10 Things That Will Grow Your Clientele and Revenues (Part 2) Part 2 of 3 By Bill Doerr, Sales & Marketing Editor Bill's Bio Email article  RSS feedShare on  facebook

Last month I suggested that, while most of us are receptive to improving our marketing, we often have more clarity about that objective than the strategy and appropriate tactics that will make it a reality.

So a quick recap of Part 1 before we move on to Part 2.

Strategy:

In general, you want to focus on building relationships with 1) people who might do business with you (suspects), 2) people who are likely to do so in the future (prospects and existing clients), and 3) people who are likely to introduce you to others and refer others to you (centers-of-influence).

Goals:

To support your desire to build relationships (and, the revenues they suggest!) with these three (3) groups of people in your business or practice, we previewed ten (10) tactics or goals you’ll want to take as steps that will take you closer to realizing your strategy.

These include:

1. Articulate your ONE BREATH COMMERCIAL
2. Profile your IDEAL PROSPECT
3. Profile your PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITY and SERVICES
4. Identify and build STRATEGIC ALLIANCES with COI’s
5. Develop COLLATERAL MATERIALS for communicating with your suspects, prospects, clients and centers-of-influence
6. Use a DATABASE SOFTWARE to manage your marketing relationships
7. Drip your MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS on your key people
8. Re-contact and re-qualify your CULTIVATED CONTACTS periodically
9. Generate PREFERRALS to qualified suspects for your services
10. Gain access to audiences of qualified suspects via PUBLIC SPEAKING and by creating INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS to attract qualified suspects

Tactics:

These are the ‘how’ to the ‘what’ of the above goals. The means to the ends you want.

In Part 1, I discussed the first three (3) marketing goals you’ll want to accomplish. Now, in Part 2, let’s look at the next few goals on our ‘Top 10’ List:

Unless and until you join forces with other people, you’ll never achieve the kind of marketing results you want. Why? Leverage! Working with and through other people affords you the means to literally be in ‘two places’ at the same time.

If you don’t already have some centers-of-influence working with you...I strongly suggest you go out and get them...ASAP!

How? First, think of all the people who know you...like you...trust you...personally and respect you...professionally. Then, approach them with a suggestion that you meet periodically to discuss ‘who’ they know who might (or, might not!) appreciate the beneficial difference you can create in their life.

And please note...you don’t want them to think of people who ‘need’ your services. You just want them to think of people who share certain ‘tell-tale’ characteristics in common with many of your very best clients. Why? Because there’s a very good chance that these people won’t need you when you first meet them. If they do, that’s great. But most of the time, this isn’t the case. So what you really want to do is get an introduction to these ‘ideal prospects’ by leveraging the influence and prestige of a person you both know in common...your Centers-of-Influence – AKA “Your Alliance Army”!

Try to develop as many ‘allies’ or strategic alliances as possible with people who have the two things you want and need to build your business or practice:

1. clients who look like good prospects for your services, and
2. significant potency and prestige with them

If you can build an ‘army’ of about 20 such individuals who can serve you as a COI, you’ll be identifying and meeting with a number of people who are fairly good prospects for you and your services on frequent and favorable basis. Used in concert with other forms of prospecting and promotion, you’ll find this will help you fill (and, keep!) your ‘pipeline’ consistently full of viable opportunities.

At some point, you’ll need some kind of written material to help you market your services. Many use these either too early or inappropriately in the sales process.

My suggestion here is to have the following ‘basic’ marketing materials:

1. Business Cards
2. Stationary (letterhead and envelopes)
3. Note Cards
4. Postcards
5. Brochure

The keys here are that there should be a visual continuity that gives a unified look / feel to all your materials. Graphic designers call this your ‘identity’. It’s the ‘cover’ to your ‘book’. If the cover (visual identity) doesn’t invite opening the book (you!) then it’s not likely to be read (productive and profitable!). Not good!

As for your copy, that’s the basis for a separate treatment by itself. But I can suggest the following:

1. Business Cards / Stationary Crisp, clean and read-ABLE – drop the small-ish print! (Baby Boomers have growing assets but diminishing visual ability – don’t forget that)
2. Note Cards (letterhead and envelopes) I like a ‘buckslip’ shape (1/3 of an 8.5 x 11 sheet) with a photo of you along with information on how to contact you. A ‘tagline’ isn’t a bad idea, either!
3. Postcards You’ll use these for promotional mailings of all kinds...so it’s best to simply have them designed so you can ‘drop in’ copy as you need it. You might also want to consider using oversize postcards (e.g. 6” x 9”) as they tend to stand out from a pile of otherwise similar mail.
4. Brochures There are a number of formulas you can choose from for this kind of document – and the best ones are prospect-centric rather than vendor-centric. It’s best to use a brochure to reinforce rather than introduce you and the important facts you want someone to remember about you and your services

Once you get your marketing underway . . . you’ll find that the myriad contacts your marketing is asking you to respond to...must be orchestrated as to WHO gets WHAT kind of contact from you and WHEN...will quickly strain even the most disciplined mind. (Yes, even your highly disciplined mind!)

Therefore, you want to use some kind of CRM or database software to help you manage all your important relationships and the critical contacts that cultivating prospects, clients and centers-of-influence requires of you.

There are so many CRM software products available...it’s hard to make a bad choice. Unless, of course, you fail to choose to use ONE of them in the first place!

At this point, we’ve covered 6 out of 10 things you can do to help you grow your clientele and revenues.

Next time, I’ll discuss the last 4 of the 10 tactics that can help you achieve your objectives for developing more clients, revenues and profits.

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