Most business owners don’t want to rest on their laurels. Even if they are making profits, they can always make more. Unless everyone in the world is using their product, then they still have work to do. If this is your philosophy, then keep reading to find out how to hook your next big account.
How to Attract A New Client
First, perform some background work. The best presentations begin before you have even put pen to paper. How can you create an effective presentation without knowing who your potential clients are and what they need?
So, find out all that you can about your clients. Any information can be helpful to building a convincing sales pitch. Analyze your customers from all sides to see where you can get a foothold.
Ask questions. What do potential clients want from you? For an online business, set up questionnaires or ask these questions in blog posts and wait for feedback. If you can talk to the potential client before pitching to them, then do so. One, it shows interest in their needs and it also means you are doing your due diligence.
Create a presentation that has your client’s need at heart. It is easy to pitch a product and forget all about the client. But, if you want them to actively listen to you, then you need to integrate them into the equation from the word go.
Here’s an example. If your client is sensitive about animal rights, then don’t give them the hard line kind of presentation. Show that your product is sensitive as well by demonstrating that no animal testing was used in the making of your product. Small things like that can make all the difference to your client.
Command the room when you make a presentation. Arrive early and set up your projector, slideshow or PowerPoint. Now you know that everything works and can just about guarantee that there won’t be any glitches. Also, arrange the furniture so that all eyes focus on you without anyone having to turn or crane their necks.
Choose the optimal time for your presentation. If you have been offered the spot right before lunch or quitting time, reschedule when you can have an early morning slot. The client will be more alert and focused on what you have to say.
Offer practical examples in your presentation. This means tell a story that relates to your product and the ability of said product to meet this client’s needs. A lot of technical jargon won’t convince them to buy. Everyone tries that approach. Make yours stand out.
Are you in need of new clients? Learn how to capture and keep their attention until the deal is closed.
]]>Clients are the backbone of a business. They are the ones who search and find you and eventually convert from viewers to buyers. But, it takes a constant infusion of new clients to keep the business growing.
Ways to Find New Clients
Here are some tips to help you begin to make a change right now, today, that will benefit your business.
* Re-evaluate your marketing plan – Every few years it is necessary to take a look at your marketing plan with new eyes. For online businesses, you may want to re-evaluate each year. What are you doing now? How can you revamp those marketing tools and employ some new ones?
* Become a social networker – Twitter and Facebook are becoming valuable tools for those who want to take their business to the next level. Use your account in two ways. If you don’t have an account with either or both, now is the perfect time to get involved.
* Advertise your business on your personal Facebook page – Post links to new content on your website and other promotional links that friends and family can view and share. Also, create a fan page for your business. Encourage current clients to sign up and tune in for special information or offers that they won’t find anywhere else.
* Use offline tools – Just because you are operating an online business, doesn’t mean that your local market won’t also benefit. In fact, with local clients, you can give them a personal touch that online clients may not be able to take advantage of. Some offline tools include direct marketing, flyers and promotional items.
* Video marketing – People love to watch informative videos online. You can take what you know and turn it into a visual presentation that immediately gives new clients a picture of who you are and what you do.
* Create a press release – Are you about to offer a new service or product? Create a press release that will attract new clients to your business. Use a press release service and be sure that your content is SEO optimized.
* Create links throughout your website – There are always links on the first page because that is the one that every visitor is introduced to first. But, other pages are visited as well. Most people won’t navigate their way back to the homepage to click on a link they saw there. You can increase your client base by making it easier for them to take advantage of your offers.
Are you looking for new clients? Here are a few ways that you can get the ball rolling.
]]>This involves people coming to your website. What you want to count are your unique visitors. These are people who visit for the first time. Repeat visitors are great for sales but to gain interest, the more people who come, the better.
In order for a business to make money it needs traffic. These people will do something for you on your site that will enhance their life and make money for you. There are a variety of ways to do it but for any method you use to be cost effective, you will need traffic.
One way to gain traffic is to have a focus. This is your niche. This will determine which traffic comes your way and if they are going to buy whatever you decide to offer on your site.
Now, turn your attention to your content. That is why your traffic is there in the first place. If you haven’t already, optimize it for a wider readership. This involves targeting certain keywords in your articles, blog posts, headers and picture text. Not only will your content get ranked higher for those keywords, but also your website. If you haven’t done so already, register your website with the major search engines.
Monetizing Your Website
Now that you have made a few tweaks to gain more focused traffic, you are ready to start making money with your website. Here are some ways that you can use to get the job done.
* PPC – This basically means that you are posting ads that people will click on. Whenever someone clicks on that ad, you get paid. Depending on who you are using for your service, there are other ways to do this besides just the click-through rate. One you can start with is Google AdSense.
* Banner Advertising – This is a way to get noticed. If you have a good fan base and have networked with others in your business niche, this can work for you. Sell advertising space on the top of your website. You can also sell on the sides, but keep in mind that the top half of your web page is where people’s eyes tend to gravitate.
* Affiliate Marketing – You not only advertise for others and sponsor their products, but you also get access to lots of helpful tools so you can do just that. Earn commissions on your click rate as well as sale rate depending on how the affiliate program is set up.
* Paid surveys – Companies will pay you to offer surveys to your visitors. Each time one of them takes the survey you get paid.
There are many other ways to monetize your website but this is just the beginning. Once you have started, try other ways to make your expertise work for you.
]]>Here are four strategies to help you make the most of LinkedIn.
Ask for Recommendations Often
Most people only have a couple recommendations. That’s why if someone opens up your profile and sees twenty recommendations, they’re automatically going to assume that there’s something special about you or your skill set.
Getting recommendations isn’t difficult. Anyone who’s on LinkedIn can write a recommendation for you. Whether it’s co-workers or employers, business partners or past clients, make it a point to ask for recommendations from everyone.
It’s like having twenty letters of recommendations attached to a resume.
Go through Your Past Contacts and Add Them
A lot of people don’t make full use of LinkedIn because they haven’t added their past contacts. People from past jobs, past employers, past partners (even from years and years ago) may have valuable contacts that you can meet in the present.
Go through your old phone books, old phones, old email addresses and look for people you might have forgotten to add.
Update Your Profile Regularly
Not everyone uses LinkedIn every day. Some people only use LinkedIn when they’re looking for a job. Others only use it when they’re looking to hire, or looking to find new clients.
During “off” periods, a lot of people let their LinkedIn profile stagnate. They forget to ask for recommendations, forget to add new contacts and forget to add new workplaces.
Unfortunately, anyone you meet could look you up on LinkedIn at anytime. If they see an old profile, they’ll likely think you’re less connected, less skilled or less experienced than you actually are.
Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date. Even if you aren’t using it at this particular moment, make it a point to update it at least monthly. Remember: it’s a publicly visible resume.
Search for New Contacts
LinkedIn allows you to search for contacts that are two degrees of separation away. In other words, if your friend Judy knows Jane, who knows Mark, and you want to get to know Mark, that can come up in a search.
You may be more connected than you realize. Potential mentors, investors, clients and employers could just be one or two degrees of separation away.
Get in the habit of searching for people who could help you in your career. Ask people you know, who know people you want to know, for referrals and recommendations.
These are a few LinkedIn strategies you can use to really take your networking and business contacts to the next level. Spruce up your LinkedIn page with recommendations, add past contacts, update your profile regularly and use the search feature to find people who could help you advance your career.
]]>Let’s go into two of the most important elements behind the buying psychology: emotions and logic.
Buy on Emotions, Justify It with Logic
Does someone buy a Mercedes because it logically makes sense? No – they buy a Mercedes because of how they believe they’ll feel when they own the car. The luxurious feel. The envy from others. The sense of pride, of power.
Then they tell themselves: “I’m buying it because I need to impress clients.” Or “I’m buying it because if it helps me land just one deal, it’s almost paid for itself.”
The reality is, however, buying decisions are almost always made on desire. Only once a strong desire has made the decision, then logic is used to justify the buying decision.
How can you use this to your advantage?
First of all, perhaps the most important skill you can master as a marketer is the ability to create desire. If you can instill a sense of excitement, of urgency, of tangible desire to own your product in your potential customers, your ability to sell will go up dramatically.
The other thing to take away from this principle is how important it is to help lay out the logic your client needs to justify the purchase. If you can explain why they’ll make their money back from their investment, you make it much easier for them to give in to their desire to own the product.
The Importance of Believability
Marketers and salesmen often try to make huge claims. It’s almost as if they’re in a competition to see who can make a bigger claim that nobody believes.
The most important thing in getting people to buy isn’t making big claims. Instead, it’s getting believability.
If I could convince you that I could show you how to make an extra $2,000 a month for no additional effort, all it would cost you is $50 and you believed me 100%, how likely are you to say yes?
On the other hand, if I tried to convince you I could make you a million dollars and you didn’t believe me, how much would you pay me for that?
The most important thing really isn’t how big a claim you can make, but how big a claim you can make your customers believe.
Desire is built on claims people believe. If someone really believes their lives can be better, they’ll get excited. Logic is also built on claims they believe. If someone really believes that buying that new Mercedes is worth the investment, they’re much more likely to spend the money.
The psychology behind buying is in some ways simple. Get people to want your product and remove the logical reasons why they shouldn’t. It’s also a skill that can take a lifetime to master.
]]>More clients means more money, right? It also means more awareness and rapid company growth. However, it can be a challenge to ramp up your client list quickly. It takes a solid strategy and a proven plan. Here are five smart strategies to get more clients fast.
#1 Partners! Partnerships can help you double your list overnight. Multiply your list and you multiply the number of opportunities you have to turn prospects into customers. And there are a number of ways you can make a partnership work for you.
For example, you could promote a partner’s e-book or product on your website in exchange for them promoting your e-book, product or service on theirs. You could swap reviews or even exchange advertisements.
However, one of the best ways to optimize a partnership is to cross-promote each others opt-in list and free giveaway. Then, when people sign up, you have permission to communicate and market to them. Have a product promotion ready to go and really capitalize on your new subscribers.
#2 Offer a huge referral reward for new clients. Get out your list of clients and prospects and offer an astounding reward for referrals. Put your current customers to work for you. It’s sort of like an affiliate system but it’s a one-time thing. Less work for you!
#3 Stir up a commotion. Sometimes all it takes to build your client list is a little excitement. Stirring up a commotion with humor, a great video or article is always successful. Or if humor isn’t your thing, what about controversy? You can boost your awareness and your customer list virtually overnight.
#4 Offer a “never been seen before” promotion. People love to get things for free. Next to that, they love a great deal. Release your best product or service at an unheard-of price and market the heck out of it. Really make a splash.
#5 Expert status. Who are the experts in your industry and how can you work with them? Do they have an information product you can buy the rights to? Do they have partnership opportunities? Can you interview them and distribute the recording on your website or blog? Can you write a guest blog post or article for their site?
Partnering with experts expands your reach more than you can imagine. Simply standing next to an industry expert boosts your credibility, reach and awareness. Study industry experts and determine how you can provide value to them. Be ready with a spectacular promotion to take advantage of all of your new website visitors.
Regardless of why you want to get new clients fast, having a plan in place and approaching it strategically makes a difference. Explore your resources. Look to partners, industry experts and your own product or service portfolio for ideas. You have it in you to reach your goals. Take the steps to make it happen.
]]>This might seem non-sensical at first. Afterall, the client is the one paying you, so shouldn’t they have complete control? The simple answer is no, and here’s why. Quite often, clients don’t know exactly what they want, and quite often, they have no idea what kind of time or effort goes into the services you provide.
This means that if you constantly defer to the client to ask them what they’d like over the course of your project, you may find yourself giving them choices that they don’t need to be making, and aren’t really necessarily capable of making. This can turn an otherwise simple project into a nightmare.
If you’re working on an hourly basis, then clients making changes left right and center might not be a big deal since the more changes they make, the more hours you’ll bill. However, if you’re working on a per project basis, then the fewer changes and alterations you have, the better. And this means that if you can keep as much control over the details of the project as possible, you’ll end up having to deal with far less revisions.
The reality is, if you defer to the client for input on every small detail, they’ll probably end up asking for things that might be outside the scope of the price you quoted or impossible due to time restrictions. However, had you just made those decisions yourself, you’d never have had to deal with that at all.
Always make sure that everything that you’re going to deliver and all details are worked out and carved in stone contractually before you start a project. If your client doesn’t know exactly what they want, then either have them think harder about their requirements, or make it very clear to them that further revisions or changes will be billed on top of the initial price.
Some clients will try to work you to death for the least amount of money possible, and these aren’t the kind of clients you want to deal with. Avoid that problem by making sure that any time a project isn’t clearly defined from the start, that the clients understand that either a) creative control is in your hands or b) that they have the option of asking for revisions, but they will be billed for any changes that require extra time or work.
]]>First of all, let’s begin with a simplified example (very simplified), Jim and Bob both have the same car for sale. Each one goes to Craigslist and quickly types up a for-sale ad. They go as follows:
1) Car for sale:
2) Car for sale:
What’s the difference here aside from the second for sale ad being wordier than the first one? The word count isn’t the important distinction here. Yes, the second one is longer and more descriptive, but it’s what the second one is expanding on that counts. These two ads (while both poor on the grand scale, cut me some slack, they’re just an example!) demonstrate the difference between selling based on features and selling based on benefits.
The first ad describes the car just like the second one does. Each ad covers the exact same aspects of the car as the other, but the second ad is the one that will sell. Why? Simple. The first ad focuses on the features of the car, whereas the second ad lists the features, but focuses on the benefits of those features, and benefits are what consumers care about.
What’s the difference between a feature and a benefit? A feature is a cold, emotionless, technical aspect of a product or service. A feature is a description of something the product has or does, but not what it does for you. A benefit on the other hand is exactly that. A benefit is what the consumer gets from the feature. A benefit describes how a feature will make a customers life easier or happier. It’s emotional and exciting. Features are cold and boring. For example, take the snow tires. The snow tires themselves are a feature of the car. But subconsciously the consumer is saying “why do I care about snow tires?” The answer is the benefit. “I care about snow tires because they’ll keep me safe when I’m driving in conditions that could otherwise result in an accident”. Likewise, numbers such as 120 horsepower or four cylinders might just go in one ear and out the other, but telling a customer that the engine will save them money when they fill up their car will likely peak their interest.
The point to drive home here, that is all too often overlooked, is that people make desicions emotionally. Consumers aren’t computers that take in raw data, process it and make a decision based on what the calculations say the best decision is. When people make buying decisions, they react to emotional stimulus, so your sales copy should be providing it generously. Benefits are emotional, they answer the ultimate question on every buyers mind, “what’s in it for me?” (WIIFM). On the other hand, features are bland, they evoke no emotional response, and worst of all, when listed without benefits, they make customers search for the answer to that ever important question. Don’t make your customers have to dig in their brains to answer WIIFM. Tell them yourself!
Keep in mind, features are important. First of all, you’ll always have the tech-heads who gobble up features like they’re candy and ask for more. For these people, seeing that list of specs is a thrill. Secondly, it’s always good to list the features simply because even if the potential buyer isn’t a tech-head, it still makes it very clear what the product does and does not do. That being said, listing features alone is leaving money on the table. Features always work best when coupled to a benefit. When you’re writing your sales copy, if you absolutely have to choose between listing one or the other (you have a word count limit or there isn’t much space for text), shoot for benefits, but whenever possible, marry them. Give your customer the raw information so they know the nitty-gritty of the product, but then tell them about all the wonderful things that the nitty-gritty will do for them.
Remember, people are emotional creatures, they make buying decisions with emotion, so evoke emotion! Telling me your airplanes seats are 21″ wide make me shrug my shoulders and say “meh, I can probably get a cheaper price”. Telling me your 21″ wide seat is the most spacious in the industry, so I’ll have plenty of room to get comfortable during my long flight makes me say “wow. My comfort is worth a little extra money!” Sell me the feature and I may go elsewhere, sell me the benefit and I just may stay!
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