The More Clients Blog

The More Clients Blog has moved

Dear Blog Readers, 

Since updating my website at actionplan.com I've decided to move the blog there as well. You can see my most recent "More Clients eZine" articles as well as blog posts at this address:

actionplan.com/blog

I will keep this blog up as it contains hundres of articles (going back to January of 2006) you may find useful but I'm no longer allowing comments to the posts. 

Thanks for visiting, and see you at my new blog!

All the best,

Robert Middleton
Action Plan Marketing

Attracting High-End Clients

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

High-End Clients Marketing - Part I

Everyone wants to attract more clients.

But I think it's even more important to set your sights on attracting more High-End clients.

Right now, I'm working with 20 high-end clients through my Marketing Mastery Program. This transition from "average clients" to "high-end clients" over the past few years has transformed my business and my lifestyle.

I define high-end clients in the following three ways:

1. They are "ideal clients." That is, clients you can really make a difference with and whom you love to work with.

2. They are "long-term clients." These are clients with whom you can offer programs and services for a year or more.

3. They are "high-paying clients." They understand the value you offer and are willing to pay you more than average clients will.

By attracting a consistent stream of high-end clients you have several advantages over attracting average clients.

1. Both you and your clients will experience more fulfillment in working together. This is no small thing. When the experience of working together is one of partnership and possibility, your work doesn't feel like work. It's more like play.

2. By working long-term you will get to know and understand the needs of your clients much better. This often leads to even more long-term work. And of course, you'll earn more money than with short-term clients.

3. When you charge more, you'll feel that you are being valued for what you're worth. You'll be able to give better service and make a bigger impact, without feeling you are being taken advantage of.

So how do you attract more high end clients?

Well, all the marketing approaches I've taught over the years also apply to attracting high-end clients, but there are a few steps that you must follow:

1. To attract high-end clients, you need to design high-end services. It's like selling a Mercedes instead of a Ford. And you need to put in the commitment, time and energy into developing high-end services and programs that will deliver higher end results than you offered previously. The good news is that it's easier than you think.

2. Your marketing messages, materials, marketing strategies and sales processes need to communicate the message that you offer higher-end services. Perception is essential. Every impression you make should communicate: "I offer high quality, pay attention to details, follow-up professionally and produce great results."

3. Then you have gained the right to charge more for your services. After all, you've organized your business to produce higher-end results, and done it in a way that makes your clients feel special. They feel like they're at the Ritz Carleton, not the Holiday Inn and they'll be happy to pay fees that give them that experience.

Marketing and selling high-end services isn't something you can transition to overnight, but if you really want a sustainable business that makes a lot more money and is more fulfilling, there's really no other way to go.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Start now to plan to attract more high-end clients. Attend my complimentary teleseminar on Thursday, September 1st at 12 noon Pacific.

To learn more, go to:

www.actionplan.com/high-end

Overwhelmed by To-Do Lists?

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

In my Marketing Mastery Program, I teach all my principles of marketing and give lots of individual coaching and feedback to make sure they understand the strategies, and the processes to implement them effectively.

But I call that "The Easy Part."

The hard part is implementing what you already know. And there seem to be a thousand things conspiring to prevent us from putting our knowledge into action.

One of the biggest ones is simply managing projects and time. And in today's More Clients I want to share a simple but powerful system that really works to keep on top of and move forward with the zillion things you have on your plate.

First, a few things you're probably doing wrong:

1. You have a huge list of things to do and you look at it daily or perhaps it's gotten so overwhelming you don't look at it at all.

2. You don't have a weekly plan of the things you'll commit to doing this week - no matter what.

3. Your daily to-do list, if you have one, is way too long and is not integrated into your daily schedule.

I'll give you solutions to all of these, but the first thing to remember is that you don't have to work insanely hard to get a lot done. I'm someone who gets a lot done but I don't go crazy getting it all done and rarely experience overwhelm.

The big key is Priorities. That is, you want to be working on big things that move your business forward. Not a LOT of things but a FEW things that really matter.

So that brings us to Solution #1 - Your Big List

A Big List is a list of all the things you have to, want to and need to do. The problem with a Big List is that it's usually only ONE list. Big mistake. That only leads to overwhelm.

Every time you look at your Big List you freak out because of all the stuff it contains. You have just SO MUCH TO DO!!

The thing is, you don't. You can only do what you can do today, and not everything on that list is for today. So looking at it every day is a formula for losing the game of getting important things done.

You want to restructure your BIG LIST into a whole bunch of project lists. Marketing projects, client projects, admin project, any kind of project. You can put those project pages into some kind of online system or do what I do - put them in a binder.

When do you look at your project lists? Once a week and only once a week. Never, ever, every single day.

Solution #2 - Your Weekly List

Very few people do this, but you must if you want to get control of things once and for all.

Once a week, on Friday afternoon, the weekend or Monday morning, you leisurely page through your various project lists. Slow down to prevent overwhelm. Now, as you notice an item that needs to be done this week or that you really want to get done this week, you write that item in your Weekly List.

There's one restriction. Only ten items per week. This are not things you'd like to get done, these are things you are planning to get done. That's your productivity game for the week.

As you do this week-by-week you may discover you need to put a few less or a few more items on that list to fill your time. But the game is to only list items you really intend to get done.

Solution #3 - Your Daily List

I call this my Daily Control Panel. What I use is a 2-column full page daily planner with my appointments for the day on the left and my daily to dos on the right.

Each morning I open my planner, look at my appointments and then take a look at my Weekly List and ask myself what I can reasonably fit in today. If I have lots of appointments, I can do less, if fewer appointments, I can do more. 

Then my productivity game is to accomplish everything on that list that day. Do I always succeed? No, but I do most of the time. With only ten priority items listed for the week I only have two to four items listed every day.

So every day I'm not scanning a list of a hundred things, going into overwhelm and just doing things frantically to get them off my list. That just stresses you out and you never really feel productive because you're "just doing things."

Instead, I'm moving things forward slowly and surely, step by step. That way, all the big things I want to accomplish get done and the little things (like answering email) get fit in-between the cracks.

If you're a member of the Marketing Club, you can have access to all the forms mentioned above, plus a teleclass on this topic: "How to Manage Overwhelming Lists in Three Easy Steps." Just see the Articles and Reports section.

You can join the marketing Club here and get this and $2,000 worth of hands-on marketing programs for free.

http://actionplan.com/fasttrack

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Don't underestimate the forces conspiring to distract you from important projects and tasks. Make it a priority it get organized and create a workable system for planning and time management. It might be the most powerful marketing activity you do this year.

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What is your system for getting more priority items done? Please share on the More Clients Blog by clicking on the Comments link below. 

Get Paid to Get Clients

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

A proven strategy for attracting clients is offering a "free introductory session" or complimentary consultations. These can definitely work, if done correctly, but frequently it can be a waste of time that has left you frustrated and discouraged.

You want a better way to turn the right prospects into paying clients. My friend and associate, George Huang, has developed a ground-breaking approach to working with more clients who appreciate your value (and gladly pay you for it)!

Let me explain George's system:

While free sessions and complimentary consultations can and do produce results, there are a lot of problems with giving away your time and expertise in the hopes of landing a new client.

Let's take a look at some of these problems:

1. For starters, one huge problem is that you can attract a lot of "tire-kickers" –  poorly qualified prospects who book a session with you because it's free. From their perspective, it's easy to say 'yes' to a free session because there's nothing to lose and everything to gain.

But let’s face it - unless you have a way to weed out the tire-kickers, you’ll burn up valuable time, energy, and expertise on someone with little to no interest in going any further, forcing you to work even harder to win new business.

2. Another problem with “free sample sessions” is that sets the wrong context for paying you based on value, because such an approach doesn’t necessarily convey the value you provide. Perhaps the “free sample” method works well with gourmet chocolate, but it falls short of communicating the breadth and depth of your real value as a coach, consultant or other service professional.

3. With rare exceptions, conversion rates from "free sessions" tend to be low. It's like panning for gold; you have to sift through a lot of sand to find the hidden nuggets.

But if there was a way to:

• Eliminate the "tire-kickers” who only waste your time and energy

• Humbly, yet powerfully showcase your expertise (without a trace of showboating)

• Turbocharge the process of attracting high-quality, pre-qualified prospective clients

• Select only the best clients to work with

• Markedly increase your conversion rates, and

• Get PAID while you prospect...

...Would you use it?

Of course you would. Or at least your eyes should get really wide as you read this! :)

Simply put, the way to accomplish all the above is to start charging for your initial sessions. But you can't just take your existing "free" session and slap a price tag on it: George told me he tried this more than once and survived to warn people not to try it yourself!

Instead, if you're going to attach a fee to your initial session, then you need to first increase the real, tangible value that you provide through your initial session. And you need to understand how to position and communicate the value of your session in the eyes, minds, and hearts of your potential clients.

So how do you do that?

One of the keys to success in offering "paid sessions that clients gladly pay for," is that your session must deliver "standalone" value that is more than worth paying for.

Drawing on the medical model of diagnosis and treatment that George honed during his previous career as a plastic surgeon, the best way to really ramp up that value is to weave a “diagnostic” approach into your initial sessions with clients.

Look beyond the immediate pain, problems or symptoms to discover their underlying issues and paint a bigger picture of possibilities for them. Specifically guide your prospects through the myriad of choices and paths to reaching their goals. And don't worry, you don't have to become a doctor to do this!

Even as you're practicing and mastering this approach, you’ll offer much more than a “sample” or an introduction; you’ll provide a thorough, strategic, and actionable game plan. You’ll offer clients solutions for which they’ve been searching, things truly “worth paying for.” Additionally, you’ll help them invest in their own solution.

And so they’ll stand a greater chance of actually following through with a plan they have invested in, rather than one that was given to them.

While it may seem paradoxical at first, converting clients from paid sessions into longer-term clients is frequently easier than from free sessions. When you offer sessions that clients pay for, you are already working with a client who is paying you for value and they have self-declared themselves as serious about making changes in their circumstances.

Having a system for attracting prospects and converting prospects into long-term clients is essential for any business person, and yet, too many service-oriented professionals spend years studying and honing their crafts, only to “wing it” on a "hope and a prayer" when it comes to finding and keeping clients.

Relying on good luck and your magnetic personality is not a proven system, nor is hope a good business strategy. Instead, the approach George has mastered is part of a system that naturally and logically leads the right clients to hire you for extended work.

I know a lot of really talented people with big hearts are out there struggling because they hate selling. And that pains me because both George and I used to be certifiably allergic to marketing and selling. With the value-driven, "diagnostic" approach I've just described, there's literally no selling on your part; clients naturally sell themselves.

And that's really good for your business, for you, for your clients, and for the world.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: One of the best ways to convert qualified prospects into paying clients is to offer them an initial paid session instead of a free session. You'll attract better clients, waste less time and earn some money in the process, even if they don't end up as a long-term client.

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If you'd like to know more about how George Huang's "Get Paid to Get Clients" System works, please join us for a teleclass next week where I'll interview George. It's on Thursday, August 18 at 5:00 Pacific. Details here:

www.getpaidtogetclients.com

Get Off the Sidelines

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

One of my not-so-productive pastimes is following politics.

It fascinates me to no end. You might say it's the best soap opera on television. Heros, villains, comedy and tragedy all rolled into one big messy melodrama. Live on CNN, FOX and MSNBC five nights a week, plus Sunday morning.

Everyone takes sides and each side turns the other into the most despicable character imaginable. And it's not just about who's right or wrong, it's about who's a deluded moron because of what and who they believe in.

This might be all in good fun when following football, but when our nation's future is at stake, does it really make sense to take things to previously unimagined extremes?

Compromise is nowhere in sight and the opponents are only interested in crushing each other to dust.

Most of us sit on the sidelines, taking sides and cheering our team on as we besmirch the opposition. Very few of us take any constructive action that makes any difference.

There is a parallel to this in your own business.

I don't know about you, but I went into business wanting to make a difference. Sure, I needed to earn a living, but whenever I just focused on money it never worked for me.

When I started writing this eZine about 14 years ago, the business purpose was to gain visibility, grow my list and attract more clients.

But it turned into a lot more than that. It became a mission to help my subscribers be more successful as Independent Professionals. The money became secondary.

I remember years ago exchanging emails with one of my subscribers, Debora Hood, who was really struggling. She couldn't afford my services, not even a copy of the InfoGuru Manual.

I told her to just keep reading the eZine and follow my advice as best she could. And that's what she did. And from struggle came a few wins and then some clients and ultimately a very successful business.

Ultimately she purchased my manual and I think some of my other programs. And what I remember was that I was just as excited about her business as those who were paying me thousands of dollars for hands-on-coaching.

I'm always very happy when someone takes action instead of sitting on the sidelines complaining about their tough circumstances and how it's so hard to market yourself.

Complaining and blaming, in politics and in business, gets you absolutely nowhere except to reinforce your rather limited point of view. And notice how deeply unsatisfying that is.

I could be wrong, but we just may be in for rough times in the economy ahead. I'm not preaching doom and gloom, it's just that the signs aren't very favorable right now.

The question is, what are YOU going to do?

Sit on the sidelines or move into creative action like Debora?

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The More Clients Bottom Line: Will you sit on the sidelines, very adamant about why things are such a mess and blaming everyone and everything as things become more challenging, or will you take a page from Debora Hood's book and take one step at a time until you find a way to make things work?

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If you're ready to take action, I want to help. I'd like to give away a whole bunch of stuff for free that can help you grow your business, even in tough times.

I've put together a little video that will explain it all. It will also give you some valuable insights about what you need to do right now to start to attract more clients.

Take a look here:

www.actionplan.com/fasttrack