Posts Tagged ‘lead generation’

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My Beliefs About Attracting New Clients

Tuesday, August 17th, 2010

I have a couple of beliefs when it comes to marketing your services and attracting new clients.

So, why should you care?

For one thing, (and since it’s completely self-serving), I thought I’d share with you what Tom Winchester, who’s owned 3 companies (two of which he sold for astro-bucks) was kind enough to say, “Adopting these beliefs was the single most important change I’ve made to my business in the last 20 years.”

So what are they?

My first belief is that that attracting as many new clients as your business can handle is all about the story you tell.

Yes, having a client attraction system is important.

Yes, technology is helpful

But…at the end of the proverbial day…what really separates you from the competition…what makes you memorable, so that people refer you business…what enables you to get prospects to visualize the benefits of working with you, are…

The Stories That You Tell.

So, what I’d suggest is take a minute and go to your website. Take a look at what you’re communicating.

Are you sharing interesting stories about you, your clients and their successes? If not, perhaps we should talk.

Secondly, I believe that WE MAKE MARKETING WAY TOO COMPLICATED.

And, again, I have a theory as to why.

I blame it on Google.

I Googled “marketing advice” this morning and guess what?

There’s only 99,300,000 results.

Now suppose I wake up one morning and say to myself, “Myself, we really need to get off our butt and start to do some marketing. Wonder if there’s any information that will be helpful?”

So off I go to Google. And what happens?

It’s not that there’s a lack of information (some of it actually quite good-especially my stuff). The problem is that there’s (obviously) too much information.

So why is this important?

Because if one takes even a modest dip into the pool of advice, it’s amazingly easy to get overwhelmed. And unfortunately when we get overwhelmed, we tend to resort to a default position: WE DO NOTHING. Which of course just makes matters worse.

I’m a firm believer that we make marketing far too hard. Way too complex.

It’s one thing to have a multi-step marketing system after you’ve put in place the basics. But if you attempt to go from having no marketing system, to one with 18 steps…well it’s no wonder why so many people give up in frustration.

It’s a bit like golf. My instructor tells me about cocking my wrists, keeping the club shaft parallel to the ground, body weight transfer…my mind goes numb with all the advice. While the reality is that my golf shot will pretty much do what I want it to do if I just…KEEP MY FREAKING HEAD DOWN and quit looking up to see where the ball is going.

The point is…when we keep things simple-good stuff happens. True in golf. True in life. True in marketing.

So here’s my advice.

All you need to do is to keep 3 things in mind. Three Simple Components Of The Marketing System. No big deal.

COMPONENT #1: Create something that you think your target audience would be interested in receiving, that you can give away for free. It might be an article, recording of a speech you gave, video, piece of software, book, assessment…whatever. The important point is that it should be something that your particular niche is interested in. (Usually this means that it focuses on a problem they’re suffering from.)

How do you find out what the best topic is? The easiest way is to simply…ask them. Put together a quick survey on SurveyMonkey and send it out to those who are already on your list. So what if you’ve only got 12 people on your list-survey them. That’s a heck of a lot better than sitting in your office deciding on your own what your niche is interested in. (P.S. The offer should be something you can send electronically at zero cost, rather than a “free consultation”. That’s not to say that a free consultation is a bad offer to make, you just don’t want to offer it at the very beginning.)

COMPONENT #2: Create a one-page microsite that promotes the free offer. That’s all it does. In effect it’s a long form sales letter with one purpose: Get your visitors to opt-in to get the “free thing”.

When people opt-in, their contact information goes into what’s called an autoresponder. That’s basically a database that then enables you to send these people additional messages that build trust & credibility, and eventually turns large percentages of them into paying clients. There are lots of services to choose from. The one I personally use and recommend is HERE.

COMPONENT #3: Promote the one page microsite and get people to come to it. Lots and lots and lots of ways to do that. Pay-per-Click advertising, online advertising on relevant association sites, direct mail (letters and/or postcards), social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter…No, not all “social media” is the same so you need to decide what’s best for you and your market), blogs, joint ventures (fancy way of saying, align yourself with those who are also selling to your target market), articles, white papers, books, PR, direct sales, speeches, webinars, telemarketing, teleconferences; the list goes on and on.

So here’s my point.

These are the 3 components of marketing. All you need to do is start with component #1 and progress from there. But by all means don’t start with component #3 (which many people do) since all you’ll wind up doing is spending money on driving prospects to a website from which they bounce off. It’s somewhat difficult to build a relationship with someone if they don’t leave any record of who they are when they come to visit.

Will this work for you?

It’s hard to argue against a strategy that fundamentally says, “Offer people something free and then stay in touch to build a relationship.” Although I hate the term “no-brainer”, in this case it certainly does seem to fit. The bottom line is that there’s simply no reason why anyone can’t have an effective marketing system up and running inside of 30-45 days.

Unless they start making it complicated.

As always please let me know if I can ever be of assistance.

Related links:
Read my newest book, Unique Sales Stories
Get some personal coaching from me
What HR consultant Tony Weinstein calls “Absolutely the best self-study marketing program available.”

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How To Communicate Better With Your Target Audience

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

I’ll admit I have a bias.

While I’m not a Luddite driving a buggy, I think that a lot of time we focus way too much on technology as the solution to our business development woes. For example, want to start a passionate conversation? Ask a group of marketers or business owners, “Does social media really work?”

“Yes it does.”
“No it doesn’t.”
“My friend Al got a big account from Facebook, so there!!!”
“I don’t care, you’re still ugly.”

On and on…missing the point. (Or a large part of the point.)

It’s not the technology…it’s not the medium…it’s WHAT you’re communicating.

People seem to forget that.

But I get asked these questions a lot…

Does email really work?
Do autoresponders really work?
Does video really work?
Does advertising really work?

And the answer is always the same…”Yes, if you communicate the right message.”

Which brings me (finally) to my point.

How can we do a better job of communicating to those we want to do business with?

This all came about as a result of an interview I read in this month’s CEO Magazine with Linda Heasley, CEO of The Limited Stores. (As an aside and to answer another question I get asked, “How do you think of things to write?” The answer is “Read lots of magazines and newspapers.” If you want my list let me know and I’ll pass it along.)

I don’t know how much you know about women’s retail (I knew next to nothing until I interviewed Les Wexner for a report I was developing for a client) but it won’t come as any great surprise when I tell you that it’s brutally competitive. Lots of “me-too” stuff, harder and harder for stores to carve out an individual niche for themselves, “branding” is extremely difficult…(sound familiar?).

But Ms. Heasley’s success in reinvigorated The Limited offers all of us a specific lesson that’s valuable.

One of the top challenge she and her team faced was how to hone in on what her target customer really wanted to buy? What really was going on in her head? To figure that out, they came up with a very simple, but highly effective solution.

They created one.

The article explains:

“The fictitious, Tyler Monroe-prototypical Limited shopper-became the touchpoint for decisions at every level of the organization. Strategic decisions were based on the answers to such questions as: What were her likes and dislikes? What type of house does she live in? What car does she drive? What appointments would be in her day planner? What does she do for fun?”

The answers to these questions then drove the answers to the next set of questions:

“How does Tyler dress? What would Tyler wear for the office? For the weekend? At a picnic? At a corporate event?”

And then ultimately the answer to…

“What marketing messages would she respond to? Which would she reject?”

Everything from buying to advertising to store layout was geared towards appealing to Tyler Monroe.

So what’s the lesson? Simple.

You need to create a prototypical client. When you create your website, write marketing copy, develop ads…it’s all done with the vision of this individual (and that’s key-it needs to be an individual) in mind.

To toot my own horn, I’m told by people who allegedly know about this stuff, that my 42% email open rate is extremely high, especially given how long some of my 25,000+ subscribers have been on my list. (For which I am very appreciative-thank you!)

I believe that a large part for why the open rate is so high is because I have a prototypical client in mind when I sit down and write to you. (It was one of the early exercises my coach and I did back a few years ago and it remains one of the most productive 2 hours I have ever spent.)

There’s a series of questions I like to ask my coaching clients to zero in on who this prototypical client is but you can probably do a decent job of creating this “character” with just some good thinking.

But the real point is this.

If you want to attract more new prospects…If you want to convert large percentages of them into paying clients…

It’s not about the latest technology.

It’s not about whether social media, direct mail or advertising work…

It’s all about WHAT you communicate.

Food for thought.

Talk with you soon.
Mark
Related Links
Need some good practical marketing advice?
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Where Do The Best QUALITY Sales Leads Come From? (Aside From Referrals)

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Let’s talk a bit about sales leads, and more specifically, the quality of leads that we get from different sources.

I think this is the best method (aside from referrals) for getting prospects that can afford to invest in your services…

What got me thinking about this was a recent marketing conference I attended. As is often the case, one speaker after another proudly proclaimed that a certain method generated the most leads. But after a while that got me thinking.

Sure it’s good to have lots of prospects interested in who you are and what you do, but it’s even better if your prospects actually have the budget to invest in your services. While that may seem to be a blinding grasp of the obvious, the reality is that lots of people are spending lots of time attracting prospects who, quite frankly, never will never become good clients for them.

I mean it’s wonderful to have a gazillion (real number) followers on Twitter and Facebook but the likelihood that those people are going to convert into clients, willing to pay substantial fees for your services is…well, not real good.

But I understand the appeal…the primary one is that it’s free. But the old saying that there is a relationship between the level of investment and the quality of prospect is true. I have yet to see any hard evidence that ether of these social media methods attract the types of clients the majority of my readers want.

Google is a better lead generation source but I’ll admit that it’s changed over the last couple of years. Whereas the quality of prospects that myself and the majority of my clients attracted two years ago was quite high, the percentage of “Qualified” prospects has dropped of precipitously. That’s okay, since (for now) staying in touch via email is free, but there’s a lot more separating the proverbial wheat from the chaff.

So where are the best quality prospects coming from? There are two methods I think you should consider but the one that I want to focus on today has consistently yielded the highest quality of prospects. Interestingly, as Google has diminished in the quality of leads it provides, this has actually gotten stronger.

Now in all candor I will tell you, that it will not generate anything close to the largest volume of leads for you. So if you have a sales team with a voracious appetite for new people to call, this may not be right for you. But if quality is what you’re after, this is where I would focus.

I’m referring to direct mail.

Now, direct mail has a lot of moving parts to it and it’s easy to mess up.

When you’re doing direct mail you need to keep in mind that you need 1) a great offer (and “call me for a free consultation” is not a great offer) 2) a great list (InfoUSA is OK but their lists get hit a lot so I stopped using them a while back) and 3) great sales copy in the letter.

Yes, I said letter not postcard, but that doesn’t mean that a postcard won’t work. But if your mailing is going to go through a screener, I would not use a postcard.

If you offer B2B consulting services, nothing beats a 1-2 page letter in an envelope with a first class stamp (lots of people-myself included-look at the postage before deciding whether to open something.)

And there are lots of other considerations. Should you put promotional copy on the outside of the letter? If so, what? Should you force people to go to a website or offer other methods to take advantage of your offer? What offer works best? What’s the #1 thing you can do after the mailing to increase conversion? Ect. Ect.

Yup, there’s a lot of things to consider but if you’re willing to do so, direct mail is still the best way to get the quality of prospects that you want.

Or at least that’s my opinion. I welcome yours.

Talk soon
Mark
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Gentle Rain Coaching is specifically designed to jump start your marketing and get you more new clients. Learn more HERE

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Will the Gentle Rain System work for ME?

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

That’s a good question, and it’s one that I’d be asking myself if I was in your shoes.

The honest answer is, “I don’t really know.”

But this much I can tell you.

It’s worked well for me. and since 1992, for my clients as well.

Let me share a bit more…

…Obviously I don’t know you, so I really don’t have a sense for how you’re currently attracting new clients. But the fact that you’re reading this tells me that you’d either like more clients, or desire some sort of system so that new business comes to you…rather than trying to push yourself onto prospects.

So, the question becomes, what’s the best way to do that?

In order to answer that, let me share with you a little bit about my own business, and how I developed the Gentle Rain process. I think that it will give you a helpful perspective on whether it’s right for you.

I came into consulting having worked in advertising and with Pepsi and Kraft Foods. These were great experiences and I learned a lot about marketing.

However, when I decided to hang up my own shingle as a marketing consultant, I discovered that I really didn’t have a large network of contacts. Pretty much everyone I knew, worked where I had worked. Thus, it wasn’t long before I had lapped the track more than a few times, hitting up my meager list of contacts for leads and referrals.

Like most people, I heard that networking events were a good way to meet prospective clients, so I joined a few groups, went to Chamber of Commerce meetings and even tested a couple of Rotary groups. The problem was that I’m just not real good at “meet & mingle” events, so I never got much out of them. Most everyone I met “said” they got a lot of business from these things, but for some reason they never worked for me-I found myself falling into that trap of hanging out with the few people I already knew.

To tell you the truth, I was getting a bit desperate when I borrowed an old cassette program from my cousin Jerry. It was Dan Kennedy’s Magnetic Marketing, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it transformed my life.

At first I rejected the program because what Dan was teaching focused on restaurant owners and plumbers, and his sales letters were pretty over the top. I thought to myself that my clients were different-they’re too sophisticated for the type of marketing that Dan advocated.

But, I really liked the idea of using free information to get prospects to raise their hands and then a pre-planned drip marketing sequence to build trust, credibility and eventually turn these prospects into paying clients.

I figured that I really didn’t have anything to lose, so I modified what I learned from Dan to focus on my niche which was consultants and others who offer intangible advice and services.

Anyway, to make a long story short…it worked. Really well as a matter of fact. I went from making $45,000 to $97,000 the following year. For someone like me, who had $1,800 in my checking account, that was a huge leap forward.

And it got better.

I kept experimenting with ideas, some didn’t work-but a lot did, and in two years my business got up to around $250,000. That was in 2002, and as you may recall, that was the year that the internet really started to take off. All of a sudden websites became a lot easier (and cheaper) to put up. Now there were these programs called autoresponders that enabled someone like me (who has absolutely no technical skills whatsoever), to automated almost the entire marketing system.

My income increased by 50%. And then it did it again.

I’ll admit this was pretty great. Instead of having to go out and try to strike up conversations with strangers at networking events, I literally had a waiting list of clients. Which meant that I could raise my fees, and even more importantly…choose whom I wanted to work with. (If you’ve ever had a jerk as a client you know how valuable it is to be highly selective about who you decide to work with.)

Anyway, that was my life for the next 3 years, and it was great.

But things change, and in my case the change came in the form of the international management consulting firm, A.T. Kearney. You may or may not have heard of them, but they’re one of the world’s elite consulting firms, up there with McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group and Accenture.

A.T. Kearney was going through a tough patch. Surprisingly, for a $1 billion consulting firm, they didn’t really do any marketing. Virtually all of their business came from referrals and repeat assignments.

Which worked fine until a number of their long-term clients didn’t renew their contracts, and the referrals started to dry up. Then they started to get worried about how they were going to fill their pipeline back up with new business.

One of their senior partners, Bill Jeffrey read a book I wrote called, Power Prospecting, liked my non-hard selling approach and asked me to fly up to New York to meet with him and some of the other senior partners.

That conversation led to a 5-year engagement in which I trained over 800 of their partners and directors on my Gentle Rain methodology.

Did it work? Obviously I wouldn’t be telling you this story if the answer was “No”, and to be totally honest the success they achieved was mostly due to their willingness to implement what I taught and embrace new ideas and approaches.

As you may be aware, A.T. Kearney staged one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the consulting industry. They recovered so well that the partners bought the firm back from their corporate owner EDS, and today are once again one of the most successful firms in the world.

That’s when word got out about me.

It was a pretty heady period of time. But there was a price.

A lot of my work wound up being in Europe. In the beginning it was terribly glamorous and I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. But it does wear on you. The 13th time you go to Düsseldorf, it really becomes little more than just a v-e-r-y long consulting trip.

Plus, while I really enjoyed working with some of the world’s top consulting firms, I had a desire to teach and apply the Gentle Rain methodology on a smaller canvas. Working with solo consultants…helping firms with 3-25 consultants who really want to make a mark in a particular niche. That’s what gets me the most excited.

Which leads me to where I am today. My clients are in consulting, insurance, financial services, real estate, training and a lot of other niche businesses.

The one thing that they all have in common is a focus on building relationships and a desire to become very well known for what they do within a particular niche. (Not to mention also making a very nice living with plenty of free time for family and leisure time activities.)

I realize that this is a very long answer to the simple question of, “Will Gentle Rain work for me?”-but it’s a good question and deserves a thoughtful answer.

Which is…Gentle Rain has worked very well for me and for my clients. I truly think that it will work well for you too, but ultimately that’s up to you to decide.

One thing I will tell you is that I sense you recognize a need for change. That whatever you are doing now, or have done in the past, isn’t producing the results you want. I also have the sense that you would like some assistance. (Since, from a purely practical perspective, if you were going to do this on your own, you probably would have done so by now.)

There are a number of ways I work personally with clients. Everything from my elite Platinum program is which I partner with you and earn the bulk of my income from the success we achieve together (although in fairness I will tell you that it does require a $15,000 retainer)…to a la carte assignments in which I’ll write a sales letter, landing page copy or success story for you. Others want advice and answers to the questions they have about differentiating themselves from the competition, and how to set up their marketing system-for which my Gentle Rain coaching program is a great option.

And here’s one final thought…which may be the best way to determine whether Gentle Rain is right for you.

As I’m sure you’re aware, you’re experiencing the Gentle Rain process right now. As a result of an ad, a letter, a referral or some other sort of lead generation method, you went to one of my websites and opted-in to get some free information. That triggered a series of automated messages that hopefully you’ve found helpful and interesting.

And something else has happened…

You’ve started to build a relationship with me. Which is even more interesting since it’s likely that we’ve never spoken or met.

Yet, you feel on some level that you know me. Perhaps even like me.

And no matter where the relationship goes from here (whether you decide to invest in Gentle Rain or not) it’s likely that you’ll refer me to others if the appropriate situation presents itself.

And that’s ultimately what Gentle Rain is all about. Building relationships. Gaining visibility within your niche market, and ultimately, getting you as much new business as you desire.

So, if you decide that Gentle Rain is right for you, I would welcome the opportunity to be of assistance. Please let me know how I can help.

Thanks,
Mark

Mark Satterfield
Gentle Rain Marketing Inc

http://www.GentleRainMarketing.com

mark@gentlerainmarketing.com
770-643-8566

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The End Of Boring Sales Messages

Monday, May 17th, 2010

OK…The first step if you want to capture attention is to focus on a problem.

But that’s only the first step. How do we go from “mild curiosity” to having our prospect really care about the story we’re about to tell?

Care so much that they’ll give us a call?

Care so much that they’ll pay us large sums of money to solve it for them?

The answer is by communicating the consequences of not solving the problem. This is the stage at which we make our prospect start to really care about the challenge that faces the character you’ve created.

Consequences address the question of, “Why should I care?” or “Why is that a big deal?” Sometimes a form of Socratic questioning can be highly effective in uncovering the consequences of a particular problem.

Dan and Stan are in conversation. Dan is struggling to hire a salesperson for the St. Louis territory. The search has been going on for over 9 weeks and he still hasn’t found the right person.

Stan: “I don’t understand why you just don’t hire the best person you’ve found thus far. I mean you must have interviewed over 30 candidates.”

Dan: “I tried that once and it really backfired on me. If all you’ve seen is grade C prospects you’re not going to get someone who is really going to solidify our sales position in the mid-west. Compromising just isn’t going to work.”

Stan: “I still think that you’re making too big a deal out of this. I mean you’ve got the majority market share right now-what is it, 65%? That’s huge. Any warm body would have to work real hard to mess that up. I still think you’re being too picky.”

Dan: “And I think you’re missing the point. Sure, I’ve got a majority market share at the moment, but that only because our largest competitors new it wasn’t worth their time to try to muscle in while Susan was working the territory. Now that she’s gone, you know they’ll be dog-birding the new rep to see if they’re as strong. I put an ‘also-ran’ in that job and I’m going to have competitors coming out of my ears in less than 30 days.”

Stan: “Well I really I think you’re giving your competitors a lot more credit for awareness than they deserve.”

Dan: “Suppose you’re right. Suppose they don’t bird-dog my guy. Here’s the next problem. Corporate is rolling out the new products at the end of the month. If this guy isn’t up to speed by then, he’s toast when it comes to being able to talk coherently about the new stuff.”

Stan: “I guess I hadn’t thought of that.”

Dan: “If this guy isn’t super sharp I’m not only not going to make my numbers on the new product, but dollar to donuts he’ll start falling apart with the prime products.”

Stan: “True, I guess the last thing you want is for someone to get overwhelmed.”

Dan: “Yeah, I’ve gone done that road before. Once they feel that they’re in over their heads, they start to get nervous and then embarrassed that they’re not doing better. The next thing I know I’ve got a resignation notice sitting on my desk and I’m starting over from scratch.”

So let’s examine this dialogue and see how it uncovered some real and substantial consequences to the problem of staffing a sales position that Dan faces.

The conversation starts out with the problem being, “not all that big a deal”. This is the attitude that many of your prospects will have as well. Although you may think that the consequences of not addressing the problem are obvious, your prospect is likely not to be as self-aware. As a result of the ensuing dialogue it becomes apparent that there are at least three consequences to compromising and hiring only a average candidate.

1) The competition is likely to find out and as a result put a greater emphasis on gaining market share.
2) There is a new product being introduced. It will be a challenge to get up to speed on both the existing product line and the new one. Unless the new hire is extremely sharp it’s likely that he or she will get overwhelmed and be effective at neither.
3) As a consequence of becoming overwhelmed, the odds of the new rep quitting become increasingly likely. This would put Dan back in the position he currently is with the added pressure of wasted time.

It’s likely that if we allowed the conversation between Dan and Stan to continue, we would uncover additional consequences for not addressing the problem. At this stage in the development of your sales story you may find it helpful to map out the consequences section by using this form of interactive dialogue.

This “devils advocate” approach can be highly effective in uncovering consequences that might otherwise not be readily apparent. Although one could use the discussion model to communicate these consequences, that may not be feasible or practical, especially if your story is to be told verbally. This Socratic dialogue technique is often best used for uncovering the key points rather than as a method for story telling. However, if your story is being told on your blog, website or through a sales letter, dialogue can be a highly effective tool.

The story that we have developed thus far might be told as follows:

Dan Sullivan wondered to himself why with the economy so poor was it so difficult to recruit a top flight sales rep? When he started the search 9 weeks ago, he felt confident that he would have it wrapped up by now. Unfortunately nothing could be further from the truth.

“Over 30 interviews and I’m not really impressed with any of these people” thought Dan to himself.

He pulled the schedule for the rest of the week up on his computer and groaned. Hardly an open hour remained. “Maybe I should just hire one of these people and hope for the best” he considered as he once again shuffled through the pile of resumes.

His hand paused mid-thought as he reflected on what had happened the last time he had gone down that road. It had been over 5 years ago but the painful memory still lingered. “What a bust that was. Not only did he only last in the job 6 weeks, but our largest competitor instinctively knew we had compromised our hiring standards. They’d stayed out of the territory when we had an A player in place, but this industry is so incestuous-everyone knows everyone-that they rushed in once I hired the best of the mediocre. I certainly don’t want to be sitting here 6 weeks from now starting this process all over again from scratch.”

Dan’s eye turned to his Blackberry and it’s most recent message. “Update on Sniffer New Product Introduction at 3 pm Today” read the subject line. “One more reason not to compromise”, thought Dan. “This person is going to need to not only get up to speed on the existing product line, but this new product is going to challenging to explain to our prospects. Great potential, it could be huge for us, but I really need someone who is going to catch on quickly.”

Realizing he had made his decision, Dan picked up the phone and placed a call he had been hoping to avoid. “These search consultants are awfully expensive, I was really hoping to do it myself, but I just don’t see how I’m going to find the person I need on my own.”

What makes your unique sales story compelling and interesting is the layering of facts it contains. At the early stages of the story, when your prospect is still considering in their mind whether to pay attention to you, we need to make them care about what you are communicating. If you think about stories that didn’t engage you, often times the reason was because the problem they focused on just didn’t seem to be “that big a deal”. By infusing your story with the consequences that can occur we make our prospects care. And that’s a very important step since if they don’t care about the problem they certainly won’t care about the solution. And if they don’t care about that, the odds of them becoming a paying client become very long indeed.
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Want me to write a client attraction sales story for you? I’m actively seeking a couple of great clients who are the “best kept secret” in their market. If that’s you and you’d rather be well known and in high demand, email me (mark@gentlerainmarketing.com) and I’ll send you the most current PDF with a list of the services I offer and the reasonable fees I charge.

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How Long Should A Sales Letter Be?

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

A Gentle Rain Reader writes…

Hi Mark,
I’m confused. How long should a sales letter be?
How about for a lead-generation email? Thanks-Tim Long

My reply:

The first thing to keep in mind is that length is secondary to content. If you bore your readers, two sentences can be too long. However there are some general guidelines to keep in mind.

First about sales letters…If you’re writing in the B2C market (business to consumer) there is truth to the adage ” The more you tell, the more you sell.” As direct marketers and top copywriters Dan Kennedy, Clayton Makepeace and Denny Hatch all point out, a 2-page sales letter out-performs a 1-page letter, a 4-page letter gets a better response than a 2 page.

Where’s the top? I honestly don’t know. In theory a book should outperform a letter and a
l-o-n-g book should do better than a short one. But keeping reality in mind, if you’re marketing to consumers, don’t worry about length. I once wrote two sales letters for a fitness studio. One was 4 pages, the other 8. The longer sales letter did in fact pull a greater number of leads by a factor of 3.

However in b2b marketing it’s a bit of different story. My opinion is that length does matter. In order to get through the various screeners and anti-promotional mindsets, our sales letters need to look very much like business correspondence. The copy should convey the tone of easy familiarity from one executive to another.

Length? I’d keep it to no more than 2 pages.

With emails, I would as a general rule keep them short and link the rest of the copy to your website. (As I’ve done here.) That’s one of the things I really love about WordPress sites. They enable you to add blog pages with the content that you “tease” in your emails.

Hope that helps. I’m interested in what others think so let me know.

Thanks
Mark

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How Frequently Should I Stay In Touch With My Prospects?

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

A Gentle Rain Reader writes…

Hi Mark-How frequently should I stay in touch with my prospects? I’ve heard all sorts of answers and would be interested in your perspective.

Also, if there any difference between autoresponder services? What should I look for?

Thanks, Jason Engles

My answer—

Frequency of contact is indeed a tricky subject for all the obvious reasons. Too little you’re out of sight/out of mind. Too much and you worry about being a pest.

My belief is that it is better to err on the side of more rather than less contact. Here’s my thinking.

The reality is that most of our messages get ignored. It’s not that your subscribers aren’t interested in you, it’s just that there is so much “stuff” being communicated. Way too much noise.

Thus, I think that that it’s best to communicate quite frequently, especially in the beginning when your name has not been cemented into your prospects mind. Thus, after a request for a free report or other offer I would send a message daily for the first 5 days. Then I might back off to once a week for at least the next 5 weeks. Ideally I think you should be communicating at least once a week, but if that just seems like way-to-much. once every 20 days is acceptable.

Regarding autoresponder services, you’re right there are lots and lots and lots of choices. Many of the services come with a lot of Bells & Whistles that you may never wind up using. I’d budget around $25-$30 per month for a good service. You can learn about the service I personally use and recommend to my clients HERE.

Hope this helps,
Mark

PS: As always if you have a question that you would like for me to answer please send it to me at mark@gentlerainmarketing.com Thanks!

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Creating Your Unique Sales Story-The 3 Key Elements

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Marshall Coltrain gazed at the shattered window from which protruded a branch that had until most recently housed his 8-year old daughters swing. With a sigh of frustration and fear he contemplated the wreckage and mused to himself, “Damn I hope this is covered.”
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Although the casual observer would never guess, Vice President of Operations, Dan Townsend emerged from his staff meeting in a rage. “What is wrong with these people? They can’t get along for two minutes without adult supervision. There’s no way I’ll get the process control system implemented by July if this back-biting and petty snipping doesn’t come to halt. I wish I could just fire the lot of them.”
****
It’s often been said that most important sentence is the first one. It’s goal is to get you to read the second sentence. There is a similar thought process when developing unique sales stories. The goal of the first paragraph is to hook your reader. To engage them in the story that is about to follow. Arguably the opening paragraph is the most important section of your unique sales story.

Great sales stories revolve around a problem. The gap that exists between the current and desired state. However when creating sales stories we need to do more than just state what the problem is. That is seldom enough to draw the attention of our reader or listener. There are two other elements that need to be introduced along with the problem.

The first of these are characters. All stories need characters, and in sales stories they need to be people that your prospects can relate to. If you’re selling insurance, a good character would be the victim of a flood or storm. If you’re in the leadership advice business, the main character would most likely be an executive who is frustrated with internal communications, organizational silos or overt corporate politics. In other words, the main character, the person who suffers from the problem, needs to closely resemble the prospect you’re targeting.

Secondly we need to combine the problem with what is referred to by writers as “context”. This is the place in which the story occurs. Leave this out and the chances of losing the attention of your reader or listener substantially increases.

It’s important to remember that in the opening moments of your story the reader is not only digesting what you are communicating, but also making a decision about whether she wants to continue reading or listening. Which is the reason why an effective opening hook is layered with more details than one might initially assume.

Let’s take a look at how these three elements, Problem, Character and Context blend together to create a strong opening for your sales story. In order to do that I’ll refer to the examples at the beginning of this article as illustrative examples.

When you read the two opening story lines one point becomes immediately apparent; they’re very specific. One is obviously a sales story that is focused on home owners insurance. The other is perhaps a bit less obvious to the general observer, but the target audience would recognize it as a story that will focus on leadership. Very specific messages to very specific markets.

This is important and spells the difference between stories that command attention and those that get ignored. Given the fact that everyone is busy, it would be ideal to be able to write one story that appeals to everyone. Unfortunately that is extremely hard to do and the fields are littered with the carcasses of sales stories that never worked for precisely that reason.

For example, this commonly occurs for consultants or sales professionals who define their market as, small businesses. Unfortunately, defining your market that way is a bit like saying, “Let’s go eat American food.” You just haven’t narrowed down the options enough. From a practical perspective small businesses usually doesn’t think of themselves that way. Rather, they define themselves as consultants, manufacturers, retailers or something far more specific.

In order for your sales story to ultimately do it’s job it needs to be targeted to a very specific niche. The world is just too crowded and noisy. If the message isn’t specific, it’s simply ignored. Thus, defining a niche market is the crucial first step.

Let’s examine the opening sentence from the first example: Marshall Coltrain gazed at the shattered window from which protruded a branch that had until most recently housed his 8-year old daughters swing.

There are a few points to take away from this opening sentence that will help you in the development of your sales stories. First, name your characters. If your story is a composite, simply put an asterisk next to the name. That leads to a disclaimer box at the bottom your page. Although I claim no legal expertise on this, I use language such as The following consists of an illustrative example and no representation of any real person, living or dead is intended.

Naming your character makes your reader or listener care about the problem they face. They need to be able to relate to the person if they are eventually to buy into your recommended solution. As those in fundraising know, tell me about 1,000,000 people who are dying in Africa and I’ll turn a blind eye. It’s just not something I can relate to. However, tell me the story about Orphan Sam who is forced to live on the streets and eat bugs to survive, and I’ll whip out my checkbook.

We also want to provide as much background context as possible. Is he married? Single? Kids? The answer is immediately apparent by telling your reader that the tree branch until recently housed his daughters swing.

Here’s a tip for writing context into your sales story. Start by just writing the descriptive sentence. “The tree crashed through the window.” Now ask yourself, how can I make this more interesting?

We know now that the first step is to name the character. What else? Picture the event in your mind. Visualization is key for writing effective stories. What part of the tree came through the window. The trunk? A branch? What was on the branch? You get the idea.

Let’s take a look at the second sentence. With a sigh of frustration and fear he contemplated the wreckage and mused to himself, “Damn I hope this is covered.”

Two helpful points to keep in mind. First try to use emotion when you are writing. Words such as “frustration” and “fear” let us know about the state of mind of our main character. Again this is important in order to have our reader relate to the story.

(As an aside, I suggest that you first write out all of your sales stories. You’ll find that it’s easy to convert stories from the printed page into the spoken word. Plus, the discipline that it takes to actually write out a sales story will ensure that yours have the appropriate amounts of context and detail.)

Secondly, particularly in your written sales stories, you want to include dialogue. This will make your stories come alive. The dialogue can take the form of both conversations between characters, as well as internal thoughts. , “Damn I hope this is covered.”, brings our character to life and serves to highlight the specific problem that is being faced. In fact with just 6 words we’ve effectively zeroed in the subject of the rest of the story.

If we look at the second example we see that it also includes character, context and problem. Although the casual observer would never guess, Vice President of Operations, Dan Townsend emerged from his staff meeting in a rage. “What is wrong with these people? They can’t get along for two minutes without adult supervision. There’s no way I’ll get the process control system implemented by July if this back-biting and petty snipping doesn’t come to halt. I wish I could just fire the lot of them.”

If you are creating sales stories in the business to business market, it’s often a good idea to give an organizational title to your character. This not only adds a layer of context to the story but it also sends a clear message as to who your target market is.

In this example, there is more detail provided about the specifics of the problem. Dan is under a deadline to get a project complete and his staff is continually fighting among themselves. Certainly a scenario that many project leaders in organizations both large and small can relate to. If this sales story is marketed to senior level executives it is likely that will capture their attention. Again the combination of character, context and problem, when combined together in the opening paragraph, serve as an excellent hook to draw our reader in.
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If you would like for me to develop a unique sales story for you simply send an email to me at mark@gentlerainmarketing.com with the words “Unique Sales Story”, or something like that in the subject line.

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How To Make Sure Your Business Is Remembered

Monday, April 26th, 2010

As a wise mentor of mine once said, “People don’t remember facts. They remember stories.” If you want more referrals for your business the key is to be top of mind when people have a need or learn about opportunities that make sense for you. As I learned from hard fought experience, simply educating people about what I did, simply wasn’t enough. In order to be remembered, I needed to make my services come alive through the use of unique sales stories.

Now, I will admit that this is hardly new news. Sales professionals have known for years that using metaphors, case studies and stories is a time honored method for standing out amid the competition. Which then raises the question, “Why are some people so good at this while others so painfully bad?”

It’s a bit like cooking. Most of us know the basics. So why are so few of us accomplished chefs? I think that great chefs are a lot like great storytellers. The key is that they understand how the ingredients fit together. They know when to add a “touch of this” or a dash of “that”. It’s part science but it’s also part art. I’m not sure that the art part can be taught, but the science of it certainly can. What that means is that while you may never publish the proverbial great American novel you can learn how to tell a story that gets your point across in a way that is both educational and memorable.

What great chefs and storytellers also share is a process that is more similar than dissimilar. By that I mean that they both begin with the end in mind. The great chef visualizes the outcome. The succulent crispy duck or the moist three layer chocolate and strawberry cake. They don’t simply start dumping ingredients into a bowel and hope that something delicious will emerge. They begin at the end which is the same thing that the gifted storyteller does as well.

However, unlike the chef, far too many fledgling storytellers think that they can just get away with “winging it”. After all we’ve told stories to each other for how many years? I mean, can it really be all that difficult?

Truth be told, there is a huge difference between telling a story to your friends and communicating a unique sales story to a prospect that will keep you in the front of their mind when they hear about opportunities that would be perfect for you.

Thus the first question you want to answer is what is the point that you want to make? This is a bit like working the puzzle maze backwards, or beginning with the end in mind.

For example, suppose I wanted to make the point that starting an entrepreneurial venture or small business is a path best traveled by those with a burning desire for independence? Now there’s nothing particularly earth shattering about that statement. It seems like common sense and the moment someone told you it, you’d probably forget all about it.

But suppose I really wanted to make that point? Perhaps I’m doing some career coaching and I’m concerned that the people I’m speaking with may be following the self-employment path for reasons that don’t make sense for them. If I really want to get the point across, what I want to do is tell a story. Like this:

My career has really had two distinct parts to it; corporate and self-employment. I had the great fortune to work for one of the great companies in the United States, Kraft Foods. It was a wonderful experience, I learned a lot and I had the opportunity to interact with a group of outstanding individuals.

One of them was my boss, Bob Morrison who at the time was the CEO of Kraft. Probably more than any other individual he had the greatest impact on the direction the second half of my career took.

I can still remember my final performance review (although I didn’t realize that it was my last one at the time) which took place on the 6th floor of Kraft’s headquarters. The 6th floor was far different than the rabbit warrens the rest of us worked in. This was the “executive floor”. The carpet was plusher. Each office was protected by a not one, but two executives assistants. And the offices themselves, a Hollywood set designer couldn’t do a better job. On the floor where I had come from, all my years of hard work had managed to secure for me a small office, with a plant and two guest chairs. Supposedly, if I continued to work hard and succeed some day I might get a couch. Now I realize that this all sounds somewhat silly as I type this but for anyone who has toiled in a world headquarters of Fortune 50 corporation, knows, this is the stuff we aspire to.

Thus, emerging on the hallowed lands of the 6th floor (with its own security guy no less) was to travel to the highest peaks of aspiration. Anyway, I digress.

As I entered Bob Morrison’s office for my performance review I noticed that Bob was dressed as he always was with the blue button down collar shirt, red tie and sleeves rolled up over the forearms. A look that said “senior executive who gets a lot of stuff done”. He was gazing in a slightly befuddled way at a sheaf of papers which I presumed were the HR forms that accompanied (or as some said, sucked the life out of) the performance review process.

With a sigh Bob tossed the papers onto the desk in front of him and motioned for me to take a seat.

“We’ll fill out these forms later”, Bob began. “Basically Mark, I can summarize your performance in just a couple of sentences, so here goes. Mark, if you’re interested in the topic there’s no one better than you. But Mark, if you’re not interested in the topic, everyone’s better than you.”

Not surprisingly that message stung a bit. (OK, it actually stung a lot.) But I didn’t dismiss it. After I cooled down I understood the point that Bob was making. In order to have a successful corporate career one needs to have a level of flexibility. One needs to approach assignments in which they have only a modest interest with the same enthusiasm that they do for those projects which match up well with their passion. Entrepreneurs by contrast have an overwhelming desire to focus just on their passion. It’s that single-minded devotion that causes the most successful entrepreneurs to overcome all the obstacles they face. Without that passion, the chances of success are slim.

That was what Bob was telling me. He knew I had passion around certain areas. However what he observed was that when the assignment called for me to focus on other areas, I wasn’t able to let go. The passion kept calling me back. That’s the hallmark of a successful entrepreneur but the Achilles heel for a corporate executive.

So let me take a break from this story. Suffice it to say that this conversation was the catalyst for my leaving the safety and security of a corporate career to embark on something far more in sync with my personal goals.

But the real point that I am making here is that what I just communicated would most likely be remembered and thought about if I was speaking to someone who was considering a career change. Simply stating a fact such as “entrepreneurs need to have a passion” would be dismissed as simply a blinding grasp of the obvious.

Thus, when you create your own unique sales stories, think about what the point is that you want to make. You’ll find that if you do, your story will not only resonate with your listener or reader, but it will also increase that they’ll remember you for a long time to come.
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This sales letter made me a lot of money. I’d like to share it with you for FREE. Go get it HERE

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Want Me To Write A Unique Sales Story For You?

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Here’s something that may be of interest.

I’m looking for 6 clients who would like for me to create their very own unique sales story that can be used to get more referrals, differentiate themselves from the competition and close more business.

(If you want to read more about WHY sales stories are such powerful tools go HERE)

You can use this sales story on your website, in your sales letters as well as in one-on-one selling situations.

Here’s how it works.

If you decide to take me up on this offer, I’m going to send you a very short questionnaire. Complete it, send it back and I’ll get to work. In less than 7 days, you’ll have a sales story that will grow your business.

Sounds good so far but…how much is this going to cost?

Well, according to my published price list, I typically would charge $3,500 for this. However, that’s not what it’s going to cost you.

How much? A mere, $395.

Now, you’re probably wondering why so much less and what’s the catch? It’s really pretty simple.

I’m in the final push for completing the manuscript of my next book, “Unique Sales Stories. How To Get More Referrals, Differentiate Yourself From The Competition & Close More Sales Through The Power Of Stories.”

I want to include in the book some case examples of sales stories for different types of clients.

That’s where you come in.

I’ll write you a great sales story for a ridiculously low price, but you have to give me permission to publish it in my book. (I’ll disguise your company name if you like, but candidly, this would be another great way to spread the word about who you are and what you offer.)

So, if you want to take me up on this you need to get back to me ASAP. I’m only looking for 6 people, so it’s first come first served. There’s no “additional information” to send you, so don’t email me back saying “you’re interested in learning more”. You’re either in or out.

Remember, the reason that you may not be getting as many referrals as you want, or are still the best kept secret in your market, is likely to be because people don’t fully understand the value you provide. That’s where sales stories become the competitive advantage for attracting prospects and converting large percentages of them into paying clients.

(Again if you want to read more about WHY sales stories are such powerful tools go HERE)

Thanks for reading this and I look forward to working with 6 of you.

Talk with you soon,
Mark

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