The 8020 Blog

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I’ve been resisting the tug of Social Media Marketing for some years now but the case for engaging in blogs, Twitter, YouTube and possibly facebook is now compelling.

Case in point: David Thorne had 60,000 people confirming their attendance at “Kate’s birthday party” (a fictitious event at a real apartment) and another 180,000 waiting to have their attenance confirmed. Then facebook smelt a rat and shut it down.

Click here for the full story (hopefully the link is still live, unlike David’s invitation).

Now perhaps face book is not the best business to business social marketing medium but it still begs the question: if a prankster can get 240,000 people interested in gate crashing a party that doesn’t exist … what can you do with Social Media marketing to get new clients interested in you and your business.

Hmmm … worth thinking about huh?

Click here for a link to a video recording of a webinar that Social Media marketing guru, Russell Holland presented on the subject: How To Use Social Media Marketing For Real Business Returns

Enjoy.

PS if you want a good belly laugh check out David’s web site here: http://www.27bslash6.com/.

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My last post was entitled  “Show Up”.

It was about how virtually all 7 figure earners will faithfully turn up to programs and attend every session in a course where many others drop out after the the 2nd or 3rd meetings.

If you find you are experiencing a similar issue with client burn out there are a couple of things that you can do to extend the average “lifetime” of your clients.

The first and most obvious is to make sure that your product is meeting the needs of your ideal client and that it’s delivered in such a way that they actually get value out of it.

The second, often over-looked tactic, is to educate your clients in regard to what they will be feeling and thinking and when.

For example, in the later 1990’s I was running a three year curriculum based workshop program for business owners called the Entrepreneurs Success Programme (ESP) where clients would attend a workshop every 3 months over the 3 years.

As a part of the new client orientation process we would explain that sometime between the 2nd and 3rd meeting they may feel like they are not making progress and would want to give up. We would also tell them why that was not a good idea and we provided testimonials of other clients who had felt the same but who had persisted and were glad they had done so because of the great results they were getting.

This is like a “pre-emptive” strike. When the client began to think about quitting they generally recalled what we had said and more often than not they would choose to continue.

Depending on the group and the year, we normally had between 67% - 75% of our clients renewing from year 1 to 2 and 90% renewal rate from year 2 to 3.

We were the envy of every competitor including the universities and institutes of management.

By way contrast, an internationally recognized private sector competitor of ours, also marketing a 3 year business development programme, was literally losing 90% of clients before the 6 month mark.

Why? Well the truth is I don’t know for sure but I can take a guess.

The quality of our competitors clients appeared to be similar to ours so that was not a factor.

But we packaged our content in workshops and CDs whereas our competitor packaged it all in a series or booklets and we also kept our content very pragmatic and shied away from nice theories.

We also did a very good job of creating realistic expectations in our marketing message (see my post “The Perfectly Balanced Marketing Message”) and we extended that “expectation education” process during the new client orientation process as mentioned above.

The preemptive strike is an excellent client retention tactic - figure out what clients and thinking and when they will probably start thinking that. Then include that as a part of your client orientation program.

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I was listening to a colleague this morning as he shook his head and talked about the 8 week (one hour a week) tele-seminar series he had just finished conducting.

Dan said 137 people started the series, all of whom ponied up with more than $1,000 at the start, but that by the time of the last session the numbers had dwindled to 36 people.

I know Dan’s work and frankly it’s brilliant. However the fact that 74% of his students are failing to show up still did not surprise me at all. I’ve been in courses and witnessed similar statistics. Sometimes it felt like I was going to be “the last man standing” in some sort of old cowboy and Indian shoot-em-up movie.

Most of the time people enroll in programs or courses with the correct idea that they will gain valuable information which when they implement (key words) will help them in their business.

Then they show up a few times but once the excitement of the honeymoon period is over (normally by the 3rd meeting) and the realization dawns on them that THEY actually have to do some thinking and gosh darn heck maybe even a little work …. that’s when their brain starts to hurt and they go someplace else looking for a less painful (and more unrealistic) alternative.

The critical ability to show up - and to keep showing up - in order to extract value from a course or program, is common sense but alas, not common place.

I tend to retain my highest achieving clients - the million dollar plus earners - for anywhere between 3 and 7 years. And I am convinced that it has far more to do with their ability to show up than it has to do with me.

And here’s the thing … they typically have more reasons to not show up than others and some of those reasons can even be quite urgent and profit-threatening. Yet they still show up to virtually each and every session, month after month for year after year even in the face of those other reasons which lower-earners give in to.

So if you are a small business owner and you join a program or buy a course because you want more clients or whatever, do yourself a favor … show up and keep showing up.

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In my last blog I wrote about how important it is to strike a balance in your marketing message  between:

1. A clear and compelling offer and…

2. Incorporating believability and “do-ability” (as in “yes, I can achieve those results too”)

The mistake I made in launching my current business three years ago was to make my Customer Value Statement “Make your business worth millions“.

I’d had a bunch of clients who had achieved that and I thought the idea would appeal to my target market so that’s the message I adopted.

Fortunately, enough people found the the hook compelling - partly because I backed up my claim with solid testimonial evidence or because they knew my work from past experience.

However in adopting the message “Make Your Business Worth Millions” I also lost a great deal of people that I was targeting … these were people with good businesses who were doing well and who may well have believed that others had done it … but failed to buy into “do-ability” as in “I could make my business worth millions too”.

I now get a better response with “Get more clients, make more money, have more fun“. It sounds more achievable as well as more do-able.

What’s your message? Is it clear and compelling and does it incorporate believability and do-ability?

Worth thinking about…

It would be remiss of me not to let you know that today I put 200 packages up for grabs … each one contains $716.83 of profit-explosion material including 3 very significant videos and 6 CDs plus a whole bunch of other cool stuff … for no charge, other that a small one-off postal fee which does not even cover half my costs of shipping it all to you.

I promised my clients I would give them first option to grab the packages which I did this morning. They have snatched 91 of them so there are 107 left … you can take a look and see if you want to secure one of the remaining packages while they are still there … click here: Money Rainmaker Gift and you’ll find out why I giving it all away.

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Yanik Silver is an on-line marketer who has made millions and has also taught others how to make small fortunes as well. He’s written many “how to make it big” style books and courses.

Interestingly though, he says that his best selling book is NOT about making millions. It’s called “Moonlighting On The Internet” and its main promise is that readers will learn how to make a couple of hundred dollars extra per month (to a couple of thousand) over the internet by putting in a few extra hours at home every night.

There are a couple of lessons in here that explain why it’s his best seller.

One is that people are looking for “believability”, as in “yes that sounds possible”. Many, many more people will believe (and buy) the idea that making $500 a month over the internet is achievable as opposed to making millions.

The second lesson is about “do-ability” as in “I think I can do that too“.

If your marketing message is “believable” and “doable” then you will sell a whole lot more than others who make their claims so big that people question them, or at the very least question whether they as the reader could get the same results.

Of course you still have to make your “hook” interesting and compelling … but there is a balance, a middle path between under and over promising. (American-style hype over-promises but the natural Kiwi and Aussie style tends to under-promise.)

So have a look at your marketing messages. Would your Ideal Clients find them clear and compelling as well as believable and doable?

If so, then you have achieved the perfect balance.

In the next blog I will give you a real life example of how I made a costly mistake before I learned this lesson.

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When it comes to marketing, business owners need to develop two types of discipline.

There’s the discipline of doing marketing (a little every day is the recipe that works best for me) and then there is the discipline of NOT doing other things.

As a business owner it’s likely that you know that you need to do marketing but instead you probably revert to activity where there is no threat of rejection or failure i.e. your Comfort Zone.

Comfort Zone activities include improving your product, dealing with suppliers, getting the financial records sorted out, attending staff meetings, clearing emails and so on and so on and so on.

The key is to get the hell out of your Comfort Zone, take the rejection (you WILL get it) and do some marketing.

Of course, do it smart … figure out a clear and compelling value proposition … but then DO IT.

You will never experience growth whilst sitting in your Comfort Zone - it’s as true in your personal life as it is in your business.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” - Anais Nin

.. is not “everyone”.

“Everyone” was the answer I received from a new client today about who her target market was … to be fair, I did not make the question detailed enough, nor did I give her sufficient examples, up to that point in time.

But her answer highlights a very important principle though in regard to marketing strategy.

The principle is that the more “niched” you make your target market the more appealing you can make  your service/product offerings and the more powerful you can make your marketing.

When it comes to marketing and getting more clients, specificity is power.

For example, an accountant who thinks that “everyone” is a potential client will probably wind up with a lot of tax compliance work with low margin invoices because he/she ends up competing on price.

But the accountant who targets (for example) businesses with over 2 million turnover and more than 10 staff can create services that meet the specific needs of that niche e.g. how to fund growth, how to get EBIT up, payroll, HR issues, time issues etc AND can craft a message to that market that speaks to those needs.

This makes marketing MUCH more powerful … and the product/service offerings much more appealing. Together, this is quite a potent combination.

A common mistake you may find yourself making is trying to be all things to all people … out of fear of missing out on a potential sale.

It takes courage to niche … but ironically you will not miss out on many sales, if any … and you will find it easier to pick up a lot more clients within your chosen niche.

Specialists command more respect than general practitioners and also a much bigger pay check.

The smaller the niche, to a point, the better return you will get on your marketing dollar.

At the risk of dropping a “niche cliche” … the riches are in the niches.

Craig S was kind enough to comment on my last blog post (Thick Skin) and even kinder in recommending the book “Rework” which I immediately ordered (it’s written by a team of creative computer nerds whom I very, very much admire at www.37signals.com)

Craig suggested that the book was a very interesting read, even if it was somewhat opinionated.

Here’s the thing though: when it comes to the quality of your small business (or your life, for that matter), your opinion is pretty much all you’ve got. Even when you listen to others and agree or disagree with them, it’s still your opinion of what they just said.

We’re a little like turtles in that we only make progress if we are prepared to stick our neck out.

So please: be opinionated (frankly, it’s the only way the world can change).

Here’s a note that I forgot to post from last year … a little late perhaps but nevertheless the message is highly relevant still …

One of my recommendations to clients is that once a year they attend an offshore conference run by an association for their industry. It’s a great way to gain rich new insights into overseas trends, to create new joint venture relationships and to stir the creative commercial juices.

I’m off tomorrow for a marketing conference in Atlanta, Georgia for 4 days. It will be “full on” from 8am to 10pm (and later!) every day and I will be like a pig in mud, enjoying every minute of it.

I’ll doubtless buy half a dozen products including at least 2 subscriptions to clubs or membership sites and I’ll pick up at least 67 new ways to run my business.

On the 25 hour return plane flight I’ll then sift through it all and pick the one or two or three things that I can put into place what will make the biggest difference to my marketing results and to my clients.

Attending such conferences has always been a great investment and I encourage you to do the same: find the money, make the time and do it. Every year. It will prevent stagnation and stimulate new growth both in your brain and in your business and your clients will be pleased to see you continuing to invest in staying leading edge.