We made the decision a couple of months ago not to move from Atlanta to Pinehurst NC. (It’s a delightful community but unfortunately just a bit too small for us.) With that decision under our belt we then realized that if we were going to be here for the long term, staying in a 4-story house just wasn’t going to work. (The joke we tell is that if you’re on the first floor and what you need is on the 4th, you either do without or go buy another one.)

We narrowed our search down to one community close by to where we currently live called Country Club of the South. Off we went to look at houses and I’ll admit that they started to blur together very quickly. I think our realtor sensed that we were going to have difficulty making a decision. So on the next house we visited (you can see a picture below) she decided to tell us a story.

It turns out that an Asian couple, who are staunch believers in Feng Shui, owned this house. For those not familiar with Feng Shui, it’s an ancient practice with many applications, one of which is determining the optimal location for your house. (Building a house on the earth dragon’s back is good, on the dragon’s head or heaven forbid, his eye, not so much.)

Now our realtor was very good, and had picked up clues that Marian might be particularly interested in Feng Shui.

Thus when we arrived at this house, completely overloaded from having seen too many houses, she decided to tell us a story.

And what a wonderful story it was.

How the owners consulted with a Feng Shui Master to decide which of 3 separate lots was the best one to build on. How the design of the house in a “H” created positive energy. How the arches were specifically designed to ward off negative spirits. And much more.

Guess which house stood out amid all the rest?

Guess which one we’re moving into the first week of August?

Intellectually, I think we all know that it’s the stories we tell that differentiate us from our competition. We understand that stories enable prospects to visualize in their minds the benefits we offer.

But…the reality is that most of us just don’t use stories as much as we should (or could).

So…What are the stories you should be telling?

Food for thought
Mark
PS: If you haven’t already you really should read my book on creating great sales stories. You can order it HERE

PPS: If you’d like to personally work with me to develop your marketing campaign with you but my Platinum program is outside your budget, here’s what you might consider. INFO

Here’s something to think about…and let me sum it up in one word…Trends.

What are the trends that are taking place, and more importantly what are the long-term trends that are just beginning?

Getting in front of long-term trends is one of the most effective methods to make a lot of money over an extended period of time.

So how do you find these trends? Here’s one way.

What are the baby boomers doing? They are the proverbial basketball in the middle of the garden hose. If you look at business history, the greatest explosions have been products and services that were just in front (and that’s key) of that group.

For example, real estate exploded as the baby boomers entered their first home buying years, and then collapsed (at a jaw-dropping rate as some of you may remember) as developers, late to the game, built homes for a group that had already passed on by.

Timing is everything.

So here’s something to ponder…

How does what the baby boomers are doing (or not doing as the case may be) impact your business? The answer to that question may open up some very interesting ideas for either getting more attention for your business, or even new products/service that you might want to offer.

In my case, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this, and have reached a conclusion that is going to have a significant impact on Gentle Rain.

I believe that the number of self-employed and small business owners is about to explode. There are a couple of reasons for my thinking.

First, baby boomers don’t want to retire. An important part of their DNA is to stay relevant. Thus, retiring-in the traditional sense-just doesn’t fit with how they view themselves.

However…the less-pleasant reality is that they are often being kicked out of Corporate America to make way for the younger players. From a practical perspective, the odds that a 55 year old will pick up a new job in Corporate America, is somewhere between the proverbial slim & none.

Perhaps some will become franchisees, but my guess is that many will hang out their shingle as advisors and consultants. That only makes sense. They want (and I think this is great) to provide value to companies or consumers by sharing the collective knowledge they’ve develop over the years.

But the one thing they don’t know how to do is…get consistent streams of new clients.

Nor do they realize the reality that getting new clients isn’t as easy as they think it will be.

Which is why so many of the self employed and small business owners struggle so much.

Obviously, Gentle Rain meets a need in this regard. Simply put, I know how to teach someone to put together a very effective marketing system in under 45 days that costs less than $600 to implement.

The second reason I think that the self employed and small business market is going to explode is because Baby Boomers just can’t afford to retire. The sad reality is that lots of people got completely hosed in the economic melt down, and they’re not back where they once were financially.

Again, the same scenario follows. In this case they NEED to work, but what are their options? Starting their own consulting or advising business is going to be a very attractive path.

But…they’ll still run into the same challenge I mentioned before about how to attract consistent streams of brand new clients.

Over the past year or so I’ve seen a dramatic uptick in the number of new solo-consultants and small businesses. I also believe that this is the beginning of a significant 15-year trend.

Which is why I’m launching my Gentle Rain Affiliate Licensing program next week. (You can sign up to join me on the kick-off teleseminar by going to the blog entry that immediate precedes this one, or clicking HERE. )

I’m looking for a small group of people who are interested in partnering with me to both assist these Baby Boom Business Advisors achieve the dreams they have for their businesses, AND earn a lot of money.

I’ll be explaining how the program works, who I’m looking for, the training (and it’s very comprehensive training), the compensation (and I think for the right people you can make a lot of money by partnering with me) as well as addressing many of the questions I know people have.

However, regardless of whether partnering with Gentle Rain makes sense for you or not, I encourage you to engage in a bit of “mental heavy lifting” and think about how the trends I’ve discussed, can lead to positive business opportunities for you.

And for those of you who are intrigued about possibly developing an alliance with Gentle Rain, I look forward to having you on the call next Wednesday.

Talk with you soon,
Mark
RELATED LINK

I’d imagine that many of you would say, “I don’t know”.

Others would tell me, “Zero”.

Which is a problem.

There’s a mindset that says, “I shouldn’t have to spend anything to get a new client.”

You need to change that mindset.

Seriously.

Business development, marketing, client attraction, call-it-what-you-like, is all about two things.

Message & Math.

You’ve got to have the right message. The right story that differentiates you from the competition and makes people interested in learning more about you.

But, you’ve also got to know your numbers.

And some of the most important ones are 1) what’s the cost to get a new prospect? 2) What’s your cost to get a new client?

You’ve got to know these two numbers (and another very important one that I’ll discuss in a minute) in order to know what you can spend to acquire new clients. (Because, despite what you may think, it’s never free.)

So let’s assume that you don’t know what those numbers are, how do we start?

We ask ourselves another series of questions. These are equally important.

“What’s the initial value of a client?” “What does your typical client spend with you the first time you do business?”

Secondly, “What’s the lifetime value of that client?”

Here’s an illustration…

You may have a business in which your typical client initially spends $100 with you. However, you know from experience that this type of client will on average spend a total of $500 with you over the lifetime of your relationship.

Based on these numbers we can now make some decisions.

You may decide that you’re going to budget the cost for getting a new client at 50% of their initial investment with you, or $50.

Or, you may decide that you’re going to budget your cost of getting a new client at 20% of the estimated lifetime investment they make with you, or $100.

Naturally if you budget $100 vs $50 a lot more marketing options open up. There are very specific reasons why you do one vs. the other, but the most important point is that now you have a key number from which you can develop your marketing budget.

Based on this number and some others, you can then make valid business decisions about where you should be advertising and what you can safely spend to acquire more new clients.

But the cost of getting a new piece of business is NEVER free.

Even if you think that you’re not spending any money on getting new business because you get almost all your new clients from networking, the reality is that this is one of the most expensive and least efficient methods for attracting new clients.

Let’s play with numbers.

Let’s say that you limit your marketing to attending networking events, chamber meetings, association events ect. Those aren’t free. There’s the cost-of—your-time as well as admission fees, parking ect. Add those up and divide them by the number of really truly valuable prospects you get (usually no more than one or two).

Even this simple exercise should demonstrate that your cost per lead is around $25-$50.

How many leads does it take to turn into one client? 30 is probably a very conservative number.

That means that the cost to acquire a new client from networking events is between $750-$1500.

Do you know how many other options you have available to you at a fraction of that cost-per-new-client number?

Let’s say I’m off by a lot. Divide that number by any reasonable percentage and your cost to acquire a new client from networking is still around $500.

That’s a big number. In fact it’s a HUGE cost per client. It’s one of the primary reasons why you don’t ever see really successful businesses rely heavily on allegedly “low cost” networking events.

Think of this as a wake-up call. You need to know some numbers.

And most importantly, you have to eliminate the mindset that the cost of acquiring new clients should be…free.

Food for thought.
Mark

PS: If you find this blog helpful, do me a favor. Send the link to this page to 3 friends or colleagues you think would also find it helpful. Thanks.

Stories are usually told in self-contained units. “Here’s the beginning. Here’s the middle. Here’s how it wraps up.” Certainly nothing wrong with that, and from a practical perspective most of your stories will be in this self-contained, short arc format.

However, some of the most successful sales stories, especially those that are used in presentations are in a long arc form. What this means is that the story is introduced early in the presentation. However the speaker or writer may leave the story periodically only to return to it later on. The long arc story provides bookends for the entire story although there may be shorter stories that are interspersed within the overall presentation.

The long arc story traces its roots to television. Historically TV episodes were self contained units. In the space of 30 or 60 minutes an entire story was told from beginning to end. The next week a brand new story was told. Aside from the main characters, there was little continuity from week to week.

The television show “Wise Guys” in the 1980s is largely credited with introducing the concept of the long-arc series. The season opener introduced a plot line that was not resolved until season end. Some individual shows made no reference to the long-arc plot line, while other episodes advanced the long-arc plot incrementally. It was a tribute to the writers that they were able to maintain audience interest for an entire season, while also including numerous single-show plot lines that were entertaining for the casual viewer. This long-arc format is now successfully used by many shows.

But what makes this particularly interesting is the application to sales presentations and other speeches you might give.

Let me share an example.

In my presentation on Unique Sales Stories that I deliver to groups, one of the key points I want to make is that people remember stories, they don’t remember facts. It’s my belief that one of the reasons why people don’t get as many referrals as they ideally would like is that they aren’t top of mind. When they describe what they do, it isn’t memorable.

Why?

One of the main culprits is that they use facts to describe what they do rather than telling stories. Thus if you want more referrals you need to tell more unique sales stories.

OK, simple enough.

One way I could get that message across is to simply communicate it as I just did. That would probably work OK, but since I’m advocating using sales stories as a tool for getting more referrals, I ought to do exactly just that. Thus to make this point, I use a long arc story.

I start the presentation by saying, “I went to Washington University in St. Louis.” Pause. “Fun fact to know and tell.” Longer pause.

Anyway, Princeton sent me a very nice letter, “In the effect that hell does freeze over, we would be more than happy to reconsider your application.” However both UCLA and Washington University in St. Louis let me in. That led to a short conversation with Dad (who was financing this experiment in higher education) who said to me that he thought that if I went to UCLA I would probably become a pretty good surfer and flunk out my sophomore year. (Apparently he hadn’t noticed the mention of co-ed dorms in the Washington University materials.) Thus off I went in May of 1973 to St. Louis.

At this point in the presentation I stop and ask the audience to take out a pen and piece of paper. I ask them to write down the name of the school I went to and then the names of the two schools I applied to but did not go to. I then ask them to turn the paper over and tell them that we’ll return to it a bit later on.

My presentation then goes on to talk about other applications for using Unique Sales Stories. At one point I mention again that it’s my premise that people don’t remember facts, they remember stories and that we’ll find out if that is really true shortly. What I’m doing here is seeding and reminding the audience about the long-arc story which is about where I went to college.

I’m now about to wrap up the presentation so I ask the audience to find the piece of paper that they wrote down the answers to where I applied to school, but not to turn the piece of paper over. I ask them to write down on the back of the paper the name of the school that I went to. I then ask them to write down the names of the other two schools. Finally, I ask them to compare what they’ve written down on the back of the paper to what they wrote down on the front.

Here’s what typically happens.

Virtually everyone gets the names of the schools right the first time I ask them to write them down. That’s to be expected. But here’s what’s very interesting. Typically 85-90% of the audience gets the answers correct the second time as well. This is the tangible proof that people remember stories.

If I had simply said that I went to Washington University in St. Louis and by the way, I also applied to Princeton and UCLA, 10 minutes later no one would remember. (And I’ve actually tried this and the recall results are pretty depressing.) By telling a story, people remembered what they would otherwise likely forget.

This story is introduced very early in my presentation, referred to briefly in the middle and then concluded at the end. It’s one of my signature long-arc stories and does an outstanding job of making the specific point that if you want to be remembered, you need to tell stories.

Since I make the cryptic statement of “We’ll see if I’m right a bit later on”, interest and curiosity increases. That’s one of the benefits of the long arc story.

Granted a long-arc sales story requires a bit of time. Thus it’s ideally suited if you’re preparing a speech or a sales presentation. Naturally, if I can be of assistance to you in developing one, please let me know.

Talk soon,
Mark

INTERESTING LINK
Ever thought about becoming a business partner of mine? Click on this LINK to learn more.

As a subscriber to my newsletter I’d like to offer you a free copy of my book (for a nominal mailing and shipping charge). You can get HERE

Now…if you take me up on this offer, there is a favor I’d like for you to do me.

Once you’ve read the book (It’s not very long-but it’s packed with useful information) I’d greatly appreciate it if you’d go to Amazon.com and write a short review. The page is RIGHT HERE:

As you may be aware, Amazon tracks books by not only sales but by reviews. There’s an outside chance I could get some great publicity for my book if the number of positive reviews reaches a certain threshold. Your help would be much appreciated so let me thank you in advance.

Secondly…the book is a part of my launch for the Unique Sales Story sales training program.

Not surprisingly, I’m using a Gentle Rain style marketing campaign to launch this:
1. Create a free offer. In this case a book.
2. Motivate interested parties to raise their hand and express interest in this topic by opting-in to get a copy.
3. Follow up appropriately.
4. Drive targeted traffic to the page offering the book through a combination of direct mail, online & offline advertising and media/pr.

If you are a marketing or sales consultant, this program could potentially be a great addition to your portfolio of services. If you have clients or contacts that you think might be interested, please let me know and I’ll fill you in on how our partnership arrangement works. (Suffice it to say there is a large initial and ongoing commission along with great support.)

For my international subscribers, I am particularly interested in developing alliances in the U.K., Western Europe and South Asia. My last training program did very well in these markets, and I would like to have similar success with this one.

Again, your support for this latest project is greatly appreciated and I look forward to hearing back from those of you who would like to get involved.

Thanks,
Mark

To talk with me about becoming involved with the launch of the Unique Sales Stories training program, send an email to me at
mark@gentlerainmarketing.com

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!

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

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.

Obviously, that’s a complex question and the answer quite frankly is that there are a lot of factors. But if we go to ground zero, that point where we are first trying to get attention, there is one element that we most want to focus on.

The problem. That’s what gets attention. That’s what makes people say, “Perhaps I should learn a bit more.” It doesn’t mean that they’re going to get them to hire us. It doesn’t mean that they’re going to give us money. But, the right problem, presented in a way that is compelling and intriguing, can be the proverbial spark that starts the dry brush ablaze.

However, what do most people do? How do they try to capture attention? Ironically (and mostly ineffectively) they talk about themselves. The opening salvo usually takes one of two forms. Sometimes it’s the ubiquitous, “This is what I do.” “I’m a lawyer, realtor, financial advisor, headhunter, butcher, baker candlestick-maker. “ What’s the response? Typically, “Oh.”

Those that have been to sales training 101 (but didn’t stay through the whole thing) know that this is not enough. So they confidently answer, “We offer the worlds most researched solution on extrapolating data through software integration.”

“How very nice for you.”

Answers like these are what my friend Don refers to as “Hammers in search of a nail.” Realistically how many of us really know what software integration is? Or care?

So what’s the answer? How can we make people care? One of the most effective ways is to put the answer in the context of something that I can understand. Something I can relate to. And what might that be? Simply put, it’s a story.

What stories have in common is that they address a problem. Some sort of gap between what the main character desires and his or her current state. It could be desire for love, success, confidence or any of another basic human goals. From a business perspective it could be something a bit more pragmatic: increased sales, improved employee morale or reducing costs.

The point is that if you want to get someone’s attention you need to focus on the problems that you solve. Even if the person you’re speaking to doesn’t suffer from that particular problem, by focusing on problems rather than some bland recitation about what you “do”, you dramatically increase the likelihood that they will remember you.

Let’s take the marketing consultant as an example. She could try to get attention by saying, “I’m a marketing consultant.” In one ear and out the other. Let’s try again.

She could say, “I offer an integrated turn-key solution to help my clients get more new clients.” Hmmm. Still a bit of the “hammer in search of a nail.” It’s hard to visualize what she really does. And that’s the key. We need to get what we do visualized in the person’s brain. We need for it to come alive.

So how do we do that? We need to paint a picture. We need to tell a story. Like this:

“On a fundamental level I help my clients get more new business. The challenge most of them face is that they’re the ‘best kept secret’ in their marketplace. I show them how to get more referrals by communicating unique sales stories about what they do.”

So let’s examine this last answer in a bit more detail. Certainly it’s longer and that may take a bit of getting used to. Since most everyone describes what they do in 15 words or less we feel compelled to do so as well. Resist that temptation. If you have something interesting to say, your reader or listener will stick with you.

So this answer starts by framing the topic by focusing on a large problem-getting more new clients. However, she doesn’t stop there. She immediately drills down on a highly specific problem (being the “best kept secret”) that she helps solve. She then concludes by transitioning into what she offers. However it’s important to note, that she is very specific about how she helps.

What our marketing lady has done here is to paint a picture in our minds. We can now easily visualize a problem she works on. In all likelihood she probably works on many different problems and depending upon the situation she is in, she draws upon different answers. However, each answer follows the same format of hooking attention by focusing on a problem.

I also think it’s a waste of time.

No matter how many facts you list, you’re just not going to be able to change the way someone views the world. It’s a bit like the old joke about you can’t milk a cat. First it can’t be done, and all it does is annoy the cat.

Since we all have a limited amount of time, money and patience for marketing and sales, it’s a far better strategy to find a group with a certain perspective and frame your sales message so that it resonates with that viewpoint. Demonstrating that you understand the beliefs of your audience is the price of entry into the sales conversation. Only by starting at that point do you stand a chance of eventually encouraging someone to consider an alternative point of view at some point down the road.

From a purely practical perspective, if I don’t think that I suffer from a particular problem, I won’t pay the least bit of attention to the message you’re trying to communicate. It’s an amazingly noisy world so trying to convince me that something is important is largely a waste of time. You just don’t have the money or the marketing clout to make me care about something that I haven’t already decided is worth focusing on. The real trick is to make sure that your marketing story is both visible and interesting when I do decide to find a solution.

So what makes a sales or marketing story interesting? How do we frame the message so that it stands the best chance of getting attention? The answer is in both what is said as well as how it is communicated. You audience cares just as much about the choice of media, the tone of voice as they do the words that are used.

However once you get into the body of the message it’s important that it’s framed in a way that resonates with the reader or listener. Far too often messages are little more than a restating of the obvious. While this may be the safe path to travel it’s not a particularly interesting one. Which is why it is so important to have an opinion about your particular area of expertise.

Although that sounds perfectly fine in theory, what exactly is meant by developing an opinion? How does someone do that? One of the simplest ways is to develop a system or process for implementing your particular type of solution. Thus the opinion becomes that this process is what works. When people mess up the implementation phase, it’s usually because they failed to follow the process or did things out of order.

Another alternative is to develop a contrarian viewpoint. What is the prevailing wisdom among people in your field. Why might that opinion be wrong? People gravitate towards those who have a strong opinion about a topic and will at least tend to give them a hearing. It’s those that get stuck in the middle of the bell-shaped curve that get ignored. Don’t let that fate befall you.
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Want me to write a great sales story that differentiates you from the competition, or a sales letter that gets oodles (if not more) of prospects to raise their hands and say “I’d like to learn more about this Guy (or Gal)”?

Send an email to me at mark@gentlerainmarketing.com and I’ll tell you how we can work together. Thanks!