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!

There’s lots to do to market your business, isn’t there?  There’s stuff that you can do for free, like Twitter or Facebook.  There’s stuff that costs a little like networking and websites. And there’s stuff that costs lots like direct mailings and advertising.

But even though the amount of money you have to spend can go up aswell as down, there is a more valuable commodity that you will never have enough of.

Time!

It doesn’t matter how good your time management is, you will always have exactly the same amount of time as everyone else.  60 minutes in an hour.  24 hours in a day.  7 days a week.

Your competitors may have fatter wallets to spend from on their marketing but you are all on the same playing field when it comes to time.

And as a small business owner, who notoriously never has enough time in any given week, you need to make sure that the time you spend on your marketing activities is time very well spent!

So why do you still try to attract each new client one by one?

Too many of you focus your marketing activities on attracting individual clients.

Let me give you an example.  Business owners who sell services such as coaching or graphic design often use face-to-face networking as a marketing strategy.  This can never work for them long term because they go to a networking event with the sole intent of finding a new customer.  Even if the event may only cost them £20 or so, a networking event could take at least 4 hours out of your day.  Work out what your hourly rate is and each new client lead could be costing you £200 minimum.

If you convert 1 out of every 3 leads (I’m being generous here!!) that’s £600 per new customer.  And if an average customer spends less than a £1,000 with you, your profitablity margin stinks!

I know, I know – I have used pretty basic sums here and your hourly rate may be much higher than £50 and your average client spend could be £10,000 or more.

But I wanted to make a point here.  Face-to-face networking is important to build relationships and, to be honest, get you out of the office before you go mad and start talking to the plants!  I make the time to go to certain networking events and make it a part of my working month.  But to focus on face-to-face networking as one of your main marketing strategies is not going to work.

Stop chasing the one to one approach and focus your efforts on the one to many.

You can spend your time far more wisely by focusing your efforts of getting in front of groups of your target clients.

Speaking, article writing, affiliate relationships, running live events – these all focus on one to many.  And which approach you take depends on what you enjoy, what you are good at and where your target clients hang out.

Answer these questions and they’ll help understand which approach to take.

Question One: Where do your target clients hang out? This can be online or live events up and down the country.

Question Two:  What do your target clients read? Again, on and offline – blogs, trade publications, magazines.

Question Three:  What communications are you good at? Speaking is my favourite way of reaching out to people but I know getting up in front of an audience is not everyone’s cup of tea!  So if you don’t want to speak, can you develop your writing? Can you run virtual events?  Would you be good in front of the camera? Even perhaps do you need someone else to be the voice for your business?

Question Four:  Who has an influence on your target clients? Who already has a big Twitter following? Who already has a large mailing list, blog readers, subscription list?  Who runs the large events or heads up groups and associations?

Use the answers to these questions to help you decide on how you are going to get in front of groups of your target clients.  Whether it’s a campaign to get you speaking gigs over the next year or a plan to build an affiliate programme – you decide.

Just as long as it’s marketing one to many – and not one to one!

I am sure you all know that testimonials are a great addition to your website, leaflets and brochures.  Rather than bleating on about how good you are, let your clients tell it in their own words.

They work because its “social proof”.  The same way that 8 out 10 cats prefer Whiskers, your potential clients want evidence on why they should spend money with you.

But instead of getting evidence, most small business owners end up with pretty poor excuses for a testimonial.

“Steve was a really wonderful trainer.”

“We had such fun working together.”

“The widget is lovely to use and I wholeheartedly recommend it.”

Lovely words, but as testimonials they absolutely stink!

The demand for personal recommendations is getting higher and higher every year.  And with wishy-washy testimonials like these are, quite frankly, a waste of space.

A wasted opportunity!

For a testimonial to work effectively for you, it has to explain the benefits of what you deliver.  Here’s an example of one my testimonials that I have displayed on my business coaching page, kindly given by Lisa Turner from Pyscademy last year.

“I started working with Karen because although all the bits of my business were working they weren’t really integrated with each other. Karen helped me get some real clarity about the processes and steps I needed to make to achieve my goals.

After only a single session I achieved my first two goals – to start running teleseminars and to get bookings for an upcoming course. With Karen’s support and advice, I set up and ran my first ever teleseminar and as a direct result got bookings on an upcoming course. I am absolutely delighted with the result and how easy it was with Karen’s help.”

Why does this testimonial work harder?  Let’s break down the 3 key questions that were answered:

What was life like before working with me? Bits of Lisa’s business were working, but they weren’t integrated.  If I really wanted to push this testimonial further, I would have probably asked Lisa how that felt and added that, too.  Would it have been frustrating?  How much time did Lisa waste?  This helps a potential client to relate to the story being told.  “That’s just like me” you want them to say.

What process did we follow? I helped Lisa get clarity and we figured out some steps to take.

What were the results? Lisa got her teleseminars up and running, plus got clients booking on her course as a direct result of running her teleseminar.  And the whole process was “easy”.  Most of my clients come to me because they struggle to attract the right clients so this testimonial highlights that I can solve this problem, as well as make everything easy at the same time.

Make sure your testimonials provide the answers to these 3 key questions and your testimonial will speak volumes when it comes to evidence.

One final tip – don’t expect your clients to know this.  Most clients find it very hard to know what to write when asked for a testimonial.  This is why most of you end up with one of the “really lovely person” quotes.

Ask them these questions on the phone or in person, write down the answers and ask them if you could use these words as a testimonial.  Present them with this pre-prepared testimonial based on the exact phrases they said to you, and you’ll get testimonials working harder for you.

Footnote: For businesses trading in the States, you may also be interested to read this blog post here from Joe Comm who commented on the new rules & regs brought in by the FTC last year.   Evidence is important, but do make sure you know the laws of the country you trade in.  Overcooking is not only poor practice – it can be illegal!

In this online world that we all seem to live in, it is easy to focus all your efforts on one or more of the new social media tools at the start of this new year.

Yup, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are being used more and more by small businesses. But did you know that there is a quicker way to get in touch with people?

I know it’s rather old fashioned and it hardly gets a mention nowadays, but the telephone is really a wonderful device!

At the start of a New Year, you have a great excuse to pick up the phone and call a few past clients and customers. Wish them a Happy New Year and find out how the past few months have been for them.

You may want to find out if they are still on target with the plans you helped set out for them. It could that you ask for feedback on the last product they purchased from you.

However the phone call goes, there is a very good chance that a couple of those calls may lead to a re-booking or a re-order.

Go on – you know you remember how to use it. Just pick up that handset thingy, press the numbers and when the ringing sound stops, the person will be there on the other end.

It’s quite magical you know And not a tweet or poke in sight!

Niche marketing works for small businesses.  The more focused you are on the particular problem that you can solve, the easier it is to communicate and spread the word about the solutions you offer.

Imagine a coach who has a background in teaching and happens to love the great outdoors.  What if you came to their website and they offered you general life coaching, coaching support for teachers, a special programme that helped school children study better and a few walking holidays combined with personalised coaching sessions.

Phew!  All that from one person?  Really?

Think back to the last time you needed your boiler serviced.  Who did you use?  A specialist corgi registered boiler servicing company or the odd-job-man who offers to clean your gutters, re-paint your living room, fix and install bathrooms, trim your hedges as well as service your boiler?

If your odd-job-man comes highly recommended by your neighbours, then perhaps he is the “man for the job” – but looking through the Yellow Pages, he may not be your first point of call.

So, what about you?  If you are competing with everyone else and not at the stage that all your customers are coming via the “highly recommended” route, then you may want to take another look at your marketing messages.

Are you an “odd-job-man”?  Or are you a specialist?

When you are marketing your business, you can’t help get passionate about what you do, do you?

It can be all too easy to tell all your potential clients about all your products and services, all of the time.  After all, you want to make sure they know everything about what you do, don’t you?

This is a common mistake that many small business owners make.  Just think about many of the high street shops are gearing up for christmas at the moment.  Promotional signs up everywhere – and yet which are the shops that you decide to go in to?

If a shop window is full of messages and big red signs shouting different messages, it is confusing and you will walk by.  A shop with a very clear message “50% on all stock” will attract a higher number of walk-in customers.

When marketing your own business, have the courage to promote one product and one service at a time. It may feel like you are missing out on opportunities to make a sale, but by giving your customers one message at a time, they will be clearer on what it is they need to do to “walk in to your shop”.

Got a question you want to ask about your current promotions? Submit your question in the comment box below.

Adding workshops and training events to your business mix can be an excellent way of increasing your revenue as well as raising your profile in your local market place.

Workshops can be run at plush hotels, coffee bars, online, through conference calls – in fact when you let your imagination run wild, events can be as big or small as you want them to be.

But there is nothing worse than spending your precious time designing an event, booking a venue and marketing it only to have more trainers than delegates!  And I am sure this is why so many people are put off by running events.

It’s the thought “but what happens if no one comes?”

There are several common mistakes that many people make running live events.  Read on to find out how you can avoid them and make sure your events are filled successfully.

Mistake No 1: Offer events that people need – not what they want.  It is too easy to spot a gap in the market and decide to share your expertise on a subject that you just know is needed.  But if there is no desire for what you are offering, it makes selling your event incredibly hard work. After all, it is not just money someone is investing in a live event – it is their time as well.

Find out what your market place really wants before deciding on your agenda.  If you don’t believe me, try offering a time management workshop and just see how many people pay you money to attend

Mistake No 2: Think advertising not marketing.  “How do I advertise my events?” is often one of the first questions people ask.  Advertising costs can eat in to your profit incredibly quickly and to be frank, will not work if you are offering an event “cold”.  Unless you have a strong brand presence in your market, you need to build people’s trust in you.  You need to design a marketing plan that builds a conversation with potential delegates.

Mistake No 3: Start marketing with no database.  The larger the database of interested customers you have, the more likely you are to fill your event.  If you have a database of 100 people and you are trying to market an event that you need 7 to break even and 20 to make your target profit, the maths just don’t add up.  Your conversion rate needs to be 20% which will only work if you have a very desirable topic and those people all happen to be free on the same day.

Mistake No 4: Offer the whole cake rather than a taster.  The reason that stall holders at Farmers’ Markets offer a morsel to taste is that they want to tempt you to buy the whole cake.  If you want to offer taster sessions to test the market place, consider breaking down your offerings to morsels. It makes it much easier to charge the true value of the event once you start marketing it commercially.

Mistake No 5: Discount heavily as desperation sets in.  Your workshop is in 5 days and you need another 4 or 5 people to really make it work.  You start discounting and offering BOGOFFs (buy one, get one free!).  But how do you think this makes the people, who have already committed to you, feel?  It’s like going on holiday, only to find that the person in the room next door got the exact same holiday for half the price because they booked on teletext the week before.

Offer early bird discounts and reward the people who book in advance. If you really need to increase the numbers at short notice, it is far better PR by offering a few free places to your favourite customers as a thank you for their loyalty to you.

Mistake No 6:  Have no follow on events.  One event does not make a business.  Always have something else to offer to people who genuinely can’t attend the day of the workshop, but are interested in what you are offering.  (at the very least offer an email newsletter to keep in touch with them!)

You may find that it takes 4 or 5 months to build up awareness for your events.  It seems a long time, but believe me it will then make filling workshop 3 and 4 far easier (and a lot more fun for you!)

What’s my biggest mistake?  Not to double check the day that I had booked a training room.  I found out the day before 15 ladies where expecting to drive to Guildford from across the South East that I wasn’t due until the day after!  We had a fun workshop in the staff training room, complete with mops and buckets, which actually added to the day

Got any great marketing mistakes to share? Add your comment below

It can be expected that everything you do in your business, you want done right.  To have the correct grammar and spelling.  To have the right message and images in your marketing material.  TO have the your logo in the right corner of your invoice.

After all you have standards and the right business image to create.

But to strive for perfection is business suicide.

Perfection means that everything has to be just right.  And to be just right it can take weeks, if not months, of checking and checking again.

Running your own business means that you can’t afford weeks of indecision and making the smallest of corrections before launching a new product or service.

Actions need to be taken for you to move forward.  Projects need completing for results to be seen.  And you can’t find out what is and what isn’t going to work until the results come in.

So if you are a perfectionist and are waiting for a final check before you launch that website, send out that email, speak to that client – just remember the completion not perfection rule.

Take action and do!

What are your thoughts? Do you find yourself putting off project launches because you want everything “just right”? Leave your comment below

Whether you are just starting up your own business from home or have been working for yourself for several years, a clear marketing plan is essential to not only show you what you should be doing to attract clients to your business, but also to keep you on track.

A marketing plan is really quite a simple document to produce.

There are far too many complicated templates that can be downloaded from the internet or got from a business book.  And when you feel you may have to produce a 20 page document, it can be the fastest way to put off the whole planning process.

There are only 3 questions that you need to answer in your marketing plan and they are:

1.  Where are you now?

2.  where are you going?

3.  How are you going to get there?

And they need to be in this order.

Too many business owners jump in to the “how are you going get there” question and get bogged down with marketing strategies and tools that, frankly, may not help you bit.

Start with the easiest question of all “where are you now?”. Not only will this help build your confidence up (after all, you should know the answer to this question without much thinking!), it will give you a baseline from where to start building.

The second question “where are you going?” is designed to focus you on targets and goals.  Where do you want to be this time next year?  How many clients do you want to managing?  How many hours do you want to be working? How much money do you want to be creating?

Your destination needs to specific.  It needs to be something that you can measure.  It’s got to have a timescales.  And it’s got to be realistic and something that you know is achievable. (Yup, you’ve guessed it – it has to a SMART goal!).

Once you have your SMART desination, you will find it far easier to answer the third and final question “How are you going to get there?”.

So forget about mission statements and synopsises.  Get to the basics and focus on what’s going to work for you on a day-to-day basis.