The More Clients Blog

Passive or Proactive Marketing?

One way to think about your marketing is whether it's passive or proactive. That is, are you just sitting there, waiting for clients to come knocking on your door or are you getting out there and doing the knocking?

There are many marketing activities you can do; and you can either do them passively or proactively. Let me count the ways. 

Networking

Passively - Go to networking events. Hang around with those you already know and talk about non-business matters such as the results to American Idol. Complain how networking doesn't really work to generate new business.

Proactively - Go to networking events. Make it a game to meet at least five new people. Get to know about their businesses, engage in "Marketing Conversations" (see last week's eZine), and offer to send them some information about your business and follow-up.

Web Site

Passively - Put up a web site and make sure to never make any changes to it. Talk all about you and your services, but don't have any kind of offer or clear path to contact you. Complain that your web site doesn't bring you any new business.

Proactively - Put up a web site and keep updating it and tweaking it. Put the focus on what results your clients get, not what you do. Have something free to give away and sign-up people for your regular eZine. Let visitors know exactly how to work with you and offer an initial complimentary session or consultation.

Speaking

Passively - Get speaking engagements at local, professional groups and chambers of commerce. Don't do anything to help promote the event, just show up. Have a skimpy handout and a tepid presentation. At the end, hand out your cards, and ask people to call you if they need your services. Complain how ineffective speaking is as a marketing tool.

Proactively - Get speaking engagements at organizations that have your targeted clients as members. Put in extra time helping to promote the event. Prepare the best presentation possible and have a professionally designed handout. At the end, ask who would like an article you've written and get the participants' cards. Offer a complimentary individual session and have them fill out a request form telling something about their business.

If you haven't gotten it yet, ANY marketing activity can be done either passively or proactively.

Passive marketing activities are what 90% of Independent professionals engage in. Those who make their marketing activities proactive generate more attention, interest and response in their services. They also get more clients.

Proactive marketing takes a different mindset than passive marketing.

Passive Marketing Mindsets

All business comes from word of mouth. 

Wait for prospects to ask you, don't ask them. 

Don't toot your own horn; it's rude and looks desperate. 

Look aloof, not excited or enthusiastic; that's not cool.

Proactive Mindsets

All business come from clear and benefit-oriented communication. 

When a prospect shows interest, find out more about their needs. 

Positive visibility is the key to getting known. 

Show your enthusiasm and excitement, it's contagious.

Where do mindsets come from?

Passive Mindsets come from a place of scarcity, inadequacy and fear. If you believe you will fail, be ridiculed or rejected, you'll avoid marketing at all costs or do it half-heartely. You'll find reasons why marketing doesn't work.

Proactive Mindsets come from a place of abundance, adequacy and fearlessness. If you believe you will succeed and generate new business, you'll keep finding new and creative ways to market yourself and attract more clients.

Passive or Proactive? It's your choice. But only one of them will give you the marketing results you really want.

*

The More Clients Bottom Line: Look at your current marketing activities and notice where you are being passive, holding back, being fearful. Is that working for you? If not, work on making just one of your marketing activities more proactive and notice the difference. You just might get hooked on proactivity.

*

Is your marketing Passive or Proactive? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Mastering the "Marketing Conversation"

I think it's very useful to break down marketing into its component parts and then study the details and how-tos of each of these parts.

My "Marketing Ball Model" breaks the client-attracting process into the following four parts:

Part 1. Developing your marketing message, identity and materials that communicate the essence of your business.

Part 2. Engaging in marketing activities, from networking and speaking, to eZines and blogging (utilizing the messages and materials from Part 1).

Part 3. The Marketing Conversation, where you interact (usually verbally) with a prospect as a result of engaging in marketing activities.

Part 4. The Selling Conversation where you move on from the Marketing Conversation and explore the actual needs of a prospect, and then present your services.

Today, I want to focus on the Marketing Conversation.

The Marketing Conversation has four distinct steps. Most people have some practice with the first step (getting attention and interest), but usually fall down on the last three steps.

Marketing Conversations - The Four Steps

1. The Audio Logo. This is the initial interaction with a prospect where you get their attention and interest. This includes talking about who you serve (your target market), the problems and issues that challenge your clients, the solutions and outcomes you provide, and stories that illustrate all of the above.

2. Qualification. These are the back and forth questions and answers you and the prospect engage in to feel each other out for a possible match. It also includes sharing in more depth about how you work with clients and the results you produce. We'll go into this step in more detail below.

3. The Offer. Once you have the attention and interest of a prospect and you've qualified them, you need to have a call-to-action, or nothing will happen. The best way to do this is to offer more information related to your business (an article, for instance) and an offer to follow up (usually by phone and/or email). Again, more on this below.

4. The Follow-Up. After you've provided information, you need to follow-up and explore with the prospect if there is enough common ground to engage in the Selling Conversation. I discussed follow-up strategies in detail in recent eZines.

If you master the four steps of the Marketing Conversation, you will jump much faster from marketing activities to Selling Conversations, and ultimately to new closed business.

If you miss one or more steps in the Marketing Conversation, marketing will usually be a struggle. You'll talk about your business, even generate some interest, but you won't have a clear path from the initial connection to a Sales Conversation.

Step Two Secret

One of the biggest mistakes we make in the Qualification Step is talking all the time about what we do. The prospect asks a question and off we go, a mile a minute. Then at the end, you hand out your card, they walk away and you wonder. "Wha' happened?!"

Here's the secret. Simple, but not so obvious. When a prospect asks a question, answer briefly and then turn around and ask a question of them.

Prospect: What process do you use to increase retention?

You: We use various processes, with our main focus on hiring the right people to begin with. Can you tell me the biggest issue your company has with retention?

With several of those exchanges you are informing your prospect about your services (in bite-sized pieces), and you are learning more about their needs.

Step Three Secret

Once you've qualified the prospect and they seem to be a good potential client, you need to find a comfortable transition that will lead to a Sales Conversation. Once a prospect is interested, they want one thing: more information. So offer it to them.

"I've written a White Paper on retention called, 'The Seven Biggest Mistakes Companies Make in Retaining their Best People.' I think you'll find it very interesting. Can I send you copy?"

The answer to such an offer is almost always "Yes." Remember, if you've interested them, they WILL want more information. This relevant information makes you stand out immediately as a valued professional. (Time to start working on that article!)

Then you reply, "Great, I'll send it to you by email. Then I'd love to get your reaction to it and find out a bit more about your business. When's the best time to reach you?"

End the conversation by agreeing on a time you'll make a follow-up call. This works a lot better than saying, "Okay, I'll send it to you and please give me a call if you have any questions." That's called "dropping the ball." It's YOUR job to follow-up!

If you work at mastering the Marketing Conversation, you'll go way beyond getting attention and interest; you'll end up with a lot more Selling Conversations and, ultimately, more clients.

*

The More Clients Bottom Line: When it comes to Marketing Conversations, you can't "wing it." You need to "script it." Know which step you're on in the conversation and have answers, questions, and offers ready to insert into the conversation at the right moment. You'll be amazed at the results you get.

*

Have you designed a Marketing Conversation that results in more appointments? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Unstuck = Unstoppable

In my recent Certification Workshop to train Action Plan Marketing Coaches we spent some time each day working on getting unstuck.

It must have worked. In the first week after the Workshop, the participants had enrolled a total of ten new clients (a record for the Certification Program).

I made a note to myself: "Keep using the Unstuck Process!"

The more I do this process, with my coaches and with other groups, I become convinced that getting unstuck is the secret marketing weapon that virtually nobody knows about or really understands.

What is being stuck anyway?

Being stuck is a bit like being asleep - in the condition of "stuckness" your options are very limited.

When we're stuck, we are being and acting in a constricted or limited way. These ways might include: Apathetic, Confused, Discouraged, Disorganized, Distracted, Frustrated, Hesitant, Impatient, Overwhelmed, Perfectionist, Self-Conscious, and Worried. (Any sound familiar?)

If you've experiencing any of those ways of being when you are trying to market your services, I promise you, you're stuck! And when you're being that way, the most observable thing is that you are avoiding marketing activities.

It's a powerful step to acknowledge that you are stuck:

"This is something I want to do or accomplish..." (put any marketing or business goal here) and, "what's preventing me from having that result is that I'm being discouraged, confused and worried." (Pick your particular own ways of being.)

Hardly anybody says that. We don't own our stuckness and observe the real cost of being stuck - not getting what we want, not experiencing fulfillment. Instead, we tend to make up excuses such as, "This is something I want to do but I don't have time." This only leads to more stuckness.

The second step is to realize that there is a clear alternative. If it were impossible to be that stuck/constricted way (no matter the circumstances), how would you prefer to be instead?

You could choose the polar opposites of being stuck. I call these expansive or unlimited ways of being such as: Enthusiastic, Clear, Encouraged, Organized, Attentive, Successful, Decisive, Patient, Centered, Excellent, Self-Confident and Peaceful.

If you're experiencing any of those ways of being when you are working on your marketing, you are engaged and creative, and making things happen. In this state of being, marketing is actually fun, even exhilarating.

Most of the time we don't see that we have a choice. When we are stuck, choice isn't even in the picture. You need to see the clear contrast of these two ways of being at the same time:

Stuck: Being constricted, limited, fearful, avoiding

"What this looks like is I'm avoiding the marketing, and feeling bad about it. I'm also feeling frustrated and making excuses about getting around to it."

or

Unstuck: Being expansive, unlimited, fearless, engaged

"What this might look like is that I see the opportunity to communicate about my business and I take the next step in my plan to offer speaking engagements to groups."

Now choose. Then act.

I invite you to attend one of our upcoming events to experience the Getting Unstuck Process for yourself (I can only convey this in a limited way in writing). Come with a goal, some specific result you want that you don't have now, and that you are stuck or struggling with or blaming someone (or yourself) for.

San Rafael details: www.actionplan.com/ftwkpintro.html

TeleClass details: www.actionplan.com/ftwkptc.html

*

The More Clients Bottom Line: Working at getting unstuck is perhaps the most important work you can do. After all, when you are stuck, you are ineffective, not getting what you really want and not feeling great about it. On the other side of this you are unstoppable and having the time of your life.

*

Share something you did in your marketing when you got unstuck. Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Open Sesame - The Follow-up Formula

Remember "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves?"

In this story from "A Thousand and One Arabian Nights," Ali Baba discovers the secret words that give him entry to the cave of the Forty Thieves, where a vast treasure is hidden.

Simply by uttering the words, "Open Sesame," the door to the cave swings open and the treasure is his for the taking.

There's a modern equivalent to Open Sesame that opens the doors wide to new business. If you master this secret formula you will never want for clients and you will grow your business in ways you once thought were impossible.

I call it the "Follow-up Formula."

Introduced last week, hundreds of More Clients subscribers now have access to this Follow-up Formula in the form of my new Audio Program, "The Art and Science of Telephone Follow-up."

In today's eZine, we'll explore some of the ins and outs of this Follow-up Formula and the impact it can have on your business.

Four Applications of the Follow-up Formula

There are at least four marketing activities where you can apply the Follow-up Formula. (How many of them are you using?)

1. Follow-up after networking

2. Follow-up after receiving a lead

3. Follow-up after giving a presentation

4. Follow up after a mailing campaign

These activities are ways to turn business connections into qualified prospects. But if you don't follow-up, all your marketing efforts will be wasted. To get results with the Follow-up Formula you need to apply these rules:

Rules of the Follow-up Formula

1. Always follow-up sooner, rather than later. Don't wait a week or even a few days after making an initial connection. Do your best to follow-up in one or two days. For every day you wait, you lessen the impact of the follow-up call.

2. If you don't make the follow-up call, the chances the prospect will follow-up are extremely low. It's not that they are not interested in your services, they might be; it's simply that it's your job as the service provider to make the call. Don't think of it as an intrusion, but as an opportunity to connect.

3. Think of these calls as "introductory calls," not as "sales calls." The follow-up call is the bridge between marketing and selling. Its purpose is to determine if the opportunity to do business with a prospect exists in the first place.

4. Be prepared. Never "wing it." Use a script or outline to guide you through the call. This keeps you on track and focused on what you are saying instead of worrying about what the person you are calling is thinking. This is the key to effective calls.

5. Always end the call with an agreed-upon action. a) you won't call again as there is no interest in your proposition, b) you will call back at a later time to explore further, or c) you will set an appointment (in person or by phone) to explore working together.

The Numbers of the Follow-Up Formula

My experience is that, on average, with three to five follow-up calls, you can turn at least one into a client. Sometimes you will do better, sometimes you will do worse. (But if you don't call, the results will be a big fat zero!)

Think of your marketing activities over the past month. How many opportunities to follow-up have you taken full advantage of? How many times have you avoided making a follow-up call or done a poor job with the call?

By some some estimates, the average Independent Professional misses (or blows) six to ten follow-up calls per month. And that means two or more new clients you didn't gain that month.

If you put some basic marketing activities into place, you will generate qualified prospects. And then, if you do make those telephone follow-up calls, you will predictably turn a percentage of them into paying clients.

Isn't it time to master the Follow-up Formula?

*

The More Clients Bottom Line: When you understand the Follow-up Formula and apply it to your business consistently, you will have the power of Ali Baba who uttered the words "Open Sesame" to receive untold riches. Yes, this formula is a little more complex; the good news is that you can learn it easily.

Learn about my new Audio Program: "The Art and Science of Telephone Follow-up" and master the Follow-up Formula.

or you may purchase directly from this link (it's $29).

*

When did you make a follow-up call that turned into a client unexpectedly? Please share on the More Clients Blog.