7 steps v07

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2. Highly Effective Marketing Ready to stop struggling with marketing and start attracting more business? Discover the top 5 ways to grow your business with this proven system and sell a lot more of your products and services with less effort. www.mfsstore.com/5Pmanual.html 3. Creating Web Sites That Sell Finally, the first practical program for Internet success ... 100% Guaranteed no matter what product or service you sell. You'll discover the keys to successful Internet marketing, how to set up your web site for sales and how to get all the traffic you can handle. www.mfsstore.com/websales.html

4. Eliminating Obstacles to Sales

Want to close more sales? Discover how to melt prospects resistance and sell them more. Find out how to repeatedly close more sales with these advanced selling strategies. www.mfsstore.com/howtosell.html

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You too can attract all the clients you can handle and see your sales skyrocket with one of the world’s most effective marketing programs. Charlie Cook’s busy schedule, and current loyal clientele allows him to accept a very limited number of new clients. If you’re serious about closing

more sales, growing your businesses and being more successful, please use the following link to see if you qualify. http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/mentoring.html or call 203-637-1118. "Money well spent! Our Travel Incentive business has skyrocketed since we first started working with Charlie." Mike Trowbridge, VP Marketing, Fairfield Resorts "Our referrals are rolling in. I have used a ton of consultants, but Charlie Cook was the best investment I have ever made." Craig Nash, President, Progressive Rehab “Within three weeks, we added nine new clients and increase our income by $180,000.” Jose Lopez, Rent4me "I achieved a 50% conversion rate on my sales calls and earned fifteen thousand dollars in just one week thanks to Charlie’s coaching." Suzanne Falter-Barns, Get Known Now “Requests for my services went up by 300% as a result of working with Charlie.” Bob Nelson, Retailing.com Want to find out more about growing your business with Charlie? Use this link >> http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/mentoring.html

http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/mentoring.html


7 Steps to Get More Clients

and Grow Your Business

by Charlie Cook

NOTICE: This Book is licensed to the individual reader only. Duplication or distribution via e-mail, floppy disk, network, printout or other means to a person other than the original purchaser is a violation of international copyright law. © Copyright 2006, Charlie Cook, In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means (including electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by: Marketing For Success In Mind Communications, LLC 3 West End Avenue Old Greenwich, CT 06870 203-637-1118 [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

© Copyright 2006•Charlie Cook•InMind Communications, LLC

Contents

How To Get More Clients 1 Becoming an expert marketer A marketing system that works Make the Marketing Cycle Work For You 2 Understanding the marketing and sales cycle Getting Attention Step 1 Generating Awareness 4 Step 2 Motivating Prospects to Action 5 Positioning Step 3 Establishing Credibility 7 Step 4 Clarifying Your Value 8 Selling Step 5 Getting a Commitment 9 Step 6 Providing Services that Increase Revenue 10 Step 7 Maintaining the Relationship 12 Identifying The GAPS In Your Plan 14 Setting Goals Getting Attention Positioning Selling Marketing Diagnostic Results 17 Your Areas of Marketing Opportunity Your Comments About This Manual 18 Stumped? 19

7 Steps to

Get More Clients and Grow Your Business


1

How Can I Get More Clients and Increase Profits from Existing Ones? If you own a business or are responsible for marketing one, this should be one of the questions you ask yourself on a regular basis. Answering it is critical to the survival of your business. You may be frustrated by the lack of results from your present marketing efforts. Despite time spent on mailings, cold calls, meetings with prospects, networking, building a web site, etc., you aren’t getting as many new clients as you want. And even though existing clients are highly satisfied with the services and products you provide, past work doesn’t translate into new work or referrals as often as you would like. Becoming an expert marketer

You have the knowledge to excel at marketing your business. My role as a marketing coach is to help you leverage what you know to market your business like an expert. This free marketing guide is a starting point for creating a winning marketing plan, one that brings in more clients. A marketing system that works

Instead of shooting in the dark, you’d like to have a clear, reliable system for marketing your business. You’d like to know what to do first, second and third. You’d like to know where to spend your time and money to get the greatest return in new business for your efforts. The marketing cycle and steps outlined in the following pages provide you with just such a system. In the following pages

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you’ll learn the fundamental phases of the marketing cycle and seven steps you need to help prospects become clients. This marketing guide gives an overview of the key concepts and ideas you can use to create a marketing plan and attract new clients. If you want to develop a comprehensive understanding of how to market your business and learn the specific marketing skills you will need, visit: www.mfsstore.com Questions

How much more money could you be making if you could attract more clients? Use the marketing calculators at the link provided below to determine your potential income. Visit: http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/marketing-calculators.html

Make the Marketing Cycle Work For You The three phases of marketing are as predictable as the phases of the moon. Work with the marketing cycle to generate a steady stream of prospects and to convert prospects to clients. Understanding the Marketing and Sales Cycle

No matter how much you might like to have a full moon on any given night, you can’t skip the quarter moon and half moon to get there. Similarly, your marketing needs to move people through three phases and a series of steps to take them from prospect to client status.

http://www.mfsstore.com

http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/marketing-calculators.html



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The first phase of marketing is Getting Attention. People need to know that you exist and what it is that you do or offer before they can buy. The second phase is Positioning; before a prospect will part with their hard-earned dollars, they need to get to know and trust you and understand the value of what you provide. The final phase of the marketing cycle is Selling, obtaining first time and repeat sales. You can’t affect the moon, but you can control the marketing and sales cycle. You can influence your prospects and generate a steady stream of clients and customers. Think of your marketing as a short flight of stairs into your business. First you help prospects become aware that your firm exists, then you motivate them to contact you, next you establish your credibility, etc. Step by step, you move them closer to a sale. If you miss a step or two in the marketing and sales sequence, your prospects will stumble and won't make it in the door to your business and they probably won’t visit again. If you mix up the sequence, prospects won't take the steps you want them to take to become clients. Getting Attention, Positioning, Selling; a three-step cycle that you can anticipate and influence using the seven steps discussed below. Put these steps in order and you’ll move many more clients and customers through the marketing cycle to purchase your products and services.

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Getting Attention

Step 1 - Generating Awareness Introduce yourself to prospects and tell them what you do and how you can help them. Make sure your marketing message addresses your target markets’ interests, and then use it to write ads that pay for themselves, whether you are using google/adwords, ezine ads, newspaper ads, or radio spots. Start with Client Problems

Client’s biggest concerns are their needs and wants, not your processes or credentials. Too often service providers fall in love with their services and products. That can be good thing when it is evident in the passion they demonstrate in helping clients. It can be bad thing when they focus on detailing their processes, methodologies and credentials instead of focusing their marketing on their client concerns. Questions

What are your clients’ primary concerns? What client needs do your services meet? What are the solutions you provide? What is the end result clients receive from your services? Which of these results differentiate your firm from your competitors?

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Ideas to Implement

• Develop a brilliant marketing message that describes the unique value you provide for clients and prompts prospects to contact you.

• Use your brilliant marketing message as the foundation of

all your marketing efforts including meetings, phone calls, letters, newsletters, websites, etc.

• Develop marketing materials from your clients’

perspective. Clients buy results. Market the results, not the product or service methodology. Review and revamp all your marketing materials so they focus on client’s primary concerns and on the results you provide.

Step 2 – Motivating Prospects to Action Use everything from your ads to your business card to your web site to stimulate a contact or a conversation. Give prospects a reason to take the next step and respond by emailing or calling you or visiting your store. Demonstrate Value

One of the biggest hurdles for service professionals is convincing people of the value of their services. Whether you provide haircuts, run a restaurant, or give legal or financial advice, prospects won’t know how good they’ll look, how tasty the food is, or the benefits of your advice until they’ve experienced it. The best way to convince people of the usefulness of your services is to demonstrate the value you provide by letting them “test drive” the benefits of your services or products. For example, Amazon.com allows users to read the first few

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pages of the books they sell, and music lovers can download samples of tracks on CDs. Questions

What is the fundamental need or objective that drives prospects’ decision to use or not use your services?

How can you help prospects experience the benefit of your products and services?

Ideas to Implement

• Find a way to let people “test drive” your services or products.

Whether you are offering a sample newsletter, design tips, or training strategies, before people become customers they need to understand the quality of work you provide. The best way to do this is to demonstrate your expertise or the benefits of your products.

• Become a trusted advisor. Regularly provide clients with

tips for “free”. For example, if you’re an accountant you could provide them with tax planning tips. Share ideas that they can put to use immediately and that will clarify the need for your products and services.

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Positioning

Step 3 - Establishing Credibility People won’t buy from you until they feel confident that they know and trust you. Use your articles, books, interviews, and testimonials from clients to establish your credibility and make prospects feel confident in buying from your firm. Questions

Does your marketing help establish the trust necessary to convince prospects to buy from you? How can you leverage the trust of existing clients to attract new prospects?

Ideas to Implement

• Collect testimonials. Pick up the phone and call your customers to ask what they thought of your product or service, what they liked about it and how it was helpful. Feature these testimonials in your marketing materials.

• Use articles to establish yourself or your firm as experts.

Invest your time in writing articles to establish yourself as an expert.

• Give something away. Use an ebook, article, workshop or

free demonstration to build trust.

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Step 4 - Clarifying Your Value Whether you are selling a $15 book, a $10,000 business consultation, or a $50,000 car, prospects won’t make a commitment unless they understand in their own terms the value you are providing. Use your marketing materials, your web site, and your conversations to help prospects define the value of your goods or services.

Help Prospects Define the Value

To help prospects understand the value of your services, don’t tell them; ask them. Most people learn new ideas by putting them into their own words. Use questions to get prospects to identify the ways they’ll benefit from your products. Ask them what they want, what they are looking for, and how they expect to benefit. Get your prospects to define their aspirations and objectives for purchase. These questions actively engage your prospects. By describing the benefits they are looking for, they begin to imagine how much better off they’d be with your products and services. Questions

Are you presenting your pricing information too soon? What are prospects’ reasons for buying?

What questions can you ask to get prospects to describe the value of your products and services?

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Ideas to Implement

• After prospects’ have defined the value of the service or product they’re interested in and can see themselves using it, then you tell them the price. A price of ten dollars or ten thousand can scare your prospects away if you give it to them too soon.

• Increase your sales by pitching to your prospects’

reasons for buying. Use your questions to help prospects define the benefits of your products and services in their own words. They will have far fewer objections to price and you’ll make many more sales.

Selling

Step 5 – Getting a Commitment Whether it is helping a prospect to sign up for your free ezine, scheduling a conversation, buying a manual or sending you a check for your services, to move the process forward you need to ask for and get a commitment. Start With Goals

Whether you want to find clients or to increase profits per client, define specific goals for your marketing efforts.

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Questions

What are your marketing goals for this year or for the next two years? How much of your time do you allocate to marketing versus service delivery, product development and administrative tasks during the week?

Ideas to Implement

• Identify both your long and short-term marketing objectives. From your list, choose a marketing task, that:

- Is urgent - Can be accomplished within the next one to three

months - Uses existing resources - Has a high probability of success - Can be measured

For example, you may want to create a strategy for generating referrals. Break it down into specific steps and work on them daily or weekly.

• Define who will do which marketing tasks and when they will do them. • Implement your marketing strategy in a disciplined

manner just as you would a new fitness-training regimen.

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Step 6 – Providing Services that Increase Revenue You’ll sell your products or services if they solve a problem or satisfy a need. Your objective is to give people what they want. Do so and they’ll be happy. The second objective is to sell them what they need. Do this and they’ll come back to buy your other products and services. Create Opportunities

Standing still in the business world is the same as going backwards. Change is a constant and companies that don’t constantly prepare for it get left behind by both the competition and by their clients’ shifting needs. Questions

Do you have a strategy for collecting new product, service and marketing ideas? What is it? How could you improve it? Can you identify the cycle your product and service fits into for your clients? This includes the calendar year, usage, life stage, product development cycle, etc. What is your strategy for cross-marketing your products and services to clients?

How can you reduce clients’ perception of risk associated with purchase of your products and or services? What is your strategy for generating referrals?

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Ideas to Implement

• Institutionalize the process of collecting ideas for new products, services and marketing from clients and employees at every level in your organization. Constantly look for ways to expand your sources of feedback from your own employees, suppliers and customers.

• Identify firms that target your clients and create

marketing alliances with them. Get them to market your services and products to their clients and vice versa.

• Identify the biggest barrier in clients’ minds to purchasing

your products or services. Develop a strategy for reducing or eliminating this perception of risk.

• Get referrals. Don't wait for the occasional referral to

come in spontaneously. Implement a proactive system to generate referrals.

Step 7 – Maintaining the Relationship Once a prospect has become a paying client, you want them to stay with you and continue learning and buying from you. Stay in touch, clarify the value of your products and services and prompt prospects and clients to buy from you and refer new clients to you.

Build and Maintain Your Network Most service businesses are relationship businesses. Your relationship with prospective and existing clients is your competitive edge. Others may sell or provide similar products or services, but only you maintain that unique relationship

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with your target audience. Building short and long-term relationships should be your primary marketing task. The first challenge is to initiate and build relationships with members of your target market or those connected to your target market. The second is to maintain these relationships and the third is to leverage them so they result in a steady stream of new and repeat clients and referrals from satisfied clients. Questions

How many people know what you do, understand the solutions you provide and could give a one-sentence summary of your services or products? When you meet new people, do you collect information about their primary concerns relative to your products and services as well as information about their specific expertise? Do you use a centralized database in your firm to organize the above client information and track prospect and client contact? Do clients contact you when they have a need or do you have to contact them? What does your firm do to maintain relationships with existing and past clients?

Ideas to Implement

• Instead of using the shotgun approach to networking, focus your networking efforts on people and firms that share your target audience.

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• Use questions to get key information from networking

contacts. Use the back of their business cards to jot down a piece of personal information, how their business is doing and what their biggest concern is.

• Use sign-ups, free offers, and newsletter offers to help

prospects self-select to be in your marketing database. • Use one centralized database for all the members of your

firm to keep track of prospect and client information, contacts and opportunities.

• Provide contacts with a concise description of the

problems you solve (your brilliant marketing message) so they can talk coherently to others about how helpful you

are.

Identifying the GAPS in Your Marketing Plan

You’ve got a marketing plan but want to determine where and how you can improve it. Could you be doing a better job at Getting Attention, Positioning or Selling? If you are like most small business owners, your business could benefit from improvements in all three areas. Use the following marketing assessment to identify specific areas where you want to improve your marketing strategy, plan and skills.

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Setting Goals

1. How much more would you like to be making? 2. How many more clients do you need to attract this

year to meet your financial goals?

3. How many more products do you need to sell on an annual basis?

Getting Attention

1. Are you getting as much attention for your products and services as you’d like?

2. What percent of your target market is aware that your

firm exists?

3. What is the response rate to your ads?

4. What is the conversion rate for your direct mailings or from your web site?

5. Would you like to increase the percentage of your

target market that understands how you can help them and why they should contact you?

6. Do you have a brilliant marketing message that

succinctly explains the problem you solve and prompts prospects to contact you?

7. Do you know how to motivate prospects to contact

you?

8. Do you have a lead generation system that grows the number of interested prospects you contact each month?

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Positioning

1. Is your firm positioned in prospects’ minds as the place to find reliable expertise?

2. What is your strategy for helping prospects get to

know and trust you?

3. Do you have defined strategies for helping prospects clarify the value (in their own terms) of your products and services?

4. What is your strategy for eliminating prospects’

objections and helping them become clients and customers? Does it work as well as you’d like?

Selling

1. How many qualified prospects get in touch with you each week?

2. How many give you their contact information so you

can market to them again and again?

3. How many personally contact you with a question or a request for your products or services?

4. Would you like to increase the number of prospects

that contact you each week?

5. Is your marketing copy successful in convincing prospects to buy? Would you like to learn how to write marketing copy that motivates prospects to become clients?

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6. What percentage of clients and customers buy from you again?

7. How long (months and years) do clients and customers

continue to buy from you?

8. What percentage of existing clients refer qualified prospects to you?

Marketing Diagnostic Results List the areas of your marketing you want to improve in order of importance on the following page. Be as specific as possible. For example, is the problem with your marketing message, a lack of advertising, a lack of articles, or the lack of a lead generating web site, cold calling skills, etc? Possible areas for improvement may include:

Getting Attention • Your marketing message • Response to your ads • Your networking efforts • Generating leads with your web site • Motivating prospects to action Positioning • Establishing credibility • Your marketing copy • Using your newsletter to sell • Using eBooks to grow your business • Clarifying value Selling • Ability to eliminate objections • Gaining commitments to sales

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• Generating sales with your web site • Getting appointments • Using the phone • Closing skills • Client retention • Generating additional sales from clients • Getting referrals Your Key Areas of Marketing Opportunity

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Your Comments about this Manual

What are the best ideas in this manual? How will you apply these concepts and tactics? How will these ideas help you attract more clients and customers and be more successful? Please send your comments to Charlie Cook at [email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

MarketingForSuccess

Which ‘Insider Secrets’ Are You Missing? Get the complete set of ‘Insider Secrets’ marketing tools and see your business grow.

1. 15 Second Marketing Discover the fastest way to grab your prospects' attention, maximize response, attract more clients, and make more money. You can instantly double the pulling power of any ad, web site or sales letter with this technique. www.mfsstore.com/marketing-message.html

2. Highly Effective Marketing Ready to stop struggling with marketing and start attracting more business? Discover the top 5 ways to grow your business with this proven system and sell a lot more of your products and services with less effort. www.mfsstore.com/5Pmanual.html 3. Creating Web Sites That Sell Finally, the first practical program for Internet success ... 100% Guaranteed no matter what product or service you sell. You'll discover the keys to successful Internet marketing, how to set up your web site for sales and how to get all the traffic you can handle. www.mfsstore.com/websales.html

4. Eliminating Obstacles to Sales

Want to close more sales? Discover how to melt prospects resistance and sell them more. Find out how to repeatedly close more sales with these advanced selling strategies. www.mfsstore.com/howtosell.html

http://www.mfsstore.com/marketing-message.html

http://www.mfsstore.com/5Pmanual.html

http://www.mfsstore.com/websales.html

http://www.mfsstore.com/howtosell.html

MarketingForSuccess

Want Expert Help?

You too can attract all the clients you can handle and see your sales skyrocket with one of the world’s most effective marketing programs. Charlie Cook’s busy schedule, and current loyal clientele allows him to accept a very limited number of new clients. If you’re serious about closing

more sales, growing your businesses and being more successful, please use the following link to see if you qualify. http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/mentoring.html or call 203-637-1118. "Money well spent! Our Travel Incentive business has skyrocketed since we first started working with Charlie." Mike Trowbridge, VP Marketing, Fairfield Resorts "Our referrals are rolling in. I have used a ton of consultants, but Charlie Cook was the best investment I have ever made." Craig Nash, President, Progressive Rehab “Within three weeks, we added nine new clients and increase our income by $180,000.” Jose Lopez, Rent4me "I achieved a 50% conversion rate on my sales calls and earned fifteen thousand dollars in just one week thanks to Charlie’s coaching." Suzanne Falter-Barns, Get Known Now “Requests for my services went up by 300% as a result of working with Charlie.” Bob Nelson, Retailing.com Want to find out more about growing your business with Charlie? Use this link >> http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/mentoring.html



7 steps v07

Self Improvement

marketing system

vp marketing

business grow

successful internet

marketing diagnostic

effective marketing

marketing cycle work

present marketing efforts