photo credit: Steve Rhodes

You’d think if you just shouted loud enough your prospects would hear your message.  But that doesn’t work, and it doesn’t make them think well of you.  So how do you formulate a message that gets your prospects to pay attention to you, and want to more about how “you” can help “them”?

Last week I pointed out that your communications must focus on your prospects. Your prospects want to know what’s in it for them.  They won’t listen to your message, and they certainly won’t respond to a message that doesn’t have a big benefit for them.

You want to keep that message tight.  There are a couple of reasons for that.

• our attention span is shorter than ever, and we just won’t listen to a long message unless that message is so powerful it literally has us riveted
• it helps you to gain clarity about what you’re doing
• you can re-purpose that message in a number of ways

Dean Rieck poses an exercise for developing a 60 second radio ad.   This is a great idea because if you can say everything you need to say in 60 seconds you have a message your prospects will listen to.  In essence your just following the old marketing principle of AIDA:

• Attention - get the attention of the prospects you want to talk to
• Interest - give them a clear reason why they should listen to what you have to say
• Desire - build there desire to want to take action
• Action - give them a way to reach out to you to learn how to get what they want

How could you use a short message like that?  Well, most of you aren’t going to run a radio ad, however, you could use that short message to:

• develop your core marketing message to introduce yourself to others
• use it to make a post card in your direct mail campaign
• use it to develop a small ad placed in a publication frequently read by only your best prospects

And that’s just a few ideas.  The major point to developing an effective communication is to:

• keep it brief with a powerful impact
• it should clearly resonate with your ideal prospects
• there should be no doubt who the message is for, the ultimate outcome they want, and the reason why you are the person to make it happen

You may also want to check these out:

• Report on the 7 Secrets Top Producers Know
• How to market to the near sales
• My inner circle coaching program

Near sales represent all those people who are interested, but they just aren’t ready to buy now.  They need to think about it, they’ll revisit this is six months, they have to talk to some other people, etc.  They’re still in your sales funnel, but they aren’t ready to do business today.

Michel Fortin has an acronym for the stages of buyer awareness (OATH).  It’s a great way to explain where buyers are or aren’t in the buying process.

• Oblivious - they aren’t aware they even have a need for your services.
• Apathetic - they have some awareness that they need your services, but they aren’t motivated to do anything about it
• Thinking- they know they need your services and they’re thinking about doing something, but they need to do a little more research
• Hurting - they’re ready buyers actively seeking your service

A buyer won’t buy until they’re ready to buy.  Accept that as fact.  Don’t try to manipulate or coerce someone into doing something they aren’t ready to do.  It just makes you look like a pushy obnoxious salesperson because you are.

Instead change how you approach near sales.  You can’t control the stage of awareness a potential client may be in the buying process.  What you can control is how you help people to move through the stages of awareness, so when they’re ready to buy they’ll buy from you.

Prepare ways to deepen the relationship beyond the initial connection.  Map out a marketing plan to provide valuable information to your prospects that will educate them and move them closer to a ready buyer.  This can’t be a bunch of drivel about how great you are and how long you’ve been in business.  Educational and valuable means it answers questions your potential prospects need answered, it removes objections they might have, it explores what they have to believe about your service, and it invalidates other options.