We eagerly awaited the start of the first talk entitled “Successful marketing and PR strategies for small businesses”. The speaker had great credentials – he’s been featured in various national papers and other credible media sources and used to work for an internationally recognised advertising agency. So far, so good.

The first thing he told us was that he didn’t have a specific presentation to give us and that he was more or less just going to waffle about this and that. Hmm, not a good start. Presumably he knew about the conference some time in advance and would have had time to re-purpose one of his talks for this audience (as he seems to do quite a lot of speaking). I must say that I didn’t understand how this was quite as much of a benefit as he was making out.

He then went on to say that he wasn’t going to blind us with marketing theories or models, because he didn’t understand them himself. What!!?? You’re the expert who has the stage, we’ve given up our time to come and hear you speak, and you don’t even know what you’re talking about? Again, he was inferring that this was a virtue, and no doubt it was some kind of attempt at humour, but I instantly thought that was a complete and utter credibility killer.

Regardless of this, we stayed and listened to the talk anyway. He presented some rather strange sales process, which wasn’t actually a sales process but a marketing process, and some fairly complicated diagrams which I couldn’t even see and, more to the point, couldn’t see the point of in a presentation of this nature. Towards the end he started running out of time and we were subjected to a seemingly endless procession of slides detailing the design work that he’s done for clients – the proverbial “death by slides”. Eventually, the organiser had to tell him to stop, much to the relief of those of us who were bored and fed up by the obvious sales pitch.

But in a way, my opinion doesn’t count. As a fellow marketer and competitor, I’m bound to be critical and sceptical of any other speakers on the topic. So what was interesting was my friend’s reaction.

She had the same reaction as me after he announced that he didn’t understand marketing theory. He lost all credibility in her eyes. During the course of the presentation he also said that he used to think direct mail was rubbish and a waste of time, but had since gone on to do some good direct mail campaigns. She only heard the bit where he’d said he thought it was rubbish, and didn’t hear it when he explained that he’d changed his mind after good results. This is not because she has a hearing problem! It’s because he’d lead her into forming an opinion about both him and his attitude towards direct mail, and so she didn’t hear anything he subsequently said that contradicted what he said in the first instance.

I suspect there’s a lesson in there for anyone who uses public speaking to promote their business. Be aware that people are not paying 100% attention to all of your words. The brain is programmed to be efficient. At any one moment in time there are hundreds of sensory perceptions it might be paying attention to, therefore it doesn’t consciously listen to every word. Everything that is heard is fitted into an existing framework of knowledge and perception, and it will pick out salient points and fit them in with what it already knows either about you or what you do. So if you start off by appearing to admit that you don’t understand marketing theory, when you’re supposed to be the expert, then don’t be surprised if the filters go up and people don’t properly hear anything that you subsequently say.

It’s the principle of consistency, which is explained in various psychology texts, most notably Cialidini’s Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Also, people fill in their own gaps – they don’t literally read things or literally hear things – everything is filtered.

OK, psychological theories aside, the bottom line for me was this:

Because the speaker started off by creating a negative impression of himself, neither myself nor Hulya really trusted anything that he subsequently said and we both went away feeling that we’d wasted our time listening to him. His cavalier attitude destroyed any pre-existing semblance of credibility, and the talk was neither interesting nor particularly informative.

And, to cap it all off, he completely failed to use the technique that anyone using public speaking to build their business should use to persuade prospects to come forward and swap contact details. As a marketer, you’d think he’d know that, wouldn’t you?

To find out which step he missed out, see step 9 in this article >> 10 Tips For Marketing Your Business With Public Speaking

This is my interpretation of what he says:
The ways to get paid are on a spectrum from 100% up front, paid before beginning work at the extreme left hand side to contingency fees based on performance at the extreme right hand side i.e. you only get paid on results and over a timeframe beyond the end of the project. In between are situations like 50% deposit, then scheduled payments all due before completion of the project, and 100% payable on completion etc.

He points out that your cashflow situation deteriorates as you move from left to right. In the worst case scenario, you may not see any return on your investment in the project until many months after it has been completed. If you incurred expenses or hired subcontractors, then not only would you not have any personal income, but you’d be out of pocket as well. Most small businesses don’t have the cash reserves to fund someone else’s project, and if they have to borrow, then obviously their profit margins are eroded by interest payments. In the case of a “one-man-band” this might be OK, if you have other income to live on in the meantime and do not incur any costs other than your time.  However,  in the UK, the major reason small businesses go under is cashflow problems, so for most of us, positive cashflow is a necessity.

What I would add (and I don’t think Alan explicitly stated this) is that the level of risk increases as you move from left to right. For example, if there is any kind of disagreement during or after the project, and you haven’t been paid, or have only received partial payment, then you risk losing some or all of your fee.

If you work on a performance/results basis then you also risk:

1. the client dragging their heels and not creating a situation where you can get started
2. disagreements or ambiguity over what constitutes results or performance
3. the client being unethical or downright dishonest and not providing full disclosure of results
4. the client not using your work in the way it was intended thus diminishing the probability of success
5. the client not being fully committed to the project or not valuing what you do because they’re not committed to paying anything yet
6. creating an image of yourself or your company as being “desperate” for work

On the flip side of this is the risk to the client. Clearly, paying nothing until tangible results are delivered is the client’s lowest risk (and probably most desirable) position, and paying the full fee up front is their highest risk position. If the client perceives a high degree of risk in employing you for their project, then they may take their business elsewhere or just abandon the project. Therefore many marketers advocate reducing the client’s risk in order to win business by working on contingency fees i.e. paid on results. In this scenario, the consultant or independent professional should negotiate so that the rewards outweigh the risks – so that they will be paid in excess of their standard fee by the cumulative payments based on results.

Therefore the maxim for the consultant/professionals is to negotiate as much upfront fee as possible, in order to minimise the risk and prevent cashflow problems. But you need to be able to do this in a way that also reduces or eliminates the client’s perceived risk (or else you make yourself vulnerable to another risk – that of not winning the business). Other ways of reducing the client’s perceived risk include having a good reputation, building credibility and being known as the expert, plus adding satisfaction or money back guarantees.

You should only engage in results-based fees if:

• the reward outweighs the risks and hit to your cashflow
• contingency based fees are normal in your industry
• you have spare capacity and something is better than nothing
• you need the project to help build your credibility and reputation
• you have agreed metrics upon which your performance can be measured and the client is legally obligated to provide the corresponding information

Other than that, try to stay over to the left-hand side of the spectrum as much as possible if you want positive cashflow and to stay in business for some time to come!

But there’s another benefit as well – making it easier on yourself!  Here’s an article by Alexandria Brown – “The Ezine Queen” which dramatically demonstrates how NOT specialising can not only make life difficult, but dampen your confidence and professional standing.

It was the fall of 1998 when I had just started my first business as a marketing communications writer. Most of my clients hired me for newsletters, brochures, and sales materials, but I would get the occasional request for something different. At the time I was too naive to consider saying "no" to any project that didn’t fit me perfectly.

A perfect example of this was when a colleague named Chip asked if I could write a short script for a customer service training video. "Wow," I said. "Video! That sounds like fun. Sure thing. I’ll take it on!"

Big mistake.

Sure, at first it seemed exciting. But after I got into it, I was miserable. Not only did I spend three times as many hours as I’d planned JUST on figuring out what they wanted, but I honestly didn’t know what I was doing. I’d never written a video script in my life! I thought it would be simple, but it was a whole other world.

This thing not only sucked up all my time, taking me away from my best clients, but it also drained my energy and my confidence. I felt sick every time I looked at that project folder. I lost sleep worrying that I wasn’t doing a good job on it, and worst of all, my fears were confirmed…

One day Chip left a message on my answering machine that MORE major revisions were needed. Then, it sounded like he hung up the phone, because there was a soft click. But then I heard him start to talk about me with his partner (obviously unaware that his speaker-phone was still on).

At first I stopped the message from playing, because I knew I was not supposed to be privy to this conversation. But I wanted to know the truth, so I listened. My heart sank as I heard things like, "This writer doesn’t know what she’s doing on this… we should have hired a real video writer… I feel bad she’s trying so hard, but this isn’t getting better."

I got so ANGRY!

Not at Chip, but at myself.

Here I was… an award-winning writer for marketing communications. Marketing communications! That means marketing materials. NOT training videos!

So why had I taken on that project?

My good friend Melanie Strick, "The Entrepreneur’s Success Coach", calls this "bright, shiny object syndrome", and it happens to many entrepreneurs. You see, we love ideas! We enjoy moving from idea to idea, and it’s easy to get distracted by something that seems new and exciting.

Especially when you start experiencing success, it’s as if every opportunity in the world starts falling in your lap. You have to become a master of saying "no". That was very hard for me.

But by sticking with what you KNOW you are good at, you are always confident and calm in your work. You know how to market yourself, and you know who you’re marketing to!

I’ve become so clear now at what I’m amazing at, what I offer, who I’m marketing to, and how I want my life to look like, that any business or life decision is crystal clear. I know exactly what to say "no" to.

(And they say for every "no" you give, a better "yes" comes along!)

So today, make a list of what you are good at, what you’re confident in doing, what you want to do, and who you do it for. And then practice saying, "No!" to anything else.

You’ll find that your marketing and your business will magically become easier, more enjoyable, and more successful!

© 2005 Alexandria K. Brown

Online entrepreneur Alexandria K. Brown, "The E-zine Queen," is creator of the award-winning ‘Boost Business With Your Own E-zine’ system. To learn more about this step-by-step program, and to sign up for her FREE how-to marketing articles and FREE audio class, visit www.EzineQueen.com

The main reason that their marketing doesn’t produce the results that they want is because they’ve usually missed out or half done one of the ingredients of their “marketing formula” or are doing things in the wrong order. Getting your marketing right is a bit like baking a cake – you need the right ingredients, in the right proportions, added in the right sequence and baked at the right temperature.

What can a good “marketing formula” do for you?

A good marketing formula can help you to:

• raise response to all of your marketing activities so that you have more leads in your pipeline for the same investment
• make your marketing profitable (as it should be!) rather than an expense
• secure more sales from the presentations you do and the appointments you attend

Once you’ve worked out your formula, most of your campaigns will be successes and you can use your formula over and over again to continually reproduce outstanding results.

To illustrate the point, one famous marketer claims to have done a direct mail campaign that got a 100% response! In other words, everyone that he sent his letter to bought his product or service. Now, that is unheard of in a world where a 3% response rate is considered to be good. Another marketer claims to turn 98% of all telephone consultations into business (and 40% is generally considered to be doing OK in her field).

These people have got their marketing formulas highly tuned and working very hard for them. Can you achieve the same results? Well, you may not ever achieve a 100% response to a mailshot, (that was probably an exceptional case) but you can certainly improve the performance of your marketing and start making it pay once you know and understand the ingredients of marketing success.

So what are the ingredients and steps of a good “marketing formula”?

Your marketing formula is comprised of two parts:

The ingredients

This is really the foundation of your marketing – it’s the groundwork that allows whatever marketing activities you undertake to actually work and give you good results. The ingredients are:

• a very clear target market (preferably one that is hungry for what you offer)
• a thorough understanding of your target market – what concerns them, why they would buy your services, what motivates them and how you can identify and locate them
• a good value proposition (the tangible outcome you deliver)
• an irresistible offer
• an understanding of the competitive landscape and where your company fits in (or in other words – your differentiation and your positioning)
• a strong, client-attracting message

You can have brilliantly executed marketing, but if the ingredients are wrong, then you’re either going to attract all the wrong types of people, or attract multitudes less than you are really capable of. Either way, you would be wasting your marketing effort and budget.

The steps

These are the steps that you take to implement your marketing, and the sequence you move your potential buyers through en-route to them becoming loyal clients. These include:

• the strategy you use to get your compelling message in front of your target market
• where and how you place your message for maximum impact in the budget you’ve allocated (your message can be delivered verbally or in written form)
• the timing of your message
• the steps your prospects need to be taken through to turn them from strangers into paying clients

A weakness or failure at any of these points will lead to reduced response and lowered conversion rates – and that means weak results and wasted investment. It’s somewhat like a chain – the system fails at the weakest points, so all points have to be as strong as possible.

So if you want your marketing to succeed, you need a good formula – the right ingredients combined in the right steps. Just like baking a cake – if you do things in the wrong order, or miss steps out, you’ll end up with a result you didn’t want – a burnt cake, a cake that’s rock hard or biscuits instead!

Or why do some firms flounder whilst others flourish?

Have you ever noticed how some businesses seem to do extremely well, and go from strength to strength, whilst the majority just seem to muddle along?

Since starting my own business I’ve met many small business owners and what I’ve noticed is that the vast majority of them seem to just about get by, but few reach the level of success that they’re actually capable of. Some of them end up failing altogether, some lurch from project to project, and some do OK, but never really achieve the success or lifestyle they envisioned when they started their business.

On the other hand, I know a handful of extremely successful service business owners, who are making high 6 and 7 figure incomes every year (and rising) – and yet they don’t work longer hours, their products and services are not magnitudes better than their competitors and they aren’t geniuses!

So what is the difference between the successful businesses and the struggling businesses?

In a word: Marketing

Whilst there can be other factors that affect the ability of a business or practice to be successful, such as the economy, trends, cashflow and product/service quality or innovation, the number one difference between successful high-flying businesses and their struggling counterparts is good marketing.

Here is the lament of one survey respondent which is typical of the angst felt by service business owners who know they do a good job, but who don’t understand why they don’t have a queue of clients at their door:

“We know our products and services are good – we get great feedback from those clients we’ve worked with – but we still have trouble getting potential customers to buy in. Our services offer real benefits to clients but we are not as successful as we should be when we see what other companies offer (not as much) and yet are still very successful.”

If you offer a quality service or product that produces great results for your customers or clients, and yet you’re still struggling to get all the clients that you want or need, or to charge the fees you deserve, you probably have a marketing problem.

What do highly successful business owners do that others do not?

The first thing that they do is to realise that their primary objective is to build their practice or client base. In the words of Michael Gerber (who wrote The E-myth) they “work ON their businesses, not IN their businesses”. What this involves is making the time to work on the business – in particular on marketing and product or service development, rather than spending all of their time handling clients, delivering services and dealing with administration.

They also look for areas where they can gain “leverage”. Simply put, this means gaining maximum return for every hour they work. Instead of trading hours for pounds or dollars, they find ways to do the work once and get paid for it many times. They find ways to market their services one to many, instead of one to one (thus reducing marketing and sales effort and time). They delegate those activities which take up a lot of time (but which don’t add much value in terms of moving the business forward) or which they are not skilled in such as admin, accounting, website maintenance and copywriting.

They also develop a success mindset, understand their strengths and weaknesses, take risks, innovate, hang out with other successful people and build a support network around themselves.

But above all, they learn how to market their businesses and create a marketing system that keeps a steady stream of prospects knocking at the door, without taking up all of their time!

When you spend time and money randomly on marketing, then it probably is an expense because you’re not generating a return on the resources invested in it. Many people make the mistake of emulating the marketing tactics of large companies (such as image advertising) that just don’t produce good returns for small businesses. The fact of the matter is that small businesses have to produce BETTER marketing than large businesses because they can’t afford to make mistakes by dropping hundreds or even thousands of pounds/dollars onto campaigns that don’t work.

What often happens is that business owners spend lots of money on ineffective campaigns, then erroneously conclude that marketing is an expense, or not worth doing at all.

However, the secret to marketing success is to create a marketing system. A system of activities, strategies, tactics and automation that reliably and predictably create measurable results and positive ROI. I call this the “marketing slot machine”. It’s a slot machine that for every £1/$1 you put in, you get £1.50, or £2 or £5 or more back out. Once you’ve created this system (which requires a small amount of experimentation and testing), you should be able to turn it on and off at will, and invest as much as you can to gain maximum returns.

Myth 2: Marketing is expensive

Marketing is only expensive (and therefore an expense rather than an investment) when it is either unaccountable or ineffective. There are myriad ways to market you business inexpensively that are highly effective, once you know how. The key is to understand the elements or variables that go into each activity or campaign, and how they affect the ultimate outcome. This is where most people go wrong, and that’s why their marketing fails to produce the results that they’d hoped for. Often the message is weak or confusing, it’s being sent to the wrong people, or they fail to follow up. Get the formula right, and marketing can be very inexpensive – I spend less than £100 per month on marketing and I’m getting great results.

Myth 3: Marketing means I have to be pushy and salesy

Good marketing, done the right way is neither pushy nor salesy. It’s a complete myth that pushy, “gift of the gab” people make the best sales people. Why? Because they spend most of the time talking about themselves or their products and then manipulating people into buying from them. Whilst this used to work, and still does occasionally, it often results in buyers remorse and a general sense of uneasiness on the part of the buyer. Much of the time it creates resistance and a feeling of wanting to run for the hills – have you ever felt like that?

Ironically, the best marketers and salespeople are those who listen. They listen to what potential clients are saying and see if there’s a match between what they offer and what the buyer needs. They build relationships and educate their prospects about how they can help them. The art is to get in front of people who have demonstrated a need or want for what you offer, and who will gladly learn more about what you do and how you can help them.

Myth 4: Marketing produces instant results

Some people believe that if they keep running their adverts/campaigns that they’ll “increase their profile”, and somehow, magically one day, a stampede of clients will come rushing to their door. I don’t subscribe to that theory, because I believe that all marketing should produce a measurable result that can be observed in a fairly short time frame. If you’re marketing efforts are not producing obvious, tangible results then you need to look at the elements that aren’t working.

Having said that, marketing is not something you can usually achieve overnight success in. It’s somewhat like rolling a snowball down a hill – there’s a cumulative effect and momentum increases over time. To create the cumulative effect and momentum requires sustained and consistent effort. Marketing isn’t something you do occasionally, and then put on the back burner. It’s something that you need to do constantly, bit by bit, in the same way that a sportsperson needs to train every day to be good enough for the Olympics.

Myth 5: Once my diary is full, I can stop marketing

It’s human nature that once you’ve got some well-paying work you feel rather pleased with yourself, and focus most of your time on servicing your new clients. However, if you have a sales cycle that’s usually more than a couple of weeks long, then you’re going to come a cropper once the project finishes. Because if you don’t continue to do your marketing whilst you’re working on the project, then at the end of the project you may find that your sales pipeline is empty and you have to start up your marketing all over again. It may then be a number of weeks before people start to progress down your sales pipeline towards actually doing business with you. This is what is commonly referred to as the “feast and famine” syndrome.

If you prefer to avoid these peaks and troughs of income producing activity, then you need to think about how you can do a little bit of marketing on a consistent basis. Even better – create a marketing system that easily and reliably entices prospects into your sales pipeline without huge amounts of effort from you.

Myth 6: My business is small, so I don’t need a marketing plan

I tried some marketing plan software once. It asked me a lot of questions about market share, mission statements plus product, price, promotion and place. Great fun, if your mind likes to chew on such imponderables. As a graduate of a business studies degree I knew exactly what it was referring to, but had no idea how that was useful to a small business. And guess what – that’s because it isn’t!

No wonder then, that most small businesses don’t have written marketing plans, when traditional style marketing plans seem convoluted and esoteric. However, this doesn’t mean that a marketing plan in your head is any better. The question is whether this results in any organised activity.

And to me, that’s the essence of a marketing plan – a blueprint for organising your marketing activities. It doesn’t have to be high-falutin’ or fancy, or be filled with marketing-jargon, but what it does need to do is focus resources on specific action steps that need to be taken to achieve specific goals. There’s a world of difference between carrying ideas around in your head, and writing them down into an organised plan of action.

If you don’t have a written marketing plan, then I urge you to consider this: research suggests that businesses that create a written marketing plan increase their revenue by about 30% after having created one.

Myth 7: External marketing help is expensive

If you enlist the help of what I refer to as “traditional” marketing consultants, then it probably is expensive. You’re probably looking at thousands down in one shot, rather than hundreds and probably no guarantees of success. It’s quite possibly a stark choice between taking the family on holiday, or paying for your PR or marketing consultant.

If giving up your family holiday doesn’t appeal, then you may choose to go down the route of taking training courses, reading books, attending seminars, enrolling on e-courses and all manner of other self-study options. The problem with all of this, is that there is rarely any hands-on, customised support for you and your business. And, there’s no accountability – or as I like to say – a friendly kick in the pants to keep you on track. It may also take you quite literally years of trial and error to find out what works for your business. And that’s assuming that you even implement what you’ve learnt, which, sadly, most people don’t.

However, a new alternative has emerged in recent years – marketing mentoring or coaching. Rather than paying thousands to have a marketing consultant do it all for you, or struggling up the learning curve by yourself, you now have the option to work with a coach or mentor who can advise you, guide you and show you how to do your marketing for yourself. Plus they’ll make sure you stay on track. If attracting more clients is important to you, and you haven’t yet created your own “marketing slot machine” then I highly recommend you find a marketing coach who will help you create a marketing system that works for you.

Whilst large businesses can afford to throw large amounts of money at campaigns, and absorb the losses if their marketing doesn’t work, small businesses need a return on every pound they spend. They need some level of certainty that the money and effort they invest is going to produce good results. Otherwise, what can happen is that they keep doing what they’re already doing (which probably isn’t working that well), or they blow a load of money on advertising or marketing solutions that don’t work, and then lose faith in outside help or marketing altogether.

If you want to avoid wasting money on marketing and advertising, or getting burnt by marketing consultants then you’ll want to minimise your risks and invest your money in solutions that work for you.

As you read this article you’ll discover 5 options for learning how to do your own marketing or recruiting outside help, and the advantages and disadvantages of each option.

5 Options for Learning Marketing Skills or Getting Help with Marketing

1) Learn how to do it yourself through reading books, attending workshops, using audio programmes etc.

The obvious advantage of this is that it’s the cheapest option, plus as you learn to do things for yourself, you retain control of your marketing programme. However, the major drawbacks are that the learning curve is very steep and it may take a long time to learn what works, plus you may end up learning a lot of generic information that doesn’t directly apply to your business or that doesn’t give you an actual step by step plan. You may learn what to do, but not how to do it or the exact steps you need to take to implement what you’ve learnt.

2) Use a marketing consultant/agency

The advantage of this is that you effectively hand over the problem to someone else who deals with it on your behalf, leaving you to get on with what you do best. The disadvantages of this option are that you don’t learn what works for your business and you are no longer fully in control of your marketing function – so you won’t know why some things work and others don’t.

Also, this is probably the most expensive option, and some marketing consultants have got a tendency to prescribe their pet solution, before even diagnosing the actual problem and the situation. Not only that, but if your problem is, for example, lack of sales, and you decide the solution is PR, and then hire a PR consultant, they will work to your brief. In other words, you’ve diagnosed the problem and precribed the solution. However, PR may not be the best solution to your problem, and a proper analysis of your target market and your current activities, budget and opportunities is required before forming the conclusion that a PR consultant is the answer.

3) Group coaching/training programmes

The advantage of this is the lower cost plus regular classes and fieldwork that keep you on track. Some people will benefit from working in a group, especially as they learn from the experiences of others, and particularly if there is a “buddying” system in place.

The disadvantage is the lack of personal coaching/consulting or significant input from the expert in examining your particular situation. Not only that, but you’ll be going at a pace as dictated by the course outline, when you might want to move considerably faster or even slower. Also, most programmes go through a range of strategies as decided by the programme creator, some (or many) of which are not applicable to your particular situation. This is especially true if the programme is designed for the generic “small business” – what works for a dry cleaning business may not work for a consultant, coach or professional.

The result is that you may be learning 10 or 12 strategies at a rather superficial level, rather than homing in on the 2 or 3 strategies that are really going to deliver results into your business, and which are manageable.

4) One to one business/marketing coaching

The advantage of this is the personal attention, and the ability to address your specific issues. This works out a little more expensive than a group training programme, but less expensive than hiring a consultant.

How this works varies widely and a lot depends on whether the coach is using a coaching model (i.e. they guide you in working out your own solutions) or a marketing model (they take on a role more similar to a consultant than a coach, and tell you what will work for your situation). Most do not seem to offer any structure, specific outcomes, or programme of activities so it can be hard to tell what you’re getting for your money.

5) A Structured Programme of consulting, training and mentoring delivered one to one

In this scenario the consultant uses a structured series of exercises to analyse the client’s situation, help them build their marketing foundation, overcome problems and obstacles standing in their way and works with them to create a series of marketing actions that will work best for them.

This typically costs about the same as marketing coaching, but has more tangible outcomes and the consultant will also be doing things on the client’s behalf in between sessions. The advantages are that the client is fully in control of their own situation and is being guided and taught how to do things for themselves. The consultant will also use their expertise to steer the client towards solutions that will work for their situation, their market and their type of business, and filter out approaches that are irrelevant or less likely to produce good results.

The disadvantages are that you still have to do the work yourself (unless you pay for help with implementation), and if the consultant is helping you to craft your message and build your foundation, then there may be a delay before any strategies get fully implemented. This is really the approach that is analogous to building your house on rock rather than on sand – it takes a little longer to lay the foundations, but it’s a sturdier, stronger solution in the end.

Intuitively, this seems the right way to go. We might presume that the more people you can appeal to, the more likely you are to get business. It’s the law of large numbers – if you throw enough darts at the board, then eventually you’ll hit the bullseye.

However, this approach has a number of drawbacks. First, when you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. Your marketing message will be bland and, quite likely, meaningless to everyone that is exposed to it. Secondly, trying to market to an undefined group of people is extremely hard work and involves a lot of wasted energy and expense. How will you know where to place your ads, who to send direct mail to, where to network, who to call or who you want to attract to your website? Thirdly, if you don’t specialise in any way, then you’ll never build up specific expertise in any particular area or get paid the premium that specialists get paid.

So, if you haven’t already, I suggest that you define your precise target market and start building up a profile of the ideal client.

Who is NOT an ideal client?

For a lot of people, who they think is their ideal client and who genuinely is an ideal client may be world’s apart.

Here’s a list of types of businesses or consumers you probably don’t want to target:

Price-shoppers:
People who are shopping on price are very, very rarely your ideal client. Unless you have a business model that allows you to somehow "mass produce" services and leverage your time, then you’ll never create your dream lifestyle or large pension fund working for price shoppers. My experience, and that of thousands of other service providers, is that "cheapskate" clients are often more demanding, take up more of your precious time and cause more headaches than clients who are looking for a premium service.

People who you think "need" your services:
Virtually every small business I come across could use my know-how and expertise to improve their marketing. I could surmise that they "need" what I have to offer. However, there is an abundance of research that shows that people rarely buy what they need, but nearly always buy what they "want" (finances permitting). This is a critical distinction. You may be meeting people all the time who you feel "need" what you provide, but until such time as they actually want it, they’re unlikely to buy, and therefore your time spent marketing to them and building the relationship is largely wasted.

People who can’t comfortably afford your services:
You may meet people who both need and want your services, but if they can’t comfortably afford them, then it’s going to be an uphill battle proving the value of what you do and why they should invest. If they do decide to buy your services then they may also become "problem child" clients.

Sometimes you will get business from people who can’t comfortably afford your services, but to actively target them and to spend too much time wooing them is likely a false economy. Your marketing efforts and resources will be better spent when aimed at a market that can easily afford you. This market will also perceive less risk in hiring you, as they can more easily rationalise the purchase to themselves.

People who don’t see you as credible:
20th century marketing has taught most of us to be sceptical. Because people have made bad purchasing decisions in the past, and sometimes been outright ripped off, they’re wary of how they spend their money and who they spend it with. This is true whether they’re a corporate buyer (they don’t want to lose face or lose their job) or a consumer. They’ll look to minimise their risks, and the easiest way of doing that is by buying from someone they trust who has a substantial amount of credibility. This goes hand in hand with positioning yourself as a specialist and expert in your field – high end clients who are willing to pay high fees will want reassurance that you can produce the results you claim to produce.

People who don’t truly want change:
As a service provider, it’s highly likely that what you do involves some kind of change on the part of your clients. If you’re a consultant or coach, then your clients will probably have to change what they do or how they think in order to implement the strategies, tools and techniques that you advise them to use. If you’re a professional, then they may need to change how they do their accounting, how their website works, their visual identity or their contracts in order to benefit from the improvements you provide.

If you find yourself speaking to people who show all the signs of resisting change, then move on! They may pay lip service to wanting improved results, but if they don’t seem prepared to actually make changes and move with the times, then they’re probably not a good client.

What are the criteria for defining your perfect client?

When you come to defining your target market and ideal client, here are the factors to consider:

• Who’s prepared to pay a premium for the outcome you provide?
• Who wants what you offer, rather than who needs what you offer?
• Who can comfortably afford your services?
• Who trusts you and sees you as credible?
• Who’s willing to embrace the change you represent?

And finally, one last distinction – and this may be the most important one. You’ll build your own success more rapidly when you spend your time marketing to businesses and people who are already successful but want to move to the next level, than if you target businesses or people who are struggling.This may seem counter-intuitive. After all, aren’t those who are struggling the ones who most need your help? Yes, they probably do need your help the most. However, if they don’t want it, or aren’t prepared to pay for it, then you’re wasting your time and money marketing to them. Not only that, but the people and businesses that need your help because they’re in a mess probably got into their predicament by being short-sighted and not wanting to invest in professional help at the appropriate time. This points to them not having a success mindset or wanting to implement change, which means that not only will it be a harder sale, but they’re less likely to implement the changes you advise in order to become good success stories for you.

And at the end of the day, if you want to build a successful business, it pays to surround yourself with successful people, especially your clients!

Here are some examples of these principles in action:

1. The desperate prospect
I spoke to one potential client, who was on the brink of bankruptcy, who wanted me to help him with some marketing materials. I thought his business model was basically flawed and therefore he’d probably never see a good return on his investment in my services within the brief he’d given me. It was unlikely that he’d want to pay my fees, and I couldn’t guarantee him a result in the kind of time frame he needed to prevent the bankruptcy. I decided not to take the conversation any further on the basis that I didn’t want his money if it might become a contributing factor to his bankruptcy and because I wasn’t convinced that he was heading in the right direction.

Although he wanted what I was offering, I didn’t think he could comfortably afford my services or get the returns he needed in such a tight timeframe.

2. The sceptical prospect
I had a conversation with a potential client who seemed to have some good services, but was struggling to sell them. He really needed marketing help because he was running all over town (quite literally) presenting proposals to people who weren’t buying and was struggling to make his business model work. I suggested a number of changes and actions he could take, but he resisted each and every one. Not long into the conversation I felt my energy drop and a sense of despair overwhelm me. This is usually a really bad sign!

This guy sells services that could really help a lot of people, but his depressed attitude and resistance to every thing I said meant that he was never likely to become wildly successful or build the exit strategy he wanted. Not only that, but he claimed that he’d heard it all before! This begs the question "so why didn’t you act on it the first time you heard it"?
This prospect needed what I was offering, but didn’t want it. He didn’t have a success mindset, and was therefore unlikely to ever really appreciate the value of the change I was offering him.

3. The optimistic client
Stefan recognised his own limitations when it came to marketing. He knew in his heart that he had a good product and service, but was struggling to get his message out to the right people and in the right way. Although he had regular work coming in from a few reliable sources, he recognised the need to shore up his foundations by reaching more people and consistently bringing in new client from other efforts.

Stefan signed up for my Client Attraction Blueprint programme right away, and set about doing the exercises and taking on board the advice I offered him. He is now reaping the rewards through having a marketing plan that works for him and a much clearer idea of who he should be targeting, and where he should expend his marketing efforts, time and money.

Stefan wanted what I was offering. He was open to change, and happy to be directed. Although he didn’t fit the criterion of easily affording my services, he was prepared to invest in them anyway because he saw the long term advantages.

What about you? Are you targeting the people who trust you, see you as credible, who want what you offer and are willing to pay to gain the benefits of your solution? Are you positioning yourself as an expert and working to attract other like-minded and successful people to your business, or are you struggling to sell your services to a sceptical and reluctant market? Could you take your business to the next level by clearly defining the ideal client and then ensuring that all of your marketing efforts, particularly your message, are tailored to the wants and aspirations of that market?

Are you giving your clients and prospects what they want and then converting initial sales into repeat business?

I’d like to tell you about a recent experience I had that illustrates 2 principles of attraction marketing:

1. Give your clients what they want, not what you think they need or what you want to give them
2. Make the initial sale an easy “yes” and then build a relationship to win repeat business – don’t try to sell a 3-course meal, when all your prospect wants is a starter!

A Tale of How One Company Failed to Do Either …

I’m on the subscriber list of a company that provides solutions for the content management system I use as the platform for my website. Their recent ezine triggered me into wondering whether I should upgrade my system to the latest version – as new versions come out every couple of months to fix bugs, add features and close security holes. Although I’m perfectly capable of doing the upgrades myself, I just don’t have the time or inclination and I’ve been wondering for a while if I shouldn’t hand this aspect of my website management over to someone who’s a specialist in the field.

So I contacted the guy who’s ezine I’d just read and asked him if he did any packages where I could pay a monthly fee to have my content management system kept up to date. He said that they were starting such a package in January, but that I’d have to have my webhosting with them as well. However, I went through 4 bad webhosting companies before I found the one I’m with now and I’m not about to change that – especially as I host a number of clients’ sites as well. So, as I didn’t want to buy his webhosting, I thought I’d try another tack – maybe he’d do the upgrades on an ad-hoc basis charging one off fees. No, he didn’t want to do that either. I basically had to buy the 3-course meal or go hungry!

Now, it may well be the case that his business model doesn’t allow for my requirements and that he’s too busy to take on something like this. BUT there is virtually no money whatsoever in reselling webhosting, so it’s not as though selling me the hosting would have made him a huge profit which would then make my business worthwhile to him. And in that particular arena, people are not generally charging high premiums for these types of packages – so I might even have been prepared to pay for the hosted option, even if I did my own hosting!

So after a bit of to-ing and fro-ing by email, the bottom line is that he wasn’t prepared to offer me anything that would solve my problem, even though as a specialist I would hope he has the capability to provide me with a solution that works for me. But he didn’t even really try to negotiate with me or help me find a solution. He just kept going on about how wonderful his hosting solution was, and didn’t really answer the questions I put to him.

One lost sale. One frustrated prospect.

When you lose one sale, you might actually be losing dozens …

The story doesn’t end there. I actually offer this content management system to clients who want to easily and quickly update their content, and I already have several clients using the system. But I no longer have time to stay on top of all the technical details so I’m looking for a specialist to partner with who’ll help me run these sites and provide solutions to my clients and prospects in the content management systems area. So he not only lost the initial sale to me, but he also lost any further purchases I might make from him on behalf of my own business AND all the purchases I would have made from him on behalf of my clients. And who knows, maybe I would have decided to go with his hosting solution somewhere further down the track.

This guy was succeeding at attraction marketing by staying in touch via his ezine which prompted me into initiating a sales conversation, but then he “blew it” because:

1) He wouldn’t sell me what I wanted to buy. He would only offer what he wanted to sell. I was making it as easy as possible to sell to me, and yet he still couldn’t close the sale.

2) He failed to understand that a client has far more value than the initial sale. In this case, had he done a good job with my initial requirement, I would have brought more business to him and probably made referrals as well. As it is, I still have to find someone to do the work on my site, and when I find them, I’ll probably give them all of the other work that comes my way.

For all I know, he has very good reasons for turning my business away. Unfortunately he didn’t communicate them to me, so I’m left with the feeling that he only wanted me to buy what he felt like selling. The net result is that he’s wasted his investment in marketing to me and is unlikely to make the easy profits he might have made from the referrals I would have sent him.

If it had been me, and if the project didn’t suit my business at this time, I would at the very least have explained why I wasn’t able to accept the project and given a referral to someone else who would be interested in the work. This way everyone wins. The client gets their needs met, a colleague or partner gets a new client, and I generate goodwill all round.

The lessons from this experience are that it’s much easier to sell people what THEY want and not what you want, and never forget that the initial sale is the doorway to further, ever more profitable sales. Don’t obstruct sales or frustrate people who are actively seeking your help. So many service businesses have to create demand because prospects are not actively seeking them out, so don’t waste opportunities and easy sales when they come along. Take note of what the market wants and adapt your offering. If you can’t take the project yourself, pass it to an associate and take a referral fee thus maintaining your good relationships with everyone.

Public speaking is not for everybody (we’re not all natural performers!), but if you regularly attend networking events, then you may as well gain the much greater exposure you’ll get as the speaker, than if you simply attend and only get to connect with a few people.

Here are 10 tips for maximising this marketing opportunity:

1. Make sure you speak at events that your target market attends
   OK, this may seem obvious – but most people get this wrong at some stage. If your target market is large corporations, and you find yourself speaking at an event attended by small business owners, then you’re probably not going to get a lot of good business out of it.
2. Choose a topic that your audience wants to learn more about, and create an intriguing topic title
   Design your talks around some aspect of the service that you provide that your audience doesn’t currently understand, but wants to know more about. Create interesting and curiosity provoking titles so that event organisers and attendees alike will be intrigued and want to know more.
3. Educate your audience – don’t try to sell them anything
   The worst talks are always those that involve obvious pitching and selling. Not only is this totally transparent to most people, but these kinds of talks are usually pretty boring. I would suggest that you be smarter than that and use “subliminal” selling. This is not as mysterious as it sounds. All you have to do is give enough information to whet the appetite of your audience, without giving away the farm. (Simply stated, this involves you explaining a concept and telling them what to do, but not how to do it). By speaking knowledgably on your chosen topic you’ll be positioning yourself as an expert and the person to come to for advice next time they have a need for your category of service.
4. Keep it simple and interactive
   Most of us can only concentrate for up to 20 minutes at a time, and most people are not auditory, so learning through listening can be quite challenging. Therefore you should aim to get across only one or two key concepts in your talk, and make it interactive to keep people’s attention. And whatever you do, please don’t do “death by slides”! Powerpoint slides should be used to clarify your message, not bamboozle or bore your audience to death!
5. Practice, practice, practice
   What are the 3 P’s of presenting? Preparation, preparation and preparation! I suggest that you write out your speech in it’s entirety, and then practice speaking it a few times – the cat or dog will probably humour you in this endeavour (or your plants or a long-suffering partner!) Once you’ve rehearsed it a few times, you can list the main points on some index cards, rather than reading a script. This way your talk will seem more natural.
6. Create your own events
   To gain even greater marketing leverage from public speaking you can create your own events. Perhaps you can partner with some other business owners who share your target market, but who don’t compete with you, to hold an event that you invite your combined contacts to.
7. If the thought of speaking in front of people terrifies you or if you want to reach a geographically dispersed audience then … do a teleclass instead!
   There’s no reason to limit yourself to only those events that you and your audience can physically get to. Setting up a teleclass, teleseminar or webinar is pretty easy and inexpensive these days.
8. Re-purpose and re-use your talk
   The mistake a lot of people make is to assume that every time they give a talk, they’ve got to come up with something new. But this is just extra work and extra stress. After all, comedians don’t do a different show at every venue they play at, so unless your audience is the same people, then you don’t need a new talk! Most high-fee earners have a signature talk that they’ve perfected over the months or years, and they’ll be invited to events to give that specific talk.
9. End your talk with an offer
   Unless you give talks for the good of your health, you’ll want to motivate your audience to take the next step with you. Most speakers miss the critical step of giving a “call to action” at the end of their talks, or they aim for the immediate sale rather than courting interest that will get them more sales long term. Rather than trying to sell straight away, you should intrigue your audience by offering them a free report or other giveaway in exchange for their business cards and permission to follow up with them. Those who are interested in what you offer or the information you can provide, will give you their contact details and thereby “put their hands up” as being potential candidates for your services.
10. Follow up
    Once you have the contact details of your talk attendees, you should follow up with them multiple times with a structured follow up sequence. The easiest way to do this is to ask them to subscribe to your ezine.

And remember this – those who succeed through public speaking and media exposure are not necessarily any better at what they do than you are. The only difference is that they’re better at getting themselves into the limelight and then leveraging that to their advantage. Whilst you don’t have to become some media-hungry pseudo-celebrity, you can leverage all of your public speaking opportunities to build your credibility, increase your exposure and create an audience interested in what you have to say on your area of expertise.