The More Clients Blog

Four Critical Selling Areas

Last week I talked about "missing the signs" of both bad prospects and good prospects. If you miss the signs, you waste your precious marketing time and energy.

Just as important are three other critical steps in the selling process - steps most miss entirely.

Once you have an interested prospect who is ready to speak with you about your services, many people feel that it will now be easy to sell the prospect.

But that's not always true.

Getting an appointment doesn't mean a "slam dunk" sale. Many things can and do go wrong in the sale process. It isn't selling tactics that are the problem, but the fundamental approach to selling.

Let's look at four critical selling areas that impact the clients you attract and the money you make. They are:

1. Your Ultimate Outcome
2. The Right Prospects
3. The Selling Process
4. Your Package and Pricing

1. Your Ultimate Outcome

Have you ever had a prospect show real interest in your services, only to discover that this person misunderstood what you were actually offering?

It happens more often than you think. The prospect thinks you do "Customer Service Training" when you really offer a program that "helps your clients increase the value of every new customer by two to three times."

Because we usually sell our process and not our outcome, it's not unusual that prospects get confused. The problem is, you called your program "Customer Service Training" and the prospect looked at it as a commodity, expecting to pay a only few thousand dollars.

What you really offer is an in-depth program that offers so much more. But because you didn't promote the "Ultimate Outcome" of your service, prospects tend to lump it in with other training courses and don't see the real value.

2. The Right Prospects

This is what we discussed last week. If you are offering the aforementioned program, which will dramatically increase the value of every customer, you not only want to get the message right, you want to deliver that message to the right prospects.

Not every business owner is willing to make the commitment to increase the value of every customer. You are looking for the "Sincerely Growth Oriented" prospects who will fully appreciate the difference such a service will make.

And just as important, as your time is limited, you want to screen out prospects who will waste your time. Not everyone who says they are interested, really is, and you have to learn how to read the signs and separate the wheat from the chaff.

3. The Selling Process

When you have the right Ultimate Outcome message and are getting in front of the right prospects, you are going to have more opportunities to engage in productive selling conversations.

But selling is more than telling the prospect, "Here is what we have, here is how it works, and this is what it costs." This misses the most important part of the selling process: "Here is the VALE that you get and what it will mean to you."

If you fail to structure your sales process to focus on value (what your services really mean to the prospect), you'll end up losing a lot of sales you thought you had in the bag.

4. The Package and Pricing

Even if you do everything correctly, it's not unusual that you will package and price your services in a way that does not pay you what you're worth, and the client doesn't get the full value they expected.

How is this possible? The mistake so many make people is to price their services based on time, not on value. If you are selling an Ultimate Outcome, you need to be paid for it. If you sell your services as a commodity, you will never receive enough money for the time and effort required to produce the result.

For instance, you might sell a "Customer Service Training" that has very good content for a price of $3,000. Yet the chances of that training being implemented are rare. The client loses their investment and you don't produce a "portfolio result."

If you delivered an in-depth program, that actually increased the value of each of your client's customers by two to three times, what would that be worth? It could be priced at ten to fifty times what your commodity training would fetch!

What is it costing you?

If you're not applying these four powerful selling ideas, what is it costing you? If you understood and applied all of these powerful ideas, what might that mean to the long-term success of your business?

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Mastering selling has little to do with run-of-the-mill selling tactics. Mastering each of the four critical selling areas discussed here will give you previously unimagined leverage to attract the very best clients, earning you what you're really worth.

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How are you creating leverage in the selling process? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Missing the Signs

I have a little quiz for you.

You have connected with some prospects who you think look like very good potentials; you see the following as good buying signs:

Prospect one has lots of problems in their business and are missing all kinds of opportunities, so you see huge potential.

Prospect two is a careful listener, eager to see more information and asks you to leave materials with them.

Prospect three is sent to you by their boss to engage you and perhaps start a project.

Prospect four has big plans and goals for growing their business and their excitement is contagious.

At first glance you'd think these prospects were ideal. They have needs, they have interest, they want to grow. The question is, "What's not to like?"

The answer is: A LOT!

In fact, the prospects I've described are demonstrating the initial warning signs of the four WORST kinds of prospects you could possibly work with! These people will waste your time, steal your ideas, take forever to implement, or never get started.

They'll leave you frustrated and confused.

"But they look like ideal clients," you say! Yet if you dig a little deeper, you may find that the way they initially present themselves is nothing more than a smokescreen.

But when we are looking for more business, we fall for this smokescreen almost every time. We make the decision that they are good prospects, so we go about the work of trying to turn them into clients.

That's when it gets hard.

They show a lot of interest and meet with us for hours on end, not making a decision. We prepare proposals that meet their needs and yet they stop returning our phone calls. They commit to a project but move at a glacial pace. They get excited about turning around their business, but before you know it they are focusing on the next "good idea."

But do we think that these are bad prospects? Not on your life! We just think that "marketing and selling is hard." We feel discouraged, but keep plugging away, hoping that one of these prospects will ultimately turn into a good client.

But they almost never do. Why?

Because they were never good prospects in the first place. You read the signs wrong. What's worse, you've been doing this for a long time - maybe years. You have been spinning your wheels trying to sell to prospects who will never buy.

This also leads to another problem.

You fail to notice the buying signs of a good prospect. You don't see how they are different, so you treat them the same as any prospect. You miss opportunities that are right in front of you.

When you do get a client, you often don't know why. It seems to be a random process that you don't have a lot of control over. At this point it's not unusual to get discouraged about marketing and just decide to "wait for referrals from satisfied clients."

I'd like you to imagine the following fantasy scenario:

You meet a lot of prospects in the course of your business. And on the shirt of each prospect is pinned a magical "prospect qualification badge" that only you can see.

Good prospects would have a badge that said "good prospect" and bad prospects would have a badge that said "bad prospect."

Can you imagine how that would impact your approach to marketing and selling? Of course, you'd ignore the bad prospects and put all your energy and attention on the good ones.

The thing is, this really isn't a fantasy scenario!

Every prospect you meet actually does wear an invisible "prospect qualification badge" that simply takes a little understanding and study to learn how to decipher.

Until you learn how to read these "prospect qualification badges" you will waste enormous amounts of time and energy. As a result, your business will never grow the way you want it to grow. And that, my friends, is a tragedy.

To be continued...

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The More Clients Bottom Line: The inability to distinguish bad prospects from good prospects may be the biggest liability in your business. Until you understand this, you'll unnecessarily waste time and energy chasing clients who will never do business with you.

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Ever chased a prospect for a long time, only to be disappointed that they didn't become a client? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

The Magic of Alliances

Recently, I attended the IMC Confab in Reno with the intention of building my business alliances.

Now that I'm focused primarily on helping my Action Plan Marketing Coaches succeed, I'm spending very little time thinking of attracting more clients. Instead, I'm thinking of ways to offer my online customers valuable services that I can't provide myself.

One of the ways I'm doing this is through my Audio Programs where I interview a top expert on a topic that will provide significant value to my subscribers and customers. The interview with Jerry Vieira, on "Secrets to Attracting More of the Right Clients" is a good example of that.

But that's only one example. At the Confab, I met business people who offered office space for Independent Professionals, an established business coaching company searching for facilitators, and an online PR company who is looking for more clients.

Building relationships with these companies is now in process; but today one came to me by email that was a very pleasant surprise.

I have been looking for someone to do a large project for me and was taking bids. Today I got their bid along with this invitation: "We are willing to do the project for free if you introduce our services to the people on your email list."

As they say, "Be careful what you wish for!" This opportunity had never even occurred to me. (If this goes through, you'll be hearing the details soon!)

I thought it might be appropriate to share some things I've learned about creating Alliances and Joint Ventures over the years. It's never as simple as it looks.

Joint ventures are all about opportunity and access.

The opportunity is to tap into the goodwill and relationships that a client or business associate has built with their customer base. And you can only take advantage of those relationships if they give you access.

People tend to be naive about access. They think they deserve access if they have some value to offer. Not necessarily. The truth is that I get emails almost every day asking for access. They want me to promote their book, their service or their ideas to my list.

The problem with this is the lack of relationship. For the most part, I don't know these people. I don't know their services or products. And in a world competing for access, I'm not likely to pick partners to form alliances with if I don't know them.

You see it online all the time.

An email marketer is promoting one product or service after another to their list. But is there a real relationship there? If I get one more email telling me to send an email to my whole list because they have a new book, I think I'll scream.

I actually created a form email politely declining these offers.

Can some of these work? Perhaps. But the problem is that everyone has it backwards. Instead of trying to get access, you should spend more time providing access.

At Confab, I didn't go around asking people if they would promote me to their customer base. Instead, I spent the time meeting smart, interesting, quality people that I could offer access to.

The conversation goes something like this:

"I have a big list of Independent Professionals who are looking for ways to grow their businesses. One of the things I do is introduce them to products and services that could benefit them.

"From what I see about your service, you have something my subscribers might want. I want to learn more about you, talk to your customers and clients and see if we might be able to work together."

I check them out, do the due diligence and make sure I can introduce their products, services or ideas to those on my list without hesitation. And, yes, I get a percentage of these deals.

Would I also like access to their customer base? Of course! But that's not where I start. If we work together to build a solid relationship, that may come in time. Sooner or later they will introduce my services to others.

But what if you don't have a big email list? That seems to stop everyone. It shouldn't. I've been creating these alliances for years, even when I had a small list.

Look, if you have a solid client base of ten or twenty people, why not introduce the products or services of someone else you trust to these clients? As long as you are not in direct competition, it's not an issue.

You gather all of them for a presentation or you send a mailing or email; or like I do, conduct an interview with an expert and offer it to your clients.

All of this builds trust and relationships. Your credibility increases and more people benefit. This is a fun way to do business. For many, it's the only way they do business.

I think it's difficult for some people because they are too focused on getting instead of giving. Put the focus on what you can offer and you might be amazed at the alliances you'll form.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: If you are looking for access, give access; if you want opportunities, offer opportunities. Build a network of trusted partners who can offer real value to your clients and before too long, access and opportunities will start to chase you.

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What kind of successes have you had in creating alliances? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Unsticking Your Marketing

During the IMC Confab last week, one of the sessions I attended was the "IMC Experts Talk Show." Several people submitted questions ahead of time. In the session, the questions were read and the whole group answered them.

The question I asked was: "In working with clients, what percentage of the work you do is knowledge/skills based and what percentage is psychologically based?"

I've always been curious about this but had never gotten a large group consensus. When the question was asked, several people laughed and then someone stood up and said: "I've never done a client engagement where 85% of the issues weren't psychologically based!"

And that was typical of the rest of the answers. The consensus was that psychological issues were the number one reason a client called a consultant or professional in the first place.

But paradoxically, that was NEVER why the client thought they brought the consultant in to help them. They thought they were interested in getting help with knowledge and skills.

In my consulting and coaching I've always put a lot of emphasis on knowledge and skills. I think they are very, very important. Six of my Seven Marketing Principles are knowledge/skill based, but the second principle "The Marketing Mindset," usually has the biggest impact on a client's ultimate results.

What I try to make very clear is that the Marketing Mindset you have shapes your actions and results. You can have the knowledge, the skills and the plan, but get terrible results if your mindset remains: "Marketing is fundamentally dishonest," or, "I'll never find the time to market myself."

I've seen very smart and highly educated people flounder helplessly with their marketing because of some hesitation, doubt or fear.

But here's the funny (and perhaps tragic), thing: Even when people realize that their current mindset is in the way, they try to add more knowledge and skills to change the mindset.

This is a little like being on a train heading for a bridge that is out, and moving the baggage around in the baggage car, hoping that this will prevent the train from falling into the ravine!

"Hmm, I'm afraid of being rejected. That's why I don't follow up with prospects. Great insight. I think I'll get another degree. Maybe that will help!"

Or, more typically, a marketing strategy you've implemented isn't working as well as you'd like. But you don't notice that you had something to do with it. Because of your doubt and hesitation, you didn't follow through, sweat the details, or build up any real enthusiasm for the plan. But you blame the plan.

So how can you unstick your marketing mindset?

A way that you may find extraordinarily useful is to look at how you are BEING about your marketing. Are you Being fearful, doubtful or confused? Those ways of Being clearly won't help your marketing.

Your thinking, feelings and actions are always in alignment with the way you are Being. Be confused and you will act confused.

But what you may fail to notice is that you can't change your way of Being by doing! If you gather more knowledge and develop more skills, you may still remain fearful, doubtful or confused.

What if you chose who you were going to be instead?

This Monday morning I woke up with a huge pile of things on my plate. Not only did I have the eZine to write, but my in-progress projects include writing an online marketing software program, gearing up for my next Certification Program, giving feedback to my Marketing Coaches and creating a big fundraising event for a non-profit organization (Room to Read).

What I noticed, before even getting out of bed, was that I was gearing up to BE overwhelmed. I also remembered that when I'm overwhelmed, I either start procrastinating, stuck in not knowing what to do first, or I go into "stressed-out panic mode."

I also remembered that both of these options were not very effective in handling overwhelm. So I asked myself, "If I couldn't be overwhelmed, who would I be?" The answer came quickly: "I'd be calm, focused and fearless."

I clearly saw that if I was calm, focused and fearless, I'd look at all the things I had on my plate, do a little planning and prioritizing and then do one thing at a time. And then I asked myself, "Who am I going to choose to Be? Overwhelmed, or calm, focused and fearless?"

That wasn't a hard one to answer! So far the day is going just great. Being scattered and frantic has been replaced by productivity and ease.

Now take a look at some marketing activity that you are not having much success with. You are stuck or struggling. Ask yourself who you are being regarding that activity or project.

Look at the behaviors that come out of that way of Being, and ask "If I couldn't be that way, who would I prefer to be?" And if that resonates with you, choose to be that way and take the first action towards that project, coming from that way of being.

I predict you'll discover you don't need to know a whole lot more or even learn more skills to take that first step.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: It's not what you know or what you do that has the biggest impact on your success and productivity, It's who you are Being. Be aware of who you are being regarding an area where you are stuck, and ask if that's working for you. If it's not, choose a new way to be.

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Who have you been BEING that has you stuck in moving forward with your marketing? Please share on the More Clients Blog.