Who Will Buy Your Professional Services?
By: Sandy Barris

Are you an engineer, IT consultant or a dentist? How about a business coach, facilities manager, project manager or any of the thousands of professional services wanted by millions of businesses?

Have you recently been downsized or layed off? Or, have you retired and are climbing the walls wanting to get back in the game.

If so, stop and pull out your magic wand, wave it around a few times and imagine creating the perfect professional services business —without fear of failing—what would it look like?

Got it pictured. Now, take your magic wand and break it in half because whatever professional service business you choose to create, you’ll always be in sales and marketing business.

Why, because if you won’t market and close business deals, you’ll have a rough time staying in business.

Of course, one of the keys to your success in a professional service business is knowing, without a doubt, who will want and can afford to buy whatever it is you are offering.

One of the ways to get started is to figure out what and who the perfect client may look like to you:

• What business niche are they in?
• What markets do they serve?
• Who supplies that business niche with goods & services
• Where is that niche located?
• Are there enough businesses in that niche to be profitable?
• Can they afford your services?
• Who would recommend their products or services

Answer these questions and you’ll be well on your way to discovering exactly who’ll want your services.

Next, market to your perfect client using many different marketing approaches. Some will work better than others. Some will start out like gang busters then fad off. Others will crash and burn with no ROI. It’s all good because every success and failure is a lesson and brings you closer to succeeding in your business.

The key here is to create an overall marketing strategy that includes 15 or more marketing tactics. The more marketing tactic you try, the greater your chance of getting in front of the perfect future client.

Keep in mind people absorb information in different modes. Some people like information presented verbally. Talk to them face-to-face; send them a CD/DVD or an Mp3 they can listen to in their car.  Others want info visually; they like to see videos, graphs, charts and pictures to fully understand what you offer.

You should test many different marketing tactics.

• Build an optimized website and use the Internet to describe the benefits of your service using video, audio and the written word.
• Go to networking events.
• Approach your suppliers for referrals.
• Host webinars and pod casts because they are the 21 Century brochure.
• Grow your database
• Email market your growing database
• Create a local Pay-per-click internet marketing campaign
• Develop a social media marketing plan
• Join LinkedIn, Facebook and 3-4 of the other top SMM sites.
• And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Whatever marketing you do, provide a compelling reason to try out your services. If a future client has a choice between many similar services or does not have a compelling need to buy your service, your company will not grow fast.

Targeting big business? Your ideal future client may be hidden deep within the corporate structure. Professional service providers have sometimes found it was easier to sell at a department level rather than target the CFO.

But, it can pay to go to the top first, so you can name drop to the rungs down under. Granted, it’s a lot harder to get to the CXO’s. Is it worth the effort, you’ll have to be the judge. Now, keep in mind that when you do get in front of the CXO, birds of a feather flock together and it could be your ticket into many more C-level opportunities.

Discover what your perfect future client looks like, and how to get in front of him/her and you’ll be well on your way to growing a successful professional service business.

Three Revealing Tips To Writing A Profitable Ad?

Are you frustrated because your ads are not getting the response you thought they deserved?

Here are three tips that are 100% guaranteed to help you improve any ad.

Tip One:
Write a powerful headline that stops your reader dead in their tracks.
Get them say to themselves. “I’ve gotta know more”

To create great headlines, run to your nearest magazine rack. Swipe and use the tested headlines from the most popular publications. Publications like: The National Enquirer, People, Sports Illustrated and Games. They have spent huge bucks testing and proving that these headline work. Headlines get the publishers magazines flying off the shelves. Use them as models to create your headlines.

Tip 2:
What do you want your future client to do AFTER you’ve convinced them that they need what you are offering?

A powerful technique is to take your reader, viewer or listener by the hand and tell them exactly what to do. Tell them to call your phone number now. Come into your shop today. Go to your website and order right now.

Put simply, people want to be lead.
They need to know exactly what to do… or,
they won’t do anything at all.

Tip 3:
Tell stories in your ad.

People are naturally curious.

Since childhood, we love hearing stories.
We also love picturing ourselves in the story.

When you use stories to tell the real reasons why you are offering what you are offering, people trust and believe you. Why? It’s human nature and you can’t fool with Mother Nature.

“The unread story is not a story; it is little black marks on wood pulp.
The reader, reading it, makes it live: a live thing, a story.”
-Ursula K. LeGuin

One of the most important parts of storytelling is being totally honest.
People can smell a fake story a mile away.

Also, when you mention, in your stories a minor problem with what are selling, it keeps you honest and builds trust.

So, there you have it. With a little practice, you’ll use these three tips to improve any ad you are running anywhere. On the web, in the paper, on the radio or TV.

Imagine what would happen if you found more tips like this on this blog.
Some people will find a lot more marketing secrets, strategies and tactics here too.

Do you have rules and procedures that your employees are trained to follow consistently?

Are your employees tracking every phone call and treating each call as a sales opportunity?

If your business is like many other, you probably don’t know the answers to these important questions.

The following secret is a great technique to find out if your employees actually are following the procedures that they have been trained to follow. (You do have a training program in place, don’t you?)

Have a family member or an associate call your business and ask a few simple questions about your products/services.

You may be shocked and appalled at the answers that they receive. You may begin to realize how much business you are losing every day.

Make test calls on a regular basis, record them, and play them back to your employees. Then, have your employees help you to develop telephone scripts that answer all of the “frequently asked questions” that they receive from your clients and prospects.

You also should train them to sell “accessory” or “add-on” or “back end” items. These could add up to an additional thirty percent or more in sales.

“Would You Like Fry’s With That?”
“Would You like one fork or two with your desert?”

Develop a tracking system to find out whether or not your marketing efforts actually are profitable.

Be very careful, your employees can intentionally or mistakenly sabotage your marketing campaigns by not properly tracking incoming phone calls, on-line orders, or walk-in customers.

You may have a winning marketing idea, but if you do not have the data to support its profitability, then you may think that it isn’t working and cancel it.

Do you encourage your employees to read or listen to basic sales and marketing information? It’s amazing how many businesses do not talk to their employees about these important subjects. Not doing so is a big mistake.

Many of my clients have made it mandatory for their employees to read various sales and marketing materials.

When these employees have finished with the materials, they are directed by my clients to take a small test that confirms that they have actually read, understood, and will implement the marketing ideas.

Ultimately, this basic training will help your employees to understand your marketing methods. This should improve their understanding of how you run your business and lead to increased sales and profits.

Make all of the training courses and use of the training materials mandatory to remain an employee of your company.

If you need outside help with training, get it. This training will pay for itself with lots of additional business from both new and current customers.

If you need help locating good training for your staff, try your local library or give me a call at (248) 335-8080.

What are you doing to train your employees properly?