Marketing Madness: If You Build It, Will They Really Come?
May 25, 2010
In the 1989 movie, Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) hears a voice that tells him, "If you build it, they will come." After many adventures involving metaphysics and baseball, Ray plows down the corn crop on his Iowa farm to build a baseball field, literally in the middle of nowhere. The Black Sox of a bygone era do come to play on his field (visible to only believers), but that doesn't pay the mortgage. His neighbors and even relatives think he is crazy for destroying most of his crop, but he doesn't look so foolish for obeying the voice when the prediction of his friend Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones) comes true:
People will come, Ray. They'll come to Iowa for reasons they can't even fathom. They'll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they're doing it. They'll arrive at your door, innocent as children, longing for the past…. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball…. It reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. Oh people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.
It makes a great Hollywood movie, but in real life, "building it" is no guarantee that anybody will actually "come." Even if you "build a better mousetrap," you've still got to build a business to effectively market and sell it.
An essential key to marketing that is often talked about but less-often practiced is the importance of defining what your prospective customers and clients actually want and need. Ultimately, a successful business is not about you and what you do, but it's about being a contribution to your customers. It's about giving them what they want, meeting their needs, and serving those who buy your products, programs and services.
How do you know what your prospects and clients want and need? You could hypothesize all day long, study trends, examine the competition, and analyze data (all of which can be informative). You can even do what Ray Kinsella did and rely on your intuition (also important, but by no means infallible). But the best way to know what your clients want and need is to simply to ask them. It's not only the simplest way, but it's essential.
Follow these tips to gain a greater understanding of your clients… and greater success for you: Read more
Introductory Sessions: Secrets of Getting Clients to Sell Themselves
May 19, 2010
These days, it seems that everyone knows someone looking for work. Savvy job seekers prepare their resumes, polish their interview skills, and network like maniacs in the hopes of "getting hired."
As a service professional, "getting hired" is no less a concern for you! No clients, no paydays. You may have finely honed your skills and abilities as an independent business owner in your chosen field, possibly obtaining degrees, certifications, and undergoing many hours of practice. But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how good you are at serving your clients if you can't get clients to hire you.
It's actually very simple (though not necessarily easy) to get clients. First, you have to develop marketing strategies to attract prospects. Next, you need a reliable way to convert those prospects into clients, customers or patients.
One popular way to convert prospects to clients is through initial sessions. These could be free or paid introductory sessions, strategy sessions, or consultations.
There are ways to dramatically increase your chances of converting a prospect into a long-term paying client at an initial session, just as there are ways to dramatically increase – or sabotage – your chances of getting hired at a job interview. Nobody in their right mind would show up late in dirty jeans to an interview with a wrinkled, misspelled resume in hand. Similarly, you want to give yourself the best chance of "getting hired" by your prospects.
The process of converting a prospect into a client is often thought of as "selling," or "closing the sale." However, the real secret to success is getting clients to sell themselves... on hiring you! Read more
Strategic Marketing: Planning for Success
May 4, 2010
No doubt, you've heard the adage: "Failing to plan is planning for failure." On the other hand, it's been said that while planning is important, the actual plans themselves are useless. This apparent contradiction applies equally to both overall business planning and your marketing planning.
Why? As you to invest necessary time and thought into your marketing strategy, you'll learn what works and doesn't work along the way. And as you do, elements of your marketing plan will and must be modified. You'll see opportunities that weren't obvious earlier in the planning process. You'll discover new insights. You'll learn more about marketing.
So, how can you plan for marketing success?
The keys of successful marketing are to:
- Effectively promote awareness of and the value of your product or service
- Get the attention of the right people.
And who are the right people? They are:
- Actively looking for the solution you provide
- Ready to buy, right now.
I recommend the following proven approach based on sound marketing concepts:
1. First, establish the Core Market Position for your company.
Your Core Market Position defines:
- Who you are marketing to Read more
Twenty Pathways to More Prospects
May 1, 2010
Most service professionals name their biggest need as “More Clients!” Sometimes just a few more clients can make the difference between success and failure. Client attraction is the first of three essential elements to a sustainable service business:
- Attraction – methods to make your phone ring and email ping with inquiries about your service or product.
- Conversion – a system to filter through the prospects, identify the ones best-suited for your business, explore the mutual fit, and naturally lead well-matched prospects hire you.
- Retention – processes to effectively serve your clients, customers and patients and keep them happily using your products or services for as long as needed.
The first step cannot be neglected. You’ve got to ATTRACT qualified prospects before they can become clients! Without plenty of prospects, you’ll be attached to everyone hiring you. You’ll come across as needy and you’ll chase people away. Or you’ll settle for working with people who aren’t good matches or who can’t afford your rates.
If nobody’s coming in through the pipeline, the rest is moot. It doesn’t matter how effective your “introductory session” is, how high your “closing ratios” are, or how brilliant you are in delivering value to your clients. Without client attraction, you’re dead in the water.
In a “Marketing Demystified” webinar, I identified the eleven basic pathways to attracting clients. (And one of these ways gives you new options for the other ten, hence, twenty pathways.)
I’m not recommending you tackle all or even most of these strategies. On the contrary, marketing methods should be chosen carefully and strategically, based on your ideal clientele, intentions and budget, as well as your abilities and skills. Don’t view these pathways as a “checklist” of everything you should be doing, but rather an overview of possible options. Read more
The Problem with Free Introductory and Sample Sessions
April 13, 2010
If you’re a coach, consultant, or service professional, it’s possible that you offer some kind of free introductory session, sample session, or complimentary consultation. Indeed, this is the primary method of “marketing” taught in some coaching schools. It goes something like this: “Go offer free sample sessions to everyone you know. Ask them if they’d like to continue coaching. Some will. Congratulations, you now have clients!”
And you know what? Some people will hire you. Maybe one out ten. Maybe two out of ten. Chances are, some won’t want to pay the going rate for a coach or other service professional, some may even insist on “trading services” instead of cash, but they enjoyed your service, and they’d like “more, please!”
You rationalize, a client is a client, and you take a few under-paying clients.
Now you’re somewhat busy (though not making much money), so you go find more people to give free intro sessions to. And the cycle repeats… you give umpteen free sessions to find a few clients who might not even be willing to pay your rate, much less stick around for the long term. Invariably, they leave about the time you find your next new client, so it feels like you are just spinning your wheels.
And it’s getting harder, not easier. You’ve exhausted your initial list of friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and other warm contacts, and now you’ve got to go meet complete strangers you hope will hire you.
You give free sessions to friends of friends. You offer sessions to people you meet at grocery stores. You network like a maniac. You blog. You tweet. You give introductory sample sessions, and just in time, because the first people who hired you have now run their course, so the new clients are just replacing the ones leaving through attrition.
Congratulations, you’re broke and exhausted. Welcome to self-employment.
What went wrong!?
Let’s take a look:
1. You used the scattershot method of marketing.
You didn’t wait for people to identify themselves as prospective clients; you simply went out and found people who could fog a mirror and agree to a sample session. The result is that now you’re trying to convert prospects you didn’t even really attract in the first place! It’s more like you “attacked” them – by putting them on the spot to do a “free sample session” with you. Read more
Is the “Competitive Advantage” Really An Advantage? The Case for “Collaborative Advantage”
February 17, 2010
When it comes to crafting your business' marketing messaging and defining your position in the marketplace, a commonly encountered question is: "What is the 'competitive advantage' of your company?"
The traditional definition of "competitive advantage" is the way a company distinguishes itself by keeping an upperhand over other companies who offer similar products and services. It's all about "survival of the fittest."
Reverend Suzi Schadle from the Center for Spiritual Living Eastside in Bellevue, Washington (www.csle.org), once shared this direct experience of hers from when she was leading a workshop in a school.
She was working with kids from the ages of 5-6. She wanted to teach them to work as a team.
She split the students into smaller groups of several children. The exercise she gave them was to take a raw egg and then, using the supplies that were passed out, they were to build a container for the egg so that it could be dropped from a height of 6 feet without breaking the egg. No further instructions were given. Read more
Coaching Boom 2010 – Tips from Day #4
February 11, 2010
CoachingBoom 2010 is a virtual business-building training event that started on this past Monday, February 11th and runs through Thursday, February 18th.
I'll be presenting on Thursday, February 18th at 8:15 am PT.
My topic? "How to Get More and Better Clients Using PAID Introductory Sessions"
Milana Leshinsky, the host of CoachingBoom 2010, has been sending out the top ideas that she's taken away from each day's sessions.
Here are eight takeaways from Day 4 of Coaching Boom 2010:
1. The 3 rules of effective business systems: simplicity,
consistency, and automation. They must also be personal
and fun to be useful to you (Melinda Cohan)
2. Become the person that people are quoting, especially
if you are working in corporate, executive, or leadership
coaching (Ann Farrell) Read more
Coaching Boom 2010 – Tips from Day #2
February 10, 2010
CoachingBoom 2010 is a virtual business-building training event that started on this past Monday, February 11th and runs through Thursday, February 18th.
I'll be presenting on Thursday, February 18th at 8:15 am PT.
My topic? "How to Get More and Better Clients Using PAID Introductory Sessions"
Milana Leshinsky, the host of CoachingBoom 2010, has been sending out the top ideas that she's taken away from each day's sessions.
Here are here top 5 tips from Day #2:
1. To get more relationship or any life coaching clients,
create and offer results-oriented programs - workshops,
classes, events - for your niche market (David Steele)
2. To create a strong personal brand, be congruent and
consistent in everything you do. Use your title or tag
line on your site, newsletters, and coaching programs
(Suzanne Falter-Barnes) Read more
Coaching Boom 2010 – Tips from Day #1
February 10, 2010
CoachingBoom 2010 is a virtual business-building training event that started on this past Monday, February 11th and runs through Thursday, February 18th.
I'll be presenting on Thursday, February 18th at 8:15 am PT.
My topic? "How to Get More and Better Clients Using PAID Introductory Sessions"
Milana Leshinsky, the host of CoachingBoom 2010, has been sending out the top ideas that she's taken away from each day's sessions.
Here are the top ideas from Day 1:
1. Create a learning plan for yourself to master
entrepreneurship in 3 areas: business building,
marketing, and finances (from Michael Port)
2. Coaching is really an online business, and
anyone who disagrees is simply walking with
their blinds on (from Judith & Jim) Read more
Cutting-Edge Approaches to Getting More Clients in 2010
February 4, 2010
When it comes to getting more business, it's amazing how many coaches continue to "hunt" for new clients using the same strategies that were used 5-10 years ago!
To be successful as a coach or consultant, you need four main skills:
- Coaching/consulting skills.
- Business skills.
- Marketing skills.
- Selling skills.
In my experience and observation, most coaches and consultants fail to be successful because they lack general business skills, marketing skills, and selling skills. Some of them may even be "allergic" to business development, marketing, and/or selling. I know I used to be! Read more