Tag Archives | new clients

Creating the Know, Like and Trust Factor

By on January 27, 2011 in Branding, marketing

I was talking recently with a friend about some ideas on how she could get her new business started.  One of the most effective ways to advertise your business is simply by being honest and telling your story in an emotionally charged way.  When I mentioned this to her, it was met with immediate resistance.

She didn’t like this idea at all.  “I don’t do the ‘emotional thing’ all that well”, she said.  I had to explain that this didn’t necessarily mean that you need to hang out all your dirty washing for the world to see.  But it is very powerful to tell your journey in such a way that your market can relate to where you have come from, and how you got to be where you are today, and how you came to have the expertise to be offering your services.

It’s about being human.  Sharing your ‘story’ allows others to see that it is possible to come from adversity to a place of hope.  This builds rapport with your audience and I’m sure you’ve heard before that people buy from those they ‘know, like and trust’.   By revealing some of your true identity and being open and honest is the quickest way to build these factors.

In fact, I have noticed a big increase in my own business activity since I allowed myself to be even more open about my own story.  I had been hiding away behind the fact that I didn’t have a ‘lived in a trailer’ type of story.  Instead, my story was one of guts, determination, ambition and action.  This meant I experienced business success very early on in life.   Wise decisions, savvy business skills and mentoring have allowed Murray and I to build a considerable business wealth and track record of success.  These are the same skills I now teach you, so that you can also grow your business, attract more clients and fulfill living your dream lifestyle.

You can have the greatest business plan on earth but people like to buy from human beings they can relate to. When you reveal more of who you truly are, you will attract more business like bees to a honey pot.

Other people can copy, they can model, they can be in the same market, but it is your own personal journey that will make you unique and stand out from the crowd.  No-one else will have had exactly the same experiences as you.

Having  your story as part of a compelling marketing message is one of the critical steps in your simple marketing plan.   This is what will draw new clients to you.  You will attract clients that can resonate with your experiences.

Here are the basic steps to get you started on creating your own compelling marketing message:

  • Start by expressing the part what the problem was that you faced at the beginning of your journey.  Or it may be that it was a problem that you frequently witnessed others have and how that impacted on you.
  • What was the crisis point or the point that made you decide to take action, find a solution or put the solution out there for others.
  • Describe your journey. What did you do to get to where you are now with this; and
  • Where are you now? What have you achieved?  How have you been able to help others?  What is your passion around this subject?

It’s not about hype.  It’s not about making up gigantic mistruths to impress people.  It’s about being authentic and revealing your core values and passion associated with what it is you do best, and how you desire to help and serve others.

I’d love to hear your story.  Share with me here…….

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Keeping Business Success Behind Closed Doors

By on January 10, 2011 in Business Success, mindset

Keeping Business Success Behind Closed Doors

 

If you’ve been following me for a while now, you may be in for a bit of a shock! Why? I’ve have realized that I have been ‘hiding behind my own success’ for way too long. What does that mean? What that means is that you will hear me starting to talk about parts of my life that I have previously not made public. In other words, I will be ‘coming out of the closet’.

You see, I have had enormous success in business in the past, but been far too humble to share many of those experiences for fear of being seen as ‘blowing my own trumpet’. But now, I see with absolute clarity, that as long as I keep this part of my life hidden away, I am denying YOU the opportunity to see how powerful it can be to finally take charge of your life and turn it into whatever you want it to be. So, from now on I’ll be sharing more of my experiences that I have never spoken about before, that will teach you how to see your results soar.

When I work with clients, one of the things we focus on is how to make your business stand out from the crowd and to find the qualities that make you unique. I usually find that the gift you have to share is immediately obvious to me. It’s generally harder for you to see yourself. My role is to draw it out of you which generally leads to a big breakthrough moment. This was certainly the case for Maureen Hunter who had not recognized that events all throughout her life had lead her to become an amazing woman who has the ability to step others through their grieving process with hope and comfort.

My very first call with my new coach for 2011 allowed me to see that I have been playing small in 2010.

Being so close to my own experiences and not openly acknowledging my own success, I had not recognized that to have run my businesses entirely debt free and created a net worth of over $2million could be of interest to other people. I was a true ‘aha’ moment for me!

While most business coaches are in business to get themselves out of debt, here I have been, knowing how to create and hold wealth through business. Yet, I had been keeping that part of my life a secret. I’m like the millionaire next door that no one knows about.

Often you are so close to the things you do best that you completely take them for granted. Yet, these are often the very fruits of your passion that can ultimately lead you with confidence, to take your gifts into the world. When you are following your heart and share your brilliance this is a sure path to also having a very healthy bank account! I’m not trying to fool you into thinking that this is the only thing you need to have in place for business success, but it is certainly one of the foundational pieces.

If you’re passionate about helping other people, teaching others your skills, sharing your knowledge yet don’t invite someone to help you uncover your real potential and help you strategically monetize it, that’s like telling the thousands of people you could impact, that they don’t matter!

These two exercises will help you to begin to discover your unique brilliance:

  1. Give me a list of every experience that you can remember in your life. Jobs as a child, out of school employment, books you like to read, groups you are part of, courses you have done etc.
  2. Send an email to 20 people you know. Divide them up into friends, family and work colleagues. Ask them to list at least 10 words they would use to describe you as the person they know and what they think you are good at.
  3. Journal your life story as if you were telling it to a new friend who wanted to know all about you.

These are amazing exercises because you may be too humble to recognize the qualities others see in you or the things that you do so naturally, you have not yet recognized them as being a core part of yourself. This is Level 1, then you want to dig D…E…E…P!

If you are feeling like you have been working hard, with all the ‘right’ marketing in place, yet still not attracting all the clients you really want, it could be that the obvious is staring you right in the face, but you just need someone to hold up a mirror while asking the right questions.

Paying very close attention to what comes naturally for you will make creating a successful business much easier than you might ever have thought.

But I must give you this big warning- you could end up being so comfortable with what you do that your single biggest motivator in business is to help others do well. This is when it gets very risky because now you have got out of your own way – your biggest hurdle to date!

 

I’d love to hear from you! Share you thoughts on this topic here..

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Focus on “Low Hanging Fruit”

By on November 5, 2010 in Sales Skills

lowapplesOk, so you’ve made the time for your marketing, focused on solving your clients problems, really delved in to the results that you can achieve, you have created a compelling marketing message and even created some great packages and programs.  Because of your efforts, people are now starting to contact you and show interest in working with you.

One of the mistakes that I made in my earlier business was not following up on prospects.  You might find this happens to you too,  for many of the following reasons:

  • You’re afraid of appearing pushy
  • You’re afraid of being turned down or rejected
  • Your negative self-talk gets in the way
  • Your afraid to have a talk with someone about money (in fact you dread that subject)
  • You have a fear of success
  • And you may also have a fear of failure.

Following up on leads and prospects is 90% of the game.  You can spend all the time you like attracting more clients at networking events, marketing, making calls, looking for your ideal client, but it’s worth nothing if you don’t follow up on the leads you DO have.

Sometimes these leads are even closer than you think.  I help my clients to create a “Low Hanging Fruit” list.  If you think about a fruit tree, it is usually the ripest, easiest to pick fruit that is hanging closest to the ground.  Think of your prospects in these terms too.  It is far easier to approach someone who already knows, likes and trusts you (warm prospects) rather than to attract new, completely ‘cold’ prospects.

Your warm prospects may be people you have met at an event, they may be associates you have previosly done business with, or people who have expressed an interest in what you do or in working with you, in one form or another over the past year or so.

Go through your business cards box and your mental toolbox and your diary and make a list of all the people that you immediately think of.  Then, it’s time to follow up with these people to set up a conversation about whether or not you can help them. You can also send them invitations to any upcoming events or invite them to another function that might interest them.

I set up a chart in excel that I list name, phone, email, referral source and status next to each name.  I will prioritize them according to how ‘warm’ or ‘cold’ they are, and start making contact with the ‘warmest’.  I keep this in a visible place on my desk that is a constant reminder to me that I need to include contact with this list of “Low Hanging Fruit’ as a regular part of my simple marketing plan.  If it is hidden in my laptop’s hard drive, you know what they say, “Out of sight, out of mind….”

The main message here is that often what you are looking for can be right in front of you, if only you open your eyes (and mind) to the possibilities.

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Get New Clients Quickly – Do You Know How?

By on October 7, 2010 in marketing

Without a constant flow of new clients into your business, your income dries up pretty quickly and life becomes uncomfortable.  Initially though, just a few new clients can make the difference for you between experiencing success and feeling like a failure.

One solution to this is to get out and attract new clients quickly.  Here are three tips to help you be client attractive and get some good income happening.

3 Things To Avoid

Hiding Out: I’m not suggesting that there is not a lot of tasks that need to be done at your desk or on the phone. What most people that don’t have enough clients yet do though, is stay in their office (perhaps that’s at home), and hide behind their computer, their e-books, their info-in-a-boxes.  As they shuffle paper work from one side of the desk to the other they can kids themselves that their ‘busyness’ means they have a sustainable business.

Talking About Yourself: When you do nothing but talk about yourself, your products or your services, this is the quickest way to have prospects roll their eyes and switch off.  This is a common mistake when you are operating from a place of fear, if you appear to need your clients more than they need you.  The people you speak to will sense this, and categorize you into the section they keep for ‘sales’ people.

Lacking confidence: If things are happening as quickly as you would like them to, it is easy to start to lose confidence in your skills, your ability to offer them for a price, or to speak about them confidently.  Sometimes it only takes one small set back to send you reeling back into hibernation, or a feeling of inadequacy in your abilities to create the success you so badly want.

What to Do  magnet

Get out there in a big way: Every month, make sure you have some events on your calendar that you attend in person.  These might be local networking events, charity events, fundraisers, meeting people of influence in their space, workshops or conferences.  These are prime opportunities for you to meet potential clients and spread the word about what you do.  Make sure you then have a great follow up system in place too.

What’s in it for me? This is what everyone really wants to know.  So, make it your intention when you are next in a group of people to find out what it is that is bothering them, what are their frustrations, what are they having trouble with.  Then decide whether or not you have something that can help them solve their problem, or perhaps be a referral to point them in the right direction.  Your honesty and openness will be rewarded with respect and trust.  This will automatically make you a person of choice should you and your prospect be a good fit at some stage.

Trust in your own abilities: Take some time to recall when people have told you how great you are at doing what it is you do.  You might have some emails, cards or small notes that people have given you over time in acknowledgement of your abilities.  Take a look at where you have come from, rather than where you have not yet go to.  I keep a folder both in my emails, and on my desk, where I past any kinds words that get sent to me.  Sometimes this is a card, sometimes just a comment put on Facebook.  Then, when you are having times of self doubt, you can refer to these for support and encouragement. You do have great skills and belief in your abilities or you wouldn’t be reading this article right now.  Trust in yourself, and then GO DO IT!

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Craft Marketing Questions That Attract Clients Easily

By on September 21, 2010 in Uncategorized

Imagine picking up the phone and hearing the other person say “Hi, we’ve never met, but I’d like to work with you. When can we start, and how would you like payment?”

You might think this seems impossible, but it is actually what each and every one of us wants deep down isn’t it?

Well, it doesn’t have to be something you just imagine!  It is totally possible.  The methods I use to attract clients myself work just like this.  I get emails from prospects saying they love what they see, and want to find out about my programs.   Here’s how I do it and how you can too.

You need to stop being desperate and chasing your clients with your marketing approach. Instead, you will want to spike a prospects interest and in turn have them become a client.  To do this, your marketing materials need to ‘speak’ directly to them.

You are looking to create a message that ATTRACTS them in and speaks to their emotions, so that they absolutely want to talk to you.

The easiest way to do this successfully is to:

Imagine you are in your client’s shoes

What are their struggles, fears, hopes and dreams?

When you know these answers,  it becomes easy for you to position yourself as the problem solver.

As an example of material that will ATTRACT your ideal clients in is a set of compelling questions. These questions should be such that your ideal clients has to answer a resounding ‘Yes’ when they read or hear each one.

Some examples of this are on my website:

  • Is it a struggle for you to attract new clients even though you are great at what you do?
  • Do you wish you had a way to separate yourself from everyone else who does what you do, so you could magnetically attract clients?
  • Are you noticing that potential clients are slipping through your fingers?
  • Do you sometimes feel like you’re just pushing too hard?

These questions have been designed based on what new clients were wanting help with. Some of these topics are areas within my clients’ businesses that we work on immediately.  So, as I began to recognize this, I could create a standard set of questions that began to develop a relationship of trust and credibility amongst interested prospects.  What would your set of questions be?

The easiest way to create your list is to imagine your ideal client as being a very real person. Step inside their mind for a moment and focus on what they are struggling with.   What are they saying to a friend over coffee about what they need help with? This way, you can get them to feel a little bit of the pain for the situation they are in, and to realize it isn’t as great as it could be.
Mostly though, these questions will make it seem like you REALLY understand your prospects situation and that you have been helping others solve these same problems for a long time.

This will help to create a sense of trust and your prospect will see that you can provide the results they really need. Now, they will be that much closer to picking up the telephone and calling you.

Things for you to do this week:

What questions can you use to ATTRACT prospects in, based on the struggles, challenges and hot buttons they have?

Be sure the people reading the questions will answer a resounding “yes” to all of them (rather than a mix of yes and no’s) and you keep it to just 5 or 6 of them, so you don’t overwhelm them in the process. After you have created your list, you want to make sure these are on your website, your business cards and any other appropriate marketing materials you have.

You’ll get their attention with the questions, and they’ll be much more likely to read the rest of what you’ve got to say, and if you continue to talk to them in terms of the results they can expect from working with you, you’re golden! Just be ready for new clients…

That’s just ONE of the many strategies you can use and easily implement to ATTRACT clients in (and stop chasing so hard to fill your business). Would you like to know more about all the tools I use myself and my clients have used for the same purpose?

Let me know what you think!  How do your ATTRACTION marketing questions stack up?
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Get Yourself Known Now

By on June 30, 2010 in Uncategorized

As someone in business who is passionate about your area of expertise, I am sure you want to be financially successful. But in addition to that, what most entrepreneurs want more than anything, is to share their message to the world and help to change the lives of others. The only way you can do this is if people know about what you do.
I am sure you have heard it said “It is no good being the best at what you do if no one knows about you.”

There are many ways to get yourself know in business, but without a doubt one of the quickest ways to build your credibility is through good media exposure. You only have to take a look at programs such as “Big Brother” or “Australia, You’ve Got Talent”, and you can see how quickly folks that were previously relatively unknown can suddenly shoot to stardom and become a household name almost overnight.

As an ex-journalist, today’s guest speaker on our Passion, Profit and Play Superseries, Sue Papadoulis knows just what it takes to get ‘in’ with the media and spoke about how to generate the best possible opportunities for you to get seen in the media. Of course, one of the beautiful things about media exposure, is that in most instances it is free!

So, if you:
• Have something exciting and new happening in your business;
• Are about to launch a new product
• Want to increase your public image and exposure, then go get some free publicity NOW!

To learn how to do this, listen to the full interview with Sue during today’s replay which is available for 24 hours. After that you can access it at http://www.passionprofitandplay.com/offer2html

You can also get your very own Publicity Pack by clicking here.

The lessons that I take away from today’s call are:
• Never give up on submitting press releases – you never know when your story is right for the journalist
• Contact the journalist rather than the editor – they need to get good story’s while the editor may be more interested in selling you advertising
• Follow up your media releases and create a relationship with the journalist

I would love to hear your thoughts on this great subject.  Have you been able to capitalise on media exposure at some stage and what results did that get for you?

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Where Is Your Focus In Your Business Right Now?

By on June 26, 2010 in Uncategorized

Today Rod Moore, from Attraction Marketing Associates  spoke to us about how to establish an effective marketing system for your business.

He highlighted the fact that amongst the many ‘hats’ we wear as small business owners, one of those is of ‘marketer’, and if this area is not one you have experience in, it can either take your business forward or be one of the main reasons you don’t succeed to the level you truly want.

Rod explained that it is of no use being the best in your industry, if in fact, no one knows about you!  How true.  Some of the reasons this might occur are – you don’t have skills or expertise in marketing, you have no system to your marketing, you don’t focus sufficiently on your marketing and you marketing manually rather than having an automated approach.

At start up or early stage business it can take some time to work out the best strategy for selling your product or service.  Even many established businesses struggle with this concept.

Businesses that go on to great success have typically worked out what is known as the ‘perfect match’. This is simply figuring out the most cost effective strategy for selling you product to a new client.

Along the way do not allow yourself to be distracted by the latest marketing craze just because everyone else appears to be following it.  Keep it simple and maintain your focus on what is most important for your business right now.

Take this opportunity to listen to the audio, to discover how to develop an effective marketing system.  The replay is available for 24 hours.  After that time, you can access your copy of the recording at http://www.passionprofitandplay.com/offer2html

I have studied the Client Attraction system that Rod speaks of in depth myself and still managed to get these top takeaway points from our call today:

49.3% of small businesses find their biggest challenge to be attracting new clients

Create an irresistible offer your prospects that will help solve their problem

Relying on personal networking is a manual labour intensive way of attracting clients that needs to be replaced with a systemized approach.

I hope you enjoyed the call as much as I did, and would love for you to leave your comments below on any great aha  moments you had.

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