Client Magnets Official Blog

Archive for the ‘specializing’ Category

It’s a lot easier to turn a ship that’s moving in the wrong direction than it is to turn a ship that’s not moving at all.

If you’ve been getting “analysis paralysis”, scratching your head and trying to figure out what your direction is, just pick a purpose and start heading toward it. If you’re off course, the market will correct you.

If you’re not heading in the right direction, the market will quickly give you feedback that will help you adjust. Just don’t get overly concerned that what you decide today is going to be cast in stone.

Don’t worry about picking the wrong area or niche at first. Don’t worry if you find that you’re being called an expert on something that you don’t want to be known as the expert on.

Areas of expertise can change. But you can only change your direction if you have already set out in one to begin with.

Bob Burg is the author of a book called “Endless Referrals.” He is now positioned as a referral expert and an expert on helping people to generate referrals for business.

When he first started out, his niche was memory experts. He noticed that people who took his memory courses wanted to improve their memory to remember the names of people they’d met at networking meetings and events. They wanted to improve their memory to achieve better business results.

As he spotted that connection, he started to focus more on being the referral expert. No one accused him of being a fraud because he was now a referral expert instead of a memory expert. The market let him know in which direction to steer his business.

When you set course in your chosen direction, look for niches and markets where it’s going to be easier for you to establish personal relationships and position yourself as an expert.

If the niche you do choose turns out to be an enormous amount of effort, you have to weigh whether or not it’s worth your while to continue down that road or take a different road to get business.

When Dan Kennedy, the marketing expert, was invited to submit a proposal to give a speech in Switzerland, he opted out. While plenty of other people would jump at the opportunity, and spend a day putting together a proposal to bid, that is not the way he wants to go after business. Perhaps it didn’t seem worthwhile to spend the time writing the proposal. The point is that you have to make the determination of how you want to do business.

Your niche will evolve with your business. It’s an actual evolution that happens in most any business. Look at my own situation. I started out as specializing, by trial and error, as a cold calling expert. But I didn’t stop at that. Today, I’m teaching people how to find new business and triple their income! The way in which I’m helping people and the types of people I’m helping is completely different from what I started out with.

But it’s turned out for the best for everyone!

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

Many people go out of business because they have failed to align their product with what the market demands – and with what their inner selves demand.

Many times, businesses need to endure a breakdown before a breakthrough can be felt. Sometimes, the bad times are the only times that spur the need for positive change. In other words, even if you’re struggling with simply “making it,” there’s plenty of hope.

I know you want an endless supply of customers – a flow that’s as intense as you’re willing to handle. But there’s an important element to consider before moving forward. You must ensure that any success you’ve experienced to this point isn’t just a symptom of luck. I like to say that even a broken clock shows the right time twice a day. If you glance at the clock randomly, there’s a chance you might get the right time. And if you do, you might be fooled into thinking the clock is working. But it’s not.

You have to make sure that people are coming to you because of the one-of-a-kind value you’ve offered them, not because they’ve stumbled upon you.

There’s no denying that you have a treasure trove of valuables to offer. You have gifts, talents, and abilities that are guiding you toward your perfect mission. You know there are people out there that would greatly benefit from what you have to offer. But when you can’t find those people, or they can’t find you, it can be a painful disappointment. Because your venture really is your calling, right? Or isn’t it?

Every business owner has a calling, and to truly find success in that calling, that business owner needs to be assured that their distinctive abilities are made apparent by that business.

Often, your attempts at furthering your business aren’t the problem. Instead, it might be that you have missed something that’s fundamental to attracting clients: finding that one thing that only you can offer, and that consumers are looking for.

If you are passionate about something, and it happens to also be a God-given gift, then somewhere in the world, there is a demand for that service. God isn’t wasteful. He wouldn’t give you something and not create an equal and opposite need for it.

Your challenge is to find the channel through which you can deliver your true value to those who need it. Frederick Buechner defines vocation as the place where passion meets the world’s greatest hunger. This is a beautiful statement. It reinforces the idea that we’re all here to do something or be someone. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell us how to make the connection, or how to keep ourselves in business.

To get a better grasp on this channel, take the time to reflect on you. You are a vehicle for delivering the gifts that the world is waiting for. Put your gifts in writing, and assess them. Then ask yourself these questions:

• How do my gifts complement one another?

• How can my talents be combined to create something unlike anything the world has ever seen?

• Does that combination meet a need?

• If not, can I find a legitimate need?

• Or do I need to find a new and different recipe for those gifts, based on a need I know I can satisfy?

Carving out your vocation using the talent and need factors will go miles to pull your business through adversity. In times of adversity, luck is nowhere to be found…but true value never dwindles.

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

When you consider the meaning of the term “stepping up” in the figurative sense, it means to increase, improve and intensify.  It means saying “yes” to propelling yourself and your business forward in a BIG WAY!    If you want this to happen for you and your business, you need to understand the steps behind stepping up.  You need to know the valuable key to staying motivated and excited.  While it’s not always a smooth process, each step you take will move you closer and closer to your ultimate goals…

•    Master your inner game. There are always going to be challenges. That’s part of growth. Know that you have the strength to handle whatever comes your way.

•    Dare to dream the things that you right now think you don’t deserve. You can’t move forward or step up if you don’t think you have the right to.

•    Make the decision to raise your game. Feel the burning desire that caused you to begin your business in the first place.

•    Focus on your vision of what your business is supposed to look like. If you didn’t start out truly visualizing, do it now. Commit it to paper so you can remind yourself: How much money do you want to make? How many hours do you want to be working? What kind of lifestyle do you want to lead? What difference do you want your business to make?

•    Develop your plan. Seeing your vision of your business is one thing, making it a reality requires purpose and preparation.

•    Evaluate your assets. Your resources are likely right in front of you.  Look to your existing clients for feedback, referrals, sales and product upgrades. Build your prospect lists to increase exposure. A good team that gets your business going, products developed, and website running goes a long way in stepping up your business, as do joint venture partnerships which help to increase exposure.  Products are probably your best asset as an independent source of additional revenue that can really step up your business.

•    Design your products, programs and solutions for the top 20% of clients because that’s where 4/5 of your income will come from.

•    Think in terms of project income, not monthly income. Plan for the year, instead of planning month by month. Plan around big projects.

•    Remember:  just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If you try to do everything you think of, everything that you know you can do, you will do them all half-way. Choose only the best of what you can do and you will step up your business.

•    Take the first step without knowing what the next one will be. Take the leap of faith without a safety net. You can only see the next step after you take the first one.

•    Grow bigger than your obstacles or problems. Move forward in spite of the challenges. They are inevitable. Everyone who has experienced success has experienced obstacles. They just chose to move past and overcome them.

•    Recognize that the changes you experience when you are stepping up, in your life and in your business, won’t always feel good. They can be uncomfortable at first because they will be unfamiliar. But, they will be worth it.

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

Do you think your database of customers isn’t large enough for you to reach your sales goals? If you think that the only way you can make big money is with a bigger list, don’t believe that for a second longer.

Even if you have only a very small database, you can extract very large incomes from it.

Plenty of successful people started with no database and were able to meet their goals, including me and many of my mentors. I did not have a database when I began. I created one as I went along.

Don’t use what you perceive to be a lack of potential clients on your list as an excuse for not making the money you want. You don’t need a large database to make a lot of money. You can still reach your sales goals. You just have to want it badly enough.

What you need, more than a larger list, is to believe in yourself. If you present your product or service with a positive belief system, the customer list you have will pay the type of prices you’re asking.

One of my mentors, has a mastermind group with only 12 people. A very small list, but they pay $100,000 a piece. If only 3 of them sign on for a product, that’s significant earnings.

Of course, you can change the amount to a figure that more closely represents your product or service, but the message is clear. My mentor, believes his program is worth the price, and he believes his database will pay it. You should believe the same about yours.

As you go along, you will obviously learn how to grow your database, but your ability to make money is more about your self-worth.

Not only do you need to believe that you would spend the money on the product you’re offering, you have to believe that the clients on your list would spend that much money, as well.

Believe that, and it won’t matter what size database you have. Self-worth controls your income. Not the size of the database. Not where you live. Not the clothing that you wear or the people that you know.

If you increase your self-worth, everything can be taken away from you and you will instantly have it back overnight. You will always make money because your income is definitely directly tied to your own self-worth.

It doesn’t matter what your product is or how many potential clients are on your list. If you believe you’re worth a million, you will go out and generate a million.

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

Are you trying to be all things to all people in your business? Or, even in your personal life, for that matter? If you are, your head is probably spinning, trying to figure out exactly who you are and exactly what your expertise is.

You may think it’s easier for you to offer a general selection of services.  The broader your area of expertise, the more clients you think you’ll attract. However, quite the opposite is true. When you stand up and declare your specialty, clients will view you with confidence and place greater value on your knowledge and skills.

You can make this happen on purpose, or if you really take notice, you might see a trend regarding the clients you attract. For example, one client of mine is a coach and a mom who wasn’t specific about her audience or her specialty. In her words, “When I started out, nothing really happened.”

In her case, she started attracting clients who were moms. She was a mom herself and other moms could relate to some of the scenarios she presented in her business. Her niche more or less found her, but she realized it and focused her business around that niche.

Now she’s known as an expert. Journalists cite her as a source for articles, which results in lots of PR for her company. And now, she has clients calling her who aren’t even moms, asking her if she would consider working with them.

That’s a nice situation to be in – people asking if you’ll take them on as a client.

Being recognized as an expert rather than a generalist can make a tremendous difference in your business. No one is going to hand you a “certified expert” certificate. The secret of being an expert is having the guts to appoint yourself as one.

You aren’t claiming knowledge and expertise that you don’t have. You just need to take the step and say, “I am now an authority on…” or, “I specialize in…”  It’s amazing how quickly things can organize themselves around that.

The fact of the matter is that you probably do know a lot of facts and figures about your particular area. You notice similar problems or situations that come up over and over, and you learn how to address and solve them. Because you look for that information, you do become an expert.

Each step leads to the next step. Once you recognize these recurring topics, you are familiar with the environment that leads to them. So, if you were to write an article, or speak to a potential client, the specific phrases and language you use will resonate with them because they have also used them repeatedly.

That person will get the feeling that you really understand what they’re going through. That’s what clients ultimately want, and that’s what you can give them by specializing.

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