Client Magnets Official Blog

Posts Tagged ‘niche’

It's your responsibility to establish the value of the service you provide.

Today I’ve got some suggestions for you on how to set prices for your training.

I’ve recently been receiving regular reflexology treatment. At my last session the reflexologist told me she’d been invited to submit a proposal to provide training at a dance school. “I have no idea how to structure the proposal, or even what to charge”  she told me. “They’ve asked me to run 12 two hour sessions”

“How many people will be receiving the training?” I asked. “10″   she replied. “And overall they’ll be getting 24 hours of training. What would it cost if they individually went and bought 24 hours of reflexology training on the open market?” “At least 600 euro per person”, she replied.

“Great. Well 10 times 600 euro is 6,000. So immediately we’ve established the value of this training at 6,000 euro”.

Her eyes widened, “That’s 3 times what I was thinking of charging.”

“Well I’m not saying you should charge that, but I would definitely include that piece of information somewhere in your proposal. You see, perception of value is a very subjective thing. If the decision makers have an idea that your time is worth 40 euro an hour, and they see you providing 24 hours of training, then the figure they may have in THEIR heads is 960.

On that basis, it will be difficult to persuade them to part with 2,000. You’re going to encounter price resistance and have a lot of objections to overcome. Even if you can convince them to pay 2,000, they’re going to have a feeling that they were overcharged. Even though their expectations were unrealistic and didn’t take into account your preparation time. It will be an uphill struggle.

In contrast, if you take the time to establish that this training would cost them 6,000 if they were to source it elsewhere, you could charge 3,000 and they will still feel like they’re getting value.

It’s your responsibility to establish the value of the service you provide. Before this conversation, my reflexologist was going to set her prices by calculating how many hours were involved, and then multiplying that by her hourly rate.

Yet her hourly rate as a reflexology practitioner is IRRELEVANT to the proposal she had been asked to submit. She is providing training to 10 people NOT a reflexology treatment to one. It’s a completely different service, with a completely different end value and should be priced accordingly. Same applies if you are a coach, consultant or providing any form of one-to-one service.

If a customer has a certain figure in their head, even if that figure is unrealistic, it’s YOUR job to educate them.

You don’t want clients agreeing to your fees, but feeling that they were overcharged. And they will if there is a big gap between their expectation and your fee.

So well before you reveal your fee, make sure you have reset their expectations and demonstrated convincingly what your solution would cost were they to source it elsewhere. Please note, you need to do this BEFORE you reveal your fee. If you wait until afterwards you will simply come across as defensive and trying to justify your fees. It’s not a pretty picture.

Making the effort to establish value and educate your clients up front can pay off in many ways.

You can eliminate price objections before they come up, and notice that in this case the reflexologist could submit a proposal that was 50% higher than she had planned AND it was able to present her price in such a way that the client knew they were getting good value. That’s a real win-win. Had she NOT taken the time to establish the value up front; she could have had a real struggle convincing the client to part with her original figure of 2,000.

Want to learn how to make money by running your own events? Then make sure YOU reserve a front row seat at the Event Money Machine later this month. Tickets to this event are FREE – so join our priority notification list to be the first to know  when they become available.

Although starting a blog isn’t really a complex undertaking, it’s still a good idea to do some research so that you know you’re presenting the best site possible. You want to drive as much traffic as you can to your blog in order to keep your internet rankings climbing.

It’s also important to keep in mind that blogging involves more than just writing the posts. You have to consider such factors as user experience, site design, and the software you’ll need to get your blog running.

Here are a few resources you can check out that offer great information for starting a blog.

www.IncomeDiary.com. This is the site where Michael Dunlop, blogging entrepreneur, offers a free e-course that details his process.

www.WordPress.com. WordPress offers the software you’ll need to get started. One of its strongest selling points is the ability to customize features to suit your own needs. There are also many free features you can use to get started in a matter of minutes. It also allows you to track statistics and block spam.

www.UXBooth.com. You want visitors to your site to have a good experience; this is what will bring them back again and again. This site offers tips for creating the best experience for your readers.

www.SmashingMagazine.com. This design site presents the latest in web design and development. While you won’t need to study design in order to launch a blog, this site can be a useful resource for getting ideas about how your site should look.

www.CopyBlogger.com. This is a good resource for learning how to write blogs that will drive traffic to your site as you build your list and market products.  It offers courses on copywriting, SEO, headline writing and keywords, among other topics.

www.ProBlogger.net. Visit this site to learn about the more technical side of having a successful blog. You’ll find information about blog design, advertising, tools and services, and much more.

www.WarriorForum.com. A forum where Internet marketers talk about their trade, this site can provide useful information about sales techniques. You might even find tips for marketing methods that apply directly to your niche.

www.TaskUS.com. Although this is technically a virtual assistant site, you can use the service to create custom ranking lists and other useful information that you can post in your blog.

Once you’re comfortable with the technical and writing aspects of blogging, you can start drawing visitors to your site.

Remember that if you want to become a great copywriter, you should first be a great copyreader. You can learn so much from reading other people’s copy and applying what you learn to your own niche.

These resources are sure to give you tips and tricks that will help make your blog successful.

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

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

Lots of people have an abundance of ideas. You’ve probably got so many ideas that you don’t know where to start – and all the ability you need in order to implement every one of those ideas, too.

But, just because you can doesn’t mean you should. When you’ve got so many ideas that you don’t know what to do, you will half-do everything.

The key is to focus on the one or two ideas that can really bring in the big wins for you. Putting your time, energy and talent into those ideas will step up your business by enabling it to run more smoothly and be more productive.

Here are some rules to live by to help you choose which ideas you should implement.

Follow the 80-20 rule.
80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your assets, meaning that 80% of the money you make will come from 20% of your clients.

When you know this up front, it is much easier for you to plan. You should be following through on the ideas that will appeal to your top 20%. Design products and programs and solutions for those clients, because that’s where four-fifths of your income is coming from.

Worry about the lower priced stuff later. Most people do this the opposite way, thinking  that starting with low priced offerings and then building up to Rolls-Royce or VIP programs is the right way to plan. Don’t miss out on the big opportunities because of that way of thinking.

Look at your time.
The primary reason most people can’t follow through on an idea has to do with the way they allocate their time.

Put your time into ideas that can and will produce income. Part of achieving a new revenue goal is about allocating your time differently. You’ll have to stop spending time on certain things and start spending time on other things.

As obvious as that may sound, it’s amazing how many people ignore or overlook that. Listing your assets and listing the differences in the 80% of your revenue coming from 20% of your assets will show you how much time you can spend per idea or project, essentially telling you what you need to spend your time on and what you need to stop doing.

Think in terms of project income.
Don’t just think in terms of monthly income anymore. Instead of planning your year month by month, try planning quarterly, from a financial aspect, but also plan around big projects. Three or four big projects should be sufficient.

The income streams from these projects will help you decide which ideas to pursue. If you’ve got a revenue goal of $250,000, which projects will get you there and at what times?

The key is not to do all of them at once. There is a connection. What you want is to have one project build momentum for the next project, which builds momentum for the next project, and so on. It’s important that you plan strategically, that you’ve got a long range plan and that all of the elements make sense.

You can’t help but come up with ideas; it’s how and why your started your own business in the first place. Just choose which ones you will follow through on, and when, to make the absolute most of them.

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.

If, after true introspection, you still believe that you are where you need to be, and the consumers just aren’t coming, stay with me.  There are secrets yet to be revealed that might affect your view, and your success, in a manner that you haven’t yet considered.

Bernadette Doyle created Client Magnets Ltd to help self-employed people solve one of their biggest business problems: attract a steady stream of 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

How to align your SPECIALISM with a hungry reachable niche who WANT what you offer.

This is both art and science and in this call you’ll meet Pete Bennett who will show you insider secrets for locating your hungry crowd online and small tweaks you can make immediately to generate a flood of new traffic and sales.

It’s My Next “MARKETING* MASTERMIND Call…”

Tuesday, 30th March, 2010

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

TOPIC:  *Finding Your Hungry Crowd*

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.

http://bit.ly/SellingSuccess

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

Best Wishes

Bernadette Doyle
www.clientmagnets.com

PS – Even if you can’t make the call, all Mastermind members receive a FREE CD of the call as well as a digital version of the audio and transcript! Take advantage now.

http://bit.ly/SellingSuccess

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

What does your market really want?

Answering this question is your primary marketing challenge. One of the most direct methods of finding the answer is by surveying your market.

Studying surveys and gathering concrete feedback about what potential clients want – and how you can provide it – is a tried-and-true method of focusing your marketing in the right direction.

Surveys are a valuable tool in analytical marketing. The most direct way of conducting a survey is to contact your list.

One way you can do this is by sending an email to everyone on your list. Ask their opinion about your product. Find out what your contacts’ biggest challenges, problems or complaints are, and address those issues when you present your offering.

Ask what they most want help with. The answer might not be what you expected – but that is the point of the survey. Listening to the feedback will keep you from developing a product that users don’t really want.

If you are targeting a small market, use a telephone survey. Call the people you want to speak with directly. Let them know that you are putting together a product to help people in their situation. Ask them about any suggestions or requirements they may have. Depending on the market you’re in, that may yield better results than a standard email survey.

If you anticipate more than 100 responses, consider using tools that can help you with your survey. Survey Monkey and AskDatabase.com will help you analyze responses by collecting and collating them in a simple database for your review.

When you prepare a survey, craft open-ended questions. You don’t want to lead people to answer in a certain way. Leave room for them to respond with more than a simple “yes” or “no” and with no preconceived ideas that might prevent them from answering honestly.

Ask effective questions that will tell you what challenges your clients are facing and what you can do to assist them in your area. Open-ended types of questions will generate more useful answers.

Once you have identified what your market needs, unhook yourself from any pre-determined decisions that you’ve already made about the product you will offer. Be open-minded and evaluate your research. This is how you will know for certain what your market really wants and be able to deliver them the right product.

You have the potential to create an amazing life for yourself and others by delivering the exact products and programmes your prospects need and want.  Find out exactly what will make your product red-hot and irresistible by simply asking the right questions.

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

What’s the one thing that you excel in, but you never had to go to school for, attend a seminar for, or sweat your way through testing for?  Do you have a talent that you can’t remember learning, and that was never a struggle for you?  Something you would do for free, just because you enjoy being good at it?  That’s your true value.

Often, it’s easy to believe that if something is easy for you to do, then surely, no one else can benefit from it, or would want it.  We’ve been conditioned to believe that we can only use the things that we’ve worked for, or paid for, for profit.

What’s important to remember here is that what comes easily for you might be highly valuable to, and worthy of payment from, other people.

My friend Veronica is a good example.  Before I had assistants to help me with administrative tasks, my desk was a paperwork wasteland.  When Veronica called on me, early in my career, she found my desk buried beneath a clutter of papers.

Veronica tackled my messy office, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, it was transformed from a disaster zone to a well-organized, functioning space.  My wonderful friend had offered her true value, her talent, to me in a way that not only helped me, but left me awestruck with her ability.

Organization is not impossible for me, but it’s not easy, either.  Tears of gratitude filled my eyes when Veronica had finished with my office space.  The value that she presented me with was immeasurable.

As I explained earlier, sometimes it’s difficult for the giver of true value to understand the impact they can have.  Veronica seemed taken aback with my pouring out of emotion.  She looked at me, as if to say, “What’s the big deal?”  She had difficulty accepting my thanks.

You can help yourself to market your true value when you:

• Identify your inborn gifts and talents; the things that come easily to you.

• Combine those true values into a package that you can offer to the world – something unique that offers significant benefit.

• Identify a genuine need that can be fulfilled with your true value.

Now, this might seem like a speech you got back in grammar school or high school, but it’s still important to remember:  don’t choose paths because they’re “cool,” or because they’ve been successful for others.  You’ve got to stay true to you.

Don’t think that your abilities are insignificant just because they come easily to you.  In fact, your thinking should be moving in the opposite direction.  You were given your talents by God for a reason.  When you use them purely and fully, you automatically offer something that cannot be duplicated by another.

Because you are unlike any other person on Earth, your unique abilities can be combined to equal a unique contribution.  Everyone’s looking for the next big thing.  Seems to me that if you want to find something unique and valuable, you need only to look inside yourself.

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 with invaluable tips and advice on how to attract clients with ease – register at http://www.clientmagnets.com

You’ve worked hard to define yourself and your business. You have distinguished your area of expertise and identified your niche – and business is good.

But, somewhere along the line, as you work within your niche, serving those specific clients who are benefiting from your services and products, your business may start shifting in a slightly different direction. Keep a look out for this shift in direction.  It can be a very positive step – presenting more opportunities available than you’d realized.

If this starts to happen in your business, it maybe time to reposition yourself. If you’re noticing that your skills and expertise lend themselves beyond the niche you created, don’t be afraid to refocus your vision.

For example, a client of mine initially established herself as an expert in helping working moms and moms who wanted to start a business.

She noticed the same things coming up over and again in her target market – guilt, confidence, work-life balance. She did a lot of research and gathered a lot of information because she was coaching, mentoring, and advising her clients.

Although she was very successful and very satisfied with her business, she uncovered an opportunity for corporate work. Though she is still working within her area of expertise by offering workshops and services for working mothers, the corporate niche is totally different.

What she is selling to companies isn’t mom coaching. She’s selling them the end result of retaining working mothers. This is a really important distinction. She isn’t abandoning what she’s been doing with her coaching of moms, but the corporate client is really a new direction. In essence, she has two clients – the corporation who hires her and the end user, the moms that she’s already been working with in the other part of her business.

In this case, the opportunity to expand and work outside her niche led her to reposition herself to accommodate these additional opportunities.

In some cases, you might find that certain aspects of your niche aren’t working for you. This is another instance of the need to reposition your business in order to find a more suitable direction.

Another of my clients spent more than 18 months putting large tenders together to submit to government organizations, where a particularly strict type of bidding process is required by law. It’s very difficult to establish personal relationships that lead to a sale in that type of environment. Though he’s had some success in his business, he began weighing whether it was worth the enormous amount of effort he was putting in. All of the bidders are essentially on the same level, with no personal rapport with the potential client to help win the bid.  He was essentially operating in a buyer’s market. And that is not where you want to be. To attract clients, you need to turn that traditional sales dynamic on its head so that you’re operating in a seller’s market. You want to be the one with all of the advantage, and position yourself so that there is no competition. In his case, looking to private companies with whom he can establish relationships would put him in a better position.

Look for markets where it will be easier for you to build those personal relationships, and where you can position yourself as an expert.

Whether you have noticed the opportunity for additional business, or recognized the need to shift from your current niche, repositioning is an excellent way to expand your options.

You can still work within your area of expertise, but by repositioning yourself, those same skills could be very valuable on a larger scale.

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