.

Visualize, Focus Your Efforts and Act. To create new traffic, you must first visualize yourself as having a large client list. This is important, because seeing yourself as successful helps focus your efforts. Set a target size for your list and give yourself a time limit for achieving it. Picturing that success can get a process going that will build your list.

Next, learn which forums your target audience frequents and hang out there. Read their questions and comments. It’s a good way to find out exactly what they want.  Post comments and respond to questions, but be careful not to say blatantly, “Sign up for my free report!” Useful comments with your email address, photo and the URL of your sign-up page in your profile can be very effective in attracting traffic.

You can also borrow traffic from someone else’s client list by connecting with people who sell related products. Decide which related products will truly benefit your clients. Look for websites your target audience is likely to frequent.

Consider ways you can benefit those companies by featuring their products, and ask them to do the same for you. Ask for testimonials or links to your products, and return the favor. Doing so can expand your impact significantly. Use this strategy carefully, however. Handing out testimonials indiscriminately weakens your own reputation.

There’s another idea you might not have considered for quickly building traffic to your sign-up page. Run competitions with your existing clients. Reward them for referring others to your sign-up page. If you have a well-written newsletter filled with useful content, your clients will be glad to share it with other professionals.

Award a free copy of one of your digital products to the 1,000th subscriber and also to the person who referred them. Offer a free copy of that product to the existing client who generates the most traffic. It won’t cost you very much and you can gain loads of new prospects on your list.  If you’re hesitant to give away a product you normally sell, consider the long-term benefit. Gaining new traffic for the cost of one product is a good trade-off.

Steady Traffic Equals a Strong List. Building a strong list requires a steady stream of new traffic to your sign-up page. Start by visualizing yourself with a great client list, and then focus your efforts on increasing traffic. Experiment with forum comments, product testimonials and client contests to encourage prospects to visit your sign-up page.

Traffic-building techniques such as these, combined with a well-written sign-up page and an irresistible offer, can put you on the path to a solid client list that sustains your business.

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 – If you’d like to receive invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease, register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

Attracting Prospects to Your Sign-Up Page

Instant Credibility, Contacts & Cash!

March 2nd, 2010

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

It’s my special one-time

“BONUS STEPPING UP! CALL”

Instant Credibility, Contacts & Cash!

Wednesday, 3rd March, 2010,

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

http://bit.ly/9vBVEn

This call is a special BONUS for my new Stepping UP! members.  Members, also get a ton of other benefits including …

Fast Start Webinar, where I walk you through my planning process for the year ahead (I don’t know anyone else who teaches this)

Portable digital player which has 20 masterclasses – so you get to immerse yourself in my best marketing strategies (and get the year off to a flying start)

Ticket to the 3 day live event worth £1500/$2400 – we’ll be doing these events in the USA as well as the UK/Ireland

Access to the Stepping UP! area of the forum which is exclusively for Stepping UP! members

Private strategy consultation

Not a member?  Then join the “Stepping UP!” programme today so you can take advantage of this call and all the other member goodies each and every month. http://www.clientmagnets.com/steppingup2010

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

Bernadette

Instant Credibility, Contacts & Cash!

How to Make Your Pitch To Corporate Clients

March 2nd, 2010

If you could put a figure on the net results your programmes, coaching services or training would have on a company, when implemented,  what would that price be?

How much money can what you are offering save or make your client? This is what larger companies and corporations want to know.

When you are pitching your product or services in a corporate environment, always emphasize and focus on what the net benefit to the company will be. Will your offering increase their overall sales? Reduce expenses and costs? Will it make their staff more efficient and productive, thus saving the company valuable time – and money?

It’s relatively easy to calculate straightway the cost that lost sales have on a company. However, there are other factors by which companies need to measure net results.

Maybe your business specializes in softer skills, such as leadership, management and employee development. To quantify that, you need to zero in on the tangible results the company will receive from your skills. Show corporations how they will be able to conduct more effective meetings because of your trainings; how they will receive more productive feedback because your workshops will teach staff to communicate more clearly.

Highlight the long-term implications that services similar to the ones you offer have on other companies. Gather statistics and give examples of how retention rates in companies improve because of the type of workshops you present and the skills you teach.

Statistics for all sorts of elements come into play here. Lost sales, sick leave, lack of focus, clique problems. You can gather research on many different challenges and problems that big companies face, then use that as a starting point and connect the dots to the cost savings for the company.

You can start gathering your statistics online.  Search relevant phrases and you’re sure to find that someone, somewhere did a survey and quantified the results that can be achieved.  Obviously, you should quote your source.

Here’s an example to demonstrate …

“This survey from _____showed that 45% of employees who leave an organization reported poor management as the main reason for leaving. When asked to clarify “poor management” it turns out that one of the things identified was poor feedback.”

After you state the facts, you then share the conclusion that poor feedback is costing their organization X amount of dollars.

Though you may deliver your product or service to a different end user than the head management of a company, in the end, your corporate clients will make the decision to go with you based on the impact your services will have on their bottom line.

That’s why when pitching your service or product in a corporate environment you need to spell out the net results that will be achieved.  Back it up with the data and statistics that support your offering. Show your prospect how they will benefit – bottom line -  and watch the sales flow in!

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

How to Make Your Pitch To Corporate Clients

SYSTEM Stands for Save Yourself Time Energy And Money

February 18th, 2010

“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

SYSTEM Stands for Save Yourself Time Energy And Money

Automatically Close More Sales

February 18th, 2010

If there’s one challenge new entrepreneurs share, it’s the need to close more sales. They work very hard, but never seem to meet with enough people to reach their desired goals. There’s a better way to meet your goals and it’s called “sales automation.” Once you learn to automate some or all of the sales process, your closing ratio, and your income, will increase dramatically.

Getting Past Your Objections to Automation

When we’re talking about “sales automation,” it simply means putting your sales process into a format that doesn’t require your physical presence. That may mean writing a great letter that causes prospects to want to buy without needing to meet with you. It could also mean setting up a website and email system that reaches out to prospects and makes your offer in a compelling way that leads them to buy.

Right now, you might be saying, “Oh, no, selling my product requires face-to-face interaction!” Here’s the thing— there are only so many hours in a day and so many prospects you can meet with personally. If your company’s success remains tied to your ability to shake hands with every prospect, you’re severely limiting your future income.

Instead of being the bottleneck to your company’s success, find a way to package what you’re offering so that the sales process can be automated. When you do, you’ll be on the path to a big jump in income. Learning to use automation tools like sales letters, webpages and brochures as your sales force will increase your closing percentage exponentially.

Packaging Your Offer for Automatic Sales

The first step, is packaging your product so it fits in an automated process. Even if you’re the product, as coaches, consultants and other professionals often are, what you’re offering the client can still be packaged.

What do you say when sitting face-to-face with a prospect? Pull that together into a package that can be presented over and over without your actual involvement, and you’ve got the key to automated sales.

Get started by creating a sales letter that focuses on your product and the need it meets in your target audience.

There’s a lot of discussion about how long online sales letters can be, but it’s important to remember you must answer every question when you aren’t physically in front of the prospect. Otherwise, they’ll simply move on to the next offer.

So, practice writing your prospects a letter that answers every possible objection and points them toward a sale. Open that letter on your website, and make sure the sales process is completely automated. A well-written online sales letter can become a powerful “sales force,” automatically selling your product without any involvement on your part.

There are other ways to make sales more automatic. A carefully written brochure that moves the prospect from initial interest to “I’m ready to buy!” can eliminate the need for personal sales call.

Moving the people toward a sale really doesn’t require being eyeball-to-eyeball with them. It simply takes packaging what you do in a compelling message. Move past your own objections to sales automation and let it help you grow your business.

By putting your products in front of more people, without requiring your own time and effort, a good automated sales process can increase your sales dramatically. Find a way to package your product and increase your exposure dramatically through sales automation.

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

Automatically Close More Sales

Building A Sustainable Business

February 17th, 2010

Have you ever watched the television series, The Apprentice? In one episode, each team was asked to create a business from scratch.

The interesting thing is that neither of the businesses created were really sustainable. Why? Because each team set themselves up in a business that revolved around them selling time.

One team did face painting; the other set up a gardening business. After each team had done the task for a couple of days, they counted how much money they had made. The actual figures aren’t important, because the money didn’t really count for anything. Both teams had to use the bulk of their income to pay employees for the time they spent performing tasks. So, neither of those businesses turned out to be profitable.

When Sir Alan Sugar, the host of the show, didn’t haul them over the coals more for it, I realized how strong this whole concept of selling time is in society.

As a business owner, you don’t want to follow this type of thinking. Doing this will not help you to build a profitable, sustainable business.

The solution is to build an information empire. The whole point of an information empire is that you don’t want to be selling your time. You do want to repackage your know-how and your expertise into products and programs that don’t require all of your attention all of the time. You may have to spend some time delivering programs, but not the bulk of your time.

This is the way to build a sustainable business. Because the paradox of selling your time is that the more successful you are, the less time you have. And, while you can always find more clients, you cannot create more time, no matter how hard you try.

But, with an information empire, time is no longer an issue. It will become possible for you to create more money, regardless of how much time you have. You simply need to stop linking the money you make to the time and effort you put in to your business. Once you truly understand this, creating more money will become easier to do.

It can be difficult to accept this concept. You might be thinking, “I don’t know that you can always get money. Making money has not been that easy for me.”

But the truth is, there is always money flowing. Even in this current economy, with the credit crunch and the recession, money is still flowing. It’s just flowing in different places from where it was flowing previously. It is up to you to find the source of that stream and collect it.

The key is to carefully examine your business to find ways of serving many clients at one time, rather than serving each client individually. Once you develop the products and services that allow you to do this, your business will be fully sustainable, without you having to wish for more hours in the day.

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

Building A Sustainable Business

How To Reach Your Target Audience

January 26th, 2010

Where do the people in your target market hang out? That’s a question you’ll want to answer in order to grow your business quickly. Online or offline, people with similar buying habits tend to read, join and discuss in the same places. By doing some research, and creating a list of established points of connection, you can affordably reach more people in your target audience.

Where Do Your Target Prospects Flock Together?

The old saying about “birds of a feather” really applies when it comes to people likely to buy your product. They probably read the same publications, hang out on the same websites and belong to the same associations. What’s more, they’re likely hanging out together in significant numbers.

This is where good research pays off. Once you learn where your target prospects congregate, you can find ways to leverage relationships other people have with them.

For example, if they’ve paid to subscribe to a magazine, there’s a relationship established with that publication. Someone else might already be selling their products regularly to the same group of people.  Many members of your target audience may also belong to the same trade associations.

The point is, any way you might be able to connect with your audience through an existing connection should be added to your list. Media contacts, possible joint venture partners, associations, and online discussion groups are all valuable assets to be leveraged while growing your list.

If this sounds like a lot of legwork, there’s some good news. Once you begin to find these places where your target audience congregates, a snowball effect will kick in. You’ll talk to one or two people, and then learn of more and more connections. Rather than painstakingly tracking down each place, your new prospects will begin to show them to you.

Find common connections between the people in a specific market. Look for books and publications which give lists of trade magazines or associations.

Ways to Reach Your Market
Remember, the key is to gather information on your list that allows you to reach your market. That means not starting from scratch trying to sell to your audience if there’s another way in.

You might choose to advertise in that magazine your target audience likes to read, or submit some editorials. As you research your list make notes about who accepts advertising, articles or editorials.

A joint venture with a company already selling products to your intended market is another good way to break in. Look online at companies you might once have considered your competitors. If your products complement theirs, a joint venture could benefit you both.

Another possibility is to offer to give talks to the groups you find your market tends to join. Keep notes on who needs guest speakers, how often they meet and whether you can sell from the back of the room.

Again, all this will take some research on your part. Even if someone else could tell you exactly where members of your target audience hang out, they don’t know your product like you do, so do your own homework.

A final tip about reaching your audience: don’t waste your money trying to reach your market through large publications. The expense to advertise in national, regional or even large local publications is enormous, and you’ll be paying for circulation beyond your audience. Target niche magazines and newsletters, instead; your return will be much more profitable.

Devote some time to researching where your target market hangs out and keep your eyes open for opportunities to leverage existing relationships. Expanding your list of marketing prospects will become much easier once you multiply your impact through these avenues.

How To Reach Your Target Audience

Marketing Strength Comes With Being Vulnerable

January 19th, 2010

There aren’t many of us who enjoy admitting to our weaknesses. Recognizing our own vulnerabilities makes us feel, well vulnerable.

Here’s the thing, though. If you want to emotionally connect with your audience – and you do want to do that – you have to find the strength and the courage to be vulnerable. I personally think one of the most powerful ways to really take your marketing to a whole new level is to find within yourself that courage to be vulnerable.

I’ll give you the perfect example. At a two-day intensive workshop, I met a gentleman who was really intense about studying direct marketing, copywriting and Internet marketing.

He had really been going for it. But he was very frustrated and shared that he was spending as much on his advertising as he was making. So he was basically at zero.

When I looked at his website, I observed what I call “copywriting by numbers.” If you looked at it, on the surface, you could find absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing.

If you looked at it with this kind of copywriting, direct response mindset, everything he was doing was ticking all the boxes. On the surface nothing was wrong.

But the fact was, there was something missing.

He had a very personal, very vulnerable reason for creating his business, but he wasn’t sharing it. He had no real emotional connection with his audience.

The story is basically that he had a dog who was his lifelong companion. The dog became sick, was diagnosed with cancer and given a very short amount of time to live.

And he obviously wanted to do everything he could to save his dog, and ended up finding some different techniques for really assisting dogs in this situation.

He packaged the information he found into an e-book which he sells to other dog owners in the same situation. But when you visited his web site, you didn’t feel the emotional connection to him as a dog owner.  He didn’t relay anything about his own personal situation.

He could have been selling anything from his website from the way that he was – or actually, wasn’t – emotionally engaging his audience.

As we talked about it, he shared that he was finding it difficult to be that vulnerable and open up about his experiences. It was such a soft spot for him. It was easier to just play it safe and try to keep the copywriting at an intellectual level.

He was actually frightened that people would laugh at him.

And that couldn’t be more untrue. In fact, quite the opposite. People can sense when there’s real truth in marketing. And it was obvious as he talked about his dog that there was genuine true feeling there. His motive for setting up his business wasn’t just about making money.

His purpose was really to help other dog owners in a similar situation get through what had been a very traumatic time for him. But because he wasn’t allowing himself to be vulnerable, this message wasn’t coming across in his marketing.

And yes, he is selling information on saving a dog’s life, but the same could be true if you’re selling products or information to business leaders.

That feeling that you have the courage to share is actually what’s going to inspire your customers and turn them onto your message. That is what’s going to make them feel that you’re the person they want to learn from.

Marketing Strength Comes With Being Vulnerable