April 2012 - Small Business Coach, Women Business Coaching

Are you having trouble squeezing Client Attraction activity into your work schedule? If you already have a job or a growing practice, it might be tough. So how do you make time for the recommended hours you need to attract new clients?

1. What can you put the “pause button” on in your daily activities?

I guarantee there are things you do that are not serving your clients or attracting new ones either. These time drains may include:

Checking and responding to email
Personal phone conversations
Surfing the web
Bouncing between tasks

These activities distract you from tasks that build your business and when they take over your schedule, you will feel like you aren’t getting anything done even though you are busy.

To minimize the drain, I recommend checking email only two to three times a day – that’s it. Limit time spent on other time wasters as well and you’ll free up time for Client Attraction. Focus on one project at a time versus multi-tasking to feel like you are making progress.

2. Put Client Attraction on your calendar.

Just like client meetings, block out time on your calendar for Client Attraction activities. Mark off whatever you can manage even if it’s just one hour. This puts your business building efforts on the same level as your client work because it IS that important. When you drop the ball on marketing, you put your pipeline at risk and your future business on hold. Don’t let this happen to your company.

What should you focus on? Activities include:

Networking
Sending out warm letters
Writing and sending your ezine
Conducting a teleclass

That one hour each day turns into 25 – 30 hours per month for client attraction. Most people don’t spend nearly that amount of time on a consistent basis, so you’ll still be ahead of the crowd.

3. Not taking downtime for yourself.

You cannot be as productive as possible if you don’t take time off. In order to stay highly productive, you need time to relax and regroup. Self care is essential for every business owner to remain at the top of your game and I’m really serious about this. If you don’t unwind and enjoy life, you will burn out and become far less effective at what you do.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Many people don’t know what they are doing all day. To discover your time wasters , do a “Time Study” which means you track what you do for an entire day. Check the clock and write down what you are doing during each hour. This will be a tremendous eye-opener and a way to discover what you might be wasting time on. Find the few things you can put the “pause button” on and make room for Client Attraction.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction Home Study System™ gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

[youtube width=”600″ height=”352″]http://youtu.be/D3LqGNZLp0g[/youtube]

Who are you talking to?

If you’ve been in business for a while you’re used to marketing your services or products to a particular type of person. Perhaps that person has a particular problem, a particular demographic or is available to pay you a certain amount of money. There may then come a point in your business when you’re really looking to leverage and grow and you want to make more money, and it’s important to look at raising your fees or changing your business models.

Sometimes the person that you’ve been working with, that target audience, is no longer ideal for you. This is where you might want to look at changing the “who.”

Let me show you how this works.

This past week, I worked with a brand new Sapphire client in my Winners Academy Coaching Program that I offer. She’s been making very, very good money—six figures in her business—yet not having to work very, very hard. It’s been very enjoyable, but she has decided that it’s time to multiply her income and multiply her reach in the world and get her message and her brownies out there in a much bigger way.

We looked at raising her fees, doubling them actually and after gasping she realized that her current target market would not be open, she believes, in paying that much. I said, “Great, let’s change the ‘who’ and let’s go for people who have more money to invest in working with you and who are looking for your solutions.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

I want you to look at your own business and your own target audience. Is it time for you to make more money? Have you been selling your services to what I call, sinking ship clients—people who are always complaining about money etc? Perhaps, it’s time for you to upgrade the target audience so that they can afford your services more. Perhaps it’s time for you to look for a different target audience.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you scrub your existing email list, but it means that you start marketing in a different way with a different message in different places and train that new target audience to invest in themselves through you. Does that make sense?

I want you to think about your products and services. Can you upgrade those? Look at your message. Can you upgrade your message? Look at your target audience, ideal target audience. Is it time to upgrade them as well? If you do all three of these you will make more money in your business.

That is your Client Attraction assignment for the week, looking at upgrading the “who,” the “what,” and the message so you make more money. Good luck!

The Client Attraction System came out of the need for my clients to fill their pipelines and build a full business. This worked great for a while and as you know I still sell the Client Attraction System.

However, as my own business grew and time passed, my clients wanted more. Their needs changed as their businesses developed and grew beyond the first stages. Clients needed time management skills and help with passive and leveraged income. While there are plenty of other coaches out there who teach this, my clients wanted this from me, Fabienne.

If I were to ignore this area and not provide materials for the next stage of business, I would be missing a huge opportunity. It’s like leaving money on the table. In addition, many of my clients enjoyed being a part of the Client Attraction community and I wanted to find a way to extend the time they could stay with me and get their needs met. So, I started creating programs, materials and workshops to address the needs of people who had moved on to the next phase of business development.

Be conscious of what new learning you need as your own business grows. Chances are, what YOU need is something your current clients will also need later. As you keep track of what you’re doing next in your own business, new ideas for services will often present themselves. Another way to think about this is to pay close attention to what clients ask about. For those who have been with you for a while, their needs will change as they grow. Lastly, you can always look to your competition to see what they are offering and how you can create your own, improved version to meet your clients’ needs and keep them with you longer.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Have you noticed anything missing from your product and service offerings? What have clients expressed an interest in? Stay open to opportunities to create materials for the next level your clients will need. This will help you keep them in your community longer and deter them from seeking help from others.

I often talk about the value of free tele-classes and how they offer a number of marketing benefits.

Building your list by offering something of high-value for free
Giving prospects a sample of you and your information, which works on the Know, Like, Trust Factor
Providing a great selling opportunity for your products or services to an interested audience

There are several ways to run a tele-class, but for this post, I’m going to share two options that work best for me.

1. Lecture-Mode

This type of call gives you the opportunity to share a lot of information about a particular subject. Naturally you want to choose a hot topic that will attract lots of listeners. Remember to consider what your prospects and clients want versus what you think they need.

From a technological stand point, you actually select “lecture-mode” on the conference call website’s dashboard. This allows you to speak while everyone else on the call can only listen. It actually blocks people from speaking and interrupting you.

When I run a tele-class, I prepare my whole program in advance, typing out what I am planning to say. This way you won’t forget to say anything which can easily happen in the moment. Being organized will make a big difference in how you come across to your callers. Prepare enough material for at least an hour. My classes often run for 75-minutes.

Sometimes I open the line to allow for callers to ask questions directly. Then finish up with a strong offer for one of your products or services.

2. Question and Answer Call

To run a successful Q&A call, you’ll need a good number of callers on the line. Otherwise it might not be productive. Only a certain percentage of the callers will be willing to ask questions. So, to ensure a successful call, you need to know you can attract a good quantity of attendees.

If you want to try this and are not sure how many people may attend, you can “prime the pump” to encourage callers to ask questions by starting with questions that came in from the web. If needed, you can even create a few questions that you want to answer so you are sharing a particular type of knowledge to set yourself up as an expert.

Again, the program can run for 60 to75-minutes. And you’ll wrap up the call with a strong offer.

If you can give a speech or presentation in front of a live audience, the teleclass will be a piece of cake.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

What do your prospects and clients really want to know more about? Come up with three topics that would work for a teleclass. Then choose one and write up your presentation. Decide on your offer and give yourself three weeks to promote the call.

How do you decide if you should go the “extra mile” to land a client? Sometimes a prospect will ask for an extra step in order to close the sale. For example, he or she might want to meet you in person before making the commitment to work with you.

When you are starting out, you might be willing to accommodate a request like this. Initially, I met people in person, offering to meet them just a 15-minute walk from my apartment and the whole process could take nearly two hours to close. In time, I realized I could speak with two to three prospects by telephone in the same amount of time it took to meet one in person. And when you have 25 – 30 clients, your time becomes more limited and you won’t be able to do this type of thing.

Another place to draw the line is when a prospect doesn’t complete your questions prior to your consultation call. Early on, you may be tempted to go ahead and do the consultation anyway. But, what you might be doing is wasting time on a prospect who will not be your ideal client. A person who does not comply with your initial requests can turn into a time waster and drag you down.

With time you will see how non-ideal clients can suck your energy dry. While you want to help people, you also want to train them in how to best work with you. I recommend having your VA call a prospect who hasn’t sent in his or her questions to reschedule the call to give them time to complete their homework first.

There will always be people who won’t do the work and this way you can weed them out early so they don’t waste your time. It may seem harsh, but the truth is you can say this in a caring manner and even invite them back when they feel they are ready to work and follow through.

In the beginning it’s sometimes good to take on these wishy-washy clients because it will help you develop a tough skin and clearer view of people who are not your ideal clients. You’ll learn what you don’t like and discover what works better. After a while, you’ll become compassionately ruthless about who you work with and who you don’t. The last thing you want is to be resentful about taking on a client who is not ideal, which will only make your heart sink.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

This week, as you speak to prospects and conduct your consultations, notice who your ideal clients are. And also take stock of those wishy-washy people who are not your ideal clients. Be brave, be direct and let them go if it appears they are not your ideal. Give yourself permission to walk away and instead put time into seeking clients who are ready to do the work and achieve the success they desire.

[youtube width=”600″ height=”352″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IUIIth5Bq8[/youtube]

Today’s strategy is about becoming omnipresent.Omnipresent—meaning that you’re everywhere. If I turn here, I see you. If I turn there, I see you. It just seems like you’re working overtime, but in reality you’re not! Now, when I tell people in my seminars and in my coaching that it’s time for them to become omnipresent, they automatically get very tired.

But here’s what I want you to know. There are ways of becoming omnipresent that do not require a lot of work from you. The idea of being omnipresent is that people say, “Wow, you’re everywhere.” I remember many years ago going to a networking group when I still lived in New York City, and being told, “Fabienne, you are everywhere. Everywhere I go, I see you.” My response was, “Thank you.” I took that as a great compliment because it meant that I was being successful with my marketing and my networking and getting my message out there in much a bigger way.

I was doing everything myself back then. What I’ve realized over the years as I’ve grown my business over and over again, is that the more you put your marketing on autopilot using technology, the more omnipresent you become.

See, becoming omnipresent is not about you working really hard to be in all these different places at the same time. It’s really about you appearing to be everywhere. So again, the highest compliment is if somebody says to you, “Wow, I saw you here and here and here. Somebody told me about you. I see your stuff everywhere.” They’re more likely to hire you if they’ve heard about you many times. Does that make sense?

So, how do you become omnipresent? You’ll want to really leverage technology and the Internet to literally be everywhere. This is what I teach my clients, especially those who are already at full practice capacity (the leverage level). When you’re at a place where you don’t have time anymore to make more money and there’s just no more of you to go around, you need to start using technology to your advantage.

Here’s my first tip. Instead of writing articles once a week or once a month, you can begin to recycle your articles and use article submission sites to get them everywhere. Same with your videos. It’s a way of cloning you through technology. You can even offer an evergreen webinar or an evergreen teleseminar that just runs every week or every month without you having to show up. It literally is set it and forget it. That’s what you want.

Next, consider pre-recorded messages. When someone is surfing the Internet and finds your site, even if it’s 2 o’clock in the morning and you’re sleeping, they can hear your voice. They can hear your message. You can have a call-to-action. All of these things and many, many others are things that we teach our clients and that you can start doing right away to multiply yourself using technology.

Your Assignment
Your assignment for today is to think about ways that you can become omnipresent in your marketing so that you can get more clients and really leverage your business. Remember we’re looking to become omnipresent. Good luck!

Your welcome package sets your clients up for working with you in a number of important ways. If done correctly, it does the following:

Establishes boundaries
Sets up expectations
Provides rules
Explains the best way to work with you
Answers frequently asked questions

Providing this welcome package to clients will help them understand what is expected of them and eliminate miscommunication. In addition, it will hopefully help you avoid problems that can crop up without this kind of documentation.

Know that the welcome package may start out small and grow over time and what needs to be included becomes clearer with experience.

Elements to include are:

1. A welcome letter that congratulates a new client and provides an overview and instructions. Basically, you are saying, “Here’s what you need to read, fill out, sign, prepare and be responsible for, etc. Be specific with actions that your clients need to take at the start of your working relationship.

2. Spell out your policies and procedures. Describe step-by-step what you expect of them and what they can expect from you. This may include session and meeting times and dates, what happens if they miss a session and how you will work together. This section often expands as you gain more experience. Keep track of what frustrations you have with your clients or what frustrates them such as not having enough of a system to rely on.

3. Develop an agreement or contract which includes what you have agreed to provide such as elements, timing, and duration of process -all the rules of working together. Build this from the basics and know you’ll be adding to this section as you go. You can find information about contracts at www.lawdepot.com.

Be sure to detail your disclaimers in this section. For coaching saying something like, “The service provided is coaching and not therapy of any kind.”

Let them know at some point you’ll be asking for a testimonial and request that they keep you in mind if referral opportunities present themselves. This is a great to attract more clients. I call this “planting a seed” that grows from the time I start working a client.

4. Next, I include a large section for the client to fill out so I can collect important information about working together that matters now and in the future. For my packet, its 8-9 pages of questions. Not all businesses needs this type of information, but it’s essential for business coaching. Questions include a description of their business, how they are marketing themselves, their life story, etc. Write questions that elicit the answers you need to provide your service.

5. I also ask clients “What do you want me to do if you get behind in your assignments?” This is about personal responsibility. You’ll know how they want you to handle this and are in essence, getting their permission to take the actions they recommend. It’s a perfect way to discover what works best for clients. Some people might get upset with you, but it is ultimately their responsibility to do their part if the business arrangement is going to work.

Should a client they get behind in what he or she owes you, which keeps you from completing your deliverable, you can now remind him or her of that question in the welcome packet and the desired reaction on your part that was requested.

6. The last question is about referrals. I often get referrals from my client and I believe in rewarding them greatly. So I ask them directly, “What would you be happy to receive as a personal thank you from me for a referral?” Then it’s important to provide some examples such as a bottle of wine, magazine subscription, a book, Starbucks card, etc. Give them examples so you don’t get answers like “a spa weekend” which is probably not in your budget. Set parameters and expectations about value so everybody is happy.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Have you created your welcome package yet? If not, get one started right away. Make sure to add the sections about personal responsibility, testimonials and referrals to create a two-way street that works for you as well as your clients.

As a busy entrepreneur, you are probably creating articles, programs and teleclasses to provide value and attract more clients. But did you know your materials have more life to them than a one-time use?

To make the most of your productivity, you want to find ways to leverage these creations to get even more out of them. I’m going to share a number of the ways you can repurpose your materials to make them work harder for you.

Combine blog posts to create an ebook
Record yourself reading your ebook to make an audio product
Have your recorded teleclass transcribed into an ebook
Record yourself reading a blog post and post the audio to iTunes
Convert your ebook into a Kindle or Nook ebook
Write a series of articles for your blog, and then create a home study course out of them
Record a teleclass to promote a new program and then have it edited to be a bonus recording for another program
Convert a teleclass series into a home study course
Videotape a live workshop and sell it as a new product for those who couldn’t make the live event
Keep copies of your recorded interviews and create a resource library for a membership site
Create a video series for YouTube from a series of articles that were first on your blog
Add your video series to the library on your membership site
Start recording video ezines and then add those videos to your membership site as well
Run a Q&A teleclass and let each segment inspire you to write an article for your blog
Write articles to post on article directories and reuse them for guest blog posts on other bloggers’ sites

This is really the tip of the iceberg in terms of repurposing your materials. I’m sure you can think of many more. Why work hard when you can leverage what you have already created? Be smart to make the most of your time.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

What materials do you already have completed? Now think of five different ways you could use them again to stretch their value and leverage your efforts.

If you just started a new business, you may be wondering “What are the most powerful first steps I can take to market your services?” I know it’s overwhelming because there are so many exciting marketing opportunities. However, there are three particular methods that you can count on to jumpstart your business and get the traction you need to begin building.

1. Meet new people through networking

In order to find new clients, you want to meet lots of new people! That’s where networking comes into play. Do a search online to find the networking groups in your area and look for BNI which is also a referral group. Don’t forget about associations as well, which can be a rich source for potential clients. There are also philanthropic groups such as the Lions Club and Rotary Club that work together to help the community or chosen charities.

2. Start speaking to groups

Decide what your signature talk is and then find places to present it. The more groups you can speak to, the more you are seen as an expert in your field. Many of the networking groups, associations and clubs that you visit are looking for speakers. So, while you may visit at first to meet people, your second objective is to ask if they are looking for speakers.

One thing that can help is to write up a one-page document that pitches your signature talk. Come up with a snappy headline, keeping the problem you are solving in mind. Then include a list of benefits attendees gain from hearing what you have to say.

3. Start building your ezine list

Writing and distributing an ezine is a powerful marketing tool for any business. Once you start networking and speaking, it will be easy to build a list of people to market your services to. The ezine becomes your way to:

Stay in touch
Keep yourself top-of-mind
Share tips and advice
Set yourself up as an expert
Offer products and services

Weekly or bi-weekly emails work best to get your readers engaged and in the habit of expecting your ezine. As you grow, you can add other emails to announce special offers or events. Shorter emails are more likely to be read. A catchy subject line will be the hardest working piece of the email to get people to open and read it.

I recommend using Aweber to manage your database and send out emails if you’re starting out. This service is easy to use, inexpensive to start and allows you to send professional looking emails that get through spam filters.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Start by brainstorming topics to write about for your ezine. Think about all the subjects your ideal clients want to know about and how to solve their problems. Then you can start writing articles and create a stock pile for future use. It can be easier to sit down and write a few articles at a time to get a flow going.

If your business is just getting off the ground, you need to build your subscriber list for marketing from zero. This list will be used for email marketing and direct mail. Here are eight easy ways to start off with a bang!

1. Put your previous business contacts on the list. Even if you are doing something completely different, colleagues will be curious how and what you are doing.

2. Add your holiday card list to your list. Let your friends and family know what you are up to as well. They are likely to be supportive so don’t miss out on sharing your news with this close group.

3. Once you join a few networking groups, adds those contacts to your list. If you are in BNI, the group likely hands out the member list at each meeting. Be sure to get their permission first before adding them!

4. Look for speaking opportunities and ask the audience if they want your irresistible free offer by email. That will encourage them to provide their contact information. Send around a clip board so they can sign up.

5. Offer the same irresistible free offer on your website. This will help you capture the contact information from visitors by giving them a reason to share it with you. Make the offer available on a special landing page or your home page.

6. Offer free teleclasses and distribute flyers at BNI and other networking groups. Remind BNI members that if they share the event with colleagues who attend, this counts as a referral! That will help motivate and engage your members.

7. Announce your free irresistible offer and free teleclasses on Facebook and LinkedIn which will drive people to your website to register. Keep in mind that you‘ll need a special web page for the teleclass sign up.

8. In your newsletter, ask people to spread the word and share your ezine. Don’t be shy. Just put your request in there and you’ll be pleasantly surprised that many readers will follow through.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Create your newsletter and get the first one ready to send. Regardless of how small your list is to start, get in the swing of writing articles and putting them into the format that works with your email service. Take time to create a catchy newsletter name. If you sit down for an hour and brainstorm topics, you can come up with six months worth of ideas in just one sitting!

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