I got a question from a new entrepreneur that’s relevant to all service businesses from new to old.  This particular entrepreneur is just finishing up a bookkeeping program of study.  The last module in her program is a marketing module that recommended she drive in a one mile radius and note all the businesses.

Next she is supposed to get the names of those business owners and send them a letter telling them about her services letting them know she will be calling them.

Her question… she was having trouble finding out who the owners were and wondered how to get that information.  To say getting the names of the business owners is the least of her worries is a gross understatement.

To think the marketing plan her school provided her would get her enough clients to earn a living is far from likely.

If that was all it took every business owner in any service business would have all the business they wanted.

Sadly, I got similar recommendations when I started out and so do attorneys, chiropractors, insurance agents, graphic designers…  You name the service and they probably get a similar recommendation.

So off you go thinking the world is your oyster and the skies the limit.

And then you find out…

1. Every prospect you approach seems to already have a bookkeeper (insert your industry)
2. They wouldn’t even considering using anyone who isn’t a CPA (insert any certification others in your industry have that you don’t)
3. They do their own bookkeeping and view you as an unnecessary expense (insert the excuses you get for not needing your services)

And that brings me to the most important element you must develop before you even start developing your sales marketing plan.  The most important element is defining, discovering, and planning how you will deal with the push back.  No matter what service you are in you will ALWAYS get push back unless you plan to avoid or remove it before it starts.

You can’t develop a sales marketing plan until you can…

1. Succinctly communicate what’s unique or special about what you do for your prospects.
2. Discuss the pros and cons of competitors versus your service.
3. Give prospects a reason to be interested in what you sell.

Rather than thinking of your service as an expense your prospects must view your service as the necessary investment required to get the solutions, outcomes, or results they are ALREADY looking to get.

Then and only then can you develop a sales and marketing plan to:

• get your message in front of the right people
• get those people to reach out to you
• develop a relationship with your prospects
• help your prospects identify what’s best for them
• help them buy what they want to buy the way they want to buy it

Properly armed you are then ready to get the names of the people most likely to buy your stuff.

An easy way for the bookkeeper to get those names is to simply call the business, ask who is responsible for daily operations, then ask for the correct spelling of their name so you can send them a note.

It’s so frustrating when you are just starting out because even when you think you are asking for the help you need more often than not you aren’t asking the most questions.  The questions that would get you headed in the right direction.

Coach Cheryl

Do it Yourself

Do it with a Little Help

Do it with Guidance

photo credit: Maco@Sky Walker

How many times have you or the people you hire to sell your stuff either said or thought these words?  “I hate prospecting!”  Probably more than once.  Rather than dealing with the frustration overcome the challenge so you can say, “I love prospecting for sales leads!”

The problem stems from the fact that most people approach sales prospecting from the perspective of trying to find people to buy your stuff.  When you should be focused on making your business FINDABLE by the people most likely to buy your stuff.  Once you flip that paradigm you’ll love prospecting.

Here’s why prospecting is so hard when it shouldn’t be.  You can’t effectively answer these questions:

1. Who are the people most likely to have both the desire and the means to buy your stuff?
2. What are those people already looking for?
3. Where do the people most likely to buy your stuff gather?
4. Where can you interact with and engage those potential buyers?
5. When can you interact and engage with those people?
6. Why do the people most likely to buy your stuff want to connect with you?
7. How do they perceive getting what they want?
8. How will you develop a relationship with the people most likely to buy your stuff?
9. How will you transform strangers into buyers?

In case you didn’t notice the information you need to develop for your business is the same information a journalist would require to write an article about your business… Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How.

Don’t just answer these questions based on logic and features.  You have to get to the driving emotional motivator that gets people who would rather ignore you and do nothing to act.  You need a message that drives people out of their do nothing zombie state and transforms them into alert eager to act buyers.

The most important question is the first question.  Answer that question and then do your homework and learn as much as you can about those potential buyers so you can effectively answer the remaining questions.

You aren’t alone.  There are 25,000,000 small businesses.  Each and every one frantically seeking ways just to survive today’s harsh economic climate let alone… make a buck!

While there’s some comfort in knowing you aren’t alone it doesn’t solve your problem.  If you could do just one thing to chart your course and set a path for prosperity I suggest it would be figuring out what you are really selling.  Then figuring out how to tell others what you are really selling.

Small businesses can learn a lot from the big boys… sometimes.  Realistically every big business that exists today was just a little business in the beginning.  There’s no reason your business can’t become a big business if that’s what you want too.

Don’t scoff at my suggestion that you figure out what you are really selling.  Let me make my point.  What does Nike sell?

You might tell me shoes, clothes, posters, etc.  And I would say, “Yes, they sell all those things but that’s not what they are REALLY selling.   Think about it.  What emotion is Nike pushing in every message?

WINNING.  Nike is selling winning, and they are persuading the buyer to open their wallet and buy because doing so fulfills the buyers internal emotional driver to WIN!

How about De Beers Diamonds?  What are they selling?  Diamond rings, necklaces, bracelets, etc.   What is the message in every communication?  A diamond lasts forever… meaning your relationship or commitment lasts forever.  De Beers is selling a lifetime commitment in your relationships.

Now I realize those are both tangible things and you are selling your service, but you can do the same thing.  What are the people who buy your service really looking for?  What’s the emotion connected with getting that?

eHarmony is an online dating service.  Aren’t they selling love?  Don’t they communicate in every message how their service made love possible for their users?

There’s no need to desperately search for an effective sales strategy.  Simply develop it.  Start by identifying the emotion that motivates your buyers to act.  Then communicate the connection between you, that emotion, and your buyers in every communication.

My buyers want financial success.  Success is the emotion that motivates them to act.  The message… “Gain an unfair advantage when prospects contact YOU“  Have you noticed where you can find that message on this page?

Why do you think I put that message there?

So… what are you really selling?

What’s the message that tells me that?

photo credit: El Grande78

There’s something about the people who get things done the people who achieve success that most people don’t realize.  It isn’t a secret yet few mention it.  Because no one talks about it most people think successful people are just lucky.

Nothing Could be Further from the Truth

Success doesn’t happen because you’re lucky.  EVER!

Success happens…

no matter if that means sales, money, or the things money can buy…

because of actions.

Really successful people take action.  They don’t just take a little action they take MASSIVE action.

And they produce that massive action over time.

I’ve had a number of people ask me how I could ever write a book let alone several.  They envision I lock myself in a room and do nothing but write… about the worst thing they could ever imagine.  But that’s not how I did it nor how most of the people who have written books do it.  If you want to write a book you simply commit to writing each and every day a small piece of the overall project.

If you want to increase your sales, write a book, get rich, do nothing but spend your time on leisure activities the recipe to achieving that is pretty simple.

Daily Rituals Daily Progress

Yep, that’s all it takes.  Every successful person I know has daily rituals.  Those daily rituals make it possible to make daily progress.  Daily progress will get you anywhere and anything you want.

An action plan to increase your sales isn’t complicated.  All you need is a plan to…

• Get more potential buyers to talk to
• Meet with people who are interested in buying
• Closing the sale with the people you meet with

The result is challenging yet the individual actions don’t have to be.  Just start thinking about what 3 things you could do each day to help the people most likely to buy your stuff FIND you?

What could you do each and every week to help the people most likely to buy your stuff have an experience with you?

You have to take daily small steps to get to the point of compounding returns from your efforts.  So don’t start envisioning grand things you’ll do every day just think about small things you could do every day to get what you want.

Start developing your action plans now to increase your sales.  Make sure you:

• Take 3 actions each day to help the people most likely to buy your stuff find you.  List those actions now.
•  Take 1 action every day to help the people interested in your stuff meet with you to talk about it.  List that action.
• Take 1 action to improve the way you hold sales conversations with potential buyers.  List that action.

Once you get those things down into a routine a daily routine start thinking about what you can outsource or automate and what you can add to your routine now that those things are so easy.

Jason Cohen recently wrote about little companies trying to act like big companies.

It instantly brought back the humiliation I’ve experienced personally and vicariously when people try to present themselves as something they aren’t in their marketing efforts.

You know exactly what I mean when you visit a business website that’s trying to put on a “we’re a big company face”.  I ought to know about that one for sure my first website was worse than stinky feet.

From the home page to every other page linked to it you get a non-stop stream of what I call corporatese puke.  Evidently it sounds impressive to the business owner, but the reader is totally confused about what the heck you actually do.

Now that’s bad, real bad because if I can’t figure out what you do I’m gone forever.  I’m certainly not going to buy from you.  And I’m not going to have any interest in having any connection with you whatsoever.

You’ve experienced this at networking events too.  One stands out in my mind even today some 3 odd years after the fact.  This lady comes up to me in a very professional manner and introduces herself as an Executive Coach.  Okay, great.

When I asked, “So what exactly do you do?”  She replied, “We help people achieve their potential.”

Uh-em before I tell you what went through my head I have to confess I grew up one of five children three of which were boys.  My brothers never pulled any punches.  They always gave it to me straight up no sugar coating.  To their credit I learned some of the most valuable lessons in life from those none too kind brothers.

So I’m thinking, “What… you got a turd in your pocket?”  I mean you just told me you are an Executive Coach which is a one-on-one gig and then you proceed to speak about what you do in terms of “we”.  That doesn’t make sense.

Then you try to impress me by reciting some nonsense.  What the heck does achieve their potential mean?  Yeah, achieving your potential is important for any level of success BUT the way the line was used just didn’t feel real.  It felt like you were pretending to be something you weren’t.  It felt fake.

Since she didn’t give me anything I felt I could work with I tried another route.  I asked, “So what did you do before you were an Executive Coach?”  She proceeded to tell me she works as an administrative assistant for a Dentist until she has enough clients to quit.

Well, those were the first real words out of her mouth.  However, having been a corporate executive for over 15 years there’s no way I would have considered hiring an administrative assistant as my “Executive Coach”.  I mean, what could she possibly know about being an executive?

It’s too bad we don’t all have a “fakometer” built in so we could catch our own mistake.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being the only person in your business.  That’s honest that’s real.  Pretending you are a big organization so you can impress someone is fake.  It comes off fake.  It causes you to lose integrity.  And when you lose integrity with the other person you are DONE.

The Executive Coach had taken some training and gone through a certification process to coach executives.  She was trying to get her first client.  That’s a hard spot to be in.  Every business has to have their first client before they can move onto bigger and better clients.

She could have kept her integrity and gotten results if she had been forthright from the beginning.  So in retrospect when the Executive Coach introduced herself she could have simply said, “I’ve just completed certification to practice as an Executive Coach.”  No shame in that.

Then when I asked, “So what exactly does an Executive Coach do?”  She could have said, “Well, there are a lot of things Executive Coaches do to help executives improve I want to focus on improving the way they communicate with their peers and staff.”

I can relate to that one.  Ineffective communication is probably one of the biggest problems in the corporate world.  I also would have thought of several people I could immediately refer her to.

I might have said something like, “You mentioned you just completed certification have you worked with some executives yet.”  Then she could have responded, “Actually that’s my big challenge right now… meeting executives willing to give me a chance.”

Now come on, if someone said that to you wouldn’t you actually do something to help that person?  I sure would.  I would have told her I knew just who she needed as her first client and then I would have set up a meeting with both of them.

No matter where you are that spot is just fine and a great place to start marketing your small business effectively.

Wow, who would have thought something as seemingly trivial as a font change could unleash a torrent of complaints.  But that’s exactly what happened to Swedish furniture maker IKEA.

Unlike most large companies with either indifferent or down right hostile customers IKEA has fans.  So many fans in fact, they have an online community with forums where users can talk about their furniture, products, stores, and share ideas.

According to IKEA they have the most frequently printed catalog in the world.  Previously IKEA used the font Futura in their catalog, BUT someone in the company decided to change the font to Verdana.

Now at the risk of setting off a fire storm I’d like to at least put in a good word for the poor person behind the decision.  Verdana is a preferred font choice for text that will be viewed on line because most viewers find it easier to read than many other fonts.

However, what was overlooked was how this seemingly itsy bitsy teensy weensy change would impact IKEA’s beloved fans.  They love the company so much and feel so much ownership they felt insulted when the company to decided to change their experience without asking them.  Uh-oh!

Now the rest of us would be jumping up and down doing the happy dance if we had such a fan club.  What we can learn from this example is the power of relationship marketing and why it’s so important to think relationships first sales second in our marketing efforts.

We want our clients to feel a part of our business too.  Even it that means they get mad at us for changing something seemingly insignificant in our business.  If we can generate that kind of emotion over a little change then we know we’ve done the best job we could do developing a relationship with our clients.

Kudos to IKEA I admire what you’ve been able to accomplishment.  I’ve no doubt you’ll get yourself out of this sticky wicket all the better for it.

For the rest of us I wonder what about our business creates a feeling of relationship with us… And more importantly what could we do to better create relationships?

Any examples that particularly stand out for you of a business doing a good job developing relationships with their clients and potential clients?

photo credit: MShades

Most business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s focus on selling their stuff.  You talk about the features your stuff has, what your stuff can do, perhaps how your stuff compares to your competitors stuff.  Legitimate points for consideration yet not what gets people to actually buy your stuff.

The key to successfully selling your stuff isn’t the stuff.  The key to selling your stuff is what your stuff can do.  A critical element required for a successful sales strategy is effectively helping your potential buyers focus on:

• the ideas your stuff lead to
• the experience of owning your stuff
• the future your stuff can help them create

Fear can be tremendously motivating when the thing feared is imminent and highly likely.  However, when it isn’t imminent or perceived as inevitable potential buyers are more likely to do nothing than something.  That’s why it’s so hard to sell the concept of prevention.  If the undesired fear can be prevented it can be delayed.  It may never happen so why act?

However, you can transform fear into a motivation for action when you help the potential buyer focus on a highly desirable future outcome, a desirable experience, or a captivating idea that could become a reality.

No one wants to focus on what you don’t want so you need to help them see the path to what they do want.  This empowers the potential buyer and helps them move from the state of fear they  don’t want to a state they do want.  The more real the more experience seems to them, the more potentially rewarding, the greater the motivation for immediate action.

photo credit: saname777

Can your business succeed?

Do you have a good business idea?

Will your business survive?

All good questions every business owner asks at some point.  Ideally you should ask and answer a lot of good questions before you ever start.  Chris Brogan developed a nice list of questions everyone thinking about starting a business should review and answer.

Presuming you have a good business that does good things for the people who buy your stuff.

Presuming people are willing to pay to get your stuff.

Presuming you are capable of making good on what your stuff is supposed to do.

There is one thing that will keep you from succeeding.  That one thing is an inability to promote your business to the people most likely to buy your stuff.

If no one knows about your business or your stuff your business is history.  You will fail before you ever get the opportunity to succeed. You are shining your lamp under a bushel basket.  No one will know you exist.

You must be able to respond “yes” to these questions:

• Can you explain in simple words why someone would want to buy your stuff?
• Can you explain in simple words why your stuff isn’t just another warmed over version of the same stuff they can get elsewhere?

This can be a real challenge especially when:

• you are too close to your business
• you haven’t defined a specific group of people willing to buy what you have

Yet, it’s entirely doable.  Let me show you how you can uncover your slice of the market even in a crowded competitive market.  There are literally millions of blogs.  There are lots of blogs about blogging.

However, in that crowded market there are bloggers who have carved out there slice by establishing blogs for bloggers about…

• how to write a better blog
• how to build a blog
• how to develop blog readers
• how to create blog membership sites

While the segmentation would be different in other industries the ability to create this type of segmentation exists in every industry.

photo credit: azrianna azmil

This is an interesting question I get a lot.  Especially from people who don’t have a lot of money to invest in marketing.  While the question sounds simple the answer isn’t so simple.

First off, I wish every group or organization that holds networking events would give a copy of a networking etiquette booklet to all attendees so fewer people would embarrass themselves.  Shawn Kincaid wrote a nice little list of 10 things you should know about networking.  This isn’t secret or earth shattering information it’s common sense.  Common sense that most people new to networking seem to lack.

The reason most people embarrass themselves at networking events is because they completely misunderstand the objective of networking.  They think the objective is to sell someone something.  WRONG!  The objective of networking is to meet new people and make FRIENDS.

If you expect to make friends you should anticipate having a give and take conversation where the other person shares a little about them and then you share a little about yourself.  You should walk away feeling positive about having met that person.  Perhaps they’ve even peaked your interest to the point you’d like to speak with them further.  And that’s exactly what you should be trying to accomplish as well.

You want to make certain the other person looks forward to seeing you again and, ideally, you’d like that person to want to spend some time talking with you one on one so they can find out more about you and perhaps what you do.

Beyond the objective and etiquette of networking though, there is an important question you must be able to answer before you consider investing the time and money it takes to network well.  That questions is… “Will my best potential clients attend this event?”

The next most important question is… “Will I be able to engage with these people and make friends in the group?”

Contrary to what many people think even “free” networking events are far from “free”.  If you’re going to produce serious results from networking it requires a serious commitment.  That means you’ll need to:

• plan on actively participating in group events and activities
• prepare to make friends first
• prepare to add value to the members of the group
• take time out of your schedule to attend and participate consistently
• invest in travel, meals, and other expenses

To mention just a few things.

If you identify networking opportunities where you can respond “yes” to those two important questions AND you’re willing to make the investments you need to make to produce a return from your investment THEN networking could play a key role in your lead generation marketing strategies.

If you can’t respond “yes” or you can’t make the required commitment then networking probably isn’t worth any investment.  Don’t expect to sporadically attend random networking events and have big things happen.

Just like it takes time to make friends and develop relationships in any situation it takes time to accomplish those sames things from your networking efforts.  Networking is a long-term investment that can produce tremendous value as long as you know what to expect going into it.

photo credit: Bex Wade

The short answer is there should be no difference whatsoever.  The confusion comes from what you experience and what you may be hearing now.  So let’s sort this all out.

Most business owners, entrepreneurs, and SOHO’s aren’t clear about what marketing is supposed to do.  Marketing has one objective.  That objective is to create relationships.  Boy do I wish I had understood that from the beginning.

Marketing is really about making friends.  Therefore, all good marketing is relationship marketing.  You read the “good” part didn’t you?

Just like when most people hear the word “salesperson” they immediately think about the worst of the worst… the same is true when it comes to how many business owners think about marketing.  You immediately think of the examples of marketing communications that do little more than scream you need to buy and you need to buy now.

The world is not made up of zombies haunting the streets in search of what you sell.  Even the people who do want to buy your stuff will not respond to in-your-face marketing tactics and techniques.  Instead most people are either looking for INFORMATION, or they are open to information about something that could be of interest to them.

Bottom line when it comes to marketing you want to evaluate the way you approach creating those relationships through your marketing communications.

Think about why you develop relationships with some people and not others.  Do you share a common interest or desire?  Do you have a common goal or challenge?  Probably.

You’ve also probably met a lot of people in your life that could have developed into relationships yet they didn’t go anywhere.  Did you do anything beyond the introduction to sustain the relationship?  Were there opportunities for interaction and engagement?  Hmmm, pretty obvious why things just kind of went nowhere.

So, if the purpose of marketing is to create relationships then our marketing must:

• Focus on what the other person wants to hear
• Provide a way to get information about that
• Allow the other person to gain a sense of who you are and what you are about
• Nurture the relationship by continuing to add value
• Provide opportunities for interaction and engagement

And above all don’t take yourself so seriously.  Some of the worst marketing efforts I’ve ever seen were created by business owners who wanted to create the illusion they were a big company when they weren’t… who insisted on using incomprehensible “corporatese” when a simple message would have worked so much better.  No matter what… people buy from people.  The people you market to need to know you are a real person who really cares about what they think… who really wants to help them.

A less than perfect sincere marketing message is a thousand times more powerful than a perfect impersonal one.

Can you think of a really bad marketing communication you’ve gotten lately?  What could the sender have changed to make the message work for you?

photo credit: pjf@cpan