Posts Tagged ‘business marketing’

How To Use Trojan Horse Marketing To Attract New Clients.

Thursday, July 15th, 2010

An interesting short article in SalesForceExp magazine about “What Business Are You Really In?” It reminded me about the power of Trojan Horse Marketing.

For example, on the surface one might think that your local cinema is in the movie business. But they’re not.

The movie is just the “Trojan Horse” for their real business, which is selling popcorn and refreshments. As the article points out, “Cinemas are fast food businesses that happen to offer entertainment.”

So why is this worth thinking about?

Because most services business use a straight ahead-direct-battering-ram approach when attempting to get new business.

And there’s a much more effective way that achieves far better results. Let me explain…

You’d put it more elegantly, but the general gist of most marketing messages tends to be…

Hi…If you suffer from (problem) I have a solution for you. As the leading (financial planner/executive recruiter/technology consultant/Fill-In-Your-Expertise-Here) we have extensive experience working with…(well you know the rest.)

Now there’s nothing inherently bad about that. However the problem is that everyone (or at least all your competition) is taking pretty much that same approach. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so difficult to stand out.

Alternatively, the Trojan Horse strategy approaches the target market at an angle. It may not be immediate obvious what in fact the ultimate objective is.

You see this many times with infomercials. You know, the ones that sell a $8 doo-hickey like some sort of goofy lure that fisherman can use to catch “the really big one that got away”. You’ve probably said to yourself, “How in the world after spending all this money on advertising can they make any money selling something so inexpensive?”

And the answer is…”The can’t.” (And they aren’t.)

In most cases what they are really doing is building a list of buyers of fishing equipment and then selling that list to lots of manufacturers and marketers who sell rods, reels and other fishing equipment.

There’s a lot of money in fishing.

Now they could have used the straight ahead approach, “Give me your contact information and we’ll have a lot of fishing manufacturers send you stuff you might like to buy.” They’d get the really hard core fish fanatics that way. But that’s just a teensy tiny segment of the market.

But they used a Trojan Horse, and now have a list of people who have actually bought fishing stuff.

That’s worth big bucks to others who want to sell fishing stuff, since it’s a proven list of buyers (as opposed to just those who are interested in fishing).

So how does the Trojan Horse approach work with services firms?

Here’s an example.

I’m about to launch a new sales training initiative. It’s my one day sales training program, Unique Sales Stories: How To Get More Referrals, Differentiate Yourself From The Competition & Close More Sales Through The Power Of Stories.

Now I could just create a nice PowerPoint presentation, brochure, website, direct mail campaign ect and market this to sales executives and training directors.

Might work.

But the sales training field is very competitive. Lots of programs vying for attention.

And there are a lot of heavy hitters, companies with far bigger budgets than mine who are mailing their brochures to the same people I want to hire me.

So I need a Trojan Horse.

And I’ve got one.

It’s a book. Not a eBook but a real paperbound book, published by a real publishing house -it’s even got some pictures in it. Pretty cool if I say so myself.

I wrote this book over a 6-week period of time this spring and early summer.

Was my goal to have a best seller?
Was my goal to sell a lot of books?
Was my goal to get “famous”?

Nope.

My goal is to sell a lot of sales training programs. And my book is my Trojan Horse.

Instead of doing what all my competition is doing…sending sales training brochures, having their sales reps cold call training directors and sales executives pitching their sales training programs…guess what I’m going to do?

I’m sending some very targeted direct mail and implementing other very-focused marketing to one niche market that I think has a burning need for this program. (After I hit that one market I’ve got 9 others that are on the list.)

But I’m not going to be talking about sales training in my sales letters, emails and ads.

Nope.

What I’m going to be doing is offering this very targeted and very specific audience a FREE copy of my book.

Guess how many of my competitors are doing this?
What’s their approach?

The straight-ahead-direct-battering-ram approach.

I’ve done this before, the last time I was in the training business. (For reasons I won’t bore you with I’ve been in and out of the training biz periodically for the last 12 years.) The last time I was marketing a program on how to gain access to top decision makers.

Similar model.

Wrote a book. You may have heard of it, Power Prospecting: How To Gain Access To Key Decision Makers (http://www.gentlerainselling.com)

Direct mail to partners at large consulting firms offering the book. Had a small sales team follow up with those who “raised their hands”. (Gave them a great incentive: 50% of the fee for the first training program a company bought and 20% ongoing for all subsequent sessions. With initial commissions of $2250 and then $900 for each subsequent program, my sales team made some serious money…BTW I’m offering the same sales incentive program again so let me know if you want in on it.)

The seminar went head-to-head with at least 7 other programs focusing on the same issue-all of who had been around for at least 5 years.

Using the Trojan Horse strategy we sold $1 million of training in the first 18 months.

All because my team and I were able to get attention by offering something that was “one-off” from the standard straight ahead-direct-battering-ram approach.

And I’m going to do it again.

But the really important point is…so could you.

It doesn’t have to be a book or a movie theater. What it does have to be is something creative that gets people to initially raise their hands. I’ve helped my coaching clients strategize on these and we’ve created some outstanding programs in over 17 different niche markets.

But here’s why most everyone won’t do it.

It requires a lot of thinking.

And planning.

There are a lot of moving parts.

It’s not quick…

But projects that have a potential $1 million payoff seldom are.

So what might be your Trojan Horse?

Summer is good for lots of things. One of which is planning how you’re going to grow your business in the fall.

I’m launching my Unique Sales Stories Sales training program. (And maybe helping some of you with your business launches.)

What will you be doing?

Food for thought.
Mark

Related links
http://www.gentleraincoaching.com
http://www.gentlerainblueprint.com
http://www.gentleraincopywritng.com

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

Would Someone Want To Buy Your Business?

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

I attended a “Congratulations” dinner last night for Sam Lockwood. Sam’s been a client for a number of years and recently sold his boutique consulting practice to one of the “Big 5” consulting firms.

Although selling his company was not his objective when we first started working together, it became clear about 2 years ago that this would become a distinct possibility if a few of the cards fell right.

And they did.

And today Sam’s net worth has been increased by a bit more than…(well, he asked me not to mention specifics but suffice it to say, Sam doesn’t need to work anymore.)

Anyway this got me thinking about why Sam was able to build such an attractive business in less than 5 years that he had not 1 but 3 bidders.

What I’ve concluded is that Sam thought differently about his business than most of my clients.

It also raises the question…Do you have what it takes to create a million dollar business that someone would want to buy?

You may think of yourself as a financial planner, HR consultant, executive recruiter, coach-whatever. But suppose you’re wrong? Suppose you’re actually a million-dollar business that could be attractive to a number of buyers?

What if by making a slight change in how you think about yourself and your business you could create opportunities beyond your imagination?

Now, in reality building a multi-million dollar business is not for everybody. It may not be for you. But here’s an interesting question…how can you know?

As I do every year at this time I reread Michael Gerber’s wonderful book The E-Myth. I’m sure you’ve read it or are at least familiar with the basic argument he presents.

To put it far less eloquently than Mr. Gerber does, the reason so many businesses fail to reach their potential is primarily due to the fact that owners define their business as what they do.

I’m a financial advisor.
I’m a HR consultant
I’m a technology expert
I’m a leadership coach

Rather than thinking that they are in the Business of what they do.

That’s a significant difference as I’ll explain more about in a moment.

But first, let’s go back to the question I raised…Are you just a consultant, advisor or solo-entrepreneur, or do you have the potential to someday sell your business for a 7-Figure sum?

Here are 5 short questions that will help you determine the answer.

1. Do you believe you deserve this level of success?

I find it surprising that so few people really believe that they’re worthy of this level of success. Somewhere along the path of life something happened that made them believe that outsized success is for “other people”-not them.

What do you believe?

I’m very fortunate. From an early age Mom & Dad ingrained in me a fundamental core belief that I could accomplish anything I set my mind to. While I never took success for granted, my goals have always been set high.

I was talking with a client the other day who wanted to write a book. I mentioned the books I had done for McGraw Hill and the writing I did for the Wall Street Journal. “No, no, no”, he said. “I don’t think I’d ever get published by a real publisher, I just want to self-publish this”

Well why the heck not!

If you are doing the book primarily to promote your business (as I’m doing with my next book Unique Sales Stories-which is designed to market my newest sales training initiative) self-publishing is fine. But that’s not what he planned to do.

No, he thought he could never get published by a large prestigious publisher because he wasn’t worthy.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.

You’ve probably read the study of the public school teachers in Chicago. A small group of them were told that they were going to be teaching the top 5% of the students in the public school system and that it was the school board’s expectation that these students be accepted into top universities.

The teachers took the task seriously and met the school board’s expectations.

Which was great.

Except for one thing.

The student’s weren’t the top 5%. They were randomly selected.

This was one of the first (and very powerful) studies on the role that positive expectations have on performance.

So, what about you? Does your belief filter send the message that you’re not worthy of the same level of success as my client Sam?

If however you said to yourself, “Yes I DESERVE to be just as successful as those entrepreneurs I read about who sell their companies for millions of dollars”, then CONGRATULATIONS, you’re taking the first step in making this a reality.

2. Do you have a dream?

Of course you do. Everyone does.

So let me rephrase this…Do you have a dream that so motivates you that you are willing to do whatever it takes in order to turn it into a reality?

And let me be specific here. I’m not talking about a dream of having a “successful” business. I’m talking about what comes along with the dream when you achieve it. The money…the prestige…the visibility…the freedom to focus on doing what you’re interested in doing-not what others dictate you should do.

If your dream is so strong that you will sacrifice and do what is necessary in order to turn it into a reality-then you have an excellent chance that you have what it takes.

3. Are you willing to learn what you need to know in order to be successful?

Sam is the third person I’ve been personally involved with who’s sold his business for large sums of money. One thing they all shared-and this is true about every successful person I’ve ever met…They were willing and interested in learning new things.

Obviously you know a lot about your particular area of expertise. But my question is, Are you willing to recognize that you don’t know it all-and are you willing to do what must be done in order to fill in the gaps?

Unless you have financial resources and can afford to hire top experts to do the work for you, you’re going to have to learn how to create a business plan and a marketing system.

For example, I often ask people who come to me for advice, What type of marketing budget are they working with?

I’m amazed at the small percentage who can formulate a coherent answer.

That’s the difference between an “individual contributor” and a business owner.

You need to know which media is most promising for promoting your services, what your most effective sales message and offer is…how to position yourself against your competition….

And much, much more.

The good news is that the sources for your education are all around you and the Internet has made learning so accessible that anyone with the desire can acquire the knowledge they need.

If you approach learning as a challenge…if it excites you to develop new knowledge-muscles…you may have what it takes.

4. Are you willing to take a risk?

Sure it takes money to build a million dollar business. But, it doesn’t take a million dollars.

To start takes very little. It’s mostly mental heavy lifting. How to position yourself? What offer to make? Websites, PDF reports, autoresponder services…they cost next to nothing.

However it does take some money to drive traffic to your micro-website. You need some chips in order to play.

Yes, you are going to have to risk some money and some time to get started.

So how does that make you feel? Anxious? Overwhelmed? Discouraged? If so do yourself a favor and don’t embark on the entrepreneur’s journey.

But…if you pulse quickens with the idea of risking a few hundred or couple thousand in order to make tens or hundreds or thousands…or even millions, you may have what it takes.

5. Are you willing to be patient and persistent?

I’m an avid reader of biographies and memoirs of successful people. I’m absolutely fascinated with what they went thought before they were successful.

In every single case, without exception, no one who is successful today started out that way.

They all took risk.

They all failed at times.

But…they stuck with it

They didn’t give up.

They were patient for the success that ultimately came.

…So how did you do?

If you answered, “Yes” to all five questions perhaps you have more than just a individual practitioner business. Maybe you have the makings for building something that someone will want to pay you millions of dollars for.

As a reader of Gentle Rain you know that at a very fundamental level, Gentle Rain is all about direct response marketing.

Which is the best type of marketing to grow your business.

Because at every step in the process you know precisely how you’re doing. And that’s what prevents us from getting in too deep before we make a course correction.

As a direct response marketer and Gentle Rain reader you have the tools to make your company a big as you want.

So instead of thinking of yourself as a coach, consultant, advisor or expert…try thinking like an entrepreneur. It could be the difference between dreaming about a millionaire’s lifestyle, with all the independence and freedom that comes with it…and actually living that dream.

Food for thought

Talk with you soon
Mark

Resources related to this article:
Gentle Rain Blueprint
Gentle Rain Coaching
Gentle Rain Copywriting

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

Does Social Marketing Work In B2B?

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010

Interesting article in the latest edition of BtoB Magazine about social marketing and Twitter specifically, as a marketing channel. According to their survey of nearly 400 marketers four of five said they could not directly attribute revenue to the Twitter micro-blogging platform.

The whole area of social media is one I’ve been discussing with many clients, colleagues and other marketers. While Twitter and Facebook have obviously received a lot of press, the more important question is-how does social media fit into the overall marketing strategy?

Here’s my view.

I think the benefit from social media comes when you move people from Twitter and Facebook onto your main website AND when they opt-in to become a member of your list.

Then (and only then) have they become a true “prospect” since you now can communicate with them via your newsletter, blog posts and ongoing email messages.

However it is a HUGE funnel from being on your Twitter or Facebook list and opting in on your house email list and only a very (very) small percentage of people will travel down the path.

(It’s my belief-and that of a lot of other marketers-that until you get people to opt in to your main website list, the odds of them actually becoming paying clients is somewhere between the proverbial slim and none.)

Let me share some statistics with you from a couple of clients whose names I must keep confidential.

Internet services provider. 25,000 people on his Twitter list. 86 people opted-in on his website. Zero sales. (This is over a 11 month period.)

Coaching services to executives. 38,000 people on Facebook. 127 opted-in on her website. One client. (Over 14 months.)

As the article in BtoB points out, whether you decide to do anything on Twitter and Facebook or not, you need to think of them as a channel, not a marketing strategy. (Other “channels” would include advertising, direct mail, article marketing, direct sales, ect.)

What about the “other” social marketing tool-LinkedIn? Actually that turns out to be far more effective. I’ve been sharing with a few coaching clients (and I’m doing this myself) on a specific strategy that moves people to your list. As a non-scientific statistic, I have 750 people on linked in-and a whopping 227 have opted in to my Gentle Rain subscriber list after they first joined me on Linked In.

I’ll be interested in your thoughts on social media and how it is working for you. For readers who operate in the B2C space, are you getting different results?

Talk soon,
Mark
***********Summer is a great time to update your website and get those free reports, white papers and lead-capturing articles done. If you haven’t already, don’t forget to request a copy of my Copywriting Portfolio and fee schedule and let me know if I can assist you on any projects. Mark@GentleRainMarketing.com
Thanks!

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

Get More New Business From Your Next Speech

Friday, January 29th, 2010

How can you maximize the business potential of giving a speech? Rainmakers don’t simply rely on someone in the audience happening to call them. By the same token we don’t want to waste a lot of time with people who are unlikely to ever purchase our services and just happen to be at the meeting for the camaraderie.

What we want to do is to offer them incentives to self-nominate themselves for future contact while screening out those unlikely to actually buy our services.

If you just want to collect a lot of cards you can say, “If you’re interested in learning more about what I’ve been speaking about and would like to receive our white paper on this topic, drop off your business card in the box by the door on your way out.” You’ll get a lot of volume this way but will spend a lot of unproductive time calling the tire-kickers who will drop their card in any fishbowl they see.

That’s why I opt for an approach that focuses more on quality rather than quantity. My approach is to ask audience members to fill out a brief survey in return for receiving the white paper or other offer. Depending on the audience I’ve even offered to send individuals an audiocassette of the program if they will fill out the survey. In order to do this I simply tape record the program, duplicate it and later market the tape as a “live” presentation.

You can also use the ubiquitous evaluation form as a powerful data-gathering tool. This is an often-overlooked opportunity. For example on my evaluation form, I try to get a variety of data. First are the more commonly asked questions about what did you think about the program, what was most beneficial and what do you wish there had been more time for?

Good information to get, but the answers don’t directly help me build my business. Thus, I also ask if you would be interested in any of my other services such as coaching or training. I also ask if you would be interested in having this program conducted in-house at your company. Finally, I ask for names of other people I should contact regarding my services.

Let me make one point about follow up. If you don’t call people who fill out the survey form within two weeks, the entire effort is for naught. You will not get any business unless you follow up with prospects. It’s as simple as that. No more than two weeks and ideally within one week.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off

Getting More New Clients

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Ultimately the success of any business depends upon having a consistent flow of new prospective clients. Unfortunately, far too many individuals rely solely upon their existing clients and referrals as their primary methods for getting new clients. While this may prove to be a successful strategy short term, it invariably leads to the “feast and famine” roller coaster that so many firms and individuals experience.

On a fundamental level, marketing for new clients is pretty straightforward. We have found successful marketing campaigns focuses on:
1) Targeting a hyper-responsive group of prospective clients.
2) Identifying the issues that are of most importance to this group.
3) Motivating them to self-nominate themselves as being interested in learning more about your services.
4) Moving them along a sequence of steps that encourages them to take action.

If you focus on these four steps, it is relatively easy to create a marketing system that will consistently brings you a steady stream of new clients-all of whom have pre-qualified themselves as being interested in learning more about your services.

Let’s look at each of these steps in more detail.

Step 1: Determining Who you are going to target.

Too often this is given only a cursory consideration. Since we all operate on limited marketing budgets and only have time to follow up with those most likely to actually engage our services, identifying the most hyper-responsive sub-groups within a targeted market is very important.

We define Hyper-Responsives as the sub-group that is most interested in obtaining a competitive edge. Thus, they are most likely to hire outside advisors to achieve that objective. In order to identify this group we look for specific traits and behaviors which enables us to segment this group from the larger target market.

One trick is to look for those that read the relevant trade publications and are members of the professional associations. These data-points usually indicate that the individual is interested in staying current and maintaining their competitive edge. Thus they are likely to be the most interested in at least learning more about your services.

Step 2: Create a Free Information Report.

Remember that the goal of any lead generation tool is get prospective clients to “raise their hands” about being interested in your services. The “hook” to achieve this is the free special report.

The goal of the free report is two-fold. First it must contain enough practical information so that the reader feels that they have learned something that they didn’t know before. This is crucial for developing credibility. The second objective is to entice the reader to become hungry for more information. This balance of providing enough (but not too much) information is crucial for moving the relationship process to the next steps.

We recommend that your free report be between 4-12 pages in length and be available from your website.

Step 3: Crafting the One-Page Lead Generation Letter.

Among all the lead generation methods we track, the one page letter has the highest metrics in the B2B market place. We recommend that you write your lead generating letters after you have created the free special report. Remember the objective of the letter is to position oneself as an industry or functional expert with an interesting perspective on an issue the prospective client may be facing.

We cannot emphasize strongly enough that it is a mistake to simply include your report along with your initial letter. The letter’s sole purpose is to intrigue the prospective client enough so that they want to request the information.

Successful markting campaigns emphasize consistency and repetition. Thus we recommend that you develop a series of three letters which will be sent in sequence-each focusing on compelling reasons to request the free report.

Step 4: Sending the free information report and collecting data about prospective clients.

As mentioned earlier, the offer of the free report in your letter should direct prospective clients to your website.

As a “Big thumb” goal you should try to get 75% of these visitors to follow through and fill out the information form to get the report. Although it would seem natural that people going to your site would follow through and request the free report, this is unfortunately not the case.

Care must be taken to ensure that the landing-page you are directing readers to, re-emphasize the benefits that will be obtained by requesting the free report. Don’t assume that just because visitors are at your site they will automatically do what we want them to.

Precisely what information to request becomes a crucial issue at this point. While you want more that just name & email, requesting too much information will suppress response.

Successful marketing campaigns on the premise that through consistent and regular contact we can move prospects through a carefully orchestrated series of steps which results in an identifiable percentage of them purchasing our services.

The key is to automate as much of it as possible.

We suggest that the initial auto-responder be sent out three hours after the report is requested. It should serve to simply thank the recipient for requesting the information and to introduce yourself.

The next series of messages should move the conversion process through a carefully designed series of steps in which you both build credibility for yourself and move the prospect to take action. As with the other steps in the process the ability to communicate content in a compelling manner is crucial for success.

One of the main challenges of any marketing effort is the follow-up stage. When we look at marketing campaigns that have achieved outstanding success and compare them to those that have performed below expectation, the difference is almost always in how effectively the stay in touch process was implemented.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Uncategorized, guerilla marketing ideas, marketing services | Comments Off