Posts Tagged ‘sales prospecting’

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Learning vs Doing

Monday, December 5th, 2011

For those who pay attention to such things, the season is upon us when selling coaching and mastermind programs is in full swing. There’s certainly no shortage of choices. In fact I’m wrapping up the program I joined last year, and it’s been a great investment of money and time. I attribute getting my book to #1 on Amazon in its category directly to what I learned.

However, I noticed that less than half of the participants from the first meeting, attended the second one. I’m sure there will be still fewer at the final session. I also notice that on the monthly conference calls, the comments are more about enthusiastic plans for the future, rather than what anyone has actually accomplished.

Which brings me to my point. I call it the “bright shiny object” syndrome.

Hey, it’s fun to learn new stuff-I’ll be the first to admit that. Especially when the “stuff” may contain the secret sauce that once we learn it all our problems will go away.

But, at some point in time we need to shift our focus from Learning stuff to Doing stuff. And that’s hard, for a lot of reasons.

*It requires that we actually do some work, rather than passively digesting information.

*In means engaging in that annoying mental heavy lifting, to determine how to actually implement the plan.

*It requires a willingness to take a certain amount of risk.

Yes, it’s far easier just to be a student. But, as my Dad used to say, “If you want to get hit by cars, you need to go play in traffic.”

Perhaps we need to spend less time learning new stuff and spend more time implementing what we’ve already learned.

Food for thought.
Mark
A Different Type of Coaching For Those Who Play In Traffic

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Ripped From Today’s Headlines

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Did you hear the news?

How do we get the people…the ones we desperately yearn to do business with… to STOP for a second and pay attention to us? Here’s an idea.

Piggyback on what’s in the news for your own attention-getting purposes. Like this…

If you’ve picked up a copy of USA Today anytime in the last couple of years, you’ve undoubtedly seen ads run by Bill Bartmann for his free books on the Debt-Collection business. Bartmann’s a, shall we say, colorful character, but you can’t fault his marketing prowess. In fact his approach is applicable for anyone who wants to attract a large congregation of followers. There are a lot of steps to what he’s doing, but today, let’s take a closer look at how he’s getting attention.

Now, keep in mind that he’s been pitching this business opportunity for a number of years. You’d think his market would be getting pretty fatigued with his message, and you’d be right, IF Bartmann didn’t do such a good job of changing it up.

The strategy he’s currently using is to take a headline from the news and aligning it with his message. For example, “Bullying” has been getting a lot of press lately. Petitions are being signed, celebrities recruited, numerous articles written to eradicate bullies from existence.

Do you know who one of the biggest bullies is? Why, it’s the debt collection business.

I can see you nodding your head.

And Bill Bartmann knows your nodding your head. So he’s written a book you can get for free about the Bullying Tactics of the Debt Collection Industry. Not surprisingly, that will put you into his automated drip-marketing system, and eventually some of you may decide to sign up for his program.

That’s the key for effective lead-generation marketing. Get them to nod their heads in agreement by linking your message to what’s appearing in the news.

So let’s look at what’s in USA Today and how you might link it.

***“Facebook is tracking you.” Is there a privacy issue you can link to around your product or service?

***“Congress filled with the wealthy 1%.” Good jumping off point about people not being in touch with real problems. Conversely could be a lead-in to a pitch about how by using such-and-such financial system, people have the financial capability to devote themselves to public service.

***”Economy tanks so fewer people moving.” Leads to any of a number of pitches for “buy local’ businesses, or…invest in sunbelt property in anticipation of pent up demand once the economy does rebound.

What news story can you piggyback on?

Food for thought.

One-Day. That’s all it takes. Have Mark facilitate a Marketing Development & Implementation Day at your location. Email barb@gentlerainmarketing.com or call 770-643-8566 to discuss specifics.

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A Quick Story

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Let me tell you a quick story. Maybe it will help you persuade more people to do business with you.

The story is about a guy named Mort. You probably know someone like him. Mid 50’s. Always has that slightly disheveled look. Slouched over bloke-hasn’t stood up completely straight since Clinton was in office. You know the guy. He happens to be in finance, but that’s not important.

Despite all of his best efforts, Mort just couldn’t tell an interesting story to save his life. Sometimes the stories rambled. Sometimes they made no sense what-so-ever. Sometimes-and this was the key culprit-the stories were as boring as a zealot proselytizing about global warming.

The biggest problem with Mort’s stories was that we just weren’t interested.

*He’d talk about a client who was worried that retirement meant a lower standard of living…So what?

*He’d go on about a couple who were scared to death about outliving their retirement…Big deal.

*He’d blather on about some poor schnook who was afraid he wouldn’t be able to afford medical care…b-o-r-i-in-g.

Now here’s the thing…the problem with Mort’s stories are not the issues these people face. Those are real, and lots of people are worried about them.

The problem is, we don’t care about the people in Mort’s stories.

And that’s an important point if you want to tell good stories. Your audience needs to be a bit emotionally invested in what happens to the characters.

So how do we create good characters? One of the easiest ways is by fleshing them out before starting to talk about the problems they face.

Here’s how.

When I told you the story about Mort, wasn’t it easy for you to picture him in your mind? Why was that?

First, I gave him an interesting name. Sometimes a name-like Mort-conjures up an image of a certain type of person. (Which is why you don’t run across too many suave debonair super-spies named Tristen.)

Second, I gave you some quick physical characteristics about Mort. I only used 20 words to describe him, but those were 20 important words.

If you’re going to care about my story, you first have to care about my characters. That’s why before you tell your story, think about how you’re going to describe the characters to your audience. Unfortunately we often don’t pay attention to that, and as a result, tell stories like Mort.

Good food for thought
Mark
Learn more about how to engage your audience by telling great stories in my latest book, Unique Sales Stories. Now available on Kindle and in traditional old-school paperback. Get it at Amazon HERE

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How To Get Your Messages Heard

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Let’s face it, the world is noisy. Lots of people trying to get the attention of the prospects that you want. Lots of noise.

So why does one message get heard and others ignored? Here’s a thought that I think will be helpful.

There’s an old saying in marketing that you want to enter the conversation that’s already going on in your prospect’s head.

The trick to doing this is that we really have to know our prospect-what their hopes, fears, dreams and ambitions are. Even though we may be sending our message out to hundreds or even thousands, we want the tone and content to be the same as if we were intimately writing to a single individual.

Thus, the more we can put ourselves in the proverbial shoes of our prospect, the more effective we’ll be at writing these types of messages. Here’s an exercise that I found helpful and I thought I’d pass along to you.

Take the time to give the following question some good thinking…from the perspective of your ideal client.

• John (or Jane) is my ideal prospect. He/She is __years old. His/Her three biggest frustrations are ___, ___ and ___. He/She is afraid of ___. Sometimes he/she even wakes up in the middle of the night worrying about___.

• If he/she could snap his fingers and make three specific outcomes happen immediately, he/she would want the following three things to happen:

• His/Her biggest concern about hiring an advisor to solve this problem is ___.

• When he goes to the Internet to find a solution to this problem, he’ll usually enter keywords into Google such as ___, ___, and ___.

• If he is going to do business with me, he needs to believe 1___, 2___, and 3___.

• The myth he believes (which I will shatter) is ___.

• The biggest reasons he would not buy from me would probably be 1___, 2___, and 3___.

• Right now he gets most of information about my topic from centers of influence such as 1___, 2___, and 3___.

• In trying to solve his problem, he’s not able to___.

• The perfect way to help him overcome his biggest frustration would be to ______.

Taking the time to answer these questions will enable you to write your messages with an intimate voice that will greatly increase the likelihood that they’ll be read.

Good food for thought

Need a guest for your next webinar, teleconference or event? My presentations are always content rich and tailored to your particular niche. Learn more HERE

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Marketing With Information

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Suppose with just a one hour-long effort you could…

*Create a kick-ass free offer that would get prospective clients interested in what you do. And…

*Provide the content for the squeeze page that promotes it. And…

*Create a great video that you could sell for $595? And…

*Create a MP3 audio you could add to the video package and raise the price to $695? And…

*Create a content-rich booklet, you could add to the video and audio package and now price your information product at $795.

Or…you could just give everything away for free and have a monstrously effective lead generation machine.

All with about an hour’s worth of work.

Here’s how.

Rent a room somewhere. Might be at a hotel, or even better, at one of those office suites that are in virtually every city.

Invite some clients or prospective clients to come to hear you speak about your topic. (Maybe you charge/Maybe you don’t.) Try to get at least a dozen people.

Video tape the presentation. (Personally, I’d spend a few bucks to get it done professionally. It doesn’t cost a lot of money.)

Edit down the raw footage. If you use a Mac you can do it yourself using iMovie. I’m sure there’s a comparable program for those still using PCs. This becomes the video component of your information product.

When you do your presentation start off with an overview of what you’re going to be covering. This is the segment that you use on your squeeze page to promote the program.

Pay some kid a few bucks to strip out the audio portion of the video which you can then offer as a separate bonus. A lot of people like to listen to content rather than watch video, so it’s nice option to offer.

Pay a few more bucks to get the audio transcribed and now you’ve got a nice content-rich booklet to offer along with the video and audio.

If you don’t want to create an information product to sell, then just use the video of you doing the introduction as a hook to a free mini-course that offers segments from the rest of the video you shot.

If you line your ducks up in a row, this can basically be done over a weekend. I did a version of this when I created my Gentle Rain Blueprint program. You can see the final result here.

Food for thought
Mark
This free mini-course teaches you how to write a great sales letter.

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Facebook For The Affluent?

Tuesday, October 4th, 2011

Social media has found a new resource for those targeting the ultra-affluent, and ten nationally ranked firms, catering to the wealthy, have jumped on board.

Equilar Atlas contains profiles of about 250,000 chief executive officers, board members and executive directors at almost 5,000 public companies and 5,000 nonprofits.

Similar to LinkedIn, once your contact information is loaded into the system, you’re provided with an extended graph that illustrates how you’re connected to this very exclusive network of individuals.

But, it’s not an inexpensive network to join. The cost is $10,000 annually for unlimited access to the database for the first three users and $2,400 for each additional person.

Is it worth the investment?

Since people marketing services to the affluent already know who the wealthiest CEOs are, the database may be most helpful in revealing names and compensation for CEOs of smaller public companies that may be below the radar.

What has been your experience with using social networks for developing relationships with the affluent? Tangible results or is it just more hype than substance?

Private Consultations For Those Seeking To Implement A Client Attraction System

What’s really working for marketing to the affluent? Invite author and marketing strategist Mark Satterfield to speak at your next conference. Email Barb@GentleRainMarketing.com for details.

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A Sales Tool For Experts

Friday, July 22nd, 2011

One of the challenges all of us face who are experts (whether we’re financial advisors, consultants, coaches or anyone else who gets hired for their expertise) is that our prospects aren’t usually as knowledgeable about our particular topic as we are. (Which makes an enormous amount of common sense since, if they were, they probably wouldn’t be hiring us.)

Unfortunately, what this means is that it’s very easy for us to talk “over the heads” of our prospects. We don’t mean to, and most of our prospects will never let us know they really don’t understand what the heck we’re saying, but still, it’s a real issue.

I’ve had many discussions with potential candidates in which I’d hear acknowledging grunts as I rambled on about sequenced autoresponders and information product up-sell strategies, without ever realizing that I’d left the poor person in the dust several minutes ago. Obviously, if prospects don’t understand what we’re communicating, the odds of them hiring us are usually between the proverbial slim and none.

But there’s an additional danger that we need to be cognizant of once we recognize this challenge. We don’t want to overcompensate and start talking down to our prospects. Not surprisingly they’ll take that as condescension, which is even worse than talking over their heads.

Fortunately the solution is simple.

Make sure that you’re using a lot of examples that illustrate the point you’re trying to make. It’s one thing for to say “Then we set up a sequenced autoresponder system that will enable you to put your communication on autopilot.” That assumes the person I’m speaking with knows what a “sequenced autoresponder” is.

I’d do a better job of bringing the benefits to life if I provide an example or story.

Such as…”I was working with a client in your industry who, like you, realized they needed to do a better job of staying in touch with prospects. What we set up was a system that automatically sent out messages in a pre-programmed sequence.

For example, the day after they requested the free report, they’d get an email with the subject line ‘Did you get it?”. It would include another copy of the link to get the free report and show that we were really interested in making sure the prospect got the information. A couple of days later the person would get an email titled “I’d love some feedback on the report”. As one might guess, asking for feedback is a great way to start building a relationship.

As a result of setting up these automated messages, this client increased his overall conversion rate from 5% to over 25%. You can imagine the impact that had on his bottom line.”

By using examples (or stories), we increase the likelihood that our prospects will be able to visualize the benefits that we offer. As anyone who has been successful in selling services will attest, “visualization” is crucial for converting prospects into actual paying clients.

Food for thought

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 but my Platinum program is outside your budget, here’s what you might consider. INFO

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The Power of Sales Stories

Friday, July 15th, 2011

The power of using sales stories was brought home to me recently when Marian and I were house hunting.

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

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How To Write A Great Sales Letter

Monday, June 6th, 2011

Here’s a sales letter template (you could also use it as an email) for attracting brand new clients.

Sales letters are an often overlooked lead generation tool but they are very powerful when selling to a niche market.

This has worked well for me and many of my clients. I think it will work well for you too.

Not surprisingly, sales letters are just one part of an overall marketing system. If you’d like me to work with you on implementing a client attraction system that works 24/7/365 the information here will be of interest.

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What A Disaster

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

My neighbor Stan is in the advice business. And like all of us, he’s continually focusing on building his client base.

Stan decided to do an email marketing blast to a very targeted (and expensive) email list of prospects. I think the list was a bit more than 5,000.

Guess how many people opened the email? (I’m not talking about reading it, or acting on it-which are the next steps)…simply how many people just opened the email?

Zip…Nada…Bupkiss…

Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway) Stan was pretty upset.

Anyway, I like Stan (he keeps an eye out on the house when Marian and I are on vacation) so I told him I’d do some editing on his email.

So I made one change and guess what? The second time the blast went out, the open rate was 21%. (Which is really good considering that this was a cold list that didn’t know Stan from the proverbial hole in the ground.)

So what was this change?

To fully appreciate it, we need to remember that in email marketing (and the same holds true for sales letters) there is a sequence of steps that we need to motivate the reader to go through.

With email that first step is…GET IT OPENED.

And there’s one thing that will make or break your prospects decision to do that .

What You Put In The Subject Line.

The first step in email marketing lives and dies on that one thing. (Of course we can mess up the process after that, but if we don’t get it opened, everything else is a moot point.)

So what do we want to put in the subject line?

Focus on “Negative Curiosity”

One of my coaches, Frank Kern, relates that the highest open rate he ever had for an email was one in which the subject line was, “Bad News.”

In fact, you may have noticed that I used this strategy for the email that eventually led you to read this article. The subject line? “What a disaster.”

But, here’s an important point you’ll want to keep in mind.

Although “Negative Curiosity” will get prospects to initially respond to your message, it’s “hope” that will both bond them to you, and ultimately get them to become actually clients.

One strategy to make the transition from “Negative Curiosity” to “Hope” is to offer your readers great content. Practical ideas they can use. Answers to the most common questions that you get asked. Remember, you want your reader at the end of your message to really believe you’re the expert in your particular field. That’s how you build relationships and eventually more paying clients.

But…the first step in the process is to get people to pay attention to you. That’s why focusing on “Negative Curiosity” in the subject line is so powerful. (But you have to do it creatively, not ham-handedly.)

Good luck, and as always, if I can ever be of assistance please let me know.

Thanks
Mark
PROMOTIONAL PAGE

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