Combatting Skepticism

People are more skeptical than ever.

They are skeptical about the government, business, professional sports, medicine, entertainment, media, religion and technology (to name just a few institutions that impact our lives daily).

In the middle of all of that skepticism you attempt to market your services - you try to tell the world (or those in your market niche) how wonderful you are and what a difference you can make.

The truth is that most of your marketing falls on deaf ears - even when it's good. But when you make major marketing mistakes, the skepticism rises and the results can be abysmal. What are the marketing mistakes you're making that are increasing the skepticism of your potential clients?

Here's a handful:

It's unclear what you do or offer
When you tell someone what you do, you want one kind of response. I call it a "That's for me response." In other words, your listener gets it right away and wants to know more. The best way to a get a "That's for me response" is to speak the language of results. You can do this verbally or in writing, but in both cases you need to telegraph your ultimate outcome or value proposition. If you don't tell people what they'll get from working with you, they'll assume you don't have what they need.

Your web site is poorly designed
I read an interesting article recently that reported the reaction time to a web site. The reaction time is a whopping 1/10th of a second! If the design is bad, if the balance is off, if the colors are dull, that 1/10th of a second impression is negative. And it's hard to recover from that. The chances are good that your web site is hurting you more than helping you. The only remedy is a professional, attractive design (not a homemade job).

Your web site doesn't build credibility
Even if your design is good and the immediate impression is favorable, it can go downhill fast from there. People browse the web looking for immediate answers to their questions. They want free information; they want to know what you do and who you serve and how your services work. In the first 30 seconds of visiting a web site, most visitors give up because they are not getting what they want. So they go away and never come back.

You are poor at follow-up
If you've gotten past the hurdles of initial visual impression and have given reasons to learn more, your prospect might actually respond - with a phone call or an email. And all you have to do is follow-up in a timely manner. Sounds simple, but it's not. I've struggled with this as I'm sure you have; a huge amount of business falls between the cracks just because we were lax in our follow-up. Improving this area can give you a big competitive advantage. Most ignore it completely.

Your sales process is incompetent
Now you have a prospect on the phone. They've read your site, they liked what they saw and you were on top of the follow-up after they responded. The sale should be easy from here, right? Well, not necessarily. Most independent professionals have no sales process whatsoever. They take on the demeanor of an order taker, or worse, a heavy persuader. Neither approach works. You need to have questions prepared, benefit points outlined, and an understanding of exactly when to listen and when to ask for action. When a prospect says, "I'll think about it," they really mean, "You blew it."

Be honest. Would you buy from YOU with the marketing and sales approaches you're using now? Or would your skepticism get triggered? When the message is unclear, the design pedestrian, the information sketchy, the follow-up lackadaisical and the selling nonexistent, don't you think you, as a prospect, just might back off and look elsewhere?

Now, this might sound depressing to you but there's actually some very good news buried in here! If you understand that every impression you make on your prospective clients will either draw them towards you or push them away, you have the opportunity to make some changes that could transform your marketing completely.

Use this three-step action plan:

1. Do a brutally honest assessment of the impact your marketing is making on your prospective clients. Look at the five elements I've outlined above. But don't stop there. Examine every single impression you make on a prospect and score yourself from poor to excellent on each one.

2. Get some resources that will help you. Really learn what works and what doesn't and then start making changes. These two resources from Action Plan Marketing are a good start:

The InfoGuru Marketing Manual

The Web Site ToolKit

3. Pick one area at a time and make a commitment to improve that impression. You might have a long list, but you have to start somewhere. Before too long you'll have dramatically improved the marketing impressions you're making and your skepticism quotient will go down. You'll be on the way to marketing success.

Complete More Clients eZine - Combatting Skepticism

This week, please share the following with us: What things have you changed about your marketing impression that have turned skepticism into marketing results?

Comments

[Gordon Bell]

I absolutely agree and testify that passion is the underlying key to sales success. Because everything is energy. Everything is energy!

I had a successful operation devoted to military personnel. Yes, the government put an end to that by closing the base on which I thrived. I went into a different market and fell flat on my face several times because as I see it now, I did not have the same high degree of expertise.

Since then I went out and took every course available and some unavailable that related to my services. Then I studied the latest knowledge on selling skills and power presenting. In other words I made an intense effort to discover every reason I had failed and the solution to each. I had no thoughts about passion when I began this “voyage” but now I realize that I couldn’t help but develop passion in the process.

To think that I even would attempt to have succeeded without the knowledge I since acquired seems ludicrous yet I did that. Along the way I have met other students of a particular topic but none are committed to the whole process and guess what? They are not earning their way; they just do enough to get by. Passion for them is a misunderstood word that they probably can’t even spell. To them I am obnoxious. Think about it, if you see the other guy as such then maybe it’s you. I could go on and on and I could introduce you to the mentors that helped me realize that the acquisition of more and more knowledge is the key to automatic passion but this probably isn’t the place!

Gordon Bell AIFA CAPP CWPP San Jose CA

[Lawrence Groves]

I have taken advantage of a couple of your marketing ideas and applied them at my web site at http://www.solo-k.com. The amount of traffic has increased.

[Barry Bassnett]

Hi Everyone

Thanks Robert, One of the few blogs that is on my daily to do list.

Is anyone out there like me getting a bit hacked off with the overuse of auto-responders. Of course they are a miraculous tool but their over use and the lack of imagination and skill in their application are just further fuelling the fires of scepticism.

I’ve just read one of my (now) former heroes in Entrepreneurial internet marketing, berating me with his pre-progammed auto salesmail for not buying his product.

I’m a professional copywriter. That is all I do. I know how the tricks work, but he has just lost my business forever. (I’ve taken my affiliate link to his products off my web site, which will cost me a lot of money. I’m not prepared to recommend anyone who deals with clients in this fashion or lacks respect for them). He probably doesn’t care a hoot. To him I’m a just a cookie, a number, an IP address. But scepticism feeds and multiplies all by itself and the old saying, ‘Bad news travels around the World before good news has got his boots on’ is even more relevant with the speed of transfer of the Internet.

Crafted in the right way you can do so much positive business building with programmed e-mail but you have to mix it up with blogs , e-zines and snail mail. Just how nice is it to get a thank you letter on your mat from somebody these days? Just a simple note, saying thanks for the business, no other sales pitch included. It works wonders. Don’t forget the simple things.

Auto-responders are a very, very blunt instrument. Technology may give you the time and space to work much more effectively but you have to apply them with care. There is no greater purpose in your business than building a genuine relationship, even if it is a virtual.

Autoresponders are rather like penicillin, a miraculous tool but in some areas you it develop resistance or even worse, an allergic reaction.

Barry Bassnett. Yorkshire

[Michelle]

Thank you! I've always enjoyed the newsletters, including this one, but I had a terrible experience with this "I'll think about it = You blew it" idea.

The newsletter said: When a prospect says, "I'll think about it," they really mean, "You blew it."

Not always....

Maybe I'm the last "thinker" in America who does not make every decision on spur-of-the-moment impulse? My bad experience with this "You blew it" idea was with a landscape designer last summer.

The designer and I had walked around and studied my yard. He then described what he wanted to do, and I said, "That sounds really nice...let me think about it." He then described another design....I said, "Oh, that's an idea. Let me think about it." He then pulled yet another design description out of his hat...and another....

You get the picture. All I really wanted to do was Think About It...get a picture in my mind, try to visualize what it would look like, decide whether I wanted to go with that design or modify it a little, or whatever. Five designs later, I was so confused I didn't know what he wanted to do, and in any case I didn't want him doing anything to my yard because he couldn't stick to one idea! I imagined him changing plans in the middle of the job....and who knew what we would end up with...a mess.

It was several days later that I realized he was taking my "Let me think about it" statement as "You blew it" and trying, rather desperately in the end, to come up with something that would get me to sign on the dotted line right then and there.

Unfortunately, he so frustrated me that, even though he is a talented landscaper, I'll never do business with him.

[Kevin Dervin]

Thanks again for another great article and a timely reminder about what's important when it comes to small business marketing.

The transformation in my results has come from being more genuine and authentic about what I'm out to cause. When I catch myself talking too much about "what I will do" for clients (i.e., tasks and activities) and refocus on what problems I want to help them solve and results I want to help them produce, good things happen. This is a real focus of continuous improvement in my business.

It's amazing how difficult this is for some small business owners to do. The brainwashing of their experiences tells them that their marketing needs to be filled with slick messages and lots of information about their experience. But that's the kind of thing that makes the marketplace skeptical. Too many have bought into it in the past and been burned.

It's an awesome revelation when one of my clients finally realizes that passionately and enthusiastically telling prospects what they are out to cause gets so much better results. And the bonus is you don't have to be manipulative, just genuine and authentic.

[Mike]

I can appricate the point this article drives home. Real Estate Agents are very skeptical. They have a limited budget and everyone is trying to sell them something.

After 5 years of running my business part-time I took the plunge last month and decided to go full time with my business.

I do virtual tours and computer consulting. I was starting to question my ability to be successful in this Virtual Tour Market Place as it is highly competitive and cut throat! I am also in the Detroit, Michigan area so our Real Estate market is always worse than other places.

Then I got the below message from one of my new clients after sending him a "thank you for your business" message. I was blow away and very happy to get a message like this. Now all I have to do is figure out how I capitalize on this message with out wearing it out. I am good at the work I do but marketing my services is something I am still trying to figure out.

E-mail message follows and is verifiable.

Mike,

"My pleasure, actually "_____", another Realtor at Century 21, actually my mentor in Real Estate highly recommended your work. He had mentioned that due to proper price and your virtual tour he sold one of his homes in 3 days, that is flat out amazing for this economy."

Indeed it is... Now all I have to do is show all the skeptical Agents out there that I am actually working in their best interest!

-Mike

[Cathy Bolodo]

Hi Mr. Middleton. I have been a long-time subscriber of your ezine (i guess more than 5 years now).

First, I want to thank you for your effort of sharing your marketing ideas. I have benefitted mightily from them. I am currently designing marketing plans for the foodservice and hotel industry in a city in the Philippines. I actually started early last year but I guess my mailers were still lousy then. This year, I decided to give it my all. Now I'm starting to get clients!

I guess your recent ezine still boils down to your previous advice of being clear on what you do, who you work with and what they can expect from you. It works!

Again, thanks!

Cathy Bolodo