March 17th, 2010
When you’re just starting out in business, one of your biggest goals is to develop the much-coveted client list. That grouping of potential clients to whom you want to market your product or service.
While it’s very nice to already have an existing list to work from, don’t worry if you don’t have a list right now. I myself didn’t start out with a big customer list. Remember, we all have to start somewhere.
There are still plenty of ways to find the market you want to address. As you implement each one, your list will automatically develop and grow.
1. Set aside your preconceptions
If you think you already know who your market is and what they want, you will miss obvious opportunities. Clear your mind of its preconceived notions and your options, and your list will expand tremendously.
2. Listen
The first area you should focus your attention on is listening to the people around you. Hear what people are complaining about and zero in on responding to those complaints.
Think about all the opportunities you have to listen to people’s gripes and grievances. Visit forums. Participate in networking groups. Then, really listen. What are the members worried about? What are they asking questions about?
Look for the patterns. Look for the issues that come up again and again, and that fit your area of expertise and your interests. You may find a market right there under your nose.
3. Survey.
As people begin to show interest in your product or service, delve a little deeper to see what is attractive or important to them. If they visit your web site or sign up for a service or purchase a product, include a second page where you ask them a question. For example, if you are offering a teleseminar, asking for their name and email address will build your contact list. Then, ask them to take a brief survey before the transaction is completed so you can grow your business from the input of your existing clients. Your lead-in page could say something like, “Congratulations! Your registration is almost complete. But because I want to make sure the information I’m covering is most relevant to you, what is your biggest question about…”
4. Present yourself as a leader.
No matter what your area of expertise, being the leader in your field is the best way to sell your products and help your clients. Listen to the market. Pay attention to their needs and problems .Once you identify those needs and problems, establish yourself as the leader who provides help and answers.
Right now, within a ten-mile radius, there are people struggling and suffering with problems that you can solve. By listening to them with an open mind, and finding out their needs, you will find the market that needs you to lead them toward resolution of their problems.
Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com
Tags: attracting clients, buyer behavior, chasing clients, Market share, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Networking, sales strategies, targeted marketing, targeting clients
Posted in Business Networking, Business Plans, Email Marketing, Home Based Business, Internet Business, Marketing, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Personal Productivity, Sales Motivation, Success Secrets, target audience | 1 Comment »
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
Tags: attracting clients, buyer behavior, chasing clients, Market share, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Motivation, Personal Productivity, sales strategies, sales strategy, targeted marketing, targeting clients, types of buyers, Value
Posted in Advertising, Business Plans, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Law Of Attraction, Marketing, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Strategies To Keep Good Customers | 1 Comment »
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
Tags: attracting clients, buyer behavior, chasing clients, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, targeted marketing, targeting clients
Posted in Business Networking, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Marketing Mastermind, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Strategies To Keep Good Customers, target audience | 2 Comments »
March 7th, 2010
Before ramping up your marketing when sales are disappointing, take a step back and ask yourself, “Do I know what my market really, really wants?” Being able to answer that question is the key to growing your business. By focusing on what people want, rather than on what you hope to sell them, you can begin to see the kind of success you desire.
If you suspect you’re wasting time by marketing something people don’t really want, here are some principles to ponder:
People buy what they want, not what you think they need.
You’re going to get a lot of resistance to your marketing if someone thinks they’re being shoehorned into buying what they don’t want. No matter how loudly you proclaim your product’s benefits, your market won’t respond if they don’t want the product. To continue doing so is a lot like speaking a different language and shouting to be understood.
People need to feel good about what they’ve bought.
One way to zero in on what your market wants is to develop empathy with that group of people. You must connect emotionally with how they feel about purchasing. When you’ve put yourself in someone else’s shoes, you begin to understand how they feel. What are their hopes and dreams? What do they fear? What keeps them awake at night?
If you’ve done a good job of pinpointing a target market, you should be able to learn these things easily. Until you do, you’re wasting time on marketing that won’t work, because you don’t yet know what products they’ll feel good about buying.
People buy products when they feel they’ve been understood.
No matter what logical explanation someone can give for buying a product, underneath it is the belief they’ve been understood. Someone knew enough about who they were to make a product that fits them.
So, how will you know when you’ve learned what your market really, really wants? You’ll know, because that’s when it all becomes easier. There’s no need to push or shove someone into buying, because they want what you’re offering. It will be such a revelation to learn how easy selling your products can be when they’re what your market wants.
Once that happens, you’ll begin to hear from your clients how grateful they are for your products. Everything about how you do business will be transformed, because you’ve taken the time to learn what your market wants. You’ve made the effort to step into their shoes and understand what makes them tick. And that effort pays off in products that really meet the needs of your market.
So, if you’re still struggling to sell your products, or it feels as though you’re pushing people into buying what they don’t want, it’s time to take inventory. Here are five questions to answer before trying again to sell your products:
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What is most important to the people in my target market?
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What problems keep them awake at night?
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What is the desired end result they’re hoping for?
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Does my product help them solve their problems and reach their goals?
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Do I need to change my products so that they do?
The process of stepping closer to your target market and understanding that group of people may take time and effort, but it will definitely be worth it. Once you know the people in your market very well, the products you offer them will meet their needs. And that’s what people really, really 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
Tags: attracting clients, buyer behavior, chasing clients, Customer Loyalty, customer loyalty concepts, Market share, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, sales strategies, targeted marketing, targeting clients, types of buyers
Posted in Business Networking, Business Plans, Law Of Attraction, Marketing, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Sales Motivation, Strategies To Keep Good Customers, target audience | No Comments »
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)
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
Tags: attracting clients, chasing clients, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Motivation, Personal Productivity, sales strategies, Success Secrets
Posted in Business & Money, Business Networking, Business Plans, Business Success, Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Mastermind, Motivation, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Systems, Teleseminars | No Comments »
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
Tags: buyer behavior, Customer Loyalty, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, sales automation, Sales Copy, sales strategies, sales strategy, Selling, Success Secrets, targeted marketing
Posted in Direct Marketing, Email Marketing, Internet Business, Marketing, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Sales Motivation, target audience | No Comments »
February 16th, 2010
People ask me all the time ‘Bernadette, I can see that your marketing strategies clearly work for YOU, but what about other people? Do your techniques work for them?’
The answer is ABSOLUTELY these strategies work for all types of businesses, and I’m ready to PROVE it to you with a special ‘Success Stories’ call I’m hosting this Wednesday 17th February
Get ready to meet:
• The mother of 3 who launched a new program and generated €30,000 in just 67 days (without even having a website!)
• The successful business owner who was frustrated with the margins in his traditional business model and approached me to help him repackage his expertise into a product that he could sell on ‘auto-pilot’. Sales so far stand at £75,000….
• The former financial adviser who started a business from home that now generates £100,000 a year – even though she works just 25 hours a week and balances running her business with looking after her young son….
Results like these are QUANTUM LEAPS, not incremental gains, and we’ll show you EXACTLY how they did it on this special call: http://clientmagnets.com/successstories
Register NOW to join us. You’ll be inspired by the amazing results they have achieved – in record time.
See you on the call!
http://clientmagnets.com/successstories
Tags: attracting clients, buyer behavior, chasing clients, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, sales strategies, Success Secrets, targeted marketing, targeting clients
Posted in Advertising, Business Plans, Business Success, Home Business, How To Make Money, Law Of Attraction, Marketing, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Sales Motivation, Success Secrets, Teleseminars | No Comments »
February 15th, 2010
How easy is it for clients to say yes to what you’re offering? How aware are your potential clients of the huge improvements you can make in their lives?
It’s up to you to make them aware; to make it easy for them to say yes to your services. Basically it comes down to this: You need to make the intangibles of your business tangible.
Let’s say, for example, that you’re a healer or a coach. You’ve helped your clients lose weight, stop smoking, find the love of their life or double their business sales. Your process produced amazing results that literally changed their lives.
If you are able to create these incredible transformations in the lives of your clients, you have to be able to explain what it is that you do. You need to put your process into words so that new prospects are able to wrap their head around what you’re offering.
Generally, people can only experience the results of your services after they’ve tried you. In their minds, they are essentially taking a risk, because they don’t know exactly what the benefits are going to be for them until they try your service.
So, it’s your job and it’s your duty to make the intangible tangible.
How do you go about doing that?
Start by getting good at quantifying and spelling out the benefits of what you offer.
If you’re like many people, you may be resistant to this step. You may feel like you’re bragging. Or you might resist out of a sense of integrity. Maybe you’re worried about making a claim that you can’t follow through on. Maybe you feel that just because you helped one client drastically improve, you don’t want to assume that you can do the same for everyone.
Well, your that viewpoint is actually hurting you, and it’s hurting your potential clients.
Because while you’re not willing to make big bold promises or big bold statements, even about the results that you’ve already delivered for others, sooner or later someone else, who doesn’t share your integrity, will.
And all of those potential clients who are confused, looking for help and for solutions, will be seduced and taken in by the cowboy or the charlatan who offers a similar service, but doesn’t share your integrity.
While you’re sitting on the moral high ground, worrying about whether it’s okay to say something, there will be plenty of others perfectly willing to lure in vulnerable people in need of help. Your prospects will fall prey to them, unless you step up.
If you don’t, someone else surely will. And it won’t be someone with your abilities, values and integrity. It will be someone who is just focused on the money.
So, it’s time for you to get in the game. Instead of letting clients feel like they’re taking a chance on you, give them what they need to feel confident and assured in their decision. Make your services concrete. Once you spell out exactly what you do, how you do it and how it will benefit them, it will be easy for them to just say “yes.”
Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com
Tags: attracting clients, buyer behavior, chasing clients, Marketing, Marketing Strategies, sales strategies, sales strategy, Selling, Success Secrets, targeted marketing, targeting clients
Posted in Advertising, Business Plans, Business Success, Marketing, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Sales Motivation, target audience | 1 Comment »
February 11th, 2010
Are you waiting for permission to be considered the expert in your field? Are you lingering at one level, waiting for someone’s approval to move on to that expert status?
Good things do not always come to those who wait. You need to stop waiting for permission and approval. No one is going to come along and deem you the expert or hand you an award. This is something that you must step up and claim.
Only when you have the guts to step up and claim it, will you be thinking and acting like a winner.
When I began my first business, at 26 years old, I had no track record. I had no past clients and no success stories to talk about. I had no marketing experience, and no budget.
I basically had every possible disadvantage.
The one thing I did have was alot of enthusiasm and a very positive mindset about what I was doing. I started positioning myself and calling myself an expert – long before anybody else came along and awarded me that title.
To think and act like a winner, you need to keep your focus on where you’re heading, not where you’re starting from.
Many people get crippled by this. Don’t be one of them. Don’t get caught up in this cycle of looking for some type of approval or permission that will suddenly make you step up and be the expert.
Once I chose to define myself as a cold-calling expert, I started acting like one and before too long, I did indeed become one. I was honest about it; not arrogant and thinking I knew it all. I brushed up my skills and learned the things I needed to in order to claim my expertise.
The same holds true for my friend, Carrie Wilkerson, who has an absolutely huge following on Twitter. A big part of how she gathered that following was that she just acted like the expert. Before long, people started treating her like the expert and inviting her to speak at events.
A lot of people call her “the overnight expert” because she went from zero to a million dollars in less than 12 months.
You have that ability too. The thing that you need, first and foremost, is a positive mindset. You need to be confident enough in your skills and your knowledge to step out in front and make yourself known.
You also need to be astute enough to research and master all of the things that your area of expertise requires. Make a list of exactly what an expert in your field needs to know in order to be considered “the expert.” You probably have all of those qualities and requirements already. If you don’t, you will at least know what you need to do or improve upon to claim the role.
Once you know that you have what you need, you can begin to act the part of expert. Then you can pass on all of that expertise to your clients.
Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com
Tags: Magnetism, Marketing, Motivation, Networking, niche, Personal Productivity, Success Secrets, targeted marketing, Words Of Inspiration
Posted in Business Plans, Business Success, Internet Business, Marketing, Motivation, Niche Marketing, Online Marketing, Personal Productivity, Success Secrets, Words Of Inspiration | 6 Comments »
February 10th, 2010
Is something stopping you from starting your online business and moving forward to achieve success in your life? Successful online entrepreneurs didn’t let their circumstances prevent them from getting started. No matter where you are starting from, you already have many of the assets and resources you need.
If your reaction is, “I don’t really have any,” I am going to prove to you how wrong you are. You’ll be surprised at how much you bring to the table.
You don’t need to have a huge marketing budget. You don’t need the technical know-how. You don’t need to have a website or a facility for taking payments online yet.
What you do need is an awareness of the resources that you can tap into.
• Life experiences. Your experiences in life count for a lot. Make a list of all the jobs you’ve ever held, and all the work you’ve done for those jobs. All of this adds value to who you are right now.
• Existing prospects. Do you have a list of people that you’ve been in contact with who have expressed an interest in your services? If you don’t, or if it’s a small list, you need to begin to build that up.
• Existing customers. Your list might not have hundreds of customers, and it doesn’t need to. If you have a customer list, of any length, that’s an existing resource that you can use to get you started.
• A network. You have a group of people that know you, that like you, that value you. While they may not be direct customers for your business, there’s a good chance that they will participate and help you.
• Email. Just send an email out to your prospects, past and present customers, old colleagues and other network lists saying something like, “This is a new project that I’m starting. I would really appreciate if you could hook me up with other people that might be interested.”
• Your willingness to ask for help. Yes, this is an asset. Don’t take the path of least assistance. If you’re going to build a successful online business, it’s essential for you to get comfortable with asking for help. You’ve got to be okay with that. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s actually a sign of strength.
• Existing products or programs. You might already have something that you don’t even recognize the value of. I turned copies of sales proposals I had used years ago to win training contracts, into valuable materials that I could share and sell. That was material that I had been undervaluing.
• Your know-how and experience. Maybe you’re very good at what you’re doing and getting tremendous results, but can’t explain what you do. That’s okay. That can be pulled out of you and turned into training or a product that can give people similar results, without you having to work with them in person. Or you could map out what you know into a process that you can sell to other coaches. There are lots of opportunities to utilize your know-how.
• Support and help. Do you have someone who assists you with admin? Or someone who helps with the technical work? If you don’t, it’s easy enough to get hooked up with that.
These are the some of the resources you likely have ready have access to. You can build a successful online business if you have these. Take inventory and see where the gaps are. The more resources you have to start with, the less time it’s going to take for you to profit. If you’ve got fewer resources, you have less of a margin for error, so deploy them wisely.
Tags: attracting clients, chasing clients, Market share, Marketing Strategies, Networking, Personal Productivity, Success Secrets, targeted marketing
Posted in Business & Money, Business Networking, Business Plans, Business Success, Internet Business, Marketing, Online Marketing, Personal Productivity, Small Business Ideas | 3 Comments »
