Steve Slaunwhite's Blog, page 9

Is your "winning formula" still working?

Click here to subscribe in iTunes; or, listen to the audio version below:

[image error]If you're a successful solo professional or small business owner, you probably have a set of marketing activities that work well for you. Those activities could be some combination of prospecting, social media, networking, publicity, direct mail, or other tactics.

I call this your "winning formula".

For example, if you're a consultant you might use articles, SEO, and online networking to attract all the new business you need.

If you run a larger small business, your winning formula might involve trade shows, Google Adwords, and speaking.

No two businesses have exactly the same winning formula — nor should they. (Which is why I don't like cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all marketing programs. But I digress.)

But what do you do if your winning formula isn't, well, winning anymore?

That's what happened with a client I worked with earlier this year. He runs a small training firm and his winning formula for generating all the leads he needed was to do free workshops across the country.

That strategy worked well for him for years.

But guess what? Things changed. His prospects weren't as interested in attending live workshops as they once were. And travelling to do them was becoming more and more time-consuming and expensive.

Now, my client could have doggedly hung on to his marketing strategy. He could have said, "We'll make this work, dammit. We've just got to improve our workshops and promote them better." But that would have been like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Instead, he did a very smart and brave thing.

He decided to develop a NEW winning formula for attracting leads and clients.

Working with me as his marketing consultant and copywriter, we created a new website for his business that educates and engages his prospects in very much the same way his workshops did. Then we set up a marketing system that utilizes social media, email, and webinars to draw in prospects who are most likely to have an interest in his services.

His new winning formula began to get good results almost right away. And today, he tells me he's generating about 24% more leads than he was when he was dragging his suitcase across the country doing workshops.

So what's the lesson here for your business?

I'm not suggesting you toss everything you're doing just because you're not getting good enough results. Your winning formula might just need some tweaking and revising.

But what I am suggesting is that you at least consider the possibility that what you're doing to generate leads may not be working anymore and that you need to think of a new, fresh approach.

That's not such a bad situation to be in. In fact, developing a new "winning formula" may be the best thing you can do for your business.

Do special reports still work? They do, if…

During a coaching session with a client yesterday, the topic of special reports came up.

As you're probably aware, many business owners use special reports, white papers, audio recordings, and other forms of "free information" to encourage newsletter sign-ups, generate leads, and position themselves as experts in their fields.

But my coaching client was concerned about trying this tactic.

She asked, "I've heard that special reports don't work well anymore because everyone offers them. Is that true?"

Well, there is some truth to that. Special reports don't work as well as they did, say, ten years ago. But they can still be a VERY effective tool for generating leads and attracting clients.

If… and this is a big if… you get the topic right.

Your choice of topic is critical to the success of any special report or other information piece you create to help promote your business. Here's a quick story that illustrates just how important it is:

A couple of years ago, I worked with a graphic designer who was about to create a special report on how to design an effective logo. He was going to offer it in a direct mail letter to a list of 350 prospects — corporate marketing managers, mostly — in his area.

When he told me of his plan, I agreed with the strategy but was worried about the topic of his report. So I challenged him.

"Dave, who would be most interested in a report on how to create a logo?" I asked.

He thought about it for a moment and then answered sheepishly, "I guess other logo designers."

"Not the prospects you're mailing the letter to?" I asked.

"No," he said. Dave was clearly not happy with the realization that he almost sunk money into a special report and letter campaign that probably would have flopped.

The good news was, he hadn't actually created the report yet. So I asked him, "What do you know about logo design that would be really helpful to marketing managers?

We discussed it for a while and came up with a new topic: how to review logo concepts and select the best candidate — a task with which marketing managers often struggle.

Dave changed his report topic accordingly and came up with the title: The 5-Step Evaluation Process for Selecting the Perfect Logo Design. It was a winner. When he offered the free report in a mailing to local marketing managers a whopping 7% responded and few became brand new clients.

So if you're thinking of creating a special report, white paper, video tutorial or some other information piece to offer potential clients on your website or in your marketing campaigns, think long and hard about the topic.

The topic must, must, must be of HIGH interest to your prospects. It's got to be relevant, compelling and useful to them.

If it is, your special report stands a good chance of helping you generate more leads and attract more clients.

If it isn't, your special report may sit on the home page of your website and look pretty. But it won't do much for your business.

The (Surprisingly) Best Time to Quote Your Price

Click here to subscribe in iTunes; or, listen to the audio version below:

Imagine this scenario . . .

The phone rings. It's a prospective client and she wants to discuss a possible project with you. You're excited. Then, as the conversation progresses, the inevitable topic of price comes up. She wants to know approximately how much you're going to charge for the work.

How do you reply?

At this point, many business owners would say something like, "Let me get some project details and I'll get back to you within the next couple of days with a quotation."

That might sound like a reasonable way to proceed — but it actually lowers your chances of winning the work.

What you should do instead is give the client a ballpark price right away. Then submit a formal quotation or proposal later on to nail down specifics.

Why ballpark your price during that first conversation?

First of all, it allows you to deal with price issues right away.

Say you don't talk about price on the initial call but instead work out a formal quotation and send it a day or two later. If the client has an issue with the price upon receiving your proposal, she may choose not to talk to you about it — and, instead, go with another professional or company. Now that opportunity is lost.

However, if you ballpark your fee while you have the prospect on the phone, you have a chance to deal with any price objections right then and there, and possibly save the deal.

This happened to me just a few days ago.

I was discussing a consulting project over the phone with a prospective client and — you guessed it — he asked about price. I gave him a ballpark estimate and he said, "Ouch, that's a bit higher than we were budgeting for." We talked about it, negotiated a little, and I ultimately ended up getting that project.

I highly doubt that would have happened if I just sent him a quote the next day.

And here's another benefit. Ballparking your price can also save you a lot of time and energy.

What if your prospect can't afford, or is not willing to pay, your professional rates? Wouldn't you rather find that out right away, instead of wasting time preparing and submitting a formal proposal?

Finally, when you quote a ballpark price, some clients will be satisfied and give you the go-ahead right there on the phone. I've had many projects where I quoted a ballpark and the client said, "Yes, that sounds fine. When can we get started?" After that, submitting the formal quotation is little more than a formality.

I know what you're thinking. "How do you come up with a ballpark figure so quickly, while on the phone or meeting with a prospect?"

That's easy. You simply create a fee schedule with the price ranges for projects and services you typically handle. And then have that available when discussing your services with prospects.

Your fee schedule doesn't have to be perfect. Remember, you're just quoting a rough ballpark.

So when a client asks about price, don't reply with some variation of, "I'll get back to you on that." Give him or her a rough idea of what your services are going to cost. Your chances of landing the client will go way up if you do.

Quick (and Inexpensive) Ways to Find Prospect Names

Click here to subscribe in iTunes; or, listen to the audio version below:

I've been doing a lot of marketing workshops lately — seminars, webinars, group coaching, you name it — and a question that keeps coming up again and again is, "How do I find prospect names?"

If you market a service to businesses, perhaps you're struggling with the same issue. You want to call, email, or send a direct mail letter to potential clients in a particular niche market. You have the company names. But you don't have the names of the appropriate decision makers inside those companies that you should be reaching out to.

How do you get those names?

Well, there's a slow way. A quick way. And a few other ways that are in the "happy medium" category.

The slow way is to do your own research. Basically, that means scouring company websites and press releases, and even cold calling companies, to find out who you should be contacting about your services. Now that's very time-consuming and, frankly, not a lot of fun. But it's an option.

The fast way is to buy the information. For example, you could go to a business information service, such as Hoovers.com, and purchase a list of prospect names.

But that's expensive. To get decision maker names and contact information from a good business information service, you're looking at around $1 to $2 per contact. Maybe more.

That may actually be worth the money — if you have the budget.

But what if you don't?

Well, then you have to look at list building solutions in the "happy medium" category, where you're doing some of the work and maybe even investing a few bucks, but you're keeping the time and money you spend to a minimum.

Here are my favorite five of those list building strategies.

1. Google alerts.

Google has a great feature where you can be alerted via email whenever a particular topic is mentioned in the news.

This is a great tool for building your prospect list. If you're targeting HR managers in the transportation and logistics industry, for example, you can set up an alert for those keywords. Almost immediately, you'll start getting links to press releases, web pages and other information — a good portion of which will contain the names of the prospects you're after.

To find this tool, just Google "Google alerts".

2. Google's advanced search.

Often the decision maker's name that you're after is on the company website. Somewhere. But where? It's time-consuming to search every page manually. And some B2B company websites have hundreds of pages. And you don't want to spend hours going through all those!

So let Google do the work for you.

Go to www.google.com/advanced_search. There, you can do a search that's limited to a specific website. Search for "marketing manager" within UPS.com, for example, and you'll quickly find dozens of names. (UPS has lots of marketing managers!)

3. LinkedIn search.

Most business professionals have a profile on LinkedIn.com. In fact, you'd be hard pressed to find one of your prospects who isn't on that popular social media site.

On LinkedIn, you can do a search for company names and job titles that can yield dozens of prospect names. The information you get will depend on the "connection" you have with that person. And there are some other limitations, too. Still, LinkedIn can be a great list-building tool.

A few months ago, a coaching client I was working with lamented she couldn't find the names of marketing and communications managers at a large company she was targeting. While on the phone, we did a search in LinkedIn and found all the names in seconds.

4. Jigsaw.com

Jigsaw.com is a business information service, similar to Hoovers.com and InfoUSA.com. Basically, you can go there and buy a list of prospect names. But I put it here in the happy medium category because Jigsaw can be very affordable, depending on how you use it.

My friend Ed Gandia (my co-author of The Wealthy Freelancer) often recommends Jigsaw. And I've spoken with several other business owners who also endorse it.

5. Professional associations.

My favorite way to identify prospects is to join the professional association they belong to. For example, if you're targeting the non-profit sector with your grant writing and consulting services, you'll find that a lot of your potential clients are members of the Association of Fundraising Executives.

When you join a professional association, you often get access to the membership list. And, of course, there are usually restrictions as to how you can use that list. But for less than $500 — the average fee to join most associations — it's still the best list-building deal in town.

So there you have it. Five ways to build a prospect list without having to spend too much time and money. Try a couple of these techniques and see how they work for you. Keep in mind, however, that building a solid prospect list is never easy, no matter how you do it.

It's not easy. But it's worth it.