The More Clients Blog

Building Marketing Mansions

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

One month left in 2009. Do you have a plan?

Do you know what marketing activities will generate your income for next year? Would you make a bet that next year will be better than last year? What's your actual plan to make it better?

It took me a very long time to actually get the concept of planning my marketing. I'd pretty much go one month at a time, hoping my efforts led somewhere.

Yes, I planned some strategies, activities and projects.

And then I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. I depended more on hope and the willingness to work hard. I figured if I did a certain number of speaking engagements or teleclasses and sent out my eZine every week, I'd be OK.

I finally realized that even this was not enough.

Now I do marketing like I'd build a house.

I'd make a plan for the house to be a certain way; I'd buy the necessary materials; I'd create a timeline for each step to be done in a certain order; I'd contract the workers and build the house.

Does your marketing look like that? If so, great! But I'll bet it looks more like this:

You think about the house and talk about it, but never write down a plan. You don't get around to ordering the materials. Timeline, what timeline? Workers, surely you jest! And you'd only fit in the actual building if you had some spare time.

Yeah, it's really that bad!

Look, it's up to you, but maybe you'll actually create a plan that's designed to bring in new business predictably next year.

What if you had a plan that not only brought in more clients, but highly committed, higher paying clients whom you didn't have to beg to work with you?

Here's what I recommend you do:

1. Decide on exactly what kind of clients you want next year. Why settle for the level of clients you've been getting? Might as well aim for the ideal clients as you tend to get what you intend.

2. Determine the services or programs you want to offer to these clients. Don't just think about it. Write it down in great detail and make it real. It's not a plan unless it's on paper.

3. Now do a write-up about that service or program and put it prominently on your web site. Not a paragraph or two, but a detailed description of what your clients will get and how your services are structured. Yes, several pages!

4. Add a response form at the bottom of the page which prospects fill out. Ask questions that will let you know if the person responding is a qualified prospect or not.

5. Next design several marketing activities designed to drive people to that page. Anything and everything can work here. You need to experiment and test.

6. Use everything from email to social media, speaking engagements to networking. Don't try to sell but to inform and to build trust and credibility. Get enough qualified people to that page and some will respond.

7. For everyone who responds, offer some kind of complimentary "strategy session" designed to get to know these prospects' situation, as well as understand their goals and challenges.

8. Then present the benefits and advantages of your service or program (as you did on your web page). Be concise, and demonstrate how what you offer will meet their needs and provide the value they're looking for.

9. Ask them to work with you if you know you can help them accomplish their goals. Don't be wishy-washy about it. Show the confidence you have in yourself and your services.

Follow this plan and you'll attract more clients.

This is a pretty simple plan; it's not highly sophisticated or complicated. But it works. And as you get results, you can then work to fine-tune and refine it to sell more complex and more expensive services.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: You have to start somewhere with your marketing. Doing things randomly and haphazardly won't build you the marketing house you want. By taking the time and making this focused marketing effort, you'll be building marketing mansions before long.

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What's the marketing plan you plan to build for 2010? Please share on the More Clients Blog. Just click on the Comments link below:

Strength Through Collaboration

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Has 2009 been a great year for you or a tough year?

What happens in bad economic times is that the weaker businesses fade away. They just don't have the persistence and staying power to succeed.

On the other hand, the stronger businesses take a tough economy as a challenge and find ways to thrive.

These businesses take risks, they innovate, they work on their marketing and they focus on customer service to keep their existing clients delighted.

They also collaborate.

I've declared collaboration to be my marketing and business theme for the year 2010. But what exactly is collaboration and how can it help your business? And what things can you actually do to collaborate?

Collaboration is defined as: "the action of working jointly with others on an activity, esp. to produce or create something."

What you're doing is working with associates, partners and even clients to create something you wouldn't have created by yourself.

And collaboration creates synergy. That is, one plus one doesn't equal two but five or more. The power of collaboration adds energy to any undertaking and tends to propel things forward.

Here are some ways you can collaborate this year.

Co-Coaching

Two heads are better than one. Everybody knows this, but as an Independent Professional, it often feels easier to go it alone. But what if you could team up with an associate?

For the past two years, I've met with my friend and associate Patrick Summar once a quarter, and we help each other with our businesses. For a full day we mastermind, brainstorm and coach each other. It's resulted in great results for both of us.

Find someone whose talents can compliment yours. I help Patrick with marketing plans and Patrick helps me with systems and structure in my business.

Affiliation

Does one of your associates, or even one of your competitors have a service or program that you don't offer? Why not help them sell this service and get paid a commission? Every month I earn from $3K to $5K in affiliate commissions.

I simply mention my affiliate partners in my eZine every week. And once in awhile I send a special email to promote the services of one of my affiliate partners. If your partner offers quality services or programs that you don't, why not?

Partnering

Perhaps you offer a business service to a certain target market. Why not partner with other professionals who serve a similar market and do co-promotion?

One of the members of my Marketing Mastery Group is putting together a group of "trusted advisors" to serve his clients. He's a management consultant and the partners are an attorney, accountant, business broker and estate planner.

They'll be putting on seminars and inviting their current and potential clients to attend. The clients of each partner become the potential clients of the other partners.

Summit Meetings

Why not put on a "Summit Meeting" of your most creative business associates and clients? In an interactive, collaborative environment you'll get to know each other better and explore ways to work with together on projects.

This isn't something you can do by conference call. Getting together physically and letting the chemistry happen can lead to places you can't imagine.

I'm doing an InfoGuru Summit Meeting at the end of January with the professional experts I've interviewed for my Marketing Club. For a weekend we'll make new connections, brainstorm, and emerge with new business collaborations for the new year.

Mastermind Groups

These groups can be done by teleconference or in-person. The format is to meet regularly - weekly, bi-monthly or monthly and support each other through idea and resource sharing.

My experience with groups like this is that everyone starts to put out ideas of things they've wanted to do but didn't have the confidence to start. With the support and encouragement of the group, new projects get launched, many with great success.

Those are just a few of the ways you can collaborate.

I encourage you to make collaboration a centerpiece of your business in the coming year. You can only get so far by doing things all by yourself - especially in a tough economy. Who knows how far you can go if you creatively work together with others?

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Collaboration makes your business stronger. It helps you discover new ways of doing things and new avenues of expansion. When you lend support to others and receive support yourself, business also becomes a more enriching and fulfilling experience.

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How are you planning to collaborate in 2010? Please share ideas of successful collaborations. Please share on the More Clients Blog. Just click on the Comments link below.

One More Thing

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Last week I challenged my subscribers to let me know "Just One Thing" they do to consistently to market their businesses. I got a lot of answers with many excellent ideas but there was one that really stood out.

John Paul Engel was the clear Winner. He got a complimentary 3-month membership in the Marketing Club. He more than deserved it!

One Weekly Action That Transformed John's Business

Every week I volunteer at a local middle school in the poorest area in my town. I teach leadership and public speaking to the kids. When I began doing this a little over a year ago I had no idea it would totally transform my business, my marketing and my life.

One day a 13 year old boy got up and gave a speech about how he wanted to be an engineer, but he didn't know any engineers. I thought, "That's a need - I can help him!"

I gathered some questions from the boy, I asked a college student, and I came up with some questions myself. We also asked an engineer, and he was happy to help. When I gave the answers to the young man he loved them. He was that much closer to his dream. His teachers told me he was more focused in school and his homework had improved.

I thought: "I know lots of successful people, why don't I do this for all these kids?" So I went out and got advice from Ph.D.s from Harvard, Oxford, and Cambridge, graduates of Tokyo University, Stanford, London School of Economics, and the University of Chicago - some of the smartest, most successful people in the world, and I gave it to the kids.

The class was so inspired that I decided to turn it into a book and give it away for free. Everyday I give this book away for free to any student, parent, teacher anywhere in the world who wants it. All they have to do is download it from my website at:

www.projectbethechange.com

In a couple of weeks I will be giving away 2,000 copies of the book to area students.

You might be asking, "Fine, John - its nice that you are doing such a good thing but how is it helping your business?" My answer is in several ways...

1. Each book gets my name out there and makes people aware of my business

2. Because of the book I am getting high profile speaking engagements

3. A local TV station did a story profiling me, as did the University of Chicago Booth School of Business alumni magazine

4. One of the contributers in the book referred me to an RFP worth tens of thousands of dollars

5. I am building a list of successful people and of people who downloaded the book

If you help someone everyday in whatever way you can, you will supercharge your marketing. A portion of every dollar I make in my business I now reinvest into "Project Be The Change" and this helps me help more students.

It's a wonderful virtuous marketing cycle!

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The More Clients Bottom Line: I hope you are inspired by John! His one selfless weekly action ended up transforming his business and his life. John just didn't go through the motions; he put his focus where there was a need and it mushroomed into something that will benefit thousands of people - and his own business in the process.

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How are the contributions you are making to the community not only making a difference, but transforming your business as well? Please share on the More Clients Blog. Just click on the comments link below.

Just One Thing

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Every Monday I do just one thing in my business to move it forward. I write this eZine.

That's certainly not everything I do on Mondays, but for over 12 years I've set this time aside to communicate with my subscribers.

What difference has this made?

It's transformed my business to one that was struggling to meet the rent every month to one that is financially abundant. There has been no recession for Action Plan Marketing.

And it's also made me a better coach and consultant.

When we think of marketing, we think of all the thousands of things we could do. And yes, there are thousands. But that is simply overwhelming.

The good news is that you don't have to do thousands of things to market yourself. You don't even have to do an eZine. But you need to do a least one thing religiously every single week (and sometimes every day). This is what forms the foundation of effective marketing.

So I'm going to keep this eZine very short today.

The question is: What is one thing you'd be willing to do every single week, perhaps every single weekday to market your services?

Not ten things or even five things, just one thing.

And for those who are already doing this one thing, I'd like to hear from you and the difference it has made in your business.

You can write me back or post on the blog and I'll reprint some of the things you are doing.

The best one gets a free copy of the InfoGuru Manual, or the Web Site ToolKit, or a 3-month membership in the Marketing Club (your choice).

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Pick just one thing to do weekly in your marketing and make a commitment to do it for a whole year. If you do, I promise you'll transform your marketing and your business.

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What is that one thing? Let me know! Please share on the More Clients Blog:

Client Satisfaction or Delight?

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

Here's what most business owners don't get:

It's not enough to satisfy clients, you need to delight them. The good news is that this really works. The bad news is that it takes more thought and effort than the average business owner is willing to give.

I recently went on a vacation to Sedona Arizona, as I mentioned last week. Well, Sedona itself certainly delights. It's a natural wonder and the spectacular red hills, desert pants and breathtaking hiking trails don't need any marketing help.

But it's a different case with the restaurants.

I'd like to compare two for you.

The first night we went to Hiro's Sushi. Like most Japanese restaurants, the food quality was excellent. Everything tasted great and the portions were generous. We enjoyed our meal. They were definitely giving us satisfaction for money spent.

But the place was the definition of boring. They had taken over from another restaurant six weeks ago. The previous restaurant had bad food, so at least they were an improvement. But other than putting in a sushi bar, not one thing had changed.

They were just marking time. Just getting the food out there. Nothing special. It could have been any other Japanese restaurant in the world. As they say, nothing to write home about.

Then a couple days later, on a recommendation, we were sent to a Mexican restaurant called Elote.

The location wasn't too exciting. We had to wait an hour to get in. But when we did - ay caramba! This wasn't an ordinary Mexican restaurant. In fact, it was better than any restaurant I'd been to in Mexico.

The dishes were indescribable, but I'll try. Their signature dish is called "Elote" which consists of roasted corn scraped off the cob and then mixed with mayonnaise and spices. Beyond belief.

We weren't that hungry, so we ordered appetizers. There was more food than in most main courses. I got chicken mole tacos and my wife got shrimp tacos. The sauces were unbelievable. I can still taste them.

The service was also spectacular. We felt we were the most important guests in the world with a waitress who appeared to be the most cheerful person on the planet.

Now that's what I mean by delighted.

When you go to Sedona some day (and you must!) what are you going to check out first, Hiro's or Elote?

Wish they delivered to Boulder Creek!

www.elotecafe.com/

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The More Clients Bottom Line: If you're only satisfying your clients, I promise you, it's not enough! These days people want even more value for their money. You have to delight them, go the extra mile and provide more than service, but an experience that is memorable.

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How do you delight your clients? Please share on the More Clients Blog. Just click on the Comments link below.