The More Clients Blog

Conscious Business Playground

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

This past weekend I attended a unique gathering of Entrepreneurs hosted by my friend Bill Baren. It was called: "The Future of Conscious Business Playground."

About 25 of us gathered in San Francisco to explore, in a fun and interactive way, the following questions and topics:

- What is a conscious business?
- How is service more important than money?
- How can money serve a higher purpose?
- What is authentic vs. manipulative selling?
- What's the future of video blogging?
- Selling more seminar seats without selling your soul.
- Online technology that streamlines marketing.
- How does purpose and intention impact marketing?
- Are love and business compatible?
- Is the law of attraction real - how do we use it?
- Ways to partner for fun and profit.

Nobody was there to teach us the answers to these questions.

What we did was come up with the questions ourselves and then broke into groups to explore what we knew or didn't know and how we could take these ideas to build businesses that made a difference while they also made a profit.

Too often business is focused on one main thing:

"How do I make more money in my business?"

It was very clear to me that none of the participants' main business purpose was just to make more money. We all understood that making money was an important component of business, but never the underlying purpose.

What I came away with was a new clarity about how I can better serve my clients. I realized that I needed to make "higher purpose" just as important in my work with clients as attracting more money.

One of the things we came to consensus about was that the two served each other. And that if we didn't make each of these important, our business and lives would be out of balance.

A business that is primarily about making money is a business without a soul. When the bottom line is the only important thing, real service, quality, community involvement, fulfillment and joy get kicked to the curb.

But if your business is only about the "airy fairy stuff" - love, contribution, etc. you may avoid the realities of money, management and marketing and ultimately cease to exist.

The best businesses find ways to combine the two.

I invite you to ask these questions about your business:

- How can I have more fun in my business? How can I make it a game that I love to play everyday, not just because it provides a livelihood but because I get to exercise my creativity?

- How can I transform my relationship to money from one of scarcity to one of sufficiency and abundance? Can I see money as simply a positive reflection of the service I provide?

- How can my business serve me instead of me serving the business? Can I have both my business and my life work? And what would that look like?

- How can I partner with other conscious business owners who have similar goals? How can we support each other in making a bigger difference in the world?

That's just a start. This past weekend we explored these and other questions with great passion and fun. I left with a renewed sense of both purpose and hope.

At the heart, what is your business going to be about? And how are you going to make that real in the world?

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Fulfillment in your business means going much deeper than the bottom line. Simply making more money won't bring happiness. Instead, how can you make your business both viable and joyful while you make a contribution that is deep and lasting?

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What are you doing to add a more conscious dimension to your business? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments Link below.

Stimulation - Intention - Implementation

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

This week, 1,772 people requested my Marketing Plan Workbook and opted-in to the More Clients eZine. That's a record for me in the 14th year of writing More Clients.

In fact, more people have joined my list in the past 6 weeks than had in the previous 9 months!

How did this happen?

At the beginning of June, I hired Rob Goyette as an online marketing coach to help me grow both my More Clients list and my Marketing Club.

I'm not sure how to describe what Rob and I did together. For one, I'm not great at being coached. I spent a lot of time explaining what I wanted to do and a lot of time telling him what I wouldn't do (No hype or BS).

And every week for about three months, we brainstormed and emerged with a number of promising ideas. We tried a few that bombed and then tried some more. in early July I made some dramatic changes to my home page and my opt-in rate tripled.

Then we worked on inviting more people to try out the Marketing Club. We hit on an approach that got more new members in one month than I had gotten in the six previous months.

But what had really changed is that my marketing got re-ignited by working with Rob. And the key wasn't necessarily learning some magic techniques (although Rob has these aplenty).

The key was: Stimulation - Intention - Implementation.

Rob stimulated my thinking. He threw all kinds of ideas at me and got my brain cells reactivated. This is one of the most important things a coach can do.

This helped me reconnect with my intention to have 1,000 members in the Marketing Club by the end of this year. I don't know if I'll make it (we're at about 700 now), but I'm playing it like a game with high energy and lot of fun.

Implementation isn't exactly an issue for me. When I get an idea, I run with it. With lots of ideas, I was like a man on fire. I wrote reports, created teleclasses, set up partnerships, and created a whole new foundation for my business.

I think the question we all need to ask ourselves is: "What do I need to do differently to move my goals forward?"

Doing things the same way just won't cut it. Settling for the same old strategies that got you where you are now will not get you where you want to go next.

Ask yourself" "What do I really want in my business and my life? If I reach my goals, what difference will it make? If I don't reach my goals, what will it cost? What is my plan to get where I want to go?"

And perhaps, most importantly, "Who will I get to help me on my journey?"

The dumbest thing you can do is to go it alone. And I'm living proof. Any time I've hired someone like Rob to propel me into action, my results have gone through the roof. Certainly the investment has paid off many times over.

If you've been reading this eZine for some time, or even if you're a brand new subscriber, I invite you to take a bigger risk in the coming year. Set some bigger goals, take some bigger risks and get someone to challenge and push you to bigger results.

Thanks, Rob. You made a big difference!

By the way, if you want to talk to Rob about how he can help you - especially in the area of online sales, look him up on Google or send me an email and I'll send you his contact details.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: If you don't do something differently in your business it's not likely to change. You can wait around or you can take action. I recommend getting all the help you can get. Just because you're an "Independent Professional" doesn't mean you have to do everything on your own.

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What are you going to do to accelerate your results in the upcoming year? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below.

Passivity vs. Proactivity

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

What's the big secret of getting things done, of making things happen, of turning your dreams into realities?

Right now we have a participant in the Marketing Mastery Program who is, as they say, "kicking butt and taking names."

She's fine-tuning her marketing and selling activities, setting up appointments with qualified prospects and turning many of them into new clients.

But what impresses me is that she's in a constant search to find a better approach, a more effective way to ask questions, a more refined way of moving the sale forward. And she keeps requesting feedback, asking questions and then modifying her approach.

She's in a state I like to call "Proactivity."

And when you're in a state of proactivity, you can literally create miracles.

Sadly, however, most of us are not searching for proactivity or any other expansive state of being. We are looking for strategies, techniques and how-tos. The proverbial silver bullet.

And as important as these are, they are almost useless if we don't find the right state of being first. You see, the problem most of us have with marketing is that we're in a state of "Passivity." And in this state, we are just waiting for things to happen.

When we find a strategy or technique and we're in a state of passivity, we usually won't implement it. Or if we do, we do it half-heartedly. We're looking for some magic but the magic is never in the strategy, it's in the state of proactivity.

If we transform our state of being from passive to proactive, then all strategies can be magic. Every technique, approach, how-to and process, when applied proactively, has a good chance of working.

When I coach someone who is in a passive state and share a particular strategy that I know works, I don't get much of a response. It's more like, "What else you got? that one doesn't excite me too much. I'm looking for something more exciting, dynamic, powerful to get my marketing going."

But when I coach someone who is in a proactive state and share the same strategy, they are all over it. They want to know exactly what to do and how to do it. They want details, scripts, nuances that will ensure this strategy will work. They bring their own excitement to the strategy.

Mr. Passive takes no action. Ms. Proactive goes into massive action. Guess who gets the best results?

As a result of realizing this, a big part of my coaching is focused on shifting a state or mindset of passivity into one of proactivity.

The good news is that this is something you can do for yourself.

Here's an exercise you can try.

But note that you must have a little bit of Proactivity to even try it. If you're totally stuck in Passivity you'll read this and brush it off quickly as a waste of time, not even giving it fair try. If that's the case, then just trust me. What do you possibly have to lose? After all, it just might work!

This exercise is a powerful first step in transforming Passivity into Proactivity.

1. What is your current state or mindset of passivity? What does it think, what does it believe, what does it feel, what does it avoid, what is it trying to control, dominate, justify, and be right about?

Write these down.

2. Is this state of passivity who you are?

Yes or No?

3. What is it costing you to maintain this state of passivity?

Write down the answer.

4. Who would you be if you could no longer be passive in your marketing, in your business, in your life?

Write down the answer.

5. What is the state or mindset of proactivity? What does it think, what does it believe, what does it feel, what is it trying to accomplish, what is the contribution it wants to make?

Write these down.

6. What is the payoff of being proactive instead of passive?

Write down the answer.

7. What insights do you have from this exercise? Write them all down.

8. Take Action.

What is something you already know you need to do in your marketing but have been avoiding? Make a quick plan, create an action list and then commit to taking one small action at a time until you've accomplished your goal.

Note that this exercise only works if you take a few minutes to do it. It does absolutely nothing by just reading it.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Developing the state or mindset of proactivity is a skill, an ability you have to nourish. But your state or mindset of passivity is not interested in proactivity. And that state tends to be a more dominant state much of the time. It takes some intention and conscious work to transform passivity into proactivity. Are you willing to do the work? Start with the exercise above.

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How does you state of passivity kill your plans and dreams? What are you going to do about it? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below.

7 Deadly List-Building Mistakes

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

What if I told you that your business was your e-list?

That's right, not your experiences, expertise, services, your reputation, brand, computer files, or anything else in your business, tangible or intangible.

I'm not saying, these aren't important; they are. But please do this quick thought experiment with me:

Your office burns down and you lose everything. Nothing left, whatsoever. What would you do to rebuild? It would be an unimaginable amount of work, wouldn't it?

But if you had a great e-list everything would be easier.

You'd get another computer, go to your e-list online, send out an email to all your subscribers, tell them what happened, make an offer for a new service and you'd be up and running again in days, not months.

Your list is your relationships, your network, your community, and if you haven't built much of a list, you don't have much of a business. In fact, if you don't have a good list you have very little momentum in your business.

We'd all like a list. A good list. A big list.

But in working with thousands of clients, I've learned that most make so many mistakes in building their list that they don't get very far with it.

Here are Seven Deadly Mistakes in Building Your List.

1. You don't have an e-list manager

An e-list manager is a program like AWeber or Constant Contact. They manage your list online and enable you to send emails to your whole subscriber list without getting tagged as spam. Next to email and web hosting, this is the most important online service you'll ever use.

Big mistake trying to build your list in Outlook and sending mass emails from your desktop. Remember that fire? No, you want to make it automatic, fast and secure. Sign up for an e-list service today and start building your list.

2. You don't have a good home page

Almost nobody gets this. There is one, and only one, purpose for your web site for first time visitors. It isn't to learn about you and your business, it isn't to contact you (they won't), it isn't even to sell a product or service.

It's to get their attention long enough for them to request some free information on your website and give you their name and email address. And if your home page is not designed to do this, it won't happen.

By the way, you don't want a sign-up form on your home page. You don't want one of those awful "squeeze pages." You don't want anything sleazy and manipulative. You just want to tell the story of your business in such a way that visitors are immediately motivated to get some free information from you.

3. You have nothing of real value to give away

Just signing up for your eZine is not enough. It's never been enough but it's even worse now. If you say "sign up for my wonderful monthly eZine," they'll just ignore you. They get too many eZines already.

But if you say, "get my valuable free report" you have a fighting chance they'll give you their name and email. Then the eZine they also get is the bonus, not the main offer.

But that report had better be great. Not a few tips tossed off casually that wouldn't excite anyone. No, it has to be your very best stuff, ideas that will get them thinking, ideas that will get them worried about this mistakes they're making, ideas that will have them eager to read your regular eZine.

4. You don't have a good sign-up page

When your visitor clicks somewhere near the bottom of your home page to request your free report, you can't just say: "to get your free report, please fill in the form and submit." They won't

You need to sell the free report. That is, you need to build a solid case in just a few paragraphs proving this report is valuable, that it will help them, that it is exactly what they've been looking for.

Have some confidence in what you're offering and be excited about it (not over-the-top hype, just excitement). Tell them exactly what they'll learn and gain if they get your report and the bonus eZine. If you do, people will sign up in droves.

5. You don't have a high quality eZine

Once a week for 13 or 14 years I've sent this eZine out to my subscribers. I make it a priority. I take a few hours to think about it, plan it, write it, format it and send it out. It's my main marketing task every single Monday.

The point is that I understand this is the primary marketing communication to the thousands of people on my e-list. I know a lot of people look forward to it. I know people who built their whole business just from the ideas in this eZine.

And I also know it brings me almost all my clients and customers. Yes, it took me time, but now this list has become the most important resource in my business. But this will only happen if you commit to a high quality eZine that goes out like clockwork.

6. You don't work actively at list-building

"If you build it, they will come" is not a good maxim for your eZine. You need to make some concerted efforts to build your list. But it's more common to hear, "Well, I've sent out my eZine for a few months but my list isn't growing; I guess this doesn't work anymore."

That's a bit like saying, "I put the food in the oven but it's not cooking." Well, did you turn on the heat? Probably not! You need to apply some marketing heat, which means actively promoting your report. Yes, the report, not the eZine.

Offer your report though networking, talks, teleclasses (where you're the guest presenter), though articles posted online, and through partners (more on this in #7). Anyone with a little intention could get 100 or more people to visit their web site each month to get their free report.

7. You don't partner to build your list

I did all the above, and more over the years, to build my subscriber base, but I missed an important strategy that could be the most powerful one of all and that will add thousands of new subscribers to my e-list this coming year.

That strategy is called co-promoting with a partner. What you do is find a partner who also wants to build their e-list and who also has a high quality report. You send an email to your list offering their report and they send an email to their list offering your report. Easy to do and very effective.

It doesn't get much simpler than that. At the beginning, when you don't have a huge e-list, you'll be partnering with those who also have smaller lists. But as time goes on and as your list grows, you'll partner with people with larger lists.

Want to get into the nuts and bolts of building your e-list and avoiding these seven deadly mistakes? I'm doing a TeleClass on this topic on Tuesday, August 17 at 4:00 Pacific. You'll get much more how-to information to build a list that grows your business.

Click here to learn how you can attend this TeleClass for FREE.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Independent Professionals get great marketing results if they've built good e-lists and know how to leverage them to attract more clients. This should be on the top of your marketing to-do list. Every day you put it off, you're losing business and making marketing harder than it should be. Get past these seven deadly mistakes and grow an e-list that takes your business to a whole new level.

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How do you build your e-list? What are some of the mistakes you've made in building it? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below.

When You Lose a Project

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

You're excited. You're jazzed.

You just submitted a proposal for a big project and you think you're going to get it. And if you do, it will make a big difference.

Your cash flow will increase, your reputation will soar.

And then you get the call. "No, sorry, you didn't get the project. You were definitely in contention, but we decided to go with another person because of various reasons."

Now you feel let down and discouraged. After all, you put together a great proposal and you know you were the perfect candidate. So what did you do wrong? Or did you do anything wrong? And what could you do to increase your chances of success next time?

Good questions, and in today's More Clients I'm going to answer them. This is primarily for those pitching larger projects to companies, but it can also be adapted to working with individual clients.

1. Improve Your Marketing Materials

Whether or not a proposal is accepted starts with your connection to your prospect. How much did they know about you before you submitted the proposal? Prospects who already know you, like you and trust you are more likely to work with you.

The three core tools for this are your web site, articles and an eZine. All of these communicate valuable information to prospects and often this material is handed on to other prospects.

If a prospect contacts you, say from a referral, but doesn't know much about you yet, start informing them before you do a proposal. Send them to pages on your web site that explain about your services in more detail and send them an article that demonstrates you understand their issues. Actually request that they read this information before you have an in-depth selling conversation with them.

2. Improve Your Selling Process

Most InfoGurus have an informal selling process. They ask questions of the prospect about their situation and needs and from there, develop a proposal.

What most don't understand is that this selling process needs to be in much more depth. You have to find out more about exactly what is going on with the prospect. Here are the areas that are absolutely critical:

- What is their current situation and what is missing or not working for them?

- What are their goals and vision? What specific outcomes do they want to accomplish?

- What are their challenges? Why have they not been able to solve their problem? What is stopping them?

- What is this problem costing them? What will happen if they don't take action?

- What would it mean to them to overcome their challenge and achieve their goals? How would things change if they could do this?

- Who have they worked with before and how did it go? Did they get the results they wanted or are they looking for a different approach?

- Why did they contact you and what is it about you that makes them think you can help them?

- What is their commitment to making this work? If they worked with you, what would they bring to the table?

After your selling conversation, you want to know more about them than they know about themselves. That is, through your questions and exploration, you'll have insights about their situation that they've never had before.

3. Build a Proposal With Them

We often think of a proposal as a document we spend hours on, stick on a price tag, and then send it out as we cross our fingers.

That's not the way to do it. You ought to work on the proposal together. And get agreement that you are going in the right direction every step of the way.

The first two parts of a proposal are "The Situation Summary" and "Desired Objectives." Write those first and send them to the client and ask if you are on the right track. Do you understand their situation and are these the actual objectives they want to accomplish?

If you really listened during the sales process you should be on target, but you may need to adjust some things before you take the next steps. Actually talk to them about it. They are the co-authors of the proposal.

The next parts are "Measure of Success" and "Our Approach and Methodologies." The first are how they'll measure the success of the project. The second is how you'll go about doing the actual project. You don't need to list absolutely everything you do.

Again, run it by them. Is this what they want? Does our approach make sense to you?

Finally, you add the basic logistics to the project: "Timing and Scope of Work, Joint Accountabilities, Terms and Conditions."

You don't have a final price on this yet, but you'll be talking about price during the development of the proposal. You'll talk about different parts of the project and how important they are or not. You'll discuss options such as Basic, Standard and Deluxe.

By the end of this process, you'll have created this project hand-in-hand. It is as much their work as it is yours. When they are completely satisfied that the proposal reflects what they want, then you can add a price or prices if you have different options.

Now this process sounds pretty complicated. But it doesn't have to take long. You need to let the prospect know how you do proposals and make an agreement on turnaround. It can be done in a week or two. And most of that is waiting time!

Get the first part out immediately, then request feedback within a couple days. Proceed like this until you are done. The important thing is that your prospect have as much ownership of the proposal as you do. If that's the case, then your proposal will stand apart from all the others.

4. A Few Things You Should Never Do

Don't do a proposal for someone where you haven't had an in-depth selling conversation. You're actually creating the first rough draft of the proposal in this meeting. One of the biggest mistakes InfoGurus make is not knowing enough to actually build a proposal. 

Don't spend hours outlining your methodology step-by-step. This is what they'll pay you for. Yes, you need to give a good sense of what you'll do and the basic steps. But this can often be done in a page or less.

Even if you don't actually build the proposal with the prospect (this won't work every time), make sure they take a look at the proposal before you add the price tag. And have a conversation with them before you do. Make sure you are all on the same page before you price your project.

And finally, don't give just one price. As I talked about above, create three levels of your project with three price tags. Then the prospect has a choice of yesses instead of a choice between yes and no. Most people will generally choose the middle option.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Alan Weiss has a famous saying: "A proposal is a summation, not an exploration." You want to agree in concept before you even start the proposal. And then you want to build agreement step-by-step with their full participation before you add the price tag. You'll get more prospects saying the magic words: "Yes, we've accepted your proposal."

Please note that the main substance of these ideas I learned from Alan Weiss. When I read his book on "Million Dollar Consulting" in the mid-90's it changed my business. If you want to learn more about proposals and pricing, make sure to put Alan high on your reading list.  

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What have you done to increase the chances of your proposals being accepted? Please share your answer on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below.