It’s a great question. And I know many people are in a position where they just can’t wait for long term strategies to pay off. They need clients quickly.

So I’m going to run a webinar revealing the top 7 strategies you can implement to start geting clients fast. Strategies that will have an immediate impact on your business.

The webinar details are below – I hope you can join me.

7 Practical Strategies For Winning Clients You Can Implement Today

Date: Wednesday, May 16th 2012
Time: 4pm UK Time, 5pm Central Europe, 11am US Eastern, 8am US Pacific

In the webinar, I’ll reveal:

• The number one strategy for getting clients quickly (that’s overlooked by most professionals).
• How to showcase your expertise in front of target clients without needing a huge mailing list.
• How to use the “Value in Advance” principle to turn traditional marketing from painful and pushy into something that clients appreciate and value.
• What to do after you connect with potential clients to get them ready to buy from you
• The huge mistake most professionals make with their website that renders it useless as a client attracting tool – and how to fix it

The webinar’s scheduled to last for 60 minutes and I’ll be staying on at the end to answer questions.

If you’d like to attend the webinar, you can register below:

Register for the Webinar

Enter your details to register for the live training event

First Name

Email Address

Any questions you’d like me to cover on the webinar

7 Practical Strategies For Winning Clients You Can Implement Today (Free Webinar) is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

The concept of the book is simple. Google have taken the model of shopping popularised by P&G and added a step to reflect the way we actually buy today.

The traditional model starts with a stimulus – an advert on TV for an iPad perhaps. Then we have our First Moment Of Truth – our first experience of the product on the store shelf. Then our Second Moment Of Truth is our actual experience of the product when we’ve bought it.

In essence, consumer marketing has been build around this model for years. Stimulate an interest, impress at the store, deliver a great post-purchase experience.

Google’s ZMOT model adds a fourth step. The Zero Moment Of Truth.

In this model, after the stimulus, the Zero Moment Of Truth step comes next where the potential buyer researches their options – usually online. They google the product. Check out reviews. Ask for opinions on facebook and twitter. Look up more details and alternatives.

Only after that do they take a look “on the shelf” for the product in the real world.

Makes sense?

Absolutely. It’s not really a new model – more a neat way of summarising what’s become a commonly accepted picture of how buying now works.

And you could argue that consulting, coaching and other professional services have always had the Zero Moment Of Truth step – long before online was an option.

When you’re buying a complex, costly and intangible service there is no “shelf” to inspect the product on. So you have to rely on previous experience, referrals, testimonials, what other people say about their service and its provider. Or on the value the service provider gives you in advance of the purchase that “proves” his capabilities.

And these days that process is now much richer with the huge increase in information available online and easy access to people willing to give their opinion.

If fact, Google’s book has some very illuminating “heat maps” showing, for example that the biggest wave of research activity when buying groceries happens a few hours before the purchase – but for a car it’s 4-6 months in advance.

So yes, Google are right. There are some hugely important things going on before the first contact with the product or service. And the web has increased the importance of that phase.

But here’s where Google is wrong. It’s not a “moment” of truth. It’s a series of moments. It’s a relationship.

People don’t research their car 5 months in advance and then do nothing until the day of the purchase. They continue to build their knowledge of their potential purchase and the people they might be buying it from. Over time, their confidence grows until they feel ready to make that big outlay.

And it’s the same with professional services. Even more so in fact.

That Zero Moment Of Truth is really an extended courtship between the potential client and the service provider. With much of it happening without any direct involvement from the service provider themselves. The client is finding out more about them, checking if they really know their stuff and can deliver results. Getting a feel for what it would be like to work with them.

They’re using the web. They’re talking to others they know.

And by the time you first talk to them, their mind is almost made up.

So what are you doing to make sure that weird kind of courtship that’s happening with your website and all your other marketing channels before a client contacts you is working effectively? How are you managing your Zero Moment Of Truth?

Google’s “Zero Moment Of Truth”: Why They’re Right And Why They’re Wrong is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

A little while ago I made it onto Salesforce.com’s Social Business Dream Team for Europe, and OpenView Labs’ Top 25 Global Sales Influencers for 2012.

In truth, I’m normally embarrassed by awards and stuff. I just do my best and hope that people will enjoy it and find it useful.

But, of course, I’m also flattered. It amazes me that thanks to the power of the internet the lessons I’ve learned from my own exploits and from my clients can reach such a big audience and somehow seem to resonate.

And more than anything, I’m grateful.

If it wasn’t for you reading my stuff, tweeting it or liking it, sharing it with your friends and colleagues, then none of this would be happening.

So a big, big thank you for making this big adventure possible.

- Ian

Thank You! is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

For non-gardeners, potting on is a critical activity where you transplant a young seedling from a seed tray or small pot to a larger pot. It gives the roots of the plant more room to grow and more compost to grow in.

If you don’t pot your seedlings on they can become weak and “leggy” with not enough space to expand and not able to pull enough nutrients from the compost.

Business relationships often need “potting on” too. Whether you’re trying to nurture face to face relationships with people you meet at events or online relationships with newsletter subscribers.

Everyone talks about “keeping in touch”, but it takes rather more than that if your goal is winning clients.

It takes more than just a quick chat at networking events. Or occasional emails to tell people what you’re doing.

Winning Clients is about Nurturing Relationships

Just as plants need more nutrients and more space to grow and bear fruit, you’ve got to build more depth into your relationships if you want them to bear fruit too.

Before potential clients are going to be ready to hire you they have to have deep confidence in your capabilities and trust that your relationship with them will work out. That won’t just come from casual conversations at events. But it might come if you invite them to see you present. Or you send them an article you’ve written. Or they talk to some of your previous clients.

The key to winning clients is to take a planned approach to your nurturing. Just as an expert gardener knows what a plant needs to flourish, so an expert business developer knows what a client needs before they’d be ready to hire them. And as they grow, that’s exactly what they give them. In just the right amount, at just the right time.

When the relationship needs “potting on”, that’s what they do.

So, how are your gardening skills? Do you know what your client relationships need to flourish and bear fruit? Do you have plans in place to give them that nourishment?

———-
Image by “Katemonkey”

The “Potting On” Strategy For Winning Clients is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

And yet you know that if you’re doing a marketing presentation, you need them to be concentrating at the end when you make your call to action. If no one’s listening what hope do you have of getting them to follow up with you afterwards?

I’m going to share with you a little tip that will help you keep your audience alert and paying attention.

But first let’s look at why it’s so difficult to keep your audience awake…

Sadly, the attention span of most audiences is about 20 minutes. After 30 minutes of the typical presentation many are flagging badly. After 40, you’ve lost most of them.

And unfortunately, 40 minutes is the typical length of most keynotes.

The end result: most marketing presentations fail miserably to achieve their objectives.

Well, unless their objective was to get the audience to rush off at the end.

Keeping Your Audience Paying Attention To Your Marketing Presentation

What causes an audience to lose their attention?

Sometimes it’s the skills of the presenter. A presenter who continually “ums” and “ahs”, speaks monotonously, and distracts you with annoying body language is always going to struggle.

But sometimes even very good presenters can lose your attention. In those cases the issue is often the structure of the presentation.

You see, we humans are made to keep on the lookout for the unexpected. A twig snapping or leaves rustling outside the cave that might indicate a predator is about to pounce.

If we hear that twig snap, we’re on alert. We pay close attention to everything we see and hear. Adrenaline pumps through our veins keeping us wide awake.

But when we see that the twig was just our neighbour from the cave next door we relax. We know what the mystery was. We stop paying attention.

They use this all the times in horror films to scare us witless. They set up the scene. The potential victim hears a noise in the house. We’re on edge waiting for something awful to happen. They keep us on edge, then…

It was only the cat. We relax.

Then boom, the axe murderer pounces and we all jump up in shock.

We can’t help it. When we think we know what’s coming, when the mystery has been removed: we relax and stop paying attention.

And this happens all the time in presentations.

The presenter starts by summarising what he’s going to tell us. Then in the first few minutes he makes his main points. The rest is elaboration, evidence, variations on a theme.

Important stuff. But the moment we decide we know what’s coming, we switch off.

If there’s no mystery, there’s no attention.

Have you ever started reading a detective novel or watching a “whodunnit” and someone gives away the ending?

How often do you read to the end of the book anyway or watch the full TV show?

If you’re anything like me, pretty much never. The suspense, the mystery has gone. it’s impossible to pay attention.

It’s like that with presentations too. But with a twist.

Far too many presenters give away the ending too soon. Once they’ve “told ‘em what they’re gonna tell ‘em” there ain’t much mystery left.

If your audience think there’s nothing new coming, their brains are hardwired to relax and stop paying attention (paying attention is hard work – you need to reserve it for important times when something new and dangerous might be coming).

So how do you turn this knowledge into an attention keeping marketing presentation?

Set up your main points at the start – but don’t reveal them. Tell people you’re going to reveal the 3 surprising secrets that the top ad agencies have kept to themselves for years (or whatever) – but don’t tell them what those secrets are up front.

Use the “but first…” technique that I did at the start of the article to keep people anticipating the big reveal.

And once you’ve revealed your key points, if you have more to say you need to do something else to keep them paying attention.

That’s the “twist” I mentioned above.

And I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, the twist is teeing up a new mystery to keep up the attention level. By saying “there’s a twist”, for example.

Add these elements of structure to your marketing presentation and like a good mystery novel, you’ll have your listeners hanging on until the very last word.

Marketing Presentation Tips: Holding Your Audience’s Attention Right To The End is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

What’s the most important skill in marketing?

Your networking skills? Copywriting ability? Creativity? Ability to deliver a great presentation or to get referrals?

All important skills. But I believe there’s something way more important.

It’s the ability to put yourself in your client’s shoes.

To think like them. Understand what they want and need. What they feel. What angers them, what fills them with joy.

You can be the greatest marketing strategist in the world. Have the best execution skills. But if you don’t deeply understand what your clients are looking for then your marketing is going to miss the mark every time.

And I don’t just mean the obvious.

What they need is often straightforward. And they’ll often tell you what they want too (not necessarily the same thing as they need).

But understanding why they want it. The real motivating factor that they can maybe only half articulate themselves. That’s the real key to marketing communications that resonate.

You can see the impact of such understanding and empathy in a non-marketing example here

Understanding what they fear is vital too. They may absolutely want what you’ve got, but they won’t buy if they’re worried you don’t have experience working with people like them. Or that your business is too big, or too small. Or that you’ll be too tough on them. Or too soft. Or a whole host of other concerns they may have.

If you don’t know what those concerns are, you can’t deal with them.

And you’ve got to know what else is on their mind and what else is going on in their world.

I was speaking to a client recently who described a conversation he had with a CFO where the executive showed him his email inbox. “I get 30 emails from consultants and coaches wanting meetings with me every day” he said. “If I don’t know them already, I delete them”.

Try emailing clients like that. Or cold calling.

Offering an email newsletter on your website is fine if your clients don’t have a 100 other people doing just the same.  If they do, you need to be offering a lot more to get their attention.

Clients don’t view your marketing in isolation. Your marketing appears in their inbox, doormat, ears or eyes along with thousands of other messages daily. If you don’t understand what else they’re being exposed to how can you hope to do something different and grab their attention?

All good marketing starts with a deep understanding of your client.

And that’s why I say it’s the most important skill in marketing.

Agree? Disagree? Love to hear your views – drop me a comment below.

———-
Photo Credit: Mike Licht

The Most Important Skill In Marketing is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

But what about email marketing for coaches, consultants and other professional?

Will it work for us?

After all, most of the email marketing you see focuses on promoting products. Yes, there’s an element of giving value and relationship building. But by and large it’s about offers.

And that style of email marketing won’t work for professionals.

Our long term goal is to sell our high value services – not low value products. And before a client’s going to be ready to hire us for those high value services, we need to have built up a high degree of credibility and trust.

That doesn’t happen overnight. And it doesn’t happen if most of your emails are promotions.

The best way for a professional to use email marketing is to use it to nurture a relationship with high potential clients. To give value and so build credibility.

The way I like to look at it is “what would an email from a trusted advisor look like?”

So imagine getting an email from one of your trusted business advisors. Maybe it’s your accountant, or a consultant you worked with once before. Maybe it’s an ex-colleague whose advice you value.

When they email you, what’s in it? What does it look like?

Trusted Advisor Emails

Well, chances are it will often contain valuable insight a lot of the time, of course. And it won’t be generic advice you could hear parroted anywhere like “work on the business, not in the business”. It’ll be specific to your situation and your goals.

It’ll be written personally too. Your trusted advisor won’t write to you like they don’t know you or you’re some kind of anonymous prospect on a list. They’ll write as a friend writing to a friend and using language that reflects that.

It won’t be formal and stiff. It won’t feel like they spent hours carefully constructing it to get the wording exactly right.

(Even though they might need to spend hours to get it to feel like that!)

And it won’t feel like they’re selling to you all the time.

If they suggest a course of action, they’ll give you the reasons. But they won’t turn it into a sales pitch.

And they won’t be serious all the time either. The people I value advice from have become friends. Every now and then they send me something lighter too. A link to a joke or a video that amused them.

Now I’m not saying your email marketing should consist of a string of jokes. But I am saying “lighten up”. You want people looking forward to your emails, not thinking it’ll be a burden to read them all the time.

The Secret of Effective Email Marketing for Coaches and Consultants

And that’s really the secret: write like a trusted advisor.

Use the content a trusted advisor would use. Valuable, insightful business advice that builds credibility and trust.

Use the format a trusted advisor would use. A simple, plain email with no fancy graphics that looks like a human being sent it, rather than a pretty template that looks like a big company with a graphics department sent it.

And use the style a trusted advisor would use. Write like a business friend. Short sentences. Short paragraphs.

Contractions (e.g. “it’s” not “is is”), slang and abbreviations where appropriate.

Exactly how you’d speak to a business friend if you were advising them over a coffee.

All the data says email marketing can be incredibly effective. But you need to do it right. You need to focus on building to win a long term client relationship, not a short term sale.

So, what’s your experience of email marketing been? Has it worked for you? What are your secrets of success?

———-

Image via signgenerator.org

Email Marketing for Coaches and Consultants is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

As a buyer, are you more or less likely these days than in the past to hang up the phone if you get cold called (irrespective of what’s on offer)?

Are you more or less likely to tell an assistant in a shop that you’re fine when they approach to ask if you need some help?

Are you more or less likely to research a purchase before ever speaking to potential service providers?

Are you more or less likely than in the past to search for a real expert (wherever they may be) in something you need help with rather than settling for someone nearby who’s OK?

If you answered “more” to one or more of the above questions (my guess is you probably answered more to them all) then here’s the real question:

If that’s how your behaviour as a buyer has changed – how has your marketing changed to reflect the fact that your own buyers will have changed in the same way?

———-

Image: Dylan, of course, from the cover of The Times, They Are A-Changin’

Marketing Quiz… is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

Creating Content for a Business Blog: Getting Ideas

It all starts with building deep understanding of your ideal clients.

Do research and surveys. Ask new subscribers questions. Spend a day in their life doing what they do. Draw up “pen pictures” of typical clients.

Get inside their head somehow.

Then brainstorm their goals and aspirations (in the areas where you can help). What they’d like to achieve. Who they look up to and admire, who they’d like to be like.

And then move on to where they are today: their problems and issues (again, in the areas where you can help). The day to day challenges they face.

Then take a piece of paper and in the top right hand corner write in a little summary of the goals and aspirations you identified. In the bottom left do the same for the problems and challenges they currently face.

Then draw an arrow joining the two.

That’s the journey you’re going to take your potential client on should they hire you.

Now look at that journey. Think about all the steps your client is going to have to make to successfully achieve their goals. And think about all the potential barriers they’re going to have to overcome to get there.

Write those steps above the line on the map, and write the barriers below the line. Try to brainstorm as many as you can. It doesn’t matter if all your clients will have to do all the steps, or will hit all the barriers – try to make the list as comprehensive as possible.

That things on those lists of steps and barriers are going to be what you write about on your business blog.

The first big barrier they face (or “speedump” as I like to call it, as the goal is that they get past it!) will form the core of the lead magnet you use to motivate readers to subscribe to your newsletter or other communications. But the other steps and barriers are perfect candidates for blog posts and newsletters.

So it could be that – to take leadership development as the field – a potential client for leadership coaching might have barriers like a lack of confidence, they might not know what their team needs from them, they might not have a clear picture of where they want to take their organisation. All these can make great topics for a business blog.

Next, I add to the mix what I believe the potential client will need to know and feel before they’re ready to hire me. As well as providing ideas for blog posts, the “know and feel” factors can guide me to how I should write the post.

For example, If I decide that potential clients need to know and feel I’ve worked with people just like them before they’ll be ready to hire me, then I’ll try to cover many of the points using client case studies. And I’ll make sure they get to see who they client was so they know whether someone in their situation was able to achieve great results by working with me.

I keep this “masterplan” for the blog near at hand when I’m writing or trying to come up with ideas. I don’t use it every time. Much of the time I’m just inspired to write on a specific topic,

But having it nearby and reviewing it whenever I’m stuck for ideas is really helpful. It gives me the confidence to know that if I can write good content in these areas, then my business blog will work to help me bring in clients.

And don’t forget: to learn how to turn those ideas for business blog posts into valuable content fast – tune in to my webinar with Danny Iny on Fast Easy Blog Writing.

Click here for details.

———-
Photo Credit: Andy Piper

Business Blog Writing: How To Create Valuable Content is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

If you’re interested in getting clients from your website, you’ll no doubt know that the most important factor in getting your site to show up highly in the search engine results – by far – is the number and quality of links to your site from other people’s sites.

Google takes it as a vote of confidence in your site.

The assumption in the algorithms is basically that links are “natural”. In other words that people link to pages on your site if they genuinely like the content there and “recommend” it.

Historically though, search engine optimization experts have been able to use links to manipulate rankings. They’ve bought links on other people’s sites. Or created huge networks of websites under their own control and pointed links at sites they want to rank highly.

What it’s meant is that despite google’s best intentions, it’s always been possible for someone with deep pockets to buy their way to the top of the results.

But in the last few days google have really started to shake things up. They’ve been actively searching for these networks of sites and removing them from their index so that the links don’t count towards search engine rankings.

As a result, websites that have achieved high google rankings because of these networks have dropped like a stone in the results pages. One of the networks that’s been hit, “Build My Rank”, has had to close its doors to paying customers as the majority of its sites have been deindexed.

And this is actually all good news for the rest of us.

I’m guessing that very few people reading this article have participated in this kind of link buying. Mostly our search engine rankings have come from natural links. People genuinely linking to us because we’ve created great content on our site that they’d like to share with others.

With the recent changes google is making, these natural links have become even more powerful.

One great way to get these natural links is to create what’s known as “link bait”.

These are blog posts or other resources on your site that you’ve deliberately created to attract links.

A classic example is the “top 10″ post. Where you list the top 10 of something or other.

People always find these list posts interesting and often link to them or mention them on social media. I’m not fully sure why – but given a choice between a thoughtful, in-depth article and a list, most of us (me included) click over to the list to see what’s on it.

You can get even more pulling power if rather than just a list of things, you make a list of people.

The top 10 marketing bloggers. The top 20 women in management under 40. 5 writers on strategy you probably don’t know about but should.

Why do people lists make even better link bait?

Because the people you mention in the list are flattered by it and promote the list for you – often without you even asking.

If someone appears on your list of 10 influential and insightful marketing bloggers, the chances are that influential marketing blogger will want to tell everyone he’s on the list and put a link up to your post from his (influential) blog.

End result: valuable links and traffic to your blog post.

And yesterday, I found the very best example of this strategy being used I’ve come across.

In this case, salesforce.com (the guys who make the online CRM system) didn’t just create a top 10 list – they made a “dream team”. A fantasy football team comprised of influential bloggers on marketing, sales and social media.

They gave them all positions, created little icons for each player, created a little bio for each player.

Really fun stuff. Stuff that even a hard bitten blogger who knows exactly what’s being done couldn’t resist.

Then they emailed all the bloggers to tell them they’d made the team (there’s a European Dream Team and a US Dream Team).

Not surprisingly, the bloggers have begun to link to the post. All adding interest, generating traffic and vauable links to salesforce.com’s website.

Very smart.

How do I know about this?

I made the team. Number 10 for Europe. The Lionel Messi role.

And even though I know exactly what’s going on, I think they’ve done it brilliantly. And they deserve this link to the #SocialSuccess Dream Team.

Linkbait on Steroids… is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies

Marketing.

No, seriously. It’s marketing.

Here’s why:

Why Marketing is the Key to Ethical Selling

Let’s think about what might cause someone to sell unethically. To manipulate or push someone into buying something they perhaps don’t really want or need?

Or to bring it right home, what might cause you or me to sell unethically?

I’m a nice person. I’m sure you’re a nice person. In fact overwhelmingly, most people I know are nice people.

None of us wants to sell unethically. So why might we do it?

Selling is a pretty simple process when it comes down to it. You sit down with someone, disucss their problems and challenges, goals and aspirations. You talk about what it would take to solve or achieve them – and what the impact would be. Then you discuss how you might be able to help and whether you’re a good fit for working with them.

Why might that conversation stray and become manipulative?

The answer is desperation.

If you’re the only potential client a professional has met for a month and he needs you to hire him so he can pay the mortgage and feed the kids, then the chances are that even if you’re not a perfect fit, he’s going to try to “sell” you.

Desperate professionals overstep the mark. If they really need the sale, they perhaps claim their service is that little bit better than it actually is. They ignore some of the alternative options the client could take even though they should really mention them. They try to get the client to sign up quickly, instead of when the time is right for them.

So if it’s you, how do you stop that desperation causing you to sell unethically?

Well, you either develop an iron will…

Or in the real world, you remove the cause of the desperation.

And that’s where marketing comes in.

Marketing makes sure you have a service that’s in demand. That lots of potential clients want and need and that will deliver great value to them.

And marketing makes sure you have a steady stream of leads – more than you need – so that when you sit down with that potential client, he’s not the only one you’ve seen that month. You have a backlog of potential clients to see.

And that way, when he’s not a perfect fit, or the timing isn’t right for him, there’s no need for you to push or drive for a sale you really shouldn’t be pushing for.

You can do what’s best for the client and move on, confident that the bills will still be paid and little Johnny will still have plenty to eat. Because there’s a steady flow of high quality leads coming in to your business. If this one isn’t right, the next one will be, or the next one.

Truth be told: ethical selling is pretty easy if you’ve got more leads than you need.

So marketing, good marketing, is the key to ethical selling.

–> By the way, one of the very best resources on behaving (and selling) ethically is Charlie Green’s Trust Matters blog. Lots of very thought provoking articles that will help you come to grips with this tricky topic.

Ethical Selling (and much, much more) at the Trust Matters blog.

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Photo Credit: Anderson Mancini via Compfight

The Secret of Ethical Selling is a post from: How To Get More Clients: Practical Marketing And Sales Strategies