Link to “Getting Things Done” by David Allen

I would guess that most of you reading this post would place “increasing profits” as a high priority in your business right now.  Great!  If we throw in “not work harder” as a parallel goal to “increase profits,” I submit that what you are really asking for is a business that consistently attracts new prospects and converts a high percentage of them into profitable customers…like a machine.

The “specifications” of this machine:  it brings good prospects to you, makes the job of converting them into customers easier, and tells you what needs “tuning” over time.

1. Contact Management Infrastructure — processes and information systems that allow you to: capture new prospect contact information quickly, categorize them, and ensure that proper follow up will happen.  This same system should allow you to easily see how healthy your prospect flow, conversion rate, and profitability per client is.
2. A Refined Target — ask yourself, who can benefit the most from my product or service?  You should also consider surveying past clients to learn why they decided to buy from you over their other options and focus on people who may have that same need or want.
3. Communicate the “Ultimate Result” — for marketing that gets attention, focus on the results you can help people achieve.  When in doubt, think about marketing of diet programs and weight loss products.  They get your attention with “Lose 20 Pounds in 20 Days” not “We’ve got the best diet, excercise, and nutrition products around.”  When trying to get the attention of your target audience, forget about how you do what you do — talk about what results they’ll get…period.   
4. An “Irresistible Offer” as a Call-to-Action — when your marketing successfully gets the attention of someone in your target audience, give them a “no brainer” reason to contact you.  Read carefully — not to do business with you.  I call this a “first date” call-to-action.  What information, advice, product sample can you offer that any reasonable person in your target audience would say “of course!” to?
5. Follow-up Plan — with a compelling call to action, you must have a foolproof and thorough follow up strategy.  Worried about feeling like a nuisance?  Ever hear the phrase “the marketing is the product?”  Many people have a negative reaction to that phrase, as if it means there’s no there there when someone becomes a client.  Think of it this way, what if simply by participating in your marketing and your follow up, your prospects will get closer to the ultimate result that they want, and that you can help them reach faster if they become a client?  Create a follow up plan that keeps your business in the forefront of your prospects minds while also offering them value.
6. Present Options — by offering multiple ways, levels, packages, bundles…through which your prospects can become your client, you give them more power in the buying process.  Offer a single product, price point, or solution and you’re basically telling them to “take it or leave it.”  And guess what, more of them will “leave it” than you would like!

For more ideas and examples to help you build your client attraction and conversion machine, simply click the “Seven Levers of Profit Growth” link to the right to request your free copy of our eBook.

So I am often on a mission to find just the right word to express something.  I recently had one of those moments where a single word unlocked so much for me — “enrollment.”  So where did I hear about it and what am I talking about?

I have spent the last 5 months participating in a great group coaching program put on by Bill Baren of San Francisco.  If you haven’t heard of him, he is one of the premier business coaches in the area — in the country for that matter.  I have been part of an intensive “Client Mastery Blueprint” program where he has shared many of his proven methods for gaining more clients (and helping more in the process).  One of the most transformational concepts I picked up was the notion of “enrolling” clients into your program, service, or even product for that matter. 

What a great term!  “Sales” and “selling” are focused on what we as the provider are doing, or want from the relationship.  As I have written about in an a variety of posts, we really shouldn’t be “selling” anything — we should think of our “sales” task as simply providing an opportunity for our prospects to experience the benefits we are uniquely able to deliver.  Bill gave me the single word I’ve been looking for! 

So I am taking up that term — enrollment.  Next time you are planning to meet with someone to determine if purchasing what you have to offer is a good fit for them or not, think of this term.  Isn’t it a great mindset?  You will not be there to sell them anything.  You will be there to articulate how you, your company’s service, or your product could help them, explain the fees you charge, and provide them the opportunity to enroll or not!

Intrigued?  I encourage you to check out a new program that Bill Baren will be running.  A series of 6 teleconferences focused on this very topic called the “Master of Enrollment” program.  Sorry for the tight notice, but I didn’t realize that as a Bill Baren Coaching client I am empowered to offer a discount of $200 to my friends and clients. 

The program starts Wednesday April 7th (first teleconference) and the discount goes away at the end of tomorrow (April 6th).  I can personally vouch for the quality of Bill’s methods and content.  Feel free to call me at (925) 683-1685 to discuss.  If you are having trouble with enrolling new clients into your business, you owe it to yourself to check it out.

Master of Enrollment

This is Bill’s eighth year as a successful business coach and what he teaches in this program is what has made his business a success.  I believe Bill will give you the BEST possible training you can get for your business.  Here’s the reason why:

There is NOTHING more important to your business success than turning potential clients into paying clients.  These are people who want your help and whose lives would be better off by working with you!  So here’s your chance to create an authentic way for them to be enthused to say Yes to you.  EVERYTHING else is in your business is secondary to your ability to enroll. Period.

And becoming a ”Master of Enrollment” will help you do this.

What did we do?  We created a simple, but valuable, promotion that we plan to send out via email.  I signed up my client with Constant Contact so we can do it quickly, make it attractive looking, and monitor our results (how many people opened the email, how many clicked through to visit the web site, etc.).  Once that email goes out, the sales representative on my client’s team will have a reason to call — just to follow up on the promotion their customers should have all seen in their emails.

It may seem like such a simple concept — a little mundane, in fact, in this age of complex marketing programs.  All she will do is call each of the people who received the promotion via email to:

1. Make sure they noticed it (it’s easy to overlook emails these days isn’t it?)
2. Ask them to either open it up, or send them another copy if they can’t find it
3. Explain a few details and ask if they have any questions

Who knows where the conversation will go from there, but this little two-step plan accomplishes a few things:

1. It communicates that my client doesn’t just blast messages at their clients and prospects.  By simply following up, they are making it clear that the messages they send have useful information.  They wouldn’t be calling to confirm receipt if they didn’t feel so!
2. Increases the likelihood that future messages will be noticed.  It’s so easy to become numb to the emails you receive!  Once the receiver makes the stronger connection between the message and who the sender really is, future emails will get more attention.  Even when my client merely leaves a voice mail that is never returned, the exercise will be worth it.
3. Oh ya, it will increase immediate results.  If you’ve created a good offer in the first place, you’ll get more people to pay attention and take advantage if you follow up with a call.

I urge you to not overlook the simple things when designing your next “system” for increasing profits through more effective marketing and selling. 

More information about Constant Contact

As a business partner, I offer business owners who sign up through me (simply by using either link in this post) the same price as available by signing up directly.  I ALSO provide a free 2-hour email marketing strategy consultation.  If you’ve been kicking around the idea of email marketing, it may be time to take action!  Let me help you get started.

The answer is “yes” and “no.”  Yes, a sales conversation takes place, but no — it’s not the dog and pony show that one thinks of as a sales meeting.  From my perspective, a typical sales meeting is setup for everyone to fail.  The prospective client wants to get as much information as possible about the product or service being offered, while revealing only as much as necessary about their business or problem.  They are usually dreading the meeting and just hope they can learn what they need to learn to make a decision without getting pinned down about timing or budget from an aggressive sales person. 

The sales person, on the other hand, wants the prospect to reveal as much as possible about their situation so as to suggest the winning combination of products or services to meet their needs and budget.  Sounds o.k., right?  But they worry about getting caught revealing too much — giving away the answer to the prospect’s problem without getting paid for it.

So what happens?  Well, there is great likelihood of an elaborate dance, and only a moderate chance of a highly productive meeting.  Here is a suggestion for going against the grain to improve your sales meeting experience, and win more deals.  I call it a no-selling sales conversation:

• Let your prospect know in advance that you will not use more than a few minutes of the upcoming meeting to describe your products or services.  Instead, you want to use the time as a true consultation to help them better understand the problem they are facing and the options for solving it.
• Send them questions in advance that will help you both understand their circumstance better and ask them to have answers available at your meeting.
• Put them at ease by letting them know that you will not be proposing a next step or recommending a product or service of yours for them to consider purchasing.  They will have to ask you for information about how to work with you or buy your product.

When it comes to the day of the meeting, here is a good agenda to follow:

• After some small talk to establish a connection, open with just a few comments about your background, service or product you offer, and some of what your happy clients have experienced.
• After these few minutes, switch gears to ask about your prospect’s current circumstance.  Use the questions you sent in advance as your guide.  Your prospect will already have let their guard down after realizing that you meant what you said — you indeed would not be torturing them with a typical sales pitch!  Be sure to ask clarifying questions about their current challenges — when did the problem start?  what solutions have they tried so far?
• After you have a good picture of their current situation, ask them what a completely resolved state would look like.  Getting them to envision a future without this problem or limitation will help them realize how much they really want it. 
• Next, ask them to think about what stands between their current state and the future they want.  You may only be able to offer part of a solution to that problem.  Resist the urge to tout your solution.  All you really need to accomplish at this point is helping them truly see what needs to be done. 
• Next, ask them to describe how important it is to reach the desired state.  Is it something they are willing to invest in to accomplish?
• Finally, simply ask them if they would like you to describe how you work with clients that face similar challenges.  “No thank you” is a perfectly acceptable answer, but not one you will get often with this sales approach!

Your sales task is not to get your product or service into their hands.  Your task is to help them realize the benefits they are seeking — actually reach the desired state they want.  By presenting yourself as someone truly interested in helping them get there, you will set yourself apart and have prospects eagerly asking you to share how they could work with you!

If you want to take your sales results to another level though, consider this notion. You’re not a sales person, you are a venture capitalist. I’m not suggesting that you impersonate a VC in the hopes that you can trick your prospect into talking with you. I mean you would benefit from taking on that philosophy.

A Closer Look
VCs (especially those involved with early-stage businesses) expect the majority of the companies they invest in to either fail completely or fall far short of expectations. Does this sound a little bit like your pipeline of business? If you expect MOST of your prospects to close, then you’ve got wishful thinking or an amazing close process that I need to learn about . Sales is based upon the assumption that only a fraction of the opportunities you pursue will succeed – just like the portfolio of companies that a VC selects.

O.k., so we’ve established one similarity between sales people and venture capitalists — each pursues an array of opportunities knowing full-well that only a fraction will result in “success.”  Scratch below the surface and we immediately find an important difference between how VCs and sales people operate.  VCs invest in the companies in their portfolio.  Not just money, but time and resources as well.  They join in the fight to make each company succeed.  In the end, they have to be shrewd and cut their losses, invest more in the “winners,” etc.  But along the way they are busy trying to help each company reach its goals.

How do you think they would do if all they did was call around to each company in their portfolio on a regular basis to ask “have you made us money yet, how is it going?”  Pretty weak, right.  So (as a sales person or business owner) how helpful are you when you call around to your active prospects and keep asking, “…have you made a decision yet?  Have you talked with your boss or gotten approval from your CFO yet?”  Pretty weak right.

So remember, I’m talking figuratively here.  I’m not proposing that you have to invest hard money in your prospects.  But how can you benefit from that perspective?  What would a venture capitalist do?  Well, he or she would treat the list of active opportunities as a rolling portfolio of “investments.” In each case he would determine what is needed to make them successful.  So stop there.  Note the *them*. 

Here is where sales people can lose sight.  Do you want business from your prospects?  INVEST in them to help them realize the benefits you know they want.  Can you introduce them to someone in your network to help them get further along in their project or important aspect of their business?  Can you point out a resource for promoting their business that they may not be familiar with?  Can you give them a taste of the service you provide with a focus on delivering tangible benefits? 

Reciprocity is a powerful force.  Sure giving your prospects a gift or treating them to box seats at the A’s game may be appropriate at times and make them feel indebted to you.  But invest your energies into helping them reach their business goals and you will set yourself apart, and create more winners in your “portfolio” in the process!