More Clients - the Online Marketing Newsletter
for Independent Professionals
from Action Plan Marketing
and Robert MiddletonIn This Week's Issue: How do you explain the value of your services without boring prospects with a lot of abstract concepts?
Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time there was a very resourceful Independent Professional. She was very smart and produced great results for her clients. But every time someone asked her about her business she went into long conceptual explanations about how her services worked... but they rarely persuaded.
People could sense she was very knowledgeable, but they really didn't understand how her services could help them.
I'll bet you've been there. Have you ever tried to explain your business to someone and they just didn't get it? And the harder you tried, the more confused they got.
The good news is that the solution is very simple.
You need to tell a story.
Stories get your ideas across more powerfully than anything else because there is emotion in a story. When you put all your focus on concepts, there's no emotion and it's simply hard to relate to.
So how do you tell a story that has the maximum impact, a story that interests, persuades and motivates the prospect to take action?
All it takes are three simple steps:
Tell your listener what the original situation was like, tell them what you did for the client, and tell them what the results were. I'm going to take a few stories from my current Marketing Action Groups to give you a better idea how to tell a story that promotes your business.
The current situation...
"A client called me because they wanted to develop an alliance with an accounting firm that I'd had some experience with. But on my first day there, the board decided it was time to go raise a round of venture capital. The CEO hadn't done that before, and to be successful, needed a bigger product vision."
- Steve Tennant - steve@tennantconsulting.com (USA)"One of our clients is a lawyer who has a real estate practice. That's a very demanding business and tremendously price competitive. This lawyer worked hard and earned a decent income, but he couldn't save for his retirement. Since law practices don't sell for much money, he had no chance of building up salable goodwill. To achieve his savings goals, he thought he had to expand his practice, hire more help, and maybe even find a younger lawyer to become his partner. But he avoided doing those things since he knew they would be terribly draining. Working even harder wasn't very attractive to him."
- Hank Bulmash - hbulmash@bulmashcullemore.com (Canada)"I recently worked with a professional firm who had just had their first partner appraisal. They were pretty shocked with the feedback they received from their staff, as it was so negative. Their staff said that they were very poor managers and had terrible organisational skills."
- Penny Sophocleous - penny@ifconsulting.info (England)OK, all of these set the ground work. All the clients have presented a specific, well-defined problem. And each story speaks to the issues of their potential clients.
What we did was...
This is where you want to succinctly explain some of the things you actually did with the client. This demonstrates your expertise and gives a range of what you are capable of.
"I worked with them part-time over the next couple months. I interviewed customers, partners at the accounting firms, and developed the product vision and investor presentation. The CEO was a first time CEO, and my involvement helped to give her software industry credibility. We successfully got meetings and presented our story to over 50 VC firms. During that time, I developed a couple online web seminars and created alliance relationships with the accounting firms.""We suggested he create a list of the clients he had served and put together a real estate investment partnership. All of his clients had invested in their own homes, and they had done well. We thought some clients would be interested in owning a piece of a rental building. A property management firm could manage the building, and the lawyer could be the operating partner for the group -- and take an ownership percentage as his fee."
"The managing partner and HR director invited me to work in a one-to-one coaching relationship with as many of the partners as wanted to improve their performance. The problems we tackled ranged from terrible time management and organisational skills, poor interpersonal skills, stress and work-life imbalance, and inadequate marketing abilities. We worked with each of the eight partners over a period of six months, and they all reported significant improvements in all areas."
And the results are..
Here you want to share the bottom line results that came as a result of working with you. If you can give actual figures such as increases in revenues or decreases in costs, all the better.
"The company closed $7M in funding from three top-tier firms, and I helped attract the rest of the management team and ran marketing and alliances. The company now has about 20 employees and is developing the next three products in the product vision.""That was four years ago. Now he owns a share in three rental buildings. He's working no harder than he did before, but now he knows he'll have an asset base when he needs it."
"We did a survey six months after completion to measure exactly how much better they had gotten, and it showed an improvement in productivity of 33% across the board, as well as scores of 60% improvement in the various skill-sets. Needless to say, partner appraisals in the second year reflected much better feedback for all the partners who had undergone the coaching."
Now don't you agree that these simple but very focused stories told by Steve, Hank and Penny have more impact than pages of concepts explaining their services?
And if this storytelling formula (also called case studies) will work for them, it will certainly work for you as well.
More on "Once Upon a Time" in Marketing Flashes below.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marketing Action Groups - Almost Full
From the announcement last week for the Marketing Action Groups we now have 24 on the waiting list which is the total spaces we have available for the January semester. I expect a few will not opt to join a group, so it's not too late to apply. You can do so at the link below.
http://www.actionplan.com/actiongroup.html* * * * * *
If You're a Procrastinator...
One of the biggest things stopping people from buying or investing in something is doubt that it will work for them. This goes for the InfoGuru Marketing Manual. However, people who have been getting More Clients for years finally breakdown and do order it. One of them sent me the following testimonial:
"TELL PEOPLE TO STOP PROCRASTINATING AND INVEST IN THIS MANUAL! I could kick myself for not ordering your system sooner! I just wanted to let you know that my investment in the InfoGuru Marketing Manual has already paid off. Today I closed a $12,000 deal on a series of sales training workshops. This is clearly a program that would not have been sold a week ago."Here's the great part. I haven't even completed Chapter 6 of the online manual or received the hard-bound manual yet. Now I have 12,000 reasons to call myself an InfoGuru!" - Steve Johns, Steve Johns International
As my friend John Eggen says, "There is no better investment than marketing." But you need to do more than think about it. If you've been putting off getting the manual, perhaps today is the day.
And what do you have to lose? The manual is 100% guaranteed. If you feel it's not for you, for whatever reason, I'll happily refund your full purchase price.
Find out more about the InfoGuru Marketing Manual at the link below and order online today (but only if you're ready :-).
http://www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Marketing Flashes on "Once Upon a Time"
Here are some specific strategies for planning and keeping on track.
* Make your story simple. Just tell what happened. You don't have to embellish. The story itself does the persuading. Better to start by writing a longer story and then editing it down to its essence.
* Make sure there is a real problem revealed in the first part of the story, something a potential client will immediately relate to. You're looking for a "that's what I'm going through" response.
* Don't overdo the part about what you did and how you did it. Just telling the basics of what you did is usually enough to give you credibility. If you get too detailed and technical, you'll lose interest.
* Tell a story where there is a stark contrast between the initial situation and the final result. The result the client receives should be one that your prospects universally agree is desirable.
* Prepare at least half a dozen good stories. Tell enough that they cover the spectrum of client situations. Use these stories in your web site and whenever someone ask you about your business.
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."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
