Client Magnets Official Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Value’

If you took one year off from your business, would it be in the same shape – or better – when you came back? If the answer is no, according to Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you don’t really have a business, you’ve got a job.

There’s no reason your business shouldn’t grow just because you’re not around to tend to it. You simply need to think differently to make that happen.

The lower paid people in the world think they get paid for each hour that they work. That’s how they measure income. That’s how they measure value – by the hour. They think about an hour’s worth of work and what they’re earning for that hour. Those people are always focused on raising their hourly income.

Now, higher paid people believe that they get paid for the value they bring to the hour. They’re typically very comfortable receiving a higher hourly rate. They recognize that what they’re earning in the hour is not just based solely on the time. It’s also based on their expertise – think of a lawyer or an accountant, for example.

But, take notice that the connection between time and money is still there. Most service businesses are based on this model. So if you’re a coach or a consultant, a healer or a therapist, there’s a very good chance that this is your model, too.

That’s why people in consulting are often obsessed with billable hours. That link between time and money is really strong. The main problem with a business that’s based on selling time is that you’re basically selling a finite resource.

For example, when I started my training business, my whole business model was based on me selling time. I wanted to sell a certain number of days at a certain daily rate.

It seemed like a good way to begin, because typically I earned more per hour than any employer would ever have paid me.

The trouble is that sooner or later, you run out of time.

So I replaced the idea that I got paid for my time with the belief that I got paid for my time and my talents. That was progress. But the limitation was that if I wanted to take a month off, the price that I would pay was lost income.

As long as my business was based on me selling my time, I didn’t really have a business. I had a job. A well paying job, but still just a job.

As long as you are selling your time, even at commanding top fees, you are always going to be manual labor. And, as long as you’re manual labor, it really doesn’t matter whether you’re getting £10 a day or £10,000 a day.

The highest paid people in the world understand that. They understand that the hour is irrelevant. The only thing they concern themselves with is the value that they deliver according to the marketplace. They don’t even think in terms of hours.

This is the level of thought you want to achieve. Begin by associating with people who are already at that level. That was a big influence for me, and it helped to really shift and shape my own beliefs. Get exposure to these people and just observe, up close and personal, how they approach things.

They think and act differently from the rest!

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When you hear about someone doing well or coming into a lot of money quickly, how do you feel about that? Not people who win a lottery or sweepstakes, but business people who just seem to be making easy money.

Are you inspired by them? Or, do you resent them? Your answer tells a lot about your beliefs. It says a lot about what you believe is permissible and not permissible. It really points you to your own rules – and possibly your own limitations – about how and where you’re allowing yourself to make money. So, really think about it.

If you are of the belief that money should be hard earned, you likely apply those same rules to the people around you. So, you will possibly resent people who seem to be making money easily or effortlessly. It’s like they’re cheating somehow.

They’re not cheating. Instead of resenting them, you should feel inspired and grateful. They are teaching you what is possible.

I learned this from a man I once worked for, who sold my services to a client. He was the agent and sold a package to a client that involved me delivering the training. The client paid £1,500 a day.

I was paid £500. He kept the £1,000 as his profit for arranging the deal. So, what is your reaction to this story?

Do you think I was taken advantage of?  I did all of the work, but he made all of the money. Should I resent him? Would you?

Or, do you look at him as the one providing the value? He helped me and the client. He had done the legwork. He set up the whole deal. He was able to demand a higher asking price than I could have on my own.

Personally, the view I take is that he did me a favor.

He was clear with me about what he was doing. Nothing was hidden from view. And actually, by charging that higher amount for my services, he helped to change my belief. He made it possible for me to see that people were willing to pay that much for my time.

I actually think that he did me a service by doing that. He helped me to challenge my beliefs about the link between time and money. I was putting in more time than him, but I was getting paid less.

He made more on the deal because he understood that he was getting paid for the value that he was providing -  matching up the right supplier with the client’s needs.

So, this story will help you gauge your own reaction. If you resent him, that is a sign of just how tightly gripped you are in the time-money trap.

You will not break free of the time-money trap by resenting people.

The people who have already broken free are well on their way. Their value to you is that they’re showing you what’s possible. I say bless them, grab hold of them if you can, or at least follow in their footsteps.

But recognize that if you’re judging them, you’re just going to stay stuck. Your judging them won’t stop them, but it will stop you.

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

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When you’re struggling in business, it’s easy to see yourself wrapped in chains, struggling to break free from failure. What if I told you the key to those chains might be located within your own mind? If you’re ready to step out into freedom, let’s look at how your beliefs might be inhibiting the success you crave.

Inhibiting Belief Number One: Nice People Don’t Do Sales

Whether your product is coaching or castor oil, you’re going to have to sell it to someone else to be successful. For many entrepreneurs, the commitment to success ends when it comes time to actually market their products. They’re great at visualizing, designing and creating products, but they’d really rather not have to ask someone to buy them.

The underlying belief keeping them from success may be that “Nice People Don’t Do Sales.” Before you discount that entirely, consider the stereotypes you’ve heard about used car or door-to-door salesmen. Society, in general, has embraced the notion that selling is somehow unsavory.

Here’s the truth that will unlock your chains: Some of the nicest people you know are in sales! They’re the business owners who find the people best served by their products and make them available at a reasonable price. They’re the gifted folks who’ve developed ways of helping others succeed and are reaching out to a grateful audience in return for a fee.

Learning to market your products effectively makes you a savvy business owner, period. Free yourself from the notion that offering quality products for a reasonable price is anything other than good business.

Inhibiting Belief Number Two: Asking for Money is Rude

In a fantasy world, we could have anything we’d like without having to pay for it. In the real world, we expect to pay for the things we need and want. The products you’ve worked so hard to create are no different. Reasonable people expect you to ask for money when you deliver the goods.

Here’s probably what’s at the root of your anxiety, if you somehow feel rude when quoting a price—someone along the way, a parent, perhaps, told you it was rude to talk about money.

Let’s separate the wheat from the chaff…bragging about how much money you make at a dinner party may be rude, but quoting a price to a customer to complete a transaction is what’s at the core of every business.

Inhibiting Belief Number Three: Entrepreneurs Don’t Have “Real” Jobs

Here’s one that’s pervasive in Western cultures. From the time they start school, youngsters are guided toward “real” jobs like being accountants, doctors or attorneys. The problem is that many people feel a pull to own a business and serve the public some other way.

Striking out in the world of entrepreneurship can be lonely if friends and family keep asking when you’re going to find a “real job.” If you’re struggling to become successful marketing your products or services, you may have doubts that what you’re doing is legitimate.

Here’s a reality check: if you’ve created quality products and are offering them in ethical ways to serve the needs of others, you have a “real” job! You’re part of what keeps economies growing. As a business owner and entrepreneur, you’re in great company with others who are willing to take big risks for big payoffs.

If you begin to doubt yourself, and thereby sabotage your own success, consider the contribution pioneers in technology and industry have made. I’m willing to bet someone, somewhere along the way, told each of them to “get a real job” instead of working past obstacles and creating their own success.

Marketing and sales are what keeps the business world turning. Nice people all around you ask other people for money in return for great products. And being an entrepreneur is as real as it gets in the world of business. Free yourself from the self-sabotaging beliefs that can keep you from enjoying success. Stop apologizing and start enjoying the benefits of being the best at what you do.

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The problem with being driven by needs is that you feel great when those needs are met – and lousy when they aren’t. Anyone who has worked in sales for any length of time has probably experienced the giddy highs and the crashing lows that characterise this arena. This is what happens when the salesperson’s self-worth is attached to their results.

Now you may think that this has nothing to do with you. You may claim that you are far too conscious to be driven by your needs in this way. We’re supposed to pretend we don’t have any needs. Go to a networking event and you’ll meet countless business people who tell you that ‘everything’s great’ but if you tune into the underlying energy you can sense the fear and desperation that drives the majority.

None of us want to feel needy, much less admit that we are, so very few people have learned to express their needs openly. Yet suppressing our needs doesn’t make them go away. If you’ve had any moments of feeling fearful or frantic in relation to your business in the past three months, I will absolutely guarantee that there was a need involved.

Some of the needs may be obvious: the need for financial security is one which prompted many readers to sign up for this newsletter. The need for freedom is what motivates most people to get started in their own business in the first place.

And then there are more subtle needs: the need to succeed; the need for approval; the need for recognition. How much of your desire for more clients is bound up with these needs?

Some of the needs may appear to be ‘healthy needs’: the need for balance. But it’s still a need.

The more I progress along the ‘Client Magnets’ path, the more I rely on my instincts and inspiration. Yet it’s almost impossible to follow your instincts and inspiration if you are being driven by needs. As you become aware of your needs and how they are affecting your business behaviours, it gets easier to discern between true inspiration and needs which are on the rampage demanding that they get met.

Start to separate what’s happening in your business from your intrinsic self worth. Your self-worth is based on who you are, yet most of us fall into the trap of measuring our self-worth by what we have achieved.

I remember the time when I was training a team of supervisors in a call centre who had fallen into the trap of measuring their own contributions in this way. One of their colleagues had recently passed away, and so I asked them what they really missed about him. Funny enough, not one of them mentioned his call statistics, his time-keeping, his conversion rates, his low rates of absenteeism or any of the other typical yardsticks which might be used to measure an individual’s contribution in the workplace.

Instead, they described his warmth, the way he ALWAYS had a friendly greeting and a kind word for his colleagues no matter how stressful a day it had been. Next I asked them to tell each other what they would miss about each other. Once again, work rates didn’t get much of a mention. What did feature strongly were things like a person’s sense of humour, their warmth, their almost psychic ability to know when a colleague needed a listening ear, and when they just needed some space. I could go on and on. I can tell you, there weren’t many dry eyes at the end of that particular exercise. Why was the experience so moving? Because they had all had a glimpse of their true value – their own and their colleagues’. And whilst I think we all have awareness of this deep down, we don’t really make a point of honouring it – in ourselves or others.

So, if you don’t have as many clients as you want – you have value. If your bank account is empty, or even in the red – you have value. If a client complained about you – you have value. If your career hasn’t quite matched up to the dreams you had 10 years ago – you have value.

And lighten up about your needs!

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At the heart of the Client Magnet approach is the concept of VALUE.

You may not yet have all the clients that you want. Or maybe you do have enough clients, but you still feel vulnerable, because you know that losing one or two key clients could put your business in jeopardy.

If you’re in this vulnerable situation, then you are either:

1. Not adding value

2. Failing to effectively communicate how you add value

The fact is, if you started your working day asking yourself: Who are my target clients? What do they need? How can I contribute something of value to them even BEFORE they become clients – your marketing problems would be solved for ever.

If you’re getting feedback along the lines of ‘not interested’, ‘not right now’, ‘call back in a month’, then what the prospect is telling you is ‘this isn’t a priority right now’.

But my point is this. If what you’re offering ISN’T a priority to your prospects, then it means that something else IS. There are other issues that are keeping them awake at night. There are other problems that they’re preoccupied with. And if you can uncover what those points of pain are, there’s a very good chance that you could help them.

Now you might say -well those other problems have nothing to do with my product or service. But the fact is, if you want to form a relationship with this individual or group of individuals, ‘what’s keeping them up at night’ has EVERYTHING to do with you.

So how does this work in practice? Let’s say you’re a sales trainer, and you want to develop a relationship with sales directors who outsource their training. You’ve tried cold calling and direct mail to introduce your service, but you feel like you’re meeting a blank wall. When you’re approaching sales directors as ‘just another training provider’ no one’s interested. So step back and ask yourself, well what are they pre-occupied with? Maybe they’re frustrated with the fact that 80% of business comes from 20% of the sales force? Maybe they’ve already invested in training, and felt like they didn’t get a significant return on their investment? Maybe they’re so bogged down with fire-fighting, that they can’t
even lift their heads to THINK about training?

You need to spend some time and exploring and uncovering these points of pain. How? Listen, first and foremost. I started Client Magnets because I kept hearing trainers, coaches, therapists tell me: ‘I don’t have enough clients, and I’m not confident in my ability to get new clients.’

The other thing you can do is just ‘put yourself in their shoes’, start to see the world through their eyes and get an understanding of what their hopes and fears are.

So back to our sales trainer example, as you uncover the points of pain for your target prospects, you will start to see common themes emerge. There’s a good chance that you know how to solve these problems. Maybe you could put together a simple report that provides some solutions for these issues. Or you could organise a half-day seminar or a teleconference call where you provide the answers personally.

Ultimately the form through which you provide this solution is less important than the spirit with which you do it. If you are ‘giving to get’ ie writing a report in the hope that it will win you favours, then it will backfire. But if you write your report with a pure and clear intention to serve, and with a feeling of trust that as you serve people, they will keep coming back, then you will find this a highly magnetic approach.

The questions to keep asking yourself are: How can I be of service? How can I add value? Make these questions your mantra!

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I meet so many people on my teleseminars and events, who are overwhelmed and intimidated by web marketing. I know that feeling, because I was too. I remember distinctly the time, when I started exploring putting together a website being SO confused by the contradictory advice being offered up by experts. It actually put me off creating my website for a long time. I was paralysed by the conflicting advice.

Thankfully, I finally dipped my toe in the water and started my weekly newsletter. And do you know what I’ve discovered? The process that helped me build a successful business off-line is exactly the same as the one that is helping me build my business on-line. Good old-fashioned CONTENT.

Traffic to my site has increased by people sharing my newsletter, posting my newsletter on their websites and recommending me in discussion forums, social media and blogs. And the reason people do that is they think that my content is good and worth sharing.

So my message to you is to forget about the adwords, the search engine optimisiation. Do those things work? Yes, they do. But all of those bells and whistles can come much later. If you’re interested in attracting and maintaining a large group of people to your site, then the way to do that is through valuable content that helps your visitors, that solves problems, that moves them forward in their lives.

And the great thing about this is: You can do this from where you are right now. You have knowledge, expertise, opinions, insights, experiences that are worth sharing. There’s a good chance you are totally overlooking just how valuable this is to other people, because they are things that you take for granted.

The bottom line is: are you providing value? If you got up every morning and asked yourself  ‘How can I provide value to the people I want business relationships with, even before they become my clients?’, then your marketing problems would be solved forever.

Marketing, on-line or off-line, is nothing more than identifying groups of people who have problems you can solve, or needs that you can satisfy. You then need to solve that problem at a price that works for both parties – one where they get value and you make a profit. When you start serving a few of them and do it well, it won’t take long for word to spread.

Without these basics in place, no amount of fancy technology will help you. With these basics in place, no lack of technology will stop you. This is the true magnetism of your marketing, the technology just accelerates the process. So forget fretting about technology and start thinking about value. That’s what’s going to really turbo-charge your business.

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