The More Clients Blog

The Marketing Prescription

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

I woke up Monday morning thinking of a book I'd read many years ago, "The Peter Prescription" by Lawrence J. Peter," plucked it off my library shelf and dipped into it again.

This book contains "Sixty four formulas for improving the quality of your life" and is a treasure trove of ideas for making things work better. And it's written in a very readable, fun style: An excerpt picked at random:

"One advantage of making lists is that it is cheaper than psychotherapy and you can pin your list on the wall and think about it. You cannot do this with your psychotherapist."

Peter wrote several books, the most notable being "The Peter Principle," published in 1968. All are highly readable and recommended. You can get them super-cheap on Amazon.

Peter spent the majority of his professional career writing books about how things go wrong and how to make things go right. Peter was a deep thinker who also understood that you have to make one's ideas easily digestible and applicable.

He was a big influence and inspiration.

As you may know, I've spent the majority of my career writing and talking about how most marketing doesn't work and how you can make it work for you.

So once again, I'm embarking on another project designed to help even more people get a grip on their marketing and hopefully avoid the kind of marketing mistakes that produce negligible and discouraging results.

Peter wrote books. But now we have multimedia and interactive web sites that can provide more than information, but also offer a way to absorb information in more depth, hopefully sticking a little longer.

So I thought, why not put every major marketing idea, strategy and plan together in one place, have it revolve around a set of proven marketing principles and then interconnect them all?

So that's what I've done. And I'm launching it next week.

The center of this is my "Fast Track to More Clients Program" presented online to be as interactive and as easy to use as possible. It includes marketing assignments, exercises and plans you can fill in online and save, a way to track your progress step-by-step and a community that can comment on each module of the program as you go through it.

Over 40 Expert Interviews are connected to the core principles so that you can go deeper into a particular subject, and twice-monthly Coaching Calls provide more in-depth insight and advice for implementing what you've learned. Dozens of Marketing Samples provide successful examples for you to emulate.

And then I've thrown in over $2,000 worth of Bonuses, including the InfoGuru Marketing Manual and the WebSite ToolKit.

On top of all that, I've priced it so low that anyone can take advantage of it. I'm hoping I didn't go too far in offering too much value, but my aim here is to help thousands of people with their marketing, not a select handful.

Look out for the launch next week. My developer and I have spent hundreds of hours on this over the past two months and I know you're going to like what you see.

We'll even have a free sample for you to download.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: If you're committed to making a big difference, if you really feel you have something of value to contribute to the world, why not go all the way? I hope that this new program will not only make a profound impact on your marketing success, but that it will inspire you to take on a big project yourself in the near future.

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How are you contributing to making things go right in the world? Please share on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below.

Fight Email Tyranny

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

On Sunday evening while browsing our local Santa Cruz bookstore I came across a wonderful book: The Tyranny of Email by John Freeman.

Freeman spends the first six chapters of the book making a powerful case for one rather sobering insight: We are all hopelessly addicted to email. It has taken over our lives and we have virtually no strategies to manage it.

The good news is that in the final chapter, "Don't Send," he presents ten prescriptions for breaking the email addiction and handling email with a degree of sanity. I'll summarize them here, but if you want the full impact, get the book!

1. Don't Send

Email begets email. The more you send, the more you get. So before you send an email message, take a few seconds to think: How essential is this email? What's it's purpose? Could I combine email messages to a single recipient in response to several emails? It is urgent or could it wait? So slow things down a bit and don't be so reactive. Send email intentionally.

2. Don't Check It First Thing in the Morning or Late at Night

Don't you have a business so that you can have a life? And if the very first thing you do in the day is check email, you are a slave to email, not to your priorities. Much better to take some time to plan your day, look at the appointments and priorities YOU have first and plan how you're going to get them done. Focus on the big stuff and then email can fit more easily between the cracks.

3. Check It Twice a Day

We often check our email several times an hour. The truth is, it's not necessary. You won't actually get behind. Better to schedule time to "handle" email, so you can do it more completely. Can't reduce it to two times a day? Try three or at the most, hourly.

4. Keep a written To-Do List and Incorporate Email into It

Your best time management tool is a simple to-do list. I make a weekly list of about 5 to 10 major items I want to complete that week and then a daily list of 2 or 3 priority items for that day. Email is something I fit between these priorities but don't let it dominate my day.

5. Give Good Email

The best emails are short, concise and clear. After all, email is about communication not a deluge of information. Take an extra minute to proof your email, make sure the message is clear and also makes a specific request or promise for action. Include your phone number in your email signature so that they can easily call you if needed. I also proof my email for typos and format the email for easy readability such as using bold type.

6. Read the Entire Incoming Email before replying

We've all done it. We scan an email quickly and dash off a reply. Then we read the bottom part we missed and realize our response was incomplete. So we send another email. Meanwhile you've gotten an email back, trying to clarify this... Again, the key is to do email intentionally. Write and respond with the intention of moving something forward without confusion.

7. Do not Debate Complex or Sensitive Matters by Email

Sometimes you just need to pick up the phone. Nuances of emotion are hard to express in writing. Especially when you're in the habit of dashing off emails quickly. Remember that you have a relationship with your correspondent. Treat that relationship with care, and communicate in a way that will get the best outcome. Besides, a quick phone call can often be faster than writing an email.

8. If You Have to Work as a Group by Email, Meet Your Correspondents Face-to-Face

In my one-year Marketing Mastery Program we connect by teleconference, email and phone. But I also hold a 3-day workshop at the beginning of the program so that people can connect person-to-person. They get to know each other, feel more comfortable with everyone and a more powerful community is created this way. When they send emails after the workshop, they are no longer emailing to strangers.

9. Set Up Your Desk to Do Something Else Besides Email

A big desk helps. My computer is in the middle of a v-shaped desk and I have four feet on each side of the computer for my planning books, for taking notes, for my laptop computer that acts as my "jazz jukebox," etc. Yes, the computer is the central hub of my business, but lots of space leaves me options to do other things than be on my computer.

10. Schedule Media-free Time Every Day

What do we do after our full day at our computers? We visit Facebook, watch TV and play video games! We are not only addicted to email, we are addicted to electronic media to the point of obsession. I include myself in this. If you don't have a TV, I honor you! But for the sake of your own well being, make sure to unplug for several hours a day. If you don't, you're opening the door for serious stress issues.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Work at handling email consciously and intentionally. It's one of the most powerful communication mediums in the world but it is both inescapable and addictive. It can severely damage your quality of life if you don't take the kind of steps outlined in the article above. And do your self a favor and get John Freeman's book: The Tyranny of Email. Powerful stuff.

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What are a few of your tips for managing email consciously? Please share on the More Clients Blog by Clicking on the Comments link below.

Five Steps to High-End Clients

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

I'm feeling very proud right now.

Almost daily I'm getting reports from the participants in my current Marketing Mastery Program about various new projects they are getting.

One, a productivity consultant, just got a one-day training contract in Dubai for $10K + first class airfare! Another, a leadership consultant, submitted 3 proposals before leaving for his honeymoon in Thailand and got all of them - totaling about $38K.

We have worked very hard together over the past year and are now reaping the rewards. I'm more confident than ever that my system for attracting high-end clients definitely works.

But I don't want to spend this whole eZine, boasting. Let me share some ideas about the most important principle in the program:

"If you don't aim to attract high-end clients, you won't get high-end clients."

From what I've observed, most Independent Professionals set their sights much too low. They settle for the work they get and think it's impossible to find the ideal clients that will actually pay them what they are worth.

Here's the basic plan. How many of these are you doing?

1. Set your goals high. Don't just say you'd like to get more high- end clients, be very specific about what you are going for. Create a written description of your ideal clients and the services or programs you could offer them. Make it full color, three dimensional and sensory rich. See and taste what you want.

2. Next, do some research on where these ideal clients can be found. You may discover unexpected places, as my leadership consultant in Paris found. As an alumna of Georgetown University, she offered a webinar through their e-list. About 250 showed up and 40 requested appointments to discuss her services.

3. Write up in great detail the high-end services you plan to offer. Be very specific as to the need for these services, the outcomes you deliver, the benefits your clients receive and the structure of these services. You can't sell a service or program that you haven't designed and made tangible. Put this on your web site.

4. Study, learn and master the best selling process for this service. That is, script the selling process for prospects who are ready to explore doing business with you. I often recommend you do this before starting any marketing, because when you are clear about your ideal clients and have packaged the ideal service for them, it's not unusual that opportunities arise very quickly (usually in your current network) to meet and engage in selling conversations.

5. Finally, develop a very focused marketing campaign to get exposure for these services. If you have a large list of prospects, that's where to start with very direct and personal outreach to educate them about your services. If you don't have a list, the most effective marketing strategy is some kind of presentation or talk to groups both locally and nationally. For instance, my talk at the ICF conference in 2009 attracted five participants to the 2010 Marketing Mastery Program and is still generating applicants.

Five very basic steps. Quite simple, really, but perhaps not so easy to do unless you have the know-how.

To get the know-how, consider studying the Fast Track to More Clients Program which is the heart of the Action Plan Marketing Club. You can sign up for the first month for free from now until the end of February.

actionplan.com/actionplanclub.html

To get the know-how, plus hands on coaching that guarantees you will implement what you learn, consider the 2011 Marketing Mastery Program. We have a few spaces open.

actionplan.com/apmmm.html

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The More Clients Bottom Line: To accomplish anything big, you need an action plan based on time-tested formulas. If you go it alone, you will spend much more time and money than if you got some help in learning and implementing these formulas. Invest in yourself and master your marketing in 2011. It will be the best investment you could possibly make in your business.

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How are you investing in your marketing in 2011? Please share on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments like below.