Win More Clients Blog

Imagine setting out on a long mountain trek, with no guide, no map, and no clue if you have the right equipment.  That’s how I used to approach marketing when I started in business.  I didn’t have a mentor, and I didn’t know where to look for ‘experience’.  So I read as many books as I could, took a guess, and got going.

Unsurprisingly, I made a lot of mistakes, had a lot of failures, and learned a lot of lessons.  Here are the 10 that would have saved me the most trouble, if I’d know then:

1. Your time is at least as valuable as your money. When I started out, I attended every networking event, trade show, supplier get together and whatever else I could think of.  After all, it’s networking, and it’s free, right?  I shudder to think how much that cost me in lost time when I could have been doing far more productive things (or having fun).
2. “Now and nearly right” beats “next month and perfect” every time. In the early days, misplaced perfectionism delayed my brochures, websites and telemarketing campaigns because “they weren’t quite right yet”, costing me tens of thousands in lost sales.  Most of the time your idea of perfect won’t work anyway.  You won’t know until you test.  Nowadays my rule is: launch quickly, improve continuously.
3. People don’t buy features and benefits. They buy pain relievers to get them through the day.  I took a long time to really understand what this meant, but nearly every purchase has an element of pain-avoidance to it.  You just need to dig a little deeper to find out why your customers really buy from you. (see point 7.)
4. Lead generation: Little and often works. To be successful, lead generation has to be a habit, not something done in panic bursts 5 times a year when you realise that your sales pipeline is empty.
5. People need proof that you are good as your claim. They need to see how other people like them have benefited from working with you.  That’s where testimonials come in. I used to feel awkward asking for them.  I’m not now.
6. Happy customers want to help your business grow. Make sure you go out of your way to make  them happy, then ask them for referrals!  As with testimonials, I spent a long time being shy about asking for these too, but I’ve grown out of it.
7. If you want people to buy from you, you’d better be able to say why your business is different. Without mentioning quality, reliability, service or price.  If you’re not sure what I mean, type “computer support services” into Google.  Can you tell the top 5 companies apart?
8. You can try all the tactics you want, but without an effective strategy to back them up, you’re doomed to hit and miss results. You need a plan which allows you to continuously measure and improve everything you do.
9. Don’t rely on just one form of marketing. Have a plan which involves several channels, measure what works, and cross-fertilize.  I used to try some cold calling, then some email, then some networking. The results were lumpy to say the least.
10. If you’re not truly passionate about what you do, stop right now. As a business grows, it’s easy to get distracted by things that seem appealing, often for financial reasons.  If you don’t stick to what you really get excited about, the world isn’t getting the best of you, and it shows.

What are your most valuable lessons so far?

When I started  in business in the 90’s, I knew of only two sources of market research available to a budding entrepreneur with no funding:  reading out-of-date “market reports” for free in the library, and cold calling people from Yellow Pages and asking them questions.

The first, although interesting, didn’t give me a great deal of useful information.  The second was more valuable; it gave me direct experience of what my prospective clients were like, and I even won some business from doing it.  But it was very time-intensive, and only gave me a narrow view of my market.

Things are better these days.  A lot better.  There are dozens of free market research tools that give detailed, usable information.  You can find out the size of your target market, exactly what they want, and the level of competition with relative ease.

In this short series, I’m going to discuss a few of these tools.  You’ll notice that a lot of them are keyword tools.  I’m keen on these because as more and more people use search engines as their first port of call for information, keywords give you unparalleled insight into what your prospective clients are thinking.

Google market research tools

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You already know how important referrals are to building a business.

You probably know how meetings from referrals are 3-4 times more likely to turn into business than those from a cold call.

You may even know that referred clients, on average, generate 40% more ongoing business than cold-called clients.

Because you’re already aware of this, you’re probably doing everything you can think of to generate more referrals.

You’ve spent hours at networking events, drunk several gallons of overpriced coffee, and spent a fortune on lunches.  You’ve collected business cards, called back, followed up, and seen the same faces again and again and again.  And sometimes it feels like all you’ve got to show for it is a backlog of paperwork, chronic insomnia and a ‘spare tyre’.

If you’re feeling let down and frustrated that you’re not getting all the referrals you want, try asking yourself these questions: Read more »

Do you send out an e-zine or email newsletter to your prospects and clients?

I don’t suppose you’ve ever found yourself staring at the screen the day before it’s due to send with not the slightest clue what to write?

Or you’re just not convinced that your audience gets any value from what you have to say?

If you have, you’re not alone. I hear the same concerns from a lot of people.

I was talking to a bookkeeper recently who diligently send out a monthly newsletter to her client. Although she quite enjoys writing it, she found it tough to keep coming up with new and interesting articles about bookkeeping to send out.  She was worried that people weren’t interested enough in what she did.

And to a degree, she’s right.  People will get pretty bored of reading about bookkeeping news. They’re just not all that interested in bookkeeping.  After all, that’s why they hire a bookkeeper to handle it for them.

So how should you keep your readers engaged and informed, whilst at the same time reinforcing the value that you can offer? Here are some ideas that might help… Read more »

I’m working with a client who is excellent at what he does, and makes a good living out of it. He’s now looking to expand his business, to increase his income and enable more people to benefit from his expertise. How should he go about it?

Two obvious options are to take on more employees, or subcontract the work to others. However both of those have considerable risks, and can be damaging to cash flow and reputation if they go wrong.

The first; if you employ someone, you have to trust them, train them, and are committed to paying their salary (plus tax!) whether or not you have the work for them. Employment is fraught – I’ve yet to find a business owner who hasn’t had a few staff nightmares over the years.

The second, subcontracting can work well, but finding reliable people is tough, and they aren’t always available when you need them. Again, most people who have done this for any length of time have been let down at some point.

Do you really want take that sort of risk in the current economic climate? He doesn’t. Read more »

Like all good habits, consistent marketing activity can be difficult to keep doing regularly, especially when things start to get tough.

Then that little voice in the back of your head keeps giving you good reasons to put it off to another day. And then another day. And then another.

The range of different excuses is vast, but they all lead to the same end result – an empty sales pipeline for your business, and no income for you.

How many of these sound familiar?

1. There’s a recession on. Nobody’s buying anything
2. I’m too busy with work at the moment. I’ll look at marketing when it’s quieter
3. My prospects don’t want what I have right now
4. My prospects seem perfectly happy with the competition
5. My prospects won’t have the budget at this time of year
6. My prospects are very busy now, and I don’t want to interrupt them
7. My prospects are perfectly happy to live with the problem for the moment
8. I tried (emailing, networking, blogging) once before 5 years ago and it didn’t work
9. My prospects don’t read their email
10. My prospects never answer the phone (or listen to their voicemail)
11. My prospects don’t open the post
12. My prospects never read the paper
13. My prospects never surf the web looking for suppliers
14. I don’t see my competition marketing much at the moment, so it probably won’t work for me
15. I see my competition marketing all the time, so it probably won’t work for me
16. I’ve managed to grow my business so far without much marketing. Things should just carry on as normal, right?
17. Things have changed since last time I ran that successful campaign. It won’t work this time
18. Nothing has changed since last time I ran that unsuccessful campaign. It won’t work this time
19. My prospects will be more interested if I leave it until next week/month/year
20. Why bother? I just know they’ll say “no” right away
21. My website isn’t finished yet
22. I don’t have any brochures yet
23. I don’t have a business card yet
24. I can’t think of a really compelling message
25. I’m still waiting for the results from that ad campaign I did last quarter
26. I’m still waiting for the web developer / graphic designer / copywriter to get back to me
27. I still haven’t followed up with the leads from last time
28. I’m good at what I do – I really shouldn’t have to market myself
29. When people need what I have, they’ll find me
30. Having a tidy desk is more important to me right now

I’ve been guilty of most of them at one time or another. And I’ve found there’s only one sure-fire cure.

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When I ask business owners to describe their website to me, they often talk about the home page first.  From speaking to web designers, they tend to find the same thing.  Their clients worry an awful lot about how their home page looks, what features to include and where it should link to, often to the detriment of the rest of the site.

I suppose the reason for this is that people think of their site in terms of being like a physical shop.  Shops need to have a great store front to attract customers inside.  So it follows that you should take the same approach with your site, right?

Right – except that with your website, your store front is probably not your home page. It probably won’t be the first thing your visitors see.  Many of your visitors may never see it at all. So if you’re spending most of your time looking at it, and thinking about how to improve it, you could be missing out on a lot of potential enquiries.

So which page should be your all-important ’store front’?

It depends.  Visitors should be coming to your site from lots of different sources, and which page they see first, along with what it should contain, varies.

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Over a quiet mug of coffee, see if you can answer the key question at the end of each section.

No. 1 Positioning

What are you selling? Who are you selling it to? More importantly why do they buy it from YOU? Can you describe this in clear and simple terms in such a way that it is obvious to your prospects?

If you can’t do this, either verbally or in written form, you’re facing an uphill struggle promoting your offering to a target audience. What is your Unique Selling Point? What is your Elevator pitch? Check out your competition, and see what they are saying about themselves. Does what you say really sound that different? I know from when I worked in the IT sector, almost ALL of our competitors’ marketing messages were exactly the same, just with slightly different colour schemes on their brochures. Why should prospects come to you for help rather than your competition?

Q. What do you do? (without mentioning service, reliability, quality or price)

No. 2 Packaging

Ok, so you’ve sorted out your USP or Key Marketing Message. You may even have a good grasp what what the problems, worries and frustrations of your clients are, and how to match these to your solutions. But how do you package this? How are you packaging your solutions to communicate the value that you offer, in a way that gives prospects confidence that you can solve their problems? How do you package yourself, your identity and your message?

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Do you still think Networking and Referral Marketing is FREE and costing you nothing ?

If you rely on word of networking or word of mouth marketing to generate business, then face up to the fact it isn’t free!

You may not realise it, but it’s often quite expensive. Think about all the hidden costs such as breakfasts, lunches, coffees, pints, gins, train tickets, tube fare, petrol and parking.

Now add up number of hours you spend networking. Multiply that by your hourly rate.

Add together what you spend on networking last month. How many breakfasts, lunches and events you went to. Write down what you really spent.

Now, how many business cards, recommendations and new customers did you generate as a result?

How much of your business can you attribute to networking?

When you have all those figures, ask yourself - what is the cost per lead, cost per referral, cost per new customer?

Still think it’s free?

You now know what you are investing in networking. And you know what your current returns are.

Do they measure up? If not, why not?

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I hear a lot of people who are frustrated because although they enjoy networking, they don’t get the results they should because they find it difficult to know where to focus their attentions.

One technique I’ve used to help me overcome this is the “Networking Funnel”. It’s similar to a “Sales Funnel”, and means I can identify the different people in my network, and how best we can work together.

1. Suspects are right at the start of your funnel, these are people who are visible in your network (e.g. ecademy.com, linkedin.com or NRG), who are open to being approached.
2. Prospects are people who you have identified as being able to help you reach your personal and business objective, and you know how you can help them.
3. Contacts are prospects who you have offered advice or support to, or have asked for assistance from them.
4. Advocate are openly recommending you and your services to others in the network, and you are doing likewise.
5. Partners are the people you speak to most regularly, have a the highest level of mutual trust with, and are maybe even embarking on joint ventures together.

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