Imagine a 5 year old boy. Let’s call him Tom.

Tom needs looking after as his mum has to work and you have agreed to help out for a couple of hours after school.

Now, Tom is a typical 5 year old boy. He wants to play football.  He wants to go to the park and climb up trees.  He has been at school all day and yet as enough energy to keep Greater London in power for the month of July.

You, on the other hand, are tired from a hard day of endless phone calls and email bashing.  You would just love to sit down and watch the latest kids DVD together.  After all it looks like rain and you don’t fancy getting wet.

What do you do?  Do you spend the next ten minutes explaining that the wind is picking up and the way that the cumulus nimbus clouds that are forming means that they is a definite probability of heavy precipitation?

Or do you start selling the DVD option?

Whether you have children of your own or not, common sense tells you that when communicating with a 5 year old you need to use simple language and be very clear in your requests.

And this is why I like to compare communicating with potential clients with communicating with children.

If a 5 year old can not grasp the concept of what your business is all about, then there is every chance that your potential client, who knows nothing about you and your business, will not either.

Here are my top tips for treating your clients like children.

1.  Avoid all jargon. There is a big danger that when we live and breathe our businesses, we tend to adopt the language and abbreviations of that business.  This is especially so for technically based businesses and NLP practitioners, for example.

Would you know what web-based CRM interface actually is, let alone know how it could benefit your business?  And how on earth does the average person on the street know how to define neuro-linguistic programming? Or life coaching for that matter?

A quick note on abbreviations – it is just plain rude to assume that your potential customers know what TLA’s are. (answer at the bottom of the article to find out what it means!!)

2.  Use simple language. Using the best part of a Thesaurus on your website home page can look exceptionally pretentious, at the best of times. At worst, if your reader has to pick up a dictionary to understand what you have written, no relationship is going to be built, is it?

3.  Never patronise. Go too simple with your language and your potential customer may take offence to be treated as someone who is one sandwich short of a picnic.  Coming back to Tom – he would certainly take offence to being talked down to and may reward you with a kick in the shins for be treated like a baby!

4.  Avoid using negative language. Tom is carrying a glass of milk across the room and you say to him “Don’t drop the glass”.  What do you think will happen?  Yes, there is every chance that Tom will drop the glass.  Our brains can’t process negatives so we just leave them out.

Think of commonly used phrases such as “Don’t Delay.  Don’t miss out on this special offer”.  Yes, that’s right.  There is a higher chance that your potential client will delay. Far better to use “Book Now.  Reserve your copy today.”

5.  Be very clear in your requests. You would never take Tom to a busy road and just leave him to cross by himself.  You couldn’t afford to take the risk of assuming that he may be street savvy enough to look for cars before crossing.

So, when communicating with your potential customers, whether it is a personal email, an advert or a direct mailing, always be specific with your call to action.

“Call me on 001 234 5678 before Friday at 12 noon if you would like to benefit from this 20% discount”

“Email offer@product.com by the end of the day to reserve your place.”

Never assume your potential customer is going to know what to do.  Be specific and clear and your customer will thank you for making it so easy for them.

5.  Reward with lots of praise and sweets. OK, Tom may be motivated by Smarties and your potential clients may not be.  But use the same principles.  Reward your customers with a simple “Thank you” or “I really appreciate your business” is just as valuable to building relations as continuing discount vouchers and referral rewards.

P.S.  TLA’s is short for Three Letter Acronyms.  Um, annoying isn’t it :0)

Your customers and clients rarely buy what it is that you offer, especially if you are a service based business.  It doesn’t matter whether you are a coach, photographer or website designer – people don’t actually buy the coaching, photos or websites.

And this is why most service-based businesses fail.  The life coach who is trying hard to sell coaching sessions for working mothers gives up after 3 months of networking.

The photographer who is desperately trying to sell wedding photography at every wedding fair he goes to begins to wonder whether he made the right choice leaving his corporate job.

The website designer who offers a bargain basement offer for building a 5 page website starts to discount her fees even further as she panics about next month’s cashflow.

What do all these small business owners have in common?  They are trying to sell what it is that they do.  A common, yet costly mistake to make.

What your clients buy are the end results.  They buy the benefits and rewards to the product or service you deliver.

People don’t buy coaching – they buy the business idea or new career path they get from going through the coaching process.

People don’t buy photos – they buy a gorgeous collection of memories, beautifully presented in leather-bound book that they just know the children they plan to have together will cherish sometime in the future.

People don’t buy websites – they want to found on Page One of Google and have email enquiries flooding in to their inboxes.

It was Heather Gillam of FitBizTraining who inspired this article and it was her that I give credit to one of the best names given to a fitness programme I have come across.

10 days ago I was feeling rather desperate. My mummy tummy muffin-roll had gone beyond cute and cuddly as even my “fat” jeans where uncomfortably tight and the thought of getting in to a bikini on my summer hols was filling me with dread.

Then in popped an email in to my inbox from Heather Gillam.  “Would you be interested in a joining my “guaranteed drop-a-clothes-size-in-a-month bootcamp” starting in 2 weeks?”

What me – be able to guarantee to drop a dress size in a month? Absolutely yes!!

Now, let’s go back to the context of this article.  What response do you think I would have had if Heather sent me an email on that same day and asked if I fancied joining her on a fitness programe?  I probably would have gone away and considered it.  But by packaging up her progamme as a “guaranteed drop-a-dress-size-in-a-month” programme, there was absolutely no room for any doubt on whether I should do this or not.  I even re-scheduled client appointments so I can make the twice weekly sessions.

So, how does this relate to you and your business?  Take a long hard look at what it is you are selling (and coaches – you are the worst culprits in this!).  Are you selling your service and products?  Or you are selling a dream?  A feeling?  A guaranteed result?

Because if you are not selling a dream, a feeling or a guaranteed result, then you need to re-proposition your offer right now.

Give your clients the results they want – and not what it is that you do!

Several months a go I wanted to order a bunch of flowers to be delivered to my sister-in-law in Brighton.  Wanting to find a local florist, I went to Google and searched for “florist in Brighton”.  The first florist I called very politely told me to look at their website and choose one of the bouquets listed there.

OK, I could have done this.  But I was actually in a bit of a rush and wanted to speak to a human being and do an order over the phone.

The second florist on the list was completely different.  Explaining again that I was looking for flowers for my sister-in-law who had just had a baby girl, rather than direct me to her website as the last business had done, she began to ask me questions.

“What’s your budget?”  “Did you have any particular flowers in mind?”  And then she started making suggestions.  She used terms such as “vivid pinks that clash beautifullly with lime green” and “scented without being over powering, which may be a bit much for a new mum”.  She created such a great picture of what it was I wanted that she had a sale from me, right there and then.

Using the 5 senses in your marketing is what makes the difference between a customer going away to make a decision (and probably never coming back) and being drawn in and stopping them in the tracks to make a purchase.  Here’s how to include some or all of the 5 senses in your marketing right now:

Sight – a picture is worth a thousand words so getting the right image to represent your product is essential. Don’t waste this opportunity with poor product photography or downloading an image that has been used a hundred times before.

Sound – using video in websites has been around for a couple of years now, but it’s becoming simpler and cheaper to include a well produced video to engage with your audience.  Jing is a great little piece of kit to get started with – use it to record yourself demonstrating a product or website online.

Taste and Smell – OK so perhaps technology is a little way off yet to give your clients smellivision, but tastes and smells can all be described.  If you sell a product or service that uses these senses, make sure you include a description of them in your sales pages.

Feel – as many businesses choose to market themselves on line via emails and websites, this important sense doesn’t get much of a look in.  Remember your leaflets and business cards – quality, thick card does make a difference!  Direct mailing may be more expensive but don’t ignore it because of the cost.  Your target client may well be more engaged with a glossy brochure or sample product coming through the post.

Every business should have a website, right?

True.  Every business, big or small, should have some sort of web presence.  The internet is part of every day life and, as you don’t need thousands of pounds to get a business online now, there really is little excuse for a business not to a have a website created at some point.

But my question to you today is whether your website is a help or a hindrance?

Just because you’re online, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s doing anything for you.  And worse case scenario is that your website could actually be working against you.

Let’s look at how the average person uses the web.  Did you know that the average time it takes for someone to “read” a website is 3 seconds?

Think back to the last time you used Google to find something.  You may have been looking for the best place to buy toner cartridges for your printer. It could have been that you were trying to find a villa or cottage to rent for your holiday this summer.

Do you remember how long you took to make the decision to hit that back button and go on to the next website on the search results listings?  I am pretty sure it took you less than that average of 3 seconds on the websites that didn’t grab you.

How long would it take for a visitor landing on your home page to make a decision to stay or go?  1 minute?  10 seconds?  Or less than the average 3 seconds?

And imagine if they were on hold to their bank at the time.  Or waiting for a file to download on to their laptop, whilst they click through to your website.  How is your website grabbing their attention?

It could be that your website is being more of a hindrance, than a help!

Here are some of the common “hindrances” that I see every day on websites that don’t generate any leads or new clients for a business.

1. A website that talks about the company and not the potential customer. Look at your home page and for every “We”, “I” and your company name, exchange it for the words “You”, “You” and “You”.  People are only interested in themselves when they are looking for someone to help them. In a previous copy writing article, you can see why it’s all very well explaining you are the market leaders in what you do, but how is that going to benefit your clients?

2. A website that is so obviously “home-made”. You may have gone on a HTML programming course to save yourself a few pennies.  You may have even used your next door neighbour’s son who is studying IT at Uni.  But saving money on your website to end up with a site that doesn’t work in a particular browser or doesn’t display on a mobile phone will only push clients away.  There is really little excuse not to have a nicely designed website. Using blog platforms such as wordpress.org, for example, mean that you can have a simple, professional looking site that works, set up for as little as £500.

3. A website that has a fussy design, clashing colours and is more concerned with how pretty or trendy it looks.  Internet users want to find their information quickly, rather than hunt for it in cleverly worded menus or images.  Flash introductions just annoy – remember the 3 second time limit.  Unless your clients expect to watch a dancing cartoon or slideshow, they will be gone before it’s finished playing!

4.  A website with no obvious purpose. Static brochure style websites just don’t “do” anything.  They may look pretty and give lots of information, but what is that website visitor meant to do?  Picking up the phone and making an enquiry may just be too big a leap to make.  They will more than likely leave and move on to the next site on their search lists.

This last point has to be the one that I rant about the most.  A website with no obvious purpose is a waste of time.  It just floats around in hyperspace, gathering pixel dust and being ignored by by anyone who happens to stumble upon it.

For the majority of small businesses, the most effective purpose to give your website is to help build a database of potential customers.

The competition to be found through search engines is so fierce, you can’t afford to trust that your website visitors will bookmark your site and come back another day.  They will have found what they are looking for by then and you’ll have lost a client.

Having a website whose primary purpose is to invite visitors to leave their name and email address has been proved to be one of the most successful online marketing strategies to have for the majority of small businesses.

It creates the opportunity for you to build a relationship with that visitor so, over time, they trust you enough to become a paying customer.

How do you do this?  Capturing names and email addresses by offering something in return is something so simple and yet so many small business owners don’t do this.  And the easiest way of offering something in return is to offer a free newsletter, a free e-course or free report.  The options available to you are limitless.

You may be keen to start your own email newsletter but feel a little overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information out there.  I know I get enough emails asking me about them so if you haven’t started one or in the early stages of creating a database, then do check out my “How To Do Email Newsletters” programme starting this month.

In the meanwhile, start by checking out your website right now.  Ask yourself – is yours a help or a hindrance?

And what are you going to do about it?

Had a great business mentoring session with a client last week who wanted to focus on getting an action plan together to help her write her website copy.  The design and template was done, but it couldn’t go live until the copy had been written.

However, one hour later we had not only time planned the copy writing but also spent the best part of the session focusing on who exactly she wanted to attract to her website.

Her target audience of “women” was just too broad and she soon realised that to enable her to write powerful and engaging copy that stopped online surfers in their tracks and got them to leave their name and email address to opt-in to her newsletter, she needed to be absolutely clear on who it was she wanted to engage with.Whether it is the home page of your website, a flyer for your next event or a postcard to handout at networking events, you have to spend time writing out the profile of the person you want to be attracting before you write the copy.

It will save you months of wasted marketing!

When you want to make an offer to your client, it feels easier to make a soft approach.  You don’t want to scare them off so you decide to outline what your services or your products are and finish off with a “If you are interested, why don’t you get in touch?”

After all, you don’t want to come across like a double-glazing salesman, do you?

But unfortunately, not being specific enough about how someone can get in touch with you, can actually be one of the reasons why somebody doesn’t get in touch.

Are you asking them to e-mail you?  Are you asking them to pick up the phone?  Are you asking them to put their name and e-mail address into an opt-in form?

And when are expecting a response from them? Today, tomorrow, before next Friday?

The more explicit you are with your call to action – the reason why a potential client should be in touch right there and then – the easier it is for your client to know what to do.

So forget about being softly, softly.  Forget about trying to let them make the choice; give them the choices available.  Be explicit with your telephone number: call me now on 01…  or E-mail me at …

Make it easy for your clients to know what the next stage is and how they should be communicating with you, and the more likely they are to take the next step towards spending money with you and order your products or services.