One of my mentors is the speaker Michael Gerber, author of the underground best-selling book The E-Myth (which I recommend highly). His book is about what is wrong with almost every small business and what to do to fix it. Michael is always talking about your COD. Pardon my language, but that stands for your Crap Out Date. In other words, game over.
His point is not to procrastinate, to do it now, because once you reach your COD you won’t have any more opportunities. That reminds me of what I heard another speaker say last year. He said do all you can when you are alive because the dead cannot see, hear, feel or taste. But they do smell.
Hi, this is Henry DeVries, founder of the New Client Marketing Institute. One of my favorite books about overcoming procrastination is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, a best-seller since it was released in 1937. Someone suggested to me the title really should be Think, Act and Grow Rich. You have to take action to get results.
If you don’t want to be frustrated because you don’t have enough qualified prospects to fill your pipeline, then take action. If you don’t be worried because you won’t have enough revenues to pay all the bills, then take action. If you lost a big client and you are concerned about how to replace them, then take action.
My hope for all the readers of this blogsite is that you take strides in this year to put the strategies we teach into action. Don’t wait until everything is perfect. Perfect is the enemy of done. And getting things done and moving on to do more things is what you need to do to win clients.
But what strategy should you follow? One of the most important things I advocate you do in 2007 is really understand the pain of your clients. Then research really great information on the best ways to solve those pains. Next educate these potential clients through a variety of sources like articles on your Web site, special reports, speeches, seminars, white papers, blogs, podcasts and the rest.
One of the most powerful psychological triggers is pain. When delivering your message, focus on the old aspirin vs. vitamins truism (you will always have an easier time selling the aspirin than the vitamin). Tell prospects what they will lose by not taking your advice.
According to Dr. Robert Cialdini in The Power of Persuasion (a third book I highly recommend), you need to tell people more than what they stand to gain. You need to tell them what benefits they will lose if they don’t choose what you offer. People are more motivated by that idea.
Using pain is not about hype or manipulation. There is a proven process for marketing with integrity and getting a 400% to 2000% return on your marketing investment. To attract new clients, the best approach is the Educating Expert Model that demonstrates your expertise by giving away valuable information through writing and speaking. You talk about pain to get attention, but you offer solid medication in the form of best practice advice.
In addition, you can increase closing rates up to 50% to 100% by discovering and rehearsing the right questions to ask prospective clients about their pain. Once you understand their frustrations, worries and concerns, it is amazing how smoothly the rest of the conversation goes.