February 2013 - Small Business Coach, Women Business Coaching

Sometimes people just starting out in their practice feel nervous about credentials and experience. That’s totally understandable since you are moving into a new area. However, for you to build your practice and feel good about what you have to offer, you need to shore up your belief in yourself. Confidence is very attractive in business and life right?

Here are four ways you can build yourself up to exude confidence.

1. Write your compelling story. Here’s how to get your story started. Ask yourself these questions:

What is your story?
What challenges did you face?
What transformation did you achieve?
Why did you decide to start this business?
What experience do you have that others can benefit from?

Once you get your compelling story down on paper, you have not only created a way to connect with prospects, but you have captured your own enthusiasm and reasons for being in business. This gives you the credibility you need and is an amazing tool for confidence building!

2. Read and re-read your compelling story. When you spend time reading your own success story, you are allowing the energy of your accomplishments to sink in. That works wonders to bolster your self-image. This will help you clearly see what you have to offer people facing similar challenges and feel good about your knowledge and skills to help them.

3. Remember, you are already helping people. Think about the people in your life right now who you have helped. Often, friends and family members seek out your help as you have talked about and demonstrated your own success. While these people may not have paid for your service, that doesn’t discount the fact that you have experience guiding people and helping them move forward to overcome their own challenges or achieve goals.

4. Keep track of kind words. What have people said about you and your work? You may have friends who pointed out how good you are at what you do. Or people you helped, even if just in conversation, who were thrilled with what you offered them. Keep track of all compliments and praise so you can remind yourself of the difference you make. It can be easy to forget the impact you have which is why I recommend creating a “kind words” file. For those days when confidence is lacking, open this file to get that solid reminder of why you have chosen this work.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
If you are worried about your credentials or feel uncertain of your ability to help others, then take these confidence building exercises to heart. These simple steps, applied consistently will work wonders to give you the self-assurance you need to attract clients and grow your practice.

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.

Does this happen to you? You talk to a prospect during your Get Acquainted Call and she says “Yes” to working with you. Yeah, that’s very exciting! But then, you send paperwork and wait for her first payment. Times passes and your cash flow suffers. So, how do you move new clients from saying, “Yes” to becoming a paying client?

1. Use Suggestology in Your Conversation. When you start to go over your programs with a prospect, use language that sounds like you already know she is going to sign up. Here’s a script you can adapt for your business, “Here are the different programs, and you’re going to let me know which one you like. Then if you decide you want to sign up today, fantastic. All I need is your name. email information, address, and which credit card you want to use. Do you want to pay to in full or pay in installments? I’ll run it through, and send your welcome packet, then we can get you started today.”

2. Don’t Send Anything Until You Receive a First Payment. A lot of entrepreneurs are excited by a prospect who wants to work with them, so they lean forward and share information prior to getting a payment. I learned early on in my practice that what works best is to hold off sending the welcome packet. Instead, don’t share anything until you get a full commitment, which is a payment.

3. Use a System for Taking Credit Card Payments Over the Phone. When you have a prospect on the phone, that is the best time to get their initial installment. Take control of payment processing to ensure more prospects become clients. I recommend PracticePaySolutions.com because I used them in my practice. Over the years, I’ve had hundreds of clients do their due diligence, talk to their banks, and many if not most of them ended up with Practice Pay Solutions. It’s just easier.

Don’t send invoices or use Paypal invoices because you lose control of processing and leave it up to the client to choose when to pay. If there is any wishy-washiness, they may waver on making that first installment.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
If you have clients in limbo who agreed to work with you, but have not yet made a first installment, try this to prod them along. Every five – ten days send them a message that says, “I’m looking forward to sending you the assessment” (or welcome packet). Or, “I’m looking forward to getting you started,” or, “Here’s a little thing that I found online”. Gently, lovingly nudge the person that it’s time to get started.

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As you may remember, last week we talked about what it takes to attract ideal clients and customers who happily buy when you’re not in front of them. We do this by having the skills to write authentic marketing copy that sells. I walked you through my first four strategies to creating authentic copy that sells. We talked about setting an intention and really energetically setting yourself up for giving rather than taking. We talked about identifying exactly who you’re writing to, defining your objective and your outcome, and then writing straight from the heart – from your heart to your reader’s heart. This is heart connection.

This week I’d like to take you through the three practical pieces of your sales copy that you must include if you want to sign on more clients and customers. (Click here to tweet this.)

1. Objections. You’re going to want to anticipate the most common objections that are going to come up from your prospect and address them in the copy itself. Objections can be any excuse that your reader may have for not taking action. You want to put it all out there and address them one-by-one. It’s about entering the conversation that’s already going on in their heads. It could be about money, about time, about business, will it work for me, etc.

2. Testimonials. You want to include testimonials and case studies from clients who have gone through your programs or used your products. Why? Because people love success stories. It makes the results more real and it helps your reader to think, “Oh, if he can do it, so can I. If she can do it, then it can be done.”

3. Call to action. You want to give them a clear call to action. In the end people just want to be guided as to what to do. You want to make it easy for them to take the next best step. This includes letting them know when the deadline is or how many are available. Just tell them what to do, “Pick up the phone and call now.” That’s what infomercials talk about.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

When you have these three elements in place you’re going to sign on more clients. The next time you sit down to write copy, create a checklist from parts 1 and 2 of this video.

Finally, when you’re done writing, ask yourself, “Would I buy this? Would I feel good after reading this? Would I feel loved and significant? Would I like this person who actually wrote me? Or do I feel like I just got pitched heavily and that I’m just a number?” It’s really important to get clear on what message you’re sending across because if you wouldn’t buy it, then probably no one else will.

Whether your business is new or you are expanding your offerings, the very first thing you want to do is let people know what you are up to. The more people who know, the better your chances of getting referrals which will help get your client pipeline flowing.

One method I often recommend to quickly educate your environment about your business is the “Warm Letter of Introduction”. Here’s the strategy behind it:

Describe your service. You want to write a letter that briefly outlines the service you offer or the new services you have added to your business. This communication technique works great for either scenario. Explain what the service is and mention any credentials, even if you are still in process.
Explain what problem you solve. Then, move on to share who this service will serve – what type of person or client wants this service or what type of problems they are facing that your service solves.
Detail the results. Spend time detailing the results people can expect. These are the benefits of working with you and the reason people might refer friends, family or colleagues. Lastly, if you have any testimonials, include one or two. Testimonials reinforce the success you had with clients and show that your service works to alleviate the problem and deliver the needed solution.
Send it regularly. The Warm Letter is also a great way to stay in touch with your contacts and can be sent out on a regular basis. Whether you send a letter monthly, every other month or quarterly, keep your network informed.
What’s great about the Warm Letter is that you’ll stay top-of-mind with everyone you know. Plus, you can easily announce additional client successes. Specific examples of results help your contacts more easily think of people who need your services.
Share successes. In addition, when you share benchmarks or achievements, you reinforce your own business success. This deepens recipients’ positive impression of your practice and helps them to see you as successful. All of this works as pull marketing, drawing in more of the right people for your service.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Do you have a contact list all prepared? If not, it’s time to create one. Put all those business cards into the data base. Add friends and family members too. Include other service professionals you work with too, like your hair stylist, massage therapist, personal trainer, coach, etc. The bigger your list, the more people who can spread the word about your business and potentially refer clients.

If your practice is booming, taking a well needed vacation can be difficult. This is especially true if you have lined up new clients who will have to wait to get started. Normally I recommend not working during your vacation, but sometimes you need limited availability. When I took maternity leave with Claire, I got smart about this situation. Here are some suggestions to help you plan ahead and handle client expectations and needs while you are away.

1. A script for new clients about a later start date. Here’s what you can say to a new client who wants to get started. “You know, because it’s my vacation time, we can get started in September, and to save your spot, I’ll run a small deposit. Or we can get you started, and in the meantime, I’ll give you some things to do while I’m away.” Talking about your availability this way shows the client you understand how they want to get started and gives them options to choose from.

2. Offer a group call to provide connection. While I was on maternity leave, I offered a monthly group call to bridge the gap for clients while I was out. It was just one hour per month, but clients still felt like they were connected to me. Even though they weren’t really paying for that call, it was a way for them to feel like they were still getting value. It was provided in addition to any program they signed up for.

3. Limit the hours you’ll work per day. If money is a concern and you have clients who just don’t want to wait, you can choose to work two hours per day or on just a couple of days, whatever feels right to you. This way you can serve your clients, bring in some cash and minimize your hours to enjoy the vacation or leave.

4. Add time to your normal program length. If you usually offer a six month program, just consider it as a seven month program for the price of six. You can send clients a little care package for them to get started while you are away. It’s all how you phrase it, because many clients will feel like, “Wow, I’m getting a seventh month program for the price of a six month program.” Most people will be fine with that.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Planning ahead for vacation time or leave is the smartest thing you can do. How do you want to handle your time off? Can you totally stop working or do you need to have some work scheduled to keep clients happy? Decide what will work best for your practice. Then put systems in place in advance to make it seamless for clients.

Have you ever thought about what it takes to attract ideal clients and customers who happily buy when you’re not in front of them? Today, I’d like to share some best practices with you that I use and that my clients now use to write marketing copy that sells.

Copy is infinitely important in your business. Why? Because it clones and replaces you in the sales process. It’s a way for you to multiply your reach without extra effort. And it touches EVERY single part of your business—your ezine, your website, your sales pages, your mailing campaigns, your social media, your video—EVERYTHING. (Click here to tweet this.)

You want to be able to write AMAZING and COMPELLING copy. It is a tool you can use that allows you to sell with authenticity, integrity and love. Now you might be saying right now—did I hear her correctly? Did she say love? Yes, LOVE.

Here’s the deal. In your heart, you want to take what you do in your business and get it out there in a really BIG way. Awesome, authentic copy is one way you can take your message to the masses. Marketing copy is the vehicle. When done well—with love—copy is a divine tool that allows you to be of service to others.

One of the biggest compliments a prospect can give me is to say, “Fabienne, when I read your email I felt like you were talking directly to me. You articulated exactly what I am feeling, exactly what I wanted and you showed me exactly how you were going to give it to me. And you were so real and so authentic. I couldn’t wait to buy what you were offering.”

The best news is that it’s not that difficult to be able to write copy that gets your prospects to respond in this way. In today’s strategy video, I’d like to walk you through my first 4 strategies for writing authentic copy that sells. You’ll see that once you’re able to sink into your heart a little bit, the process is actually quite magical.

1. Set the Intention. Everything is energy—including marketing copy. So, I want you to get in a place of LOVING that person who you are writing to before you put pen to paper or even think about tapping away on your keyboard. Get into a good space first—in whatever way that works for you. For me, that means taking some time to reflect and light my favorite scented candle in a calm and peaceful setting so that I can tune in to my inner guidance and hear what it has to say.

You want to make sure you are aligned with the intention of serving, not taking. Come from a place of abundance rather than scarcity. Desperation (“I’ve just gotta make the sale”) repels abundance so focus instead on faith and service.

2. Know who you’re writing to. Choose your muse. You want to write to one particular person—think of your ideal client who really ‘gets’ you and buys everything you offer, or a longtime client you would want to clone. That’s the person who you need to write to. Make your reader feel that you’re only talking to him or her—and only him or her. And be sure to use your authentic voice.

3. Clearly define your objective. What is it that you want your reader to do after reading your copy? Are you trying to make a sale, have him or her fill out the boxes on your website, call you? You need to know the exact action you want your reader to take.

4. Write from the heart. This may not come naturally to you—at first. But in reality, this is the most natural thing that we can do in our business because all you have to do is BE YOURSELF. You want to connect with your reader—heart to heart.

Make that person feel valued and important. Use empathy wherever possible. Be compassionate. Be reassuring. Acknowledge their pain. Treat them as if you would treat a friend. Be conversational and talk to them about their deepest aspirations (rather than about the offer.)

Take a stand for your reader and their success. Talk to them about where they are now, where they want to be, what’s possible for them and how you can help them get there. Be vulnerable if it’s appropriate, show your passion and for goodness sake, don’t be boring!

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Your Assignment for this week is to give these first 4 strategies a try. It may take some practice—especially if you’re not used to writing in your authentic voice, but once you really learn to sink into your heart and just let your thoughts and feelings flow, you’ll see that being authentic actually takes less of an effort than pretending to be someone you’re not.

Stay tuned for next week’s video, where I’ll go through the very last step in my authentic sales copy strategy, which includes the practical parts of sales copy that you must include if you want your reader to take action.

This happens to every business owner at some point. Prospects tell you they can’t afford the service, or they’ll wait for the next program, or they can’t spend the money right now.

Learning how to handle these money-related objections can help you get more clients and serve people who are experiencing resistance. But going deeper, you might want to look at where your own resistance is showing up too.

I recommend three ways to deal with money objections from clients and yourself.

1. Use Client Objections in Your Marketing Materials
Keep track of all the objections clients use so you can address them in your marketing materials. You can write about them in your Frequently Asked Questions page or in your preview calls as you near the end of a program.

For example, if a client says, “Maybe I should just wait until the next time” I say back to them, “Why on earth would you wait until next time to make money when you can make money now?”

2. Objections Can Reflect a Lack of Confidence
Sometimes client objections are linked to your own lagging confidence. I’ve got a great solution for that – read your testimonials! I know it sounds crazy and maybe a little narcissistic, but it totally works. Taking time to you read your testimonials, watch any videos or review your file with client notes, you will fill up again so you regain your confidence.

3. Examine Your Own Spending Resistance
Most importantly, look at where in your life you are resisting investing. I have found there is something called the Law of Circulation which comes into play around money objections. Imagine a garden hose – as it fills with water, it must empty out right? There cannot be giving without receiving at the Universal level.

So, if you want to receive, you often must first give. Energetically, look at how you are vibrating. Are you saying to yourself, “No, I don’t want to do that because it’s too expensive or I don’t have the money”? If you open up that channel of energy, you’ll also open up to receive. Make sense?

Your Client Attraction Assignment
If you are getting a lot of prospects who voice a concern about paying you, it’s time to take a good look at yourself. Make time to think about how this shows up in your life or business. As you raise your awareness about your own resistance, that is the first opportunity to address it and free up your own money energy.

When I started building my business, I used the “warm letter” to let people know what I was doing. It worked as a great referral source to get new clients. Over time I thought, why not send a follow up to the warm letter? That’s how the idea came to me to create a whole campaign of letters. This sequence of letters can continue to drive referrals with every new mailing. It’s literally a referral driving machine.

Why does it work so well? Because you are educating your contacts and inviting them to refer to you. Try this series of letters to see how your network reacts. You’ll generate prospects and referrals at a surprising rate.

1. Warm letter. Your first letter let’s people in your network of contacts know what you are doing now. Tell them about your business and who your ideal clients are. Ask them to keep you in mind when they meet these people.

2. Interview With. Follow up with the “Interview With (Your name)” which explains what clients can expect and answers potential objections.

3. Case Study. Provide a case study that illustrates the problem one of your clients had, the solutions you helped them discover and the success they experienced as a result of working with you. This is a very powerful marketing tool since it gives readers a specific example of the service you provide.

4. Testimonial. Share a success story written by one of your clients. This testimonial gives you loads of credibility and again helps the reader connect with exactly what you do. This kind of letter can jog a person’s mind to think of who could benefit from a service like yours.

Additional Tips

Personalize letters so that every reader feels like you are talking to him or her.
Commit to a full series of letters over several months to maximize your exposure and results. People need to see and hear things multiple times before they refer people or buy.
Send letters to all your contacts because you never know where a good referral will come from. Don’t be shy.
Be consistent – send a letter every single month for the time frame you have chosen.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
To make the “warm letter” campaign easier, plan out what you want to send for several months at a time. This way you don’t have to think about what to do every month. It will all be decided ahead of time so all you’ll need to do each month is execute. You can use the testimonials you already have to send as is or create a case study as well. By spending some time up front, you will save time later and ensure your letter goes out every month to generate those important referrals.

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Today I want to talk to you about building your list with your website. If there’s one question I get asked all the time by our clients and members of the Client Attraction community it’s this: “Derek, what is the best way to build my list?” Often, people expect some form of a magic bullet answer or a simple shortcut that will help them attract tons of ideal clients and prospects to their list overnight.

Well, as you can imagine, it doesn’t always work like that. In fact, it doesn’t work like that at all. If it did, everyone out there would have thousands and thousands of subscribers on their list, which we all know is not the reality. So, what does it take to build your list with ideal prospects, loyal fans and tons of subscribers that love your high value free content and your paid offerings? (Click here to tweet this.)

First, it’s important to understand a fundamental principle when it comes to building a list of email subscribers. This principle is lead generation versus lead capture. Lead generation is all about where you find ideal clients, either online or offline and how you attract them to you in ways that will want them saying, “This I exactly what I’m looking for.” They happily opt in to your list. There are probably hundreds of ways to do this and we’ll dive into many of those lead generation strategies in future videos.

Let’s look now at lead capture, which is the process by which someone actually joins your email list once they land on your website. In the online world, this is where practically all of your prospects will land when they find you—your website.

Chances are you’ve been focused exclusively on lead generation or what’s known as driving traffic to your site, but not necessarily focused on the critical elements and strategies of your website that will actually capture those leads onto your list once they land there. So here is the formula that contains the three most important elements of a client attractive website that will effectively and easily build your list of email subscribers.

The formula is the following: video, opt-in, offer. That’s it. Those are the three most important website elements to have in place to build your list and I’m going to explain how each one of them works for you right now.

1. Video – Unless you’ve been living under a rock, considering everything we have at our fingertips with technology and online video, there’s really no reason to not be using video on your website. Video is essential for developing a connection with your visitors. Being able to have someone watch you and look into your eyes allows them to get a real sense of who you are. It builds likability and a trust factor that is very compelling when you’re asking them to enter something personal like their email address.

Look, for example, at ClientAttraction.com. You’ll see just this in the video from Fabienne. She introduces the free CD and what it’s all about and how to get it. It’s very compelling and it leads them to joining our list.

2. Opt-in – The opt-in is a must have on you website. Again, at ClientAttraction.com you’ll see how we’re asking our visitors to enter their first name and their email address. It’s very visible. It’s very clear to them how to do it and it’s not being lost elsewhere on the site. It’s right there in the upper right for them to see and we spell out exactly how to do it with very simple-to-follow instructions. Keep it simple for your visitors and your list will grow.

3. Your offer – This is what is often overlooked the most. Many websites I see don’t have a compelling offer but instead offer to “join my newsletter.” Listen, I’m here to tell it to you straight, people don’t want to just join another newsletter. It’s just more email in an already crowded inbox. What do you they want? They want something that is irresistible, something that’s compelling and something that’s free with great content that’ll have them jump at the chance of getting it and happily provide their contact information to receive it.

Just look at ClientAttraction.com and see our free CD. It’s high value. It’s high content. And for someone who’s looking to attract clients, it’s in perfect alignment with what they need so they opt in happily to get it.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Now, here is your assignment. I’m going to ask you to do an assessment of your current website. Do you have all three of these elements in place? If so, fantastic, you’re probably getting some great results and you’re building your list with highly qualified leads.

But, if you’re missing one or two or even all three of these elements you want to go ahead and change that. You’re missing a huge opportunity. Add that video to your homepage. Create and irresistible and compelling offer and make sure your opt-in boxes are easily displayed with simple and easy to follow instructions.

Here’s the thing. Building your list is critical if you want a steady flow of clients and customers, but we need to make sure your website is designed in a way to support that.

Now, imagine this scenario. If I were to send you 1,000 highly targeted and ideal clients to your website today, how many will actually join your list? If you’re being honest with yourself, the number will probably surprise you. Your success in business and attracting clients is dependent on a website that builds your list and these three strategies I just shared will help you do that.

Have you created your client packages yet? I recommend offering three price levels to give your prospects a range of choices. You want each level to be a good value and not be easily tied back to an hourly fee. Obviously, the top tier package needs to provide the yummiest value so that it is practically irresistible to prospects.

To help sweeten your packages, I have created a list of simple suggestions that provide the kind of extras your clients will clamor for:

Recording private or group coaching calls
Unlimited 5-minute phone calls
Unlimited email questions
A two-hour in-person meeting at your office
Open office hours for quick calls
Ebooks or reports
Additional, select program recordings
Monthly Q&A calls
Community Facebook page
Weekly motivational or tips emails
Detailed list of resources

Many of these extras cost you very little or even nothing. But, in the client’s mind, they have great perceived value which is exactly what you want. It’s not about cramming stuff in there, but giving clients what they want the most, and most people want accountability and access.

You certainly don’t need to offer all of these options. Choose the ones that are easy for you to provide. The simplest thing is to offer selections from your current “library” such as ebooks and books, teleclass recordings, home study courses, etc. For something like ”Open Office Hours” choose a time that you know you can schedule consistently so that you train your clients to call at that time. Monthly Q&A conference calls add tremendous value because clients get even more access to you and your wisdom. However, for you, it requires only one more hour of your time per month, which may not be a big commitment.

On the other hand, you do have to be a bit brave to offer the unlimited services. Not that many people will take advantage of the extra services. However, the unlimited emails can be time consuming. Some people who email frequently don’t see this interaction as taking up a lot of your time – but it does. While I did provide this extra for many years, it’s something you want to think about.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Spend some time thinking about what your prospects really need. What type of extra would be highly valued and desirable?
What do you already have available to share with new clients? What can you add as a service that doesn’t require much additional time?

Brainstorm for 30-60 minutes using this list as the starting point to come up with rewards to satisfy new clients and entice them to work with you.

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Send general Inquiries to info@clientattraction.com. Client Attraction, LLC PO Box 62 | Stamford, CT 06904

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