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Posts Tagged ‘types of buyers’

“Begin with the end in mind.” Stephen Covey

Have you noticed that there seems to be a trade-off in every aspect of marketing and sales?  Whether it’s trading information, trading money for products or even trading a free item for contact information….The reciprocity touches all parts of your business.

One aspect that’s important in reciprocity is that you have to give before you get.

I’ve always encouraged the use of speaking engagements as a way to establish your expertise in your field, generate leads, and hone speaking skills.  All this is done whilst selling your product and offering valuable information to the audience.  But there’s another trade off that can take place during a speaking engagement, and that’s gathering key marketing information for future use.  Not contact information, which is another opportunity in itself, but information that allows you to develop an empathy towards your client’s business.

At the beginning of each speaking engagement, take a few minutes to talk with the audience and establish a relationship.  Ask them what they’re looking to take away from the speech.  Notice the key issues that come up over and over in their responses.

This is valuable information that will help you understand the issues that your clients are facing.  Not only will you be able to develop empathy for them, you will also be able to transfer those issues into your marketing materials as well.  The more you are able to empathise with your clients’ needs, the better you will be able to meet those needs.

The same can be said for overcoming objections.  Empathise with your clients’ objections to your product or service.  It could be the cost factor, or the ‘it won’t help my business’ objection.  Use that information within your speech to address each of these points and detail why they are not valid objections.

When you’ve gathered important, helpful information from your audience, you’re going to be giving the same in return.  Your audience deserves that since they’ve taken their valuable time to attend your talk. At the same time you’re “planting the seeds” of need and overcoming objections whilst offering valuable content.

It is this content that will help people arrive at their own conclusion after your talk.  That conclusion should be that the next logical step they take is to accept the solutions that you present to them.  When a client reaches the conclusion on their own that they should buy your product, it’s so much more powerful than when it’s done through a direct sales presentation.

Setting up your speech to give the audience the opportunity to make their own conclusion will help seal the deal of any special offers that you’ve put together for that event.  Whilst making immediate sales is a nice feature of speaking engagements, the information trade off can be invaluable to 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 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

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:

1. What is most important to the people in my target market?

2. What problems keep them awake at night?

3. What is the desired end result they’re hoping for?

4. Does my product help them solve their problems and reach their goals?

5. 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

You may be fully aware of the tremendous difference that your services make to an organization or an individual, but you have to find a way to link that difference to end results.

One of the really important things you need to do in your business is identify the results you achieve.

One way that you can ascertain the results you’ve helped a client achieve is to go back and ask them. If your contact has told you that since they used your services or product, they got X number of results, find out the implications of those results – in terms of time or money.

I did some negotiation skills training for a client, who told me, “it really made a difference.” That’s all fine and good, but I asked them to quantify what difference it made.  In their case, they were able to measure what their goodwill budget had been the year before compared to the current year, and I was able to get a statistic from that.

If you’re a coach, and you’ve been able to save a particular client 2 hours every week in their work week, that’s valuable time over the course of a month or two. But, if you factor those hours at the rate that client gets paid, it could work out to your helping the client make additional thousands of dollars a year.

You have to look at what you’re doing in terms of increasing sales, or reducing cost, or saving time, and then work through it that way. Calculate what the net benefit is for the client. Always remember, clients make the decision to buy something based on the benefits.  You may need to do a bit of research to make those connections.

Think of yourself as a salesperson who is putting together a presentation that quantifies all the benefits. Or, as a bit of a lawyer, arguing in court and putting together a case. You have to bring together different pieces of information and statistics to make your argument.

It’s not that you’re stating you are definitely going to help a client save this amount of time or money, but you’re getting people to think in terms of end results for their business.

To get your potential clients those results, you must first prompt your existing and satisfied clients for a specific answer about how your service benefits them. Be willing to go back to your contacts and talk to them about the difference you’ve been making. Ask them to quantify it.

They won’t think about it until you ask them. But, by asking the question, you’re also raising your value in their eyes too.

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

Planning your marketing strategy can sometimes feel overwhelming. But the truth is, it is one of the most important steps you need to take in order to achieve success! There are so many options, so many opinions and so many decisions to make. How do you know which will work for you?

As a member of several mastermind groups, I’m often privy to insider information regarding the conversion levels people are achieving, and the amount of revenue that is being made in the marketplace.

Through my own personal experience, and the experiences of others, I’ve been able to witness how some business soar whilst others are not achieving the growth they could be.

This week, I wanted to share with you 10 tried-and-true tips that I see in every successful marketing plan. Incorporating these steps in your marketing plan will help you to transform your marketing and reach more customers.

1. Analyze the marketing methods of people that are really soaring in their businesses. Where can you apply some of their techniques in your own business?
2. Make sure you’re aware of what your market really wants. Understanding what people are looking for on a logical level and emotional level is the foundation of successful marketing.
3. Understand that know-how itself isn’t enough. Simply knowing the right business model or the right techniques will not give you the edge. It takes more than just knowing what to do in your business to achieve extraordinary results.
4. Dig deeper. Don’t market “by the numbers” and just check off all the boxes as if you’re working a marketing “to do” list. Look beyond the surface to make a real connection with your audience. Find what it is that makes you and your business unique, and make that a focus of your marketing strategy.
5. Emotionally engage your audience. Figure out what it is that will keep their interest and keep them coming back for more. A newsletter with an ongoing story, a must-read tip-of-the-day, an answer to the previous day’s question. Find something that will make your audience unable to resist tuning in to see what you are up to.
6. Personal revelation. Allow your customers to get to know who you are, why you are doing what you’re doing. This is one of the most effective ways to emotionally engage an audience.
7. Create likeability in your marketing. Tell the truth, be an expert, and reveal things about yourself, even including weaknesses or things that you had problems with in the past. That can really add to your marketing
8. Do something simple, like add a photo to your profile.
9. Uncover your story. What’s the element of your story? What’s your background and your reason for being in business? What’s going to draw people in and engage them?
10. Don’t be afraid to polarize your audience. As you really make it your job to emotionally engage people, there will be some who aren’t going to like you and others that will love you. That’s just a fact in both business and personal life.

Take the time to focus on these ten steps, because they will help you to develop a winning marketing plan. When you really focus on these things, and commit to using them, your business will flourish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Going through the work of identifying your target audience, really getting to know them and developing products to meet their needs can be very rewarding. If you want it to be financially rewarding, you’ll also need to learn the art of making repeat sales. Repeat sales generate eighty percent of the profits for a successful business. When you’re ready to move beyond the one-time transaction, here are some ideas for mining the gold of repeat business.

Breaking the “Find New Customers” Cycle
It’s difficult to watch someone work very hard to build a business, only to leave the additional income from repeat business on the table. That’s what happens when you’re constantly chasing new customers and making one-time sales to them, rather than offering new products and services to existing clients.

If you think about it, it’s actually easier to sell a product to a satisfied client, isn’t it? So it doesn’t make sense to get caught in the cycle of “go out and find more clients and sell them the same old product.” In order to boost your income considerably, you must, instead, begin creating new products that meet the needs of your existing clients.

Once you make up your mind to pursue additional business with existing clients, you can step off the never-ending cycle of chasing new clients and watch your income move up at the same time.

Learning What Your Clients Need
You may be asking yourself, “But how do I know what my existing clients need?” You can actually use the same process that you used to create your original products. Here are some helpful steps:

• Look at your client base as a target market.
• What questions are those existing clients asking?
• What additional needs continue to be unmet after they buy your product?
• What add-on products complement your original offerings?
• How could your product line be expanded naturally to meet more needs?

Here’s an example that illustrates how a one-product company can create add-on sales to its existing customers. A hypnotherapist specializes in smoking cessation hypnosis. She has lots of clients who come to her for that service, but once they stop smoking, she doesn’t ever see them again. She’s spending a lot of time and money in marketing to attract new clients.

Because her existing clients know her smoking cessation sessions work, they’re the perfect prospects for additional services. By listening to her current clients’ concerns, she learns many of them are ready to take on new challenges in life, now that they’ve quit smoking. She offers to help with visualization sessions so they can focus on their new goals.

By expanding how she sees her existing client base, and focuses on their needs, she has opened the door to a whole new level of income. You can do the same thing. If necessary, take some time off from marketing to new target audiences and turn your complete focus on your existing customer base.

Develop the habit of listening to your clients’ questions and determining what needs still exist. Turn those needs into products that fill them. Not only will your clients be grateful, you’ll also see your income multiply substantially.

You will always have to do some marketing to bring in new clients, but there’s far less pressure when you’re making repeat sales of new products to existing clients. Once you stop chasing new clients and focus on building more products to help your customer base, your whole business will turn around. Learn how to mine the gold of repeat sales to build a strong, sustainable business and a solid base of satisfied customers.

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

Have you ever tried your hand at gardening?  Some spots are so perfect for gardens, the ground is fertile and ready for seeding, the amount of sunshine is just right.  Other spots are next to shade trees, they don’t get enough light, planting is so difficult with roots in the way, and nothing seems to grow there.   If you had to focus on one area to cultivate, which makes more sense? The fertile ground or the shady spots?  Obviously it would make more sense to focus your gardening efforts in the fertile area.

Now consider your business – which area would make more sense to focus on for building the business?  The fertile ground or the shady spot?  Of course, it makes more sense to build sales on fertile ground, the area that’s ready, willing and able to take on your efforts.  But how do you find the fertile ground in business?

Building a list of potential clients, people who are open and receptive to buying your product or service, is simply identifying the fertile ground of your business.  But, just like the first steps toward planting a garden are the most labor intensive, so it goes for your business.  But of course, at the start is the most important time to start building the list.

Certainly if you’re just getting started in your business you need to focus on the activities that bring in the revenue, but this is an instance in which you need to think long term.  For those of us with smaller businesses, and for those of us flying solo, we tend to focus on the “time is money” issue.  This is one area in which at first it will seem like too much effort for too little return, but we need to think not only for the long term, but take a more multi-dimensional approach.

Think about who would be on your list.  Obviously someone who’s shown some interest in what you’re selling.  So, wouldn’t it be safe to assume that they’re going to be more receptive to a marketing effort if they’ve already shown a level of interest?  It would certainly make more sense to focus on the list rather than a more ‘shot in the dark’ approach of cold calling.

So, of course, list building is essential for focusing your selling efforts, but it’s also going to give you an insurance policy for your business.  Who among us hasn’t had a lean patch in their sales?  It happens to the best of us.  With your potential client list, you have the opportunity to reach out and make a quick sale to a whole group of people who you know, just by the fact that they’re on your list, are receptive to your product.  It’s nice to have that to fall back on in difficult times.

Not only can your list get you through a dry spell, but it offers the seeds for launching your next product or your next offer.  It’s what we call the low hanging fruit, in keeping with the planting theme of the day.  Which would you rather pick the fruit that’s easy to reach, or the fruit in which you’re going to have to put more effort into the task?  It’s the same fruit, mind you – just one happens to be less labor intensive.

If you’ve not yet started building a list, I suggest you begin immediately, and if you have a list, keep it growing.  Just like planting, it may not always pay off right away, but it will down the road.  And just like planting, you’ll wish you had started sooner!

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

Have you tried offering free samples of your services to help you lure new clients? If you have, and it hasn’t increased your income, it’s time to look at your free sample strategy. Here’s how to leverage those sample sessions correctly so they’re actually bringing in new business.

Pre-Frame Your Offer

The most surprising reason free sample strategies don’t work is that the professional never presents his offer to the recipient. Introductory sessions are great for attracting interest, but it stops there unless you ask for their business once they’ve sampled your services.

To set the stage for new business, it’s crucial to pre-frame your offer with the prospect. What I mean by that is that you must begin your offer of free services with the understanding that it represents a snapshot of what you normally do for clients. Further set the stage for on-going services by telling the person receiving a free sample that during your session you’ll be explaining how they can become a client.

By telling them in advance the sample is intended to introduce them to the benefit of being a regular client, there’s no surprise when you make your offer. You’ve set the expectation and they’ll be waiting to hear what you’re offering.

Give Them a Taste

Once you’ve booked a sample session, it’s time to give the prospective client a taste of what working with you regularly can mean. What is the primary benefit of doing business with your company? Even though a sample’s not meant to solve all their problems or make them rich in thirty minutes, it is possible to use that introductory session powerfully by giving them a clear idea of what you can do for them.

While offering that taste of what it means to be your client, cover the benefits, listen to their questions and let them know you’ve worked successfully with others with similar issues. But don’t overreach during this introductory time. After all, if you solve all their problems during the sample session, what’s the point of on-going services?

Make Your Offer

This is the hardest part for people who say they don’t like “sales.” The problem is, unless you actually make your offer regarding on-going services, there’s little chance you’ll secure their business.

Imagine going to your favorite grocery and being handed a delicious sample of pudding. But the person handing you the sample doesn’t say a word about how much it costs or where it can be found in the store.

Only a motivated shopper would go the trouble of hunting for the pudding on his own. That’s exactly what happens when you hand a prospect a sample of your services but fail to tell them how to buy more.

If you pre-framed your offer before giving them a snapshot of your product, they’re expecting to hear how to sign up for on-going services. Introduce the subject of paid services as you wrap up your free sample. Unless you do, only the most motivated of prospects will ask you how to become a client.

Learning to successfully use the sample services strategy can move you quickly toward a stable client base. Pre-frame your offer before giving them a taste of your services and then be sure to make your offer by the end of your sample session. That’s a strategy that will have you tasting real success.

If you’re not familiar with different types of buyer behaviour in the marketing cycle, let me give you a quick run down. As you read through the descriptions, see if you can identify which types of buyer you are primarily attracting to your product, service or idea.

There is a fairly well recognized theory by Everett Rogers in the business and marketing worlds about how new ideas eventually get implemented to our everyday lives. This theory holds true in many areas, such as cultural fads and consumer buying habits. Here’s the premise:

For any new idea, there is a group of innovators. Innovators are defined as the first 5-10% of the people who first adopt any given idea. They are the ones who usually come up with the idea in the first place and refine the idea so that it is something that works. Innovators are venturesome; they are the most willing group to try something new and take the initial risk to try something out. They are also influencers… they keep in contact with many others in their area of expertise.

The next group, the early adopters are about 10-15% of us. These people are the trend-setters. They are the ones who are aggressively looking for new ideas to implement. They have their eye on the innovators and are influenced by them. They are respectable people who will try out new ideas in a careful way.

The early majority (about 30% of us) wait a little longer to make our decision. Actually, if they’re not actively searching out new ideas (like the early adopters) they might wait to see the first bit of advertising on a product or service, or get the recommendation of a friend before they jump in. But still, they want to be in on the ground floor. Early majority people still consider themselves ‘cutting-edge’, they just want to make sure the idea has worked out in some other places before they try it.

The late majority (another 30% of us) wait still longer to get on the band wagon. They still get on… some are excited, some are skeptical. But by this stage of the game, there is growing pressure to ‘not miss out’.

The last group, the laggards, (about 20% of us) are true traditionalists. They are generally not interested in new ideas/products and are the last group to buy into new ideas.

Think about where your clients and customers fit in the buying cycle, and ask yourself whether the marketing materials you are using meet all of their needs and answer all the questions they might have before ‘taking the plunge’.