Attract More Business

Tips For Building Your Reputation Online

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:01:00 +0000

I’ve been writing a lot this year about building reputations online.

It's a topic that more and more people are interested in.

One of the reasons for this is that businesses know they must make better use of the online world in order to get the business they need.

However, most businesspeople are frustrated by the fact that they put in lots of effort and don't achieve results.

There's a good reason for this. It's just not as easy as it once was to be noticed online.

There are over 2 million new blog posts published every day.

How are you going to make sure that your material is found by the right people online?

Well, one of the things you can do is to adopt a systematic approach to blogging and building online content. The challenge is that there is so much you could do, that it can all get a bit overwhelming.

Don't worry. I’ve now narrowed things down.

That’s good news, I think. I’ve also created a formula. That’s even better. You can follow the steps and achieve what you want.

Here’s the process.

First you need to create great online biographies. That’s because people always want to learn something about you when they come across you online. We focus first on LinkedIn, and then move on.

Second, you need to build your authority. That means writing really useful blog posts or authority content so that your readers will see how you can help them. (Notice this has nothing to do with the old approach to blogging where you share your opinions and your world view with the online world.)

Third, you need to write a book or more than one book. There’s nothing quite like being an author to demonstrate your authority.

Of course, you need to take action offline as well. However, whether you’re an employee looking for ways to help your career, or a business person looking to be more successful – this approach works.

Click on the term Bios, Blogs and Books to learn more.

Are you leaving employment to start a business?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Wed, 11 Jul 2012 13:54:00 +0000

If you are, then you face an immediate challenge.

What should you be doing each day?

There’s no shortage of tasks you could focus on, but the question is:

Which are the right tasks?

Managing Your First Month In Business

It’s early days but when you’ve left employment and you’re still getting used to being in business you will struggle with your scheduling.

That’s a shame because there are make-or-break activities that need working on.

You need to think about who you serve and how you serve them.

You need to think carefully about who you’re going to do business with and how you’re going to get your first piece of business.

You need to think about how you’re going to promote your business so that it will grow.

You need to think about how – exactly – you’re going to make sales.

That’s as well as doing all the things that land on your plate every day.

How will you decide what to work on and what to put to one side?

Starting A Business The Smart Way

You need a plan and a timetable that will make sure you don’t neglect what really matters in your business.

You can find a list of vital 21 activities to complete in your first month in business by clicking on the link below.

Leaving Employment To Start A Business

You’ll also find guidance on how to help yourself to get the right things done.

The advice is taken from The Solo Success Start-Up Guide by Margaret Adams.

Newest blog posts

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 10:55:00 +0000

You can find our newest blog posts at:

Attract More Business

and at

Margaret Adams.

Starting A Consulting Business - 100 Tips

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:48:00 +0000

Just started out on my odyssey.

I'm writing 100 tips to help those starting a consulting business to get things right during their first year in business.

Actually the tips apply to businesses at all stages in their development.

You can use them in an established business and in a business development unit.

I've called the first tip, tip zero. If you're just starting out, then you need to do this before you begin.

If you're established in business, then do this every time you launch a major new programme.

You can read the advice by clicking on:

Starting a consulting business – Time to change career

Starting A Consulting Business

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:42:00 +0000

Starting a consulting business can be a daunting task, especially in 2010.

It's a task that takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of commitment.

If you're looking to do that they you will need to think carefully about what you want to achieve.

You will also need to plan your progress carefully.

When I support organisations and individuals I encourage them to build their businesses around six pillars of success.

You can download a pdf of the six pillars of success by clicking on this paragraph

When you think about the six pillars you need to think first about your vision.

Everything starts with your vision and your profit plan. You need to work out what people are prepared to buy.

Then you need to think about your key messages to your marketplace. You must have something to say that the world wants to hear.

Your reputation, your image and your brand are all important, too. The more you are respected, the more people will trust you.

Fourth on the list is your approach to marketing. There are so many ways you could work. Just find one that works for you.

Your website and your use of social media matter, too. You need to attract interest and convert interest to action. That's sales.

Finally, you need to think about your products and services.

Strange isn't it, that these are last on the list? Yet, most people think about these first.

Do you like this model?

Planning for austerity in FE

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 08:59:00 +0000

Times are tough and getting tougher.

At such times some businesses stop trading. Some retrench. Some cut back. Some take stock and reinvent themselves.

Guess which ones are best placed to make the most of the current situation and to respond to new situations as they arise?

Of course, it’s the businesses that reinvent themselves.

Reinvention is just another way of talking about aligning yourself with your market.

In business, when the market changes, the rest of us have to change, too.

As colleges and other providers look to reinvent themselves, there's a very important question to ask.

What exactly does the market want?

Most organisations out there want, first, to survive and second to be ready to take advantage of opportunities as they appear.

This means your organisation needs a value proposition that is built around two themes.

How will working with your organisation help an employer to be more likely to be around in two years’ time?
How will working with your organisation help an employer to be well placed to seize opportunities in the coming months?

The answer is no longer built around training, qualifications or even skills. Neither is it a response built around helping employers to meet legislative requirements. Today, the answer to the question has to be about helping the employer directly.

Most people in business know that there are three things their customers will buy.

These are:

Guidance and support on how to make more money.
Guidance and support on how to keep more of the money they make.
Guidance and support on developing their capacity to do the two activities above.

Now’s the time to re-examine your key message to employers.

Does our key message address all three of these issues?

If it does, you can expect your business to grow even in difficult times. If it doesn’t, then promoting your products and services is going to be an uphill struggle at any time, even when you’re “selling” free programmes. It will just be more difficult now.

Two action points come out of this.

The first is to make sure you are offering to deliver real value to employers. The second is to make sure that employers recognise the value you are offering.

So check out how you promote your organisation to employers and if they see things in the same way that you do.

Do this quickly, because it's part of your process of planning for austerity, and today no one in FE has any time to waste.

If you would like to reproduce this article for your own newsletter, click here for details.

Your customer pipeline (3) - Is it helping you to build your business?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:10:00 +0000

Customer pipelines are great marketing tools. People love the concept of the customer pipeline. It’s a very popular search term on the internet. There are lots of new readers finding this blog as a result of searching for “customer pipeline”.

All of this is excellent . . . but is using the concept of the customer pipeline helping you to build your business?

You already know that you can differentiate your customers, using your customer pipeline.
You know that your customer pipeline can help you to be clear about the quality and depth of relationship you’re likely to have with individual employers.

Now let’s think about the customer pipeline and your business.

Your customer pipeline saves you money because . . .

Using your customer pipeline well helps you to save money because you can get away from “fingers crossed” marketing. That is marketing to every one on your list and hoping – or keeping your fingers crossed – that some of your efforts work.

Once you’ve used your customer pipeline to help you to differentiate between your different customer groups you can decide which groups merit having large or small amounts of marketing money spent on them.

This allows you to spend less on reaching all your contacts and to focus spending on the two groups where you have most to gain from your marketing efforts.

These groups are:

prospects with whom you have a well-established relationship who have not yet bought from you
customers who have done one piece of business with you and who you want to encourage to make that second purchase.

You’ll spend less by being focused because you will be working with smaller groups and you’ll be working in a more targeted way.

Alternatively you could spend the same amount of money but undertake more targeted and more relevant marketing. You’re almost certain to get a better return on your investment in this case because your approach is tailored to the specific circumstances and needs of defined groups of employers.

Your customer pipeline saves you time because . . .

Used well your customer pipeline can also save you time and, as you know, time is money.

If you build your relationships with the employers in your customer pipeline who you have identified as your advocates you can save lots of time and money. All you have to do is to ask your advocates to refer you on to others.

It sounds simple but most providers don’t ask for referrals.

Those providers who do ask don’t ask often enough or in the right way.

Yet, your advocates are longing to tell the world just how good you are.

Spend some time helping your advocates to help you and you’ve just recruited a skilled and motivated free sales force.

This means you can spend less time on bringing in new business and more time on the important task of building relationships with employers.

Making your customer pipeline work for you

Now you’ve got your customer pipeline set up you need to take steps to make it work for you.

Your customer pipeline could just remain a mechanism for establishing your relationship with each employer on your list. On the other hand it could become a valuable key account management tool and a generator of income.

It’s got the potential to be more than a great metaphor, so use your customer pipeline well.

See also:

Your customer pipeline - why it matters

Your customer pipeline (2): Building friendships

Have you created your customer pipeline?

Your customer pipeline (2) - Building friendships

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Fri, 21 May 2010 08:28:00 +0000

Your customer pipeline is a great tool for helping you to decide which employers are most likely to work with you and hence which employers are going to be of most value to you in the long run.

Used well your customer pipeline will help you to differentiate one employer from another and to make a judgement about how much resource to spend on building relationships with particular employers.

In simple terms you can use your customer pipeline to help you to work out how much value to place on an employer and hence how much to spend marketing to that employer.

Turning strangers into friends

Employers who don’t know you are strangers.

It’s really difficult to sell to strangers. You don’t know anything about them. You don’t know about their needs and wants. You don’t know what keeps them awake at night. You don’t know if what you’re selling could be what they might want to buy.

Marketing to strangers is costly and not particularly rewarding. It’s hit and miss. You might be lucky, but then again, you might waste a lot of time and money trying to build a relationship with someone who has no intention of buying from FE – ever.

FE providers who don’t use the principle of the customer pipeline are doomed to sell to strangers forever, because they don’t take steps to convert strangers into friends. They don’t take steps to get employers into their customer pipeline. They don’t monitor employers’ progress as they travel along the pipeline.

Friends, on the other hand, are a little bit closer to you.

They are beginning to learn a bit about you. You know a little bit about them, too. You also know just how close you can get to them, because they send out signals, and if you’re on the ball, you pick those signals up.

In marketing terms friends are happy to learn more about you but they’re probably not ready to buy as yet. They will probably sign up for your newsletter. They might follow you on Twitter.

Make a hard sell to them, or bombard them with marketing messages, and they’ll disappear. They’re not that close to you as yet.

Yet, they’re in your pipeline. That means you can develop relationships with employers, provided you take care.

Pay attention to your friends

When you’re looking to find new employer customers it will make more sense if you focus on your friends.

Help them to travel a little bit further along your customer pipeline. Help them to get to know you better by using the knowledge you already have of them to tailor what you offer them. Just make the offers without frightening employers away.

Pay attention to your friends for other reasons, too.

It will also be cheaper to market to them than trying to convert more strangers into friends. You already have established ways of getting in touch and keeping in touch, so the hard work of relationship building is done.

You hope your friends will become customers in the near future. That means you hope they’ll do business with you. It’s a reasonable expectation. You’ve taken time to build the relationship. You know they like you a little, so there’s more chance of making progress. You’re not talking to strangers.

After that, provided you manage the relationship well, they could become clients, making multiple purchases from you, or fans, or advocates and so on.

Use your customer pipeline to differentiate one employer from another

You can differentiate all the employers who are in contact with you using the concept of the customer pipeline.

It’s worth doing.

Remember the basic points in the chain or in the pipeline: suspect, prospect, customer (makes a single purchase), client (makes multiple purchases), fan, advocate and lots of other types of employer in between. Vary your approach to marketing depending on where an employer is in your pipeline. Targeted marketing will be more effective. It will also save you money.

As you plan your new campaigns remember that clients are worth more to you than customers. Fans are worth more than clients Advocates are worth more to you than just about any other customer.

They’re all worth more to you than strangers.

When you start to think about it, your customer pipeline should encourage you to spend more time, money and other resource on your existing employer customers than on new customers.

It’s strange then, that so many providers focus on turning more strangers into friends, than on helping friends become customers, clients . . . and so on.

When you think about it, focusing your marketing efforts on strangers doesn’t really make sense ….. does it?

See also:

Your customer pipeline – why it matters

Your customer pipeline - why it matters!

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Sun, 16 May 2010 15:26:00 +0000

Do you have a customer pipeline? Does having a customer pipeline help you to attract more employer business?

These are all good questions, and they’re exactly the sort of questions that providers are asking, especially since most people in FE know they need to bring in more revenue from employers.

Your customer pipeline matters

First of all, your customer pipeline really matters because it’s a mechanism you can use to help you to be clear bout how likely employers are to do business with you in the near future.

Employers at the mouth of your pipeline are least likely to make a purchase now. That’s because they are just contemplating beginning a relationship with you. Maybe they’ve agreed to attend an event. Maybe they’ve signed up for your newsletter. They have some interest in you and what you do, but the relationship is just beginning.

When you’ve begun building that relationship and employers know you better they’ll be more likely to buy. That is as they travel down your customer pipeline they’ll be moving closer to that first purchase.

Customer relationships also matter

People buy from people.

People also buy from those they know, like and trust.

Helping employers to move along the know-like-trust continuum is the same as moving people down your customer pipeline.

The concept of the customer pipeline helps you to build this relationship at the right pace. It also helps you to avoid the wrong sort of selling.

You want all your employers to move a step further along your customer pipeline every few weeks. You don’t necessarily expect them to buy from you immediately.

Thus, once they’ve signed up for your newsletter, you want them to read it and to start clicking links in the publication. When they know a bit more about you, you want them to get in touch with you and possibly get some information sent to them. A little bit later you want to visit them or establish personal contact with them . . . and so on.

With each activity the employer is moving further down the customer pipeline and further along the know-like-trust continuum. It’s a slow, but often very rewarding, business.

Bombarding someone with “Buy now!” messages will send them out of your pipeline quickly. Helping employers to come to know you better and to like what they know about you will help all aspects of the relationship building process.

Monitoring your customer pipeline

Probably the best customer relationship management task you can undertake in the near future is to work out where employers are in your customer pipeline. That way you will know what sort of contact they are likely to value, and what will drive them away.

Monitoring your customer pipeline will help you to differentiate your approach to marketing and to developing and managing your relationship with individual employers.

Doing this well will be repaid with more business. That’s why the customer pipeline really matters.

See also: Have you created your customer pipeline?

Client Attraction Basics - the ten posts

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Sat, 08 May 2010 10:05:00 +0000

The ten posts in this series will help you to get started on the task of attracting more business or help you review your current practice.

Apply the advice in all the posts and you’ll be making progress.

The series started with a post entitled:

Can you attract more business now?

This is the best place to begin because this is something you’re likely to be asked to do over the coming months and years.

The second post asked:

Are you turning business away?

If my experience, lots of providers do turn business away, whether they realise it or not. Calls aren’t dealt with correctly. People’s enquiries are lost in the system. Employers are affronted when they’re treated like students and so on. Therefore, the question raises a lot of issues for providers.

Posts three and four dealt with the impression you make on employers.

Will they remember you?
What sort of first impression do you want to make?

Both posts asked you to think of how you are perceived by employers.

Post five focused on your website.

What should your website do for you?

Today so many people visit an organisation’s website before making contact. It’s important to create the right impression on line. If you don’t, you may never receive a direct contact from an employer.

Post six was about metrics.

Are you marketing in the dark?

Do you know what your marketing efforts are achieving? Lots of providers don't, so they don't know if they're spending their resources wisely.

Posts seven, eight and nine focused firmly on the customer and on some of the key tasks associated with building a strong customer base.

Post seven asked:

What sort of customers is further education looking for?

Post eight asked:

Are you building your list?

Post nine was all about the customer pipeline.

Have you created your customer pipeline?

The final post asked you how you were progressing with the task of becoming a client magnet?

Are you on the way to becoming a client magnet?

This is the key question because the modern ways of doing business are built around getting business to come to you.

Which are the most important of the ten client attraction basics?

For me the website and the customer list are vital elements. If you don’t have a good website, you won’t convert interest into action often enough to build your business as quickly as you would like. If you don’t have a list of prospects and customers, you’re not really in business.

What do you think?

Which is the most important of the ten client attraction basics as far as you're concerned?

Are you on the way to becoming a client magnet?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 14:41:00 +0000

Are more employers working with you this year than last? Are you earning more of your organisation’s income from employers this year than last? Are more employers working with you for a second or third time?

You want to be in a position to answer all of these questions positively.

If you’re achieving this sort of success and, if you’re hoping to achieve even more success in the future, there’s a good chance that you’ve accepted that client attraction marketing really works.

That means you’re applying the lessons set out in this series of posts.

You’ve defined a market that you are going to serve.
You know who you want to attract to work with your organisation.
You’ve made sure that prospective customers from your chosen marketplace can find you.
You’ve made sure you are memorable in a positive sense when customers interact with you.
You’ve created a great website that really is the hub of all your marketing and business communications.
You’re building your list of prospects and customers.
You’ve created a customer pipeline.

Congratulations. You’re making progress.

Getting business to come to you is vital in the modern world of FE because, for the future, you’re likely to have limited amounts of money to spend on more conventional approaches to promoting your organisation.

If you adopt client attraction you can do more with less, in one sense so the cuts in budgets may be less serious for you than they would be otherwise.

However, you will have costs. It’s just that your costs will be calculated in different ways.

Client attraction costs in terms of staff time.
Client attraction costs in terms of skills. You definitely need people who have skills that can be in short supply, for example, webmaster skills.
Client attraction doesn’t need to cost a great deal in terms of financial outlay.

Client attraction helps you to build your business for the longer term, so it’s a valuable approach to marketing, to promotion, to selling, to business building and to building long-term relationships with employers.

That’s why, now you’re on the road to becoming a client magnet, you’ll want to continue travelling in the right direction.

This is the tenth and final post in a series about client attraction basics.

Have you created your customer pipeline?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:39:00 +0000

If you’re going to succeed in bringing in more employer business and more new employer business, too, you'll need to differentiate your list of customers and potential customers.

A good way of doing this is to think about employers as making a journey through your customer pipeline.

Customers enter the pipeline via a wide funnel.
They then travel along the pipeline.
When they reach the end of the pipeline they have become your advocates and promoters.

Many employers will never get that far down your pipeline.

However, you need to know where employers are in the pipeline to help you to decide how to manage your relationship with them. You need to do this for several reasons.

You deal with employers in different ways depending on where they are in your pipeline.
You allocate differing amounts to resource to managing your relationship with them when they are at different points in the pipeline.

In marketing terms the employer enters your pipeline as a suspect.

When you know more about the employer and you think there is a possibility of doing business with him or her, then the suspect becomes a prospect.

When you do your first piece of business with the employer, he or she becomes a customer.

As you build the relationship the customer becomes a client. You start to tailor what you do to meet each client’s expectations and offer a differentiated set of products and services.

Clients with whom you work well become your fans and will, if asked, promote you, or give you a reference.

A few of your fans will become your advocates. These are the employers who take the initiative in promoting you. They are always looking for opportunities to let people know what a great job you do. These are the people who reach the end of your pipeline.

Your customer pipeline is an essential element in building your business.

Have you worked out where each employer sits in your pipeline? If you haven’t, you need to.

This is the ninth in a series of ten posts about client attraction basics.

Are you building your list?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 10:12:00 +0000

If you’re going to attract more business you need a list of prospects and customers and a good list, too.

I’m not talking about the lists you buy in or the lists on your database.

I’m talking here about the lists you build – one address at a time.

Good lists take time to build because when you build these lists you are starting to build relationships. As you know building relationships takes time.

So how many lists do you need? There are three that will really help you to attract more business.

Your opt-in list

Your most important list is your e-mail opt-in list. This is the list of people who have agreed that you may contact them from time to time and they welcome your contact.

That doesn’t mean they have given you permission to send sales messages to them every day. In fact, you’d be wise to limit the number of sales messages you send out to this list.

The people who have opted into your list have given you permission to send them interesting and useful information that they will value. That’s what they want and that’s what they expect.

Your challenge is to make sure that your communications fulfil their expectations because you can lose people from your list as well as gaining them.

Your Twitter list

You also need to be on Twitter.

Attractmorebiz is on Twitter. Find us here.

I’m on Twitter. Find me here.

You need to follow people and organisations that you are interested in and which serve your marketplace. As a result some of them will follow you.

Again, the rule is to make your tweets interesting and that means avoiding too many sales pitches. It also means remembering that Twitter is at the heart of the social media revolution. Social is the word to remember. You’re creating links and relationships with this list. Be social. Communicate. Interact.

So get onto Twitter and get a Twitter list going.

RSS Feeds

This is a different sort of list, and it’s strictly not your list. You don’t directly know who is on this list but you can check how many of them there are.

When you blog – and, of course, you should be blogging as well as tweeting and building up your opt-in list – you should offer your readers the opportunity to subscribe to your RSS feed. This means that each time you post an item on your blog they will be notified about it.

The majority of people still subscribe to blogs via e-mail, which means your blog post ends up in their e-mail inbox, so remember to make sure that your RSS feed allows for this type of subscription.

All very basic stuff, but it will pay off in time and if you keep working on list building.

We have a growing opt in list and a monthly newsletter that is starting to be passed around. We know this, because people join the list as a result of receiving a newsletter from a colleague.

We are growing our lists of followers on both our Twitter accounts.

And, yes, statistics for our RSS feed show increasing numbers of subscribers.

These are the ways to build lists and to build business. Make sure you are building your lists in all these ways.

This is the eighth post in a long-running series about client attraction basics.

See also: What should your website do for you?

What sort of customers is further education looking for?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:19:00 +0000

When I run workshops to help providers from the further education world to enhance their approaches to employer engagement I always ask the question in the title.

Sometimes the question isn’t taken very seriously. Sometimes the response is given in a way that suggests I’m asking a stupid question.

Sometimes, in fact most of the time, the response is:

“We’re looking for organisations with money to spend.”

Good start

Thinking like this is a good start, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

Just because an employer has money to spend doesn’t mean he or she is going to spend it. Neither does it mean that the employer will choose to spend any money with an FE college or with a private training provider.

You need to do a lot more to identify prospects you may wish to develop relationships with, and ultimately gain business from, before you are in a position to answer the question in the title.

Do they have a problem?

Individuals and employers are more likely to spend money to help them to address problems than they are to spend money on things that are nice to have.

Unfortunately, lots of training and many qualifications are viewed by employers as nice to have, but not essential. The world won’t stop turning just because someone doesn’t have a qualification or isn’t given time off to attend a development programme.

Yet, employers will often throw money at the business problems they are facing and take action to deal with the issues that impact on their abilities to achieve.

They will look for a solution once they find a problem that is affecting their ability to achieve their objectives.

This presents you with a very clear question to answer.

Are you selling solutions to problems?

If you think you have the answer to this question, there’s another that is even more important.

Are you selling solutions to the sort of problems that employers are interested in solving?

In order to give a positive answer to the question you need to stop selling training, qualifications, NVQ, Skills for Life, Apprenticeships and so on as development programmes for individuals. They need to become solutions to business problems.

You’ll get more interest from more employers if you make this shift.

Are they willing to do something about their problem?

The answer to this question is, of course, about the real difference between needs and wants. An employer might have a whole series of needs, some of which you might help him or her to identify via your organisational needs analysis.

However, until the need is clearly pressing, that is until the need is keeping the employer awake at night, it’s going to be an uphill job selling a solution to the vast majority of employers.

Finding employers with money to spend is relatively easy. Finding employers who are prepared to spend their money on your solutions is the difficult bit.

Can they make up their minds?

You must have experienced this sort of situation. You’ve been to see the employer. You’ve got on well with the people you met. You’ve put together your proposal and sent it off . . . and nothing has happened.

You ring. You e-mail.

Nothing seems to be happening.

Well, you need to look to yourself first, and check that you really have been speaking to the right people. If you haven’t been working with the decision makers, then they probably don’t even think there is a decision to be made. After all, you haven’t put a proposal to them. There’s a proposal somewhere in their organisation, but they aren’t looking for it and they have no commitment to doing anything with it.

Then there’s the issue of the choices you have left the organisation with. Have you given them too much choice or too little? Have you made the various options clear? Make a point of checking that your prospective customer knows what the choices are and the benefits of each.

What’s the decision-making process in the organisation? Is it complex and convoluted? If it’s a long and drawn out decision-making process and you don’t have a strong advocate on the right committee, your proposal may never be reviewed in any detail.

When you find yourself in any of these situations make a judgement. Are you going to get anywhere, or should you write off your efforts?

Good customers

Employers who have problems they are prepared to do something about, and who have the money to buy a solution, are to be found in all sectors of the economy. They are there in the public sector and in the private sector. There are people in large organisations and in small ones who are prepared to commission work from colleges and from other provider organisations.

Your challenge is to seek them out, and build a relationship with them, because these are the customers you really are looking for.

This is the seventh post in a series of ten about client attraction basics.

Are you marketing in the dark?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:10:00 +0000

Lots of provider organisations are.

Marketing in the dark is the act of spending money and other resource on marketing activities and not having any idea which approaches are working.

Marketing in the dark is a very common activity.

Just how much business does your prospectus bring in?
If you didn’t have a 16-18 prospectus, would you still fill your programmes?
If you stopped advertising in the local papers, or if you increased your advertising, do you have any sense of how your change in behaviour would affect your income and enrolments?

Metrics matter.

You really do need to measure the impact of what you’re doing, if you’re going to know where to spend resource on bringing in more business.

So what do you measure at the moment?

What do you need to measure to be sure you are using your marketing resource well?

Leave your comments below.

This is the sixth post in a series of ten about client attraction basics.

What should your website do for you?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 14:50:00 +0000

If you’ve been thinking about the purpose of your website as a result of the previous post, there is one thing that you need to consider carefully.

Is your website helping you to build your business?

It should. This is one of the most important purposes your website serves. There is one very particular way in which you need to ensure your website does this for you.

It’s your list that matters.

Your website must help you to build your list of people and organisations interested in knowing more about you and your work. This list will become one of your most important business assets.

This list is different from lists you might buy or the list of people who have done business with your organisation. This is a list of people who are choosing to get in touch with you and to keep in touch with you.

They are already in your customer pipeline. They are already moving towards doing business with you.

How can you get people to choose to join your list?

You need to entice them to sign up for your e-newsletter.

I use the word “entice” deliberately. You are asking visitors to your site to part with valuable information: their names and their e-mail addresses.

You are also asking them to part with something else. That is their permission to allow you to contact them on an on-going basis.

You need to offer something of value in return for this. One way to do this is to produce an e-newsletter that employers will value. The question is how to make your newsletter of interest to employers.

What have you got that employers want?

When you start to think about the value you can offer to an employer, don’t immediately think about your training programmes, qualifications and short courses.

It’s much too early in the relationship to even think about selling something, but it isn’t too early to think about offering useful advice to employers about the issues that concern them.

The offer to supply a newsletter is an offer to send useful hints and tips to employers. It is not an offer to send information about the provider organisation, which learners have gained NVQ or who has been appointed to your organisation’s staff. It is not an offer to send sales messages to people on a regular basis.

You will want your readers to come to think of you as people who have the answers to difficult questions. You want your readers to come to think of you as problem solvers and people worth knowing.

This means the content of your newsletter must cover what employers want to hear about – the issues facing their organisations and how to deal with them.

Why is this important?

Client attraction marketing is all about getting business to come to you.

People seek out organisations which they think can help them to solve their problems. They seek out organisations that they already know, like and trust when they come to make purchases.

Through your newsletter you can help employers to get to know you. You can help them to be confident that you can help them. You can also start to cultivate and nurture a relationship.

How does this help you to grow your business?

Many of your new customers will come from your newsletter subscribers. Many of your existing customers will decide to work with you again because you are keeping in touch with them via your newsletter.

Producing such a newsletter will take time, effort and commitment. However, a good newsletter could become an important component of your marketing. That’s why it’s worth doing well.

What sort of an e-newsletter should you produce?

People often say they struggle to get a newsletter out regularly. They produce a publication once every three months or so and they struggle to find material to go into it. You need to adopt a different approach if your newsletter is going to succeed in its task of bringing in business and helping you to gain repeat business.

You must get your name and your expertise in problem-solving in front of your employers at least every four weeks, if you are going to be remembered. You must send out a newsletter at least monthly, more often if you can manage it, if your employers are going to think of you as people who can help them when they need help.

You must also spend time and effort on making employers believe that your newsletter is really worth reading.

Does your e-newsletter add value to the employer?

Are there interesting pieces of information in the newsletter that employers will want to read?
Does your newsletter contain the sort of information that an employer will want to pass on to others?
Is your newsletter so interesting that employers will forward your newsletter to other people?

It should be. You will get new subscribers, if it is. You will get new customers, if it is. You will get more business coming to you, if it is.

And the result?

If the long run you will attract more business.

Thus, in the modern era of electronic communications and social media, one of the most important things your website can do for you is to get people to sign up for your e-newsletter.

You can go here to sign up for our e-newsletter.

This is the fifth post in a series of ten about client attraction basics.

See also:

Are you turning business away?
Will they remember you?

What sort of a first impression do you want to make?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 14:36:00 +0000

First impressions last, and a poor first impression takes a long time to live down.

These days we tend to encounter new organisations by looking at their website, so our first impressions are shaped by what we see such a website.

So, a major challenge in the world of client attraction is all to do with your website.

What sort of first impression will your website make?

Is your website written with employers in mind?

Our mystery shoppers, business people who look at FE from a business perspective, regularly say that if they were not being paid to look at a learning provider’s website, they would click away very quickly.

Their main complaints are about the target audience.

“It’s written for youngsters."
“It’s not written for employers.”
“You can only make sense of it if you’re seventeen.”

Look at your home page.

Does your home page speak directly to employers?
Do you have some guidance for employers on that page?
Do you take employers away from the pages dealing with your mainstream provision quickly?
Do you have dedicated pages for employers?Do you have a micro-site for employers?

If you do, so far, so good.

What do you fill your web pages with?

If your web pages for employers are lists of courses and qualifications, how long do you think employers stay on your site? How likely do you think they are to come back to your site?

Put yourself into the employer’s shoes.

If an employer has already decided to do business with you and knows which programmes are right for his or her organisation, then lists of programmes are fine. However, the majority of employers will not know which programmes they want when they first visit your site. They may also need to be convinced that training is right for them.

Look at your site. Ignore anything that is written about courses and qualifications, and review what’s left.

Do you have interesting copy on your site? – That is, would an employer find it interesting?
Do you have valuable information? – That is, would an employer think the information was of value?
Do you entice employers to want to work with you?
Do you speak directly to employers about why they should work with you?
Do you talk about the benefits employers will gain if they enter into partnership with you?

In the majority of cases, there is very little to encourage employers to start to build a relationship with a provider on the website.

This should lead you to a very important question.

Why do you have a website?

Do you know why you have a website?
Do you know where your website fits into your approach to communicating with employers?
Do you know what purpose your website serves?
Do you know if anyone visits it?
Do you know how people use it?

Most importantly have you worked out what you want people to do as a result of visiting your website?

If they are first time visitors, do you want them to come back again? If you do, how will you entice them to return?

If they are returning visitors, what do you want to do to reward them for visiting again? How are you going to encourage them to come back to your site again and again?

If you haven’t thought about these things and taken action on them then you’re not making your website work hard enough for you.

It’s time to ask the question: What sort of a first impression does your website make?

It’s also time to make sure it’s a positive impression.

This is the fourth post is a series of ten about client attraction basics.

See also:

Will they remember you?

Will they remember you?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 08:39:00 +0000

You probably give out and receive lots of business cards during a year. Is this a worthwhile activity?

Does your business card really help employers to remember you?

It needs to.

The first stage in the client attraction journey is to be remembered. If people buy from people, and if people buy from those they know, like and trust, then the first strage in the process towards gaining more business is to be remembered.

How are you doing?

What else could you do to be memorable – in a positive way?

Well, one thing you could do is to make your business card work a lot harder for you.
I use a virtual business card to help me to do this.

Virtual promotion

To start with, when I meet people in a business context I give them a business card. My card sets out the usual details: name, business details, telephone, website, e-mail and so on.
However, I work in more than one market segment, so I am immediately presented with a problem. Do I need business cards for each market segment? Do I have to differentiate my off-line work from my on-line work and so on?

My answer is to have a website that I only promote via my business card. Thus, the people who tend to visit that site have already met me. This website has one page only. I consider it to be my virtual business card.

So what do I need on my virtual business card?

Well, most obviously I need a photograph, so that people who have met me, but may not remember me, have the opportunity to see my face again.

I list my other websites and my blogs, too. This means that I don’t make any secret of the fact that I work in two sectors. I actually use that to build business in both market segments.
Using a website in this way is inexpensive. It’s practical and it’s a good way of building a web presence, too. This website is the bedrock of my business’s promotional activities.

Here’s the link.

Does it work?

Yes, it does. People do remember me so when we next meet, or when we next speak on the telephone, we are already moving towards doing business.

This is the third post is a series of ten about client attraction basics.

Are you turning business away?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:12:00 +0000

Whenever I start to work with provider organisations I always ask this question.

Most people are sure they are not.

I start to relate horror stories, only to be told that I’m behind the times and that FE – all of it – has changed.

Here is a modern horror story. It’s true. It happened to me less than a month ago.

Nobody at home

I tried ringing a provider about an enquiry they had made with me. I called at about 9.45 am on a Thursday morning.

I was greeted by an answerphone message which said every one in that office was on holiday and that I should ring the organisation’s main number.

I did just that at ten to ten in the morning.

I was greeted by an answerphone message telling me that the organisation was open between the hours of 9am and 4 30 pm, Monday to Friday. Outside those times, the recording told me, I could leave a message.

I drew breath to leave a message, and the line disconnected.

I rang again, just in case there had been a problem with the telephone system. The same thing happened. I called again later in the day, when the same thing happened and again the next day when the telephone disconnected once more before allowing me to leave a message.

Had I been an employer would I have persevered?
I think not.

Will the organisation ever know how it is turning employers away?
In this case it will, because I told the senior managers about my experience.

However, is this sort of thing happening in your organisation?

Are employers able to get through to someone?
Are employers able to leave messages?
Are employers’ enquiries followed up?

It’s worth checking out if the systems are working. Don’t assume that my experience is out of the ordinary.

I have another example from this week.

We don't want to know

After dialling into a provider organisation and pressing four when instructed to do so, and then pressing one at the next instruction, listening to some music and waiting, I was told my call would be disconnected because the message box was full.

If it’s happening to me, it’s happening to employers, too.

If you have employers who are interested enough in what you do to ring you up, they have already gone a long way towards doing business with you.

Don’t turn them away. It’s a basic rule of doing business.

This is the second post is a series of ten about client attraction basics.

Can you attract more business now?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:44:00 +0000

It’s a good question to raise, given the economic climate and the funding issues facing the sector.

However, the answer is relatively straightforward.

If you think you can attract more business, there are things you can do to help to build your success.
If you convince yourself you can’t bring in more business, then you will struggle to do so, because you won’t be looking for opportunities, and you’ll be less likely to pick them up when they present themselves.

So, let’s assume that you know you can attract more business. The important things to think about are:

How can I do this?
How can I do this most easily?
How can I do this at least cost?

How can I do this?
The easy way forward is to think about the following:

Who’s buying training?
What sort of training are they buying?
What sort of training would they like to buy (if only they could)?

Taking time to find out the answers to these questions will help you to become more market-focused. The answers will tell you more about the current state of the market. They will tell you about demand and unmet demand. This is vital market information.

You always want to know most about unmet demand because this is the easiest place to start selling.

Action:
If your LMI doesn’t tell you about demand and trends in demand, you should change your specification for LMI collection.

How can I do this most easily?
The easiest way of bringing in more business is to get in touch with your existing customers and start to build your relationship with them. It costs a lot more to get a new customer than it costs to get a second or subsequent piece of business with an existing customer. Some statistics say the cost is three times as great. Others say it can cost eight times as much to get that new customer.

Whatever is the right ratio, making sure you stay in touch with your existing client base is good business.

Action:
Work out how often you contact your existing customers. Then work out how often you contact them when you’re not trying to sell them anything.

Make a point of keeping in touch more often without that sales pitch.

How can I do this at least cost?
If you want to keep your costs down, you’d better start building strong relationships with your big customers.

Who are your biggest customers by volume and value?
Who are your most influential partners?

If you’re already working with an organisation, look out for additional opportunities to work with them. Ensure your staff not only keep in touch but look beyond their own specialisms to find those new pieces of work. Remember that engineers can spot opportunities in customer service and administration. All assessors can be on the look out for problems and issues that an employer could address via your training solutions.

Action
Start to build up your understanding of where the opportunities lie in your existing client base. Start this process with the biggest customers.

A Note about Opportunities
Most entrepreneurs will tell you that opportunities abound.

The big problem is finding the time to take them up.

That’s true, but there is sometimes another problem, and that is being alert to the potential in your existing marketplace, and spotting the opportunities in the first place.

However, the answer to the question is:

“Yes, you can attract more business now.”

That’s good news for every one working in employer engagement.

And the next part of the set up process . . .

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:42:00 +0000

I've now put an RSS feed on this blog.

This means you can sign up to receive the blog via one of the many news readers available.

It's a way of allowing people to receive each post when it is posted without having to visit the blog.

You can also achieve the same effect by becoming a follower of the blog.

For people who like a simpler approach I've also set up a process whereby the blog can be received by e-mail. This is a very popular way of keeping up to date with blogs.

All of these services are free so they can be added any blog.

They are also iimportant parts of the business-building process.

Attracting more business – where do you begin?

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:42:00 +0000

Take the situation that this new blog finds itself in.

At present there is no readership.

At present there is no following.

At present I don’t know what sort of posts and information will be popular.

That’s the present, but that will change.

From the start of this blog’s life I am measuring results – and interest.

Anyone looking to attract more business and to build a business needs to do this.

To help me with this task I have installed a counter on the blog which keeps me posted about the numbers of visitors to this site and lets me know whether the visitors are new visitors, or returning visitors.

This is going to help me to monitor the traffic that comes to: Attract more business – the blog.

It’s important for all businesses to gather statistics about what they do. It’s also very easy to gather information about the things you do on the internet.

I’ve set this monitoring system up now, so that I will be able to keep in touch with what is happening from the time I start posting material which, of course, is next week.

I’ve also made the counter visible, so you can see how many visitors there are to this site.

Attract more business - the blog

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:28:00 +0000

People are already starting to ask me what sort of subjects this blog will cover.

The answer is very straightforward.

We have a systematic approach to helping colleges and work-based learning providers to increase the volume and value of work they undertake with employers. I’ll be offering insights into how you can use these approaches, too.

Key themes that I’ll be covering in this blog are:

Understanding your market – because if you don’t, you won’t make many sales, and those you do make you will have to work hard for
Bringing in the business – because that’s what’s needed todayBuilding your business with employers – because smart organisations look to build long-term relationships with their customers
Making the most of your website – because your website is crucial to your success, whether you already know this or not
Communicating with employers – because you need to be clear about the messages you are sending out, the messages that are being received by employers and how effectively you are managing incoming communications from employers.

Our customers already know that these are the principal headings under which we add value.

Come September, I’ll be sharing some of that value with a larger audience via this blog.

Coming Soon

noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Adams) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 08:02:00 +0000

Getting more business from employers is one of the main reasons why providers seek to gain the TQS.

This blog will review some of the broader issues around employer engagement.

Starting in September I'll be writing about how to attract more business.