More Clients - the Online Marketing Newsletter
for Independent Professionals
from Action Plan Marketing
and Robert MiddletonIn This Week's Issue: Learn how to generate excitement from your prospects every time you communicate your marekting message.
Generating Excitement
Successful InfoGuru marketers have a secret weapon that they use every single time they communicate about their businesses. It's one of those intangibles that is easily misunderstood.
It's the ability to generate excitement about what you have to offer. And when your prospects are excited about your services, marketing becomes a whole lot easier. Your get more attention, more response, more sales and more referrals.
Excitement is often misunderstood because we usually equate excitement purely with displays of high energy and enthusiasm. The stereotypical marketer is PT Barnum and Anthony Robbins rolled into one with enough energy to light a small city.
This ideal is not so easy to emulate. Most of us give up on the idea of generating excitement because we don't think we have the personality for it. We feel it would be artificial and forced.
Does an infectious enthusiasm about what you offer make a difference? Of course it does, but I believe it's only a small part of the equation. It's way overrated. Enthusiasm can be shallow. It can me manufactured. It offers no real proof that what you offer delivers true value.
Prospects don't become interested and excited about your services just because you show enthusiasm. They become excited when they understand that your services will make a real difference in their lives and their businesses.
What I find so frequently with Independent Professionals is that they have failed to discover and articulate the *inherent excitement* in the services they are offering. When they discover that excitement and learn how to express it, their marketing goes to a whole new level.
While I was writing this I got a call from a client, a financial planner, who I had helped with the copy on his web site. His previous site failed to generate excitement and he wasn't getting any new business from it. With the new copy, prospects got excited and started to call him. He now generates most of his new business from this web site.
The good news is that generating excitement is a whole lot easier than it may sound.
Let me paint you a little scenario.
We have two sales consultants, A and B. They both do pretty much the same thing (they even offer the same program). They are equally intelligent and capable of producing valuable results for their clients. However their messages are very different:
Consultant A uses the following marketing message:
We offer sales training for people newly entering your sales team. We use the Fast Start Sales Training System which is specifically designed for new salespeople. We offer training programs from one day to one week in duration and we cover all the most important sales skills. We are able to customize the training programs for your industry and company. We have experience in 107 industries.Consultant B uses the following marketing message:
Are your new sales people slow in getting started and meeting their quota? We use the Fast Start Sales Training System that's guaranteed to help new sales people reach their quota in 60 days or less. Our customized system ensure that your salespeople meet or exceed their quota 82% more frequently than sales people who have not used our system. Proven in 107 industries, including yours, our system increases revenue per salesperson by an average of 63% in the first year.Do you see the difference?
Consultant A talks about the training services he offers and the process he delivers. It is all about what he does, there is nothing about what the prospect gets. There is no inherent excitement in this message. And no matter how enthusiastically he delivers this message it will fail to generate excitement in the prospect.
Consultant B focuses his message on exactly what his prospects will receive from his sales training programs. Even though he offers the identical program, his message, expressed in the language of solutions and results, is inherently exciting. This consultant doesn't need to show wild enthusiasm for what he is offering, quiet confidence will do.
If you want your prospects to get excited about what you are offering, the magic key is to start talking about specific solutions and results. It's as simple at that, but it's amazing how many people miss this completely.
Take a look at your own marketing messages, both verbal and written, and ask if they pass the excitement test. If they don't, work at making the necessary changes as quickly as possible. You'll start seeing results almost immediately.
More on "Generating Excitement " in Marketing Flashes below.
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The InfoGuru Marketing How-To Series - Volume I
I've been getting such great response from the recent series of TeleSeminar interviews with marketing experts that I decided to put them into a complete package at about half the price.
Volume I of the series consists of Six CDs and a hard copy 195 Book of Transcriptions with all the interviews.
You'll get the following:
How to Develop a Marketing Message with Michel Neray - Reveals all the subtleties to developing a message that gets attention and interest.
How to Network for Leads with Bob Burg - Outlines an approach to networking that will generate a consistent stream of qualified leads.
How to Generate a Flood of Referrals with John Jantsch - Shows you how to create a system for generating endless referrals.
How to Build a Responsive Email List with Bob Serling - Explains the most important strategies for building a great list.
How to Sell to Big Companies with Jill Konrath - Demonstrates proven approaches to get your foot in the doors of top executives.
Bonus CD - How to Get Free PR with Jill Lublin - Gives you the techniques and strategies for getting attention in the media.
These six programs with CDs and transcripts have been selling for $35 each - a total of $210. For a limited time, I have 33 copies available for $101 off this price. For details, and to order, go here:
http://www.actionplan.com/transformmktg.html* * * * * * * *
InfoGuru Marketing Manual - The place to start
Everyone asks me what they should order first from Action Plan Marketing. And I always recommend the InfoGuru Marketing Manual. It provides the solid foundation for marketing your Independent Professional practice.
Below is a brief synopsis of what's included in the InfoGuru Marketing Manual. These fourteen points below will give you a good snapshot:
http://www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html- It was developed exclusively for Independent Professionals such as consultants, coaches, trainers and other service professionals who are great at what they do, but have a hard time consistently attracting clients to their businesses.
- The manual is based on a few powerful marketing principles that, once you understand them will transform your marketing. These essential principles are missed by almost everyone (and implemented by even fewer).
- The marketing principles contained in the manual will help you increase interest in your services, build trust and credibility with prospects, get prospects wanting to learn more about what you do, and create a steady stream of word-of-mouth business.
- It goes way beyond theory, vague generalizations or concepts, and contains hundreds of hands-on marketing strategies and action plans that are easy to implement, even if you have no marketing experience.
- It includes foundational marketing information on things like creating an attention-getting marketing message, and then goes into depth on the most recent marketing techniques of web marketing and eZines.
- You can read it like a book -- you can go through it slowly and do the exercises like a home-study course -- or you can refer to it whenever you have a question about marketing your business.
- It comes with over 11 hours of audio files with teleclasses and interviews on the finer points of marketing your services. These audio files alone are worth the price of the manual.
- I've included a boatload of extras, including 150 pages of articles, dozens of resources and, most importantly, the InfoGuru Support Forum, where you can get any question about marketing your services answered for free.
- The Support Forum can be used to answer questions, provide resources, and get "peer-review" of marketing materials, web sites, proposals and sales letters, as well as explore the more complex and confusing aspects of attracting clients to your business.
- It will help remove the mystery and struggle about marketing and selling that so many Independent Professionals experience, and will help you realize that marketing can actually be fun.
- It comes with my unconditional guarantee. Get it and try it. If you don't think it's worth much more than what you paid, tell me and I'll refund 100% of your purchase price.
- Unlike most marketing information sold on the web, the manual is available in both digital format (.pdf file) for immediate download, and for just a few dollars more, you can get a printed manual as well.
- The InfoGuru Marketing Manual was published in February of 2001, and it's just as relevant today, because I add to it regularly with updates of the manual that can be downloaded repeatedly at no additional cost.
- If you are looking for one tool that will help you attract clients with an approach and methodology that is highly effective but doesn't compromise your integrity, you've found it!
For complete details and to order online go to:
http://www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marketing Flashes on "The Problem-Solution Path"
You will generate excitement with all your marketing messages and written marketing copy if you use the "Syntax of Excitement." Put your information in the following order for best results.
1. Problem - Information on the problems, issues or challenges your prospects are facing.
2. Solution - Information on what things would be like if the problem, issue or challenge were resolved.
3. Offer - What do you have to offer that can address the problem and provide the solution.
4. Benefits - What are all the reasons your offer is the best solution for your clients?
5. Credibility - Who else has experienced your offer and gotten good results? What is your background and success record?
6. Action - What do you need to do next to take advantage of this offer?
Until next week, all the best,
Robert Middleton
ACTION PLAN MARKETING
Helping Independent Professionals Attract More Clients~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
210 Riverside Drive
Boulder Creek, CA 95006
831-338-7790© 2004 Robert Middleton, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the More Clients eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read:
"By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert's web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses."
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