I see so many people marketing themselves. They spent £500 upwards on a website and spend a lot of time fiddling to make sure they come up high in google. They get the business cards and brochure or flyer done. Advertise and network, all of which brings a trickle of enquiries. But what happens to those enquiries?

Usually  they go cold and you end up losing possible business.

So let’s take a brief look at the 6 typical issues people have gaining and keeping clients:

1. One of the issues is “prospects” who might buy but who are not sure. Most people will call them once, maybe twice and then give up.

2. The longer you’re in business the harder it become to stay in touch with everyone who shows and interest but who isn’t ready to buy.

3. The challenge you have is to keep the possible people interested and warm them up to you

4. Then when all your hard work pays off and someone becomes a client, how do you encourage them to hang around and see the value more and more often, so when they think of the problem they only think of you?

5. Then there’s the time it takes to implement the following up and this is where the busy people need to focus on the system that builds the  relationship for you

6. And finally there’s the cost to do all this

The Golden Rule…

A golden rule of enlightened entrepreneurship is to have more people coming back to you and increasing their spend with you, and  recommending you to friends and colleagues.

Imagine 77% of your customers returning, and then finding a steady increase of 23%, with this, your business grows. And if you’re happy customers recommend you and you make it easy for them to do that, you can spend less on your marketing.

Imagine that happening to your business!

So let’s look at what to do.

Well, you need a strategy that encourages new clients and you want a strategy that encourages repeat buying. Now that may sound like two different projects, but actually it’s not. It’s one.

What you need is a scalable strategy that does both jobs. When I say scalable this is what I mean: What’s needed is a system that takes a short period of time each week or month – and a system that works, whether you have 100 or 100,000 customers.

So, every successful business venture, no matter how big or small, must have this strategy.

So you need this strategy to welcome in new customers and to encourage repeat buying; and the way you do this is through finding a method of how to stay in touch.

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. If you need help developing a system, read about our Insiders Secrets programme and Mastermind group: http://www.communitysoulhbg.co.uk/insiderssecrets.htm

We all want marketing strategies that work. When we find them, we want to use them over and over again. In this article I want to share with you, one that has paid dividends for me.

Putting in the time

First you have to put in the hours. In the example I’m giving you, what I did was, I called on prospective clients 2 hours a day, 4 days a week.

Insulating yourself against rejection

Did I have rejections? Yes. I got 7 rejections every fifteen minutes! But I also had a “yes” every 8 calls – on average, one every 15 minutes. And that meant I just had to get through 7 rejections.

Understanding the value of each rejection

“No” can be a hard word to hear, so it’s important to re-frame its value. Every product or service will be rejected by a percentage of people. You just need to know what percentage.

When you know that 1 out of 8 say yes and when you know that yes is worth say £60, and when you multiply that by 2 hours of marketing, say £240, the exercise of marketing and the feeling of overcoming the rejection can become more positive.

Getting to “No” faster

For me, after a time, I became resilient enough to hearing no, to wanting to hear it faster, because when I heard it faster, I got more yeses quicker.

Crafting your words

Whether you communicate your offer to people through the spoken or written word, you will have to  craft and possibly recraft what you say. You need to say enough to arouse interest and curiosity without saying too much that you put people off. This is as true in paper-based marketing as it is in sales presentations.

Trying it out

It’s always best to try it alone to start with. Sometimes we try too hard, and when we read our words out, we can often start to feel an unnatural and sometimes even an inauthentic sense. Keep working on your material until it’s 100% natural and authentic.

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit.  If you liked this article, then you’ll LOVE his blog at http://www.communitysoulblog.com
Visit our website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

What’s going on you might ask… I seem to be telling lots of people about what I do and how I can help them, but still they’re not buying?

Marketing methods that fail

We can go to a networking meeting, not feel comfortable and not pick up any business. When this happens it’s easy to say, I went…I met 20 business owners…and not one of them bought, then you conclude that networking doesn’t work.

You might also try advertising, may not be 100% clear on the offer, but still spend a few hundred (or thousand), get little or no interest, and say that doesn’t work either.

You might not like writing, try half-hearted to write one, have no interest and give up saying that doesn’t work either.

We could claim the same issues with direct mail, websites, flyers, phone calls or a hundred other marketing methods.

Marketing Methods that work

Not so long ago I was chatting with a guy who makes a good six-figure income and his only marketing method is networking. One of my peers tells me one advert she runs generates a 38% response. I can tell you our newsletter builds confidence and awareness in what we offer and that over time it generates lots of good will that eventually turns into confidence and awareness in what we offer.

And these marketing activities are no different from the ones people may claim don’t work. So what makes the difference?

Using the strategy of Olympic Medallists

Olympic medallists are not just born. They dedicate untold hours to making minor adjustments that give them an edge, a fraction of an inch that might just make them a champion, rather than an also-ran.

It’s about small improvements made over time, and sometimes you need outside expertise on these things.

At CommunitySoul, we made a change on one of our web pages recently that changed the take up by just 3%. That doesn’t sound like much, but when 1000 people hit that web page and the product is £1200, it’s a very worthwhile adjustment.

So, generally, when people are not buying what you offer, it’s not that the strategy doesn’t work, it’s that the way you’re using the strategy hasn’t worked.

With marketing you have to keep refining things until you get results you want.

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit.  If you liked this article, then you’ll LOVE his blog at http://www.communitysoulblog.com
Visit our website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

One method of attracting new clients is through making true and bold statements.

But in Britain we’re often loathed to do this, as we feel we’re blowing our own trumpet. But if we fail t o make bold statements that tell others wh at they can gain, we fail to communicate the benefits we can deliver.

At CommunitySoul we know our advancedconnections membership can deliver a return on investment of at least 25 to 1. We know the Insiders Secrets series can deliver a reduction in  your working hours of up to 11 hours a week and a create a leap in income of up to 128%. As we have seen this happen, we can make that statement.

Creating a bold statement

What I’m encouraging you to do is believe in what you do 100%. Know you make a difference and tell other people about that difference. In order to do this you’re going to need to know what your clients and customers are experiencing.

Last year we asked some of our members about their results as a result of spending time with us. The answers they gave in some cases was jaw-dropping.

I say jaw-dropping because they told us things we never knew. They told us about results they’d achieved. They told us about techniques they’d been using that they’d picked up from one of our speakers, or one of our education slots.

What this told us is what people were really getting instead of what we thought or hoped they were getting.

The additional pay-off…

So feeling good about what people told us increased our confidence in what we were delivering. As a result we told people about the results more boldly, and in turn this made us wonder, what’s even better than those results – so we upped our game and began thinking bigger.

And if you believe more in what you do, I suspect you can succeed in making your difference even more – I mean getting it out there and earning your living from it.

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit.  If you liked this article, then you’ll LOVE his blog at http://www.communitysoulblog.com
Visit our website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Not everyone enjoys selling. In fact this year I asked several audiences at CommunitySoul Business Development Groups, who liked selling. 8% said they did.

I suspect that the 92% who said they don’t like selling also don’t like being sold to. And they probably think that sales is about something you do to someone. But actually it’s not…

Selling, if done well, is an opportunity to offer what you do that may help  someone. This person at all times has full freedom of choice. And you’re not a pushy person so all you’re doing is opening them up to the possibility of what you offer.

Sharing the Good that you Bring

What if someone, somewhere is sitting at home or in their office, struggling and in need of what you’re offering. If you’re not letting people know: “Hi I’m here, this is what I do!” then the danger is the idea sits on the shelf and no one ever finds out about the help you offer.

Facing the issues that stop you sharing your contribution to the world

I’ve often said that by being in business you enter a hero’s adventure. Working for yourself will bring up personal issues. For some it might be overcoming shyness or developing self-confidence, and in terms of selling this can be about feeling good enough or overcoming the fear of rejection.

Something I went through was understanding that if I failed to overcome what stopped me from sharing what I did, I would be denying lots of people the things they needed. So what worked for me was tapping into my will to contribute knowledge for the betterment of other people. For you it may be something different.

Finding the courage, makes a difference

An example I can give you is: earlier in the year I was giving a talk on personal development. The day after, a lady sent me an email and thanked me for my talk. She said it had given her hope. She said that after years of suffering from domestic violence she now felt she could turn things around.

So I encourage you to discover ways to overcome whatever stops you from selling the difference you make.

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit.  If you liked this article, then you’ll LOVE his blog at http://www.communitysoulblog.com