How to Find New Clients and Business Prospecting your way to success Frank Furness Notice: This booklet is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via email, floppy disk, network, printout, photocopy, or other means to a person other than the original purchaser is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to fines and/or imprisonment. Copyright © 2008 by Frank Furness. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means (including electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978-0-9540484-0-2 Published by: Nicholson Smith Publishing Koutaki House 1a Meadowbank Watford WD19 4NP United Kingdom Tel +44 (0) 1923 248200 Editing, proofreading and typesetting by Word4Word www.w4wdp.com What they are saying about the book... “This is a simple-to-read book full of practical ideas that you can put to use immediately to increase your sales and make more money. You can’t afford not to take the time it takes to read this book! A sure-fire hit!!” L a r r y Wi n g e t , Th e P i t b u l l o f P e r s o n a l D e v e l o p m e n t ™ “Some people talk about how bad things are. A few people do something about it. Frank Furness gives you a seminar in a book, How to Find New Clients and Business. Read it, then do it. Final step; take the money to the bank.” W Mi t c h e l l C P A E , a u t h o r o f I t ’ s N o t Wh a t Ha p p e n s To Y o u , I t ’ s Wh a t Y o u D o A b o u t I t “Having worked with clients in a dozen countries on five continents, and having sold everything from commercial equipment to advertising, from electronic systems to training and consulting services, I would say this book is the Hope Diamond of ‘gems of ideas’. Anyone in the selling business who can’t get much better, much faster, by following Frank’s system, should seriously consider a bookkeeping course instead!” Wa r r e n E v a n s , F o u n d i n g C h a i r m a n o f t h e I n t e r n a t i o n a l F e d e r a t i o n f o r P r o f e s s i o n a l S p e a k e r s ; Tr e n d s A n a l y s t a n d B u s i n e s s S t r a t e g i s t , To r o n t o , C a n a d a “This book overflows with practical, intelligent ideas that will work for you every time! Frank Furness tells you how he has found worldwide new clients who all refer more business to him every day! His ‘What is in it for them?’ viewpoint is champion. I suggest that you purchase as many of these books as possible for your own staff, your clients, and your children moving up into your business. Handing them a copy of this wonderful book is like giving them a golden success wand. Frank Furness is one of the great ones.” D o t t i e Wa l t e r s C S P , I n t e r n a t i o n a l S p e a k e r , A u t h o r , C o n s u l t a n t P u b l i s h e r /P r e s i d e n t , Wa l t e r s I n t e r n a t i o n a l S p e a k e r s B u r e a u ; Pu b l i s h e r, I n t er n at i o n al D i r ec t o r y o f S pe ak er s B u re au s F o u nd er , I n t er n at i o na l A s s oc i at i o n o f S p ea ke rs B ur ea u s “What a great idea-generator, Frank! Your book, How to Find New Clients and Business, is packed with relevant, real-world information that can generate business immediately at low or no cost.This is just what every entrepreneur and salesperson needs. Not only is it packed with idea-popping, money-making concepts but it is quickly read. I woke up this morning and read it in less than 60 minutes, giving me ideas to make sales today! Thank you, Frank, for putting so many powerful ideas into this book. It is a must-read for any serious businessperson today!” Te r r y L . B r o c k , C S P , P r e s i d e n t a n d C E O, A c h i e v e m e n t S y s t e m s , I n c . Or l a n d o , F l o r i d a “Whether you are a battle-hardened sales person; or still a little unsure as to how you sell yourself, I am sure you will find something in this book that will enhance your ability to grow your business.” M a r c Wo o d s , P a r a l y m p i c G o l d M e d a l S w i m m e r a n d S p e a k e r Table of Contents Ab out Fran k Furn es s Keynote speeches and training programmes What they are saying about Frank’s speaking I n troducti on 7 9 Finding new clients 11 Basics of prospecting 14 The sales cycle T h e Fun damen tal Pros pecti n g M eth ods 12 Telephone calling 17 Centres of influence 31 Your elevator speech 40 Referrals Networking Voicemails 23 34 45 Clubs and social activities 47 Group prospecting through seminars 53 Introducers and professional connections Working with top executives Prospecting through speaking engagements M ark etin g an d Promoti n g Your B usi n ess 51 53 57 Trade shows and exhibitions 63 Christmas, birthday and special occasion cards 64 Novelties such as pens and calendars Press releases and feature articles Media interviews Newsletters and ezines 63 64 64 67 Lists 73 Creative marketing 76 Advertising T h e I ntern et 73 Websites 79 Marketing with articles on the internet 91 Advertising your services on the internet Linking strategies 87 97 Blogging 100 Marketing with video 106 Online sales and marketing Marketing with ebooks Prospecti n g T oolb ox 105 111 Prospecting management 117 Great websites and software to grow your business 120 Products to help you grow your business 117 About Frank Furness K ey no t e s peec h es and t ra in in g pro gr am m es Frank Furness CSP is an international speaker who has entertained, inspired and educated audiences in 40 countries. Let your organisation benefit from his 100-mph entertaining talks laced with humour, anecdotes and stories. Frank’s expertise in sales, leadership and motivation will elevate both you and your employees onto a new playing field of peak performance. Frank has helped audiences around the world to shine with improved sales, leadership and communication skills. Keynotes Walking with Tigers Share the secrets o f to p sales p erfo rm ers fro m aro und the w o rld w ith the p ro ven success p lan. Selling for Fun ... and Profit Num ero us sales id eas and scrip ts in this entertaining and ed ucating talk co uld bo o st yo ur sales p erfo rm ance im m ed iately. Sales and Technology – the Vital Connection Disco ver ho w to use yo ur w ebsite, blo gs, o nline vid eo and aud io and the latest in so ftw are and techno lo gy to d rive sales and create lead s. Business Predators Reaso ns businesses fail and ho w yo ur o rganisatio n can avo id them . It’s All About YOU Secrets o f go al setting and sto ries o f excep tio nal p eo p le. Unleash the m agic insid e yo u. Finding New Clients Secrets, tip s and id eas o n ho w to find new clients and business. How to Gain, Train and Maintain a Winning Team Share the 21-p o int p lan to find , m o tivate and get the best fro m yo ur sales team . Creating Excellence through Magical Customer Service Strategies, case stud ies and tip s o n ho w the to p o rganisatio ns use excep tio nal custo m er service to m aintain and attract new clients. 7 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Workshops and training events Finding New Business and Clients Pro ven id eas o n p ro sp ecting, netw o rk ing and referrals that w ill p ut yo u in fro nt o f m o re qualified clients m o re o ften. Providing a Magical Customer Service Case stud ies o f three to p o rganisatio ns and ho w yo ur o rganisatio n can benefit fro m their success fo rm ula. Gaining, Training and Retaining Top Performers Pro ven id eas to help yo u build a w inning sales team . Presentation Magic Ad vanced p resentatio n sk ills. Vid eo exam p les o f to p sp eak ers and their success fo rm ula. Sk ills that w ill tak e yo u to ad vanced levels o f ability in m ak ing p resentatio ns. Sales Success Strategies Disco ver ho w to use yo ur trad itio nal, unreco gnised and unseen sales fo rces to o p tim ise sales. Multiple Sources of Income Masterclass A o ne-d ay m asterclass sharing strategies, to o ls and so ftw are to m ak e yo u m o ney w hile yo u sleep . Harness the p o w er o f techno lo gy and the internet to create m ultip le so urces o f inco m e. Speakers Bootcamp An intensive tw o -d ay bo o tcam p o n ho w to beco m e a p ro fessio nal sp eak er. Disco ver the essential strategies that m ak e great sp eak ers as w ell as m ark eting sk ills to k eep the d iary fully bo o k ed . Over 600 d elegates o n fo ur co ntinents have attend ed the bo o tcam p . Frank is available for: Keynote speeches After dinner talks Full-day and half-day workshops Business consultancy Coaching 8 About Frank Furness Wh a t t h e y a r e s a y i n g a b o u t F r a n k ’s s p e a k i n g “I’ve now seen Frank have an impact on three separate audiences from chief executives to people in their first sales role. He is always stimulating – with a great combination of practical sales knowledge, constant confidence-building, and an energising presentational style.” P au l V i tt l e s , D i r ec t o r, A C N i el s e n A u s t ra l i a “Frank came to our recent sales conference in Athens and gave an energetic and informative presentation on ‘Hunting with Tigers’, this was excellent as it fitted perfectly with the theme ‘Hunting to Grow’. A very insightful view on how top sales people work and many key lessons were presented. Thoroughly enjoyable and I would recommend to any sales organisation.” A n d y D a v i e s , S a l e s D i r e c t o r E u r o p e , G E He a l t h c a r e “Frank is one of the finest speakers you can hire to entertain and teach your salespeople how to produce better results.” Th o m a s P o w e r , C E O, E c a d e m y “Two months after the sessions with Frank, the performance and revenue achieved by the call centre were tremendous – August 73% increase and September a 70% increase.” He m a M o r a r , HR M a n a g e r , V i r g i n A t l a n t i c S o u t h A f r i c a “Frank did an unbelievable job. One of the best presentations ever. Great content.” R an d y Y o s t , C h ai r, V i s t ag e , S ac r am en t o “EO Kansas City were fortunate enough to have a long visit with Frank Furness recently. As President of the chapter and one who attends EO events globally, I can honestly say that Frank’s presentation is right on target. As entrepreneurs we must take advantage of the best time management, technologies and services. Frank provides us with a wealth of techniques we can use. Frank is charming, dynamic and full of energy ... clearly of EO calibre.” Wi l l i a m J B r u n k h a r d t , P r e s i d e n t E O K a n s a s C i t y 9 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business “The highlight of the Infinity Financial Solutions January 2007 Sales Conference in Phuket was unquestionably the session delivered by Frank Furness. Our consultants have been buzzing since this session – as well as a vastly improved sense of team spirit, individuals have adopted a ‘back to basics’ approach that I am sure will deliver rewards immediately. We can’t wait to book Frank again for the next conference and look forward to getting even more value.” B en B en n et t , D i r ec t or , I n f i n i t y F i n an c i a l S o l u ti on s A s i a “Everyone was appreciative and enthusiastic of your presentation. There has been a great deal of genuine learning and motivation. Your presentation made everyone feel involved, and one of my team remarked that, although you were presenting to a large audience, he felt that you were actually teaching him and communicating with him individually.” K ar a n F B i l i m or i a, Ch i e f Ex ec u t i v e , Co b ra B ee r “Frank Furness injects his presentations with a genuine passion for the subject bringing his message to life with real-world examples drawing from blue chip businesses he has helped to grow. Never boring and always informative, Frank is one of the best speakers I have seen in a long time. Highly recommended.” S e an F ar n el l , B u rg i s & B u l l o c k C ha r te r ed A c c o u nt an t s “You gave a brilliant educational keynote talk at the Entrepreneurs Conference.” Mi c h a e l O g a l v i e , Ma n a g i n g D i r e c t o r , T h e P r o f i t T e a m “Your very accessible style made the information you shared with our team intelligible and easy to assimilate, and we still talk about the incredibly ‘simple’ approach you adopt to what is often considered the complicated process of doing business. Not without the elements of fun, your presentation was well targeted and well received, and we thank you for your insight and for presenting your ideas in a way that each delegate believed that they could take back with them, and move towards personal and professional growth and success.” J o n a t h a n G e r b e r , Ma n a g i n g D i r e c t o r , A m e r i c a n E x p r e s s a n d S e e k e r s Tr a v e l S o u t h A f r i c a 10 Introduction Fi nd in g ne w cl i ent s Getting started Do you ever walk into your office and wonder just where your next client is coming from? Do you ever sit waiting for that phone to ring and all that prevails is silence? When all else fails, you realise that all there is left to do is pluck up the courage to cold call. After being rejected three times, leaving four messages on answering machines, you begin to wonder, “Where to from here? How can I find those new clients?” If you have ever been in that position, then this book is for you. I have been there and felt the pain. Fourteen years ago when we moved to the United Kingdom from South Africa, I was promised mountains of leads. Unfortunately when I arrived, I found that all the good leads had been taken and I had to fend for myself. By applying a number of techniques – shared in this book – I was able to produce £14,000 commission in my first month and £20,000 in my second month without knowing a soul. I then went on to qualify twice for “Million Dollar Round Table, Top of the Table”, placing me among the top half percent of salespeople in the world. Having worked with organisations in 40 countries over the past six years, the one factor that has stood out for me is that the most successful people are those who are master prospectors. In this book, a number of methods are covered that will help you find new clients; some of these methods may be Master increasing yo ur KASH Kno w led ge Attitud e Sk ills Habits 11 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business relevant to your business, some not. Just take those that will work for you in your business and apply these consistently. The degree of your success in sales is mainly dependent on four factors: knowledge, attitude, skills and habits. Master all these areas and sales will rocket. Th e s a l e s c y c l e The sales cycle in most businesses covers the following process: The k ey to success in selling is m o re to d o w ith yo ur p ro sp ecting ability than any o ther sk ill • Prospecting; • The first interview/appointment; • • • • • • • • • Telephoning for appointments; Analysing needs/the discovery process; Preparing the correct solution for the client; The second and subsequent interviews; Presenting solutions that meet the clients’ needs; Negotiating; Overcoming objections; Closing; and Service and follow up. Throughout the sales process, you should be continually: • Asking questions; • Qualifying; • • 12 • Listening; Discovering hot buttons; Building rapport; Introduction • Establishing trust; • Developing credibility; • Addressing objections; • Confirming the understanding; • • • • • Developing a relationship; Planning action steps; Asking for referrals; Evaluating positive and negative responses; and Affirming decisions and minimising buyer’s remorse. What most businesses want to do is increase their profits. Sometimes we think we need to increase the number of clients, but the easiest way to increase profits is to use a three-prong approach. • • • Increase the number of clients; Increasing sales by 33% is no t that d ifficult Increase the number of times your clients buy from you; and Increase the average amount they spend with you. The numbers are really interesting if you: • • • • Increase the number of clients by 10%; Increase the number of times they buy by 10%; Increase their ‘average spend’ by 10%; then Your turnover increases by 33.1% They become even more interesting if you: • • Increase the number of clients by 30%; Increase the number of times they buy by 30%; 13 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business • • Increase their ‘average spend’ by 20%; then Your turnover increases by 100% In this book we will be looking at the how to increase your number of clients. Bas i c s of pro s pec t i ng Your success in sales depends on three factors: • • • 14 Your ability to maintain high new prospect awareness on a daily basis; Your ability to obtain the information about these prospects; and Your ability to organise the information. Introduction K EY S UCCES S FACT O R S How salespeople spend their time Poor salespeople Prospecting Sales presentation Service Administration Travel Self-improvement Successful salespeople Prospecting Sales presentation Service Administration Travel Self-improvement 10% 23% 15% 30% 20% 2% 25% 35% Beco m e a 110% salesp erso n 15% 5% 10% 10% The 110% salesperson...! Analyse your activity Prospecting ___% Sales presentation ___% Administration ___% Self-improvement ___% Service Travel ___% ___% 15 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Te l e p h o n e c a l l i n g To me, cold calling was the price I paid for not doing all the other things I should have been doing. If your diary is empty, you pick up the phone and cold call. Put yourself into the right frame of mind. Have only your diary, your telephone and your list of prospects on the desk and focus only on results. Some people feel more comfortable ‘warm calling’. Warm calling is when you send out a letter, brochure or introductory email before you call, but the basic rules remain the same. Find out more at www.frankfurnessresources.com/fnb Analyse yo ur success ratio s Key points on making calls: • • • • Plan your calls and know what to say; Analyse your success ratios; Create the right environment, clear your desk of anything that could distract you from phoning; Decide on a set number of hours that you will phone and stick to them; • Focus only on results, not negatives; • Know what objections to expect and how to answer them; • • • • • Concentrate on your voice tone; If possible, phone every day; Phone when your energy levels are highest; Know your script; Be organised; 17 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business • • Be enthusiastic; and Maintain a positive attitude. Some people believe in scripts, some don’t. I have used scripts in the past and found that they work best when you know them off by heart. Then you can put in your enthusiasm and passion and not sound as if you’re reading from a book. I have found many scripts over the years and here are some of the most effective: Script 1 To m e, co ld calling w as the p rice I p aid fo r no t d o ing all the o ther things I sho uld have been d o ing “Peter Jones please.” “Peter, this is Frank Furness from XYZ. Do you have five minutes to speak?” If they are a referral I would say: “Peter, David White was kind enough to refer me to you, and…” If the call is a fo llo w up o n an enquiry o r a m ailing, I w o uld say: “Peter, I’m just following up on your enquiry…” OR... “This call is regarding the letter we sent you, did you receive it?” The main body of the call would be: “Peter, as you may be aware, XYZ have recently developed some ideas on vacation planning/financial planning (your main benefit) for doctors (or whatever their business or profession) like yourself.” (The close) 18 “What I would like to do is meet up with you to discuss the various options available. When would be a good time for us to get together?” The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Script 2 “Hello, is this Mr Jones? My name is Pete White from XYZ. How are you today?” “The reason I’m calling is that I specialise in helping engineers to: Plan their financial affairs Plan fo r their retirem ent Plan fo r their child ren’s ed ucatio n (Yo ur best benefit) “...and I thought I’d give you a call to see if you’d be interested in chatting about the various options available.” Is (repeat benefit mentioned above) something to which you’ve given much thought? (Whatever they answer, you stand a good chance of making the appointment. If they say ‘yes’, that’s great. If they say no, they need to give it some thought and get together with you.) Co ld call w hen yo ur energy levels are highest Script 3 “Hi Pete, this is Frank Furness from XYZ. How are you today?” “The reason I’m calling is that Mike and Jane (referrer) are clients of mine. Since I work strictly with referrals, they were kind enough to mention that you had expressed an interest in (your main benefit).” 19 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business “What I would like to do is meet up with you to discuss the various options available. When would be a good time for us to get together?” Overcoming objections There are hardly ever more than five or six common objections. These might include: “I’m hap p y w ith m y existing sup p lier”; “I’m no t interested ”; “I d o n’t have tim e”; There are hard ly ever m o re than five o r six co m m o n o bjectio ns “I d o n’t have the m o ney”. ...and there are a couple more. When I first started in sales I was given a list of all the common objections, and another list of how to overcome the objections. This was really cumbersome, so I was really pleased when I discovered a script to overcome almost any objection. It was developed by Alan Pease who is a master at cold calling. Over the years I have changed it slightly to suit the market I was phoning, but the basics remain the same. Never try to be clever, rather just agree with the objection and then overcome it. Here is how it works: “Mike, that’s fine, I find this is the case with most people even before I ring. All I’m asking for is the courtesy of 20 minutes of your time, so that if you have any areas of interest either now or in the future, you will know what is available. When would be a good time to get together?” 20 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods There are some excellent resources available. Take a look at: How to Make Appointments Telephone by Allan Pease by w w w .frank furnessreso urces.co m / p ease Telephone Sales Skills for Winners by Frank Furness and Ian Rose w w w .frank furnessreso urces.co m / p ho nesk ills Rem em ber, it’s yo ur attitud e, no t yo ur ap titud e that d eterm ines yo ur altitud e 21 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Write out your action plan for telephone calling 22 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Re f er ra ls The most successful people in sales are those who ask for referrals on a consistent basis. Ensure that you obtain at least three referrals from every satisfied client. Keep all of these organised in a book or on a computer system with a programme such as Outlook, ACT! or Goldmine. It’s also important to put yourself in the position of clients and understand the psychology of why they may not like to give referrals. What stops clients wanting to give referrals? • • • • • • • • They are afraid of upsetting friends and relatives; They feel their purchases are personal in nature; They do not want friends to think they’re being talked about; They tend to qualify their friends by income or class; Clients, in general, look down on salespeople; Alw ays ask fo r referrals in a m anner in w hich the answ er w ill be a nam e and no t a “yes” o r “no ” They may believe in the product but not the salesperson; They fear that the salesperson won’t be around in years to come; or They may not know anyone to refer. 23 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business What is the best way to get referrals? SIMPLY ASK FOR THEM Why don’t we ask? FEAR OF REJECTION... WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO ASK! Always ask for referrals in a manner in which the answer will be a name and not a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. The wrong way of asking “If w e w ere to sw ap jo bs to d ay, w ho w o uld be the first three p eo p le yo u w o uld call o n?” “Mr. Smith, do you have some names of people who may be interested in doing business with me?” The right way of asking Referral script 1 “Mr Smith, I find that all successful people have something in common and I’m sure you are no different. I have found that all successful people like to see other people grow, improve and become more successful. Mr. Smith, who do you know who has just been promoted – has relocated to the area – is a member of the local golf club – is a major supplier of yours?.” (Or any other prompts that will suit your business.) Referral script 2 “If we were to swap jobs today, who would be the first three people you would call on?” Thi s scri pt works i ncredi bl y well a s t here i s no pressure. 24 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Key points • • • • Ask for as many names as you can possibly get and then start qualifying them by getting more information on each name; Ask for permission to use the name; Contact the referral as soon as possible; Inform your client of the outcome; • Prospect for referrers. • integrity; Three keys to successful referral prospecting are: • • Pro sp ect fo r referrers informing your clients what they should expect from you; and telling your clients specifically what you expect from them in the way of referrals. Only 42% o f sales and business p eo p le ask fo r referrals ONLY 42% OF SALES AND BUSINESS PEOPLE ASK FOR REFERRALS Remember that: • • • Clients are flattered when you ask for referrals; They have just purchased your product, they trust you; and They trust your company and they want to help you. 25 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Identify your ideal prospects A) List your 20 best clients B) List the characteristics of your best clients 26 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods C) List your 5 worst clients D) List the characteristics of your worst clients 27 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business E) What prospecting methods can you use to get more ‘best clients’? F) List your ‘best clients’ that you are going to phone in the next three days to ask for more referrals 28 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Success stories When I was a manager for a large life insurance organisation, I recruited a lady into the business who was a real dynamo. Right up front she told me that she was going to work only with referrals and her target market was going to be senior executives. She then went to a private wine estate and had cases of wine bottled with her name labels. Every time she delivered the policy documents, or when clients celebrated birthdays or other special occasions, she would take them a case of wine. As you can imagine, when these senior executives had dinner parties with other executives, questions were asked as to where the wine with the strange label came from. This resulted in a huge number of referrals and as a bonus the wine estate became her biggest client. Successful p ro sp ecto rs alw ays co ncentrate o n the end result, w hile o thers get stuck o n fo cusing o n all the reaso ns w hy so m e things d o n’t w o rk fo r them Success results m o re fro m attitud e than ability 29 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Write out your action plan for referrals 30 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Ce nt res of i nf lu enc e Centres of influence are people who may not even be clients of yours but who like you and your business and want to support you. These people could be schoolteachers, secretaries or anyone else who you can develop a business relationship with and who could be passing on potentially excellent leads to you. Key points • • • • Identify as many centres of influence as you can; Find out about them, their interests and their hobbies; Ask yourself, “How can I help them in their business?” You must make the first move ... they will act to balance the debt. Yo u are in business fo r yo urself, but yo u are never in business by yo urself Success stories I knew a very successful general insurance broker who had an incredible client base that I really wanted access to. Every time I asked him, he told me to get lost. I then thought about turning things around and giving to him first, knowing that the law of reciprocation would come into effect. I asked him out for lunch on the proviso that we wouldn’t discuss business. At lunch we discussed his favourite subjects, his two sons and his favourite football team. That afternoon I went back to the office and realised that five of my big clients had opened new businesses and I telephoned them and recommended the insurance broker to them. They all became 31 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business To d evelo p great centres o f influence, alw ays give first and help them in their business, it w ill alw ays be rep aid in so m e fo rm o r o ther 32 clients of his. A month later he invited me to lunch and afterwards we went back to his office. He had 2,000 leads for me, and even better, he had written to all of them to introduce me. The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Action planning Write out your action plan to develop centres of influence 33 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Net w o rk in g Successful networking can help you incredibly if you stick to the basic rules. Networking involves attending meetings run by organisations such as Chambers of Commerce, Toastmasters, chief executive groups or anywhere else where you can build your profile, meet other business owners and exchange business cards. When m eeting strangers, get them to sp eak abo ut the m o st im p o rtant p erso n in their life, THEMSELVES 34 You also need to “work the room”. The biggest mistake I see at network meetings is people speaking and socialising with people they already know. If you’re going to attend a network meeting, set yourself a target of meeting a certain amount of new people, speaking only to strangers and having fun. There are many great networking clubs and organisations springing up all over the world. My advice is to join two or three of these clubs and really work them. You also have to approach these meetings with a different mindset. If your approach is, “Who can I meet and sell to immediately?”, you might find yourself a little isolated. Rather approach with the attitude of “Who can I meet where there are areas of common interest? Who can I help with their business and who can I make a new friend of and build a relationship with?” Remember, many of these people will not be potential clients or even need your product or service, but if you make a friend they could become a centre of influence or refer business to you. Success results more from attitude than ability. Whenever you meet someone new and build a relationship, your chances of The Fundamental Prospecting Methods success increase because of their vast network that you may have access to sometime in the future. When meeting strangers, always get people to speak about themselves (the most important person in their life). Also know what kind of questions to ask them to get them to open up to you. One of the most important things I learned in selling was to use the “Past, Present and Future” question. It goes something like this: Past “Bob, this is a great accounting practice that you have built up, how did you get started?” Present “Tell me about your current situation, how are things going at the moment?” Future “Bob, what are your plans for the future and where do you see your business in five or ten year’s time?” The gro w th o f yo ur business w ill be in d irect p ro p o rtio n to the num ber o f p eo p le yo u netw o rk w ith o n a regular basis Suggested networking questions What is the best thing about your business? What are some of the unique features of your business that set you apart from your competitors? What are some of the biggest changes that have taken place in your industry over the past few years? What makes you so passionate about your business and is the real driving force that makes you so successful? 35 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business How do you go about finding new business? How does your customer service and products differ from your competitors’? Write a list of questions that you will ask at your next networking event Netw o rk ing is lik e p lanting bam bo o , yo u seld o m see im m ed iate benefits 36 The triple CD series ‘Finding New Business & Clients’ is filled with practical, usable tips and ideas that could increase your bottom line immediately, to find out more, go to www.frankfurnessresources.com/fnb The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Key points Before you attend your next event: • • • • Ask the organisers to send you the delegate list beforehand. I always do this and most of the time they will oblige (after all, it is a networking meeting). Now I can study the delegate list and target those that I would want to meet before I go to the meeting. You might even want to volunteer to help at the registration desk, that way you’ll meet those people when they register; Find out who the key people to meet would be; Set a target to meet six (or more) new people; Don’t spend all your time with people you already know; • Mix and meet with strangers; • Take plenty of business cards – many people forget this basic rule; • • • • Use ‘Past, Present and Future’ to stim ulate co nversatio n Be proactive and engage everyone in conversation; Take a small notepad and pen to make notes; Take some breath fresheners and deodorant. There is nothing worse than speaking to someone with bad or coffee breath. (What is it about these people? They always want to get close to you!); Arrive early and see if you can assist the organisers. This will also help you to strike up conversation with the key people that you’d like to meet; 37 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business • • • Sp end tim e sp eak ing to strangers rather than friend s at netw o rk ing events 38 If given a name badge, wear it on the right side so that when you shake hands, your badge is in their direct line of sight; Remember, people would rather do business with someone that they have met at a networking meeting and developed rapport with, than a stranger they’ve had a cold call from; and Develop your elevator speech. An elevator speech is a brief introduction for whenever you meet anyone at any social or business occasion. This is a brief description of what you do and whom you do it for. It describes how you offer value, benefit and quality to your clients. Success stories About five years ago I was doing some training for an organisation in Hong Kong. A new salesperson joined the company and said that he was only going to do business with Chinese millionaires. I was rather surprised, as his previous occupation was as an import/export manager and he did not have an ‘in’ to that circle. He borrowed money from friends, banks and relatives and with this money joined the two most prestigious clubs in Hong Kong. Soon he was meeting, mixing and socialising with the millionaires and business followed. The good news is that he is now well on his way to becoming a millionaire himself. The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Action planning Write out your action plan to develop your networking skills 39 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Yo u r e l e v a t o r s p e e c h Netw o rk ing is no t selling, it is fo rging relatio nship s Whenever you are at a networking meeting or even a social occasion you are likely to start a conversation with someone you haven’t met before. The stranger will normally ask you what you do; your answer is your “elevator speech”. The term “elevator speech” comes from the scenario of meeting a stranger in the elevator of a building. In the short time it takes to travel up or down in the elevator, you should be able to describe who you are, what you do, and how you can help the person you’ve just met (or in other words, find out “what’s in it for them”). The speech describes how you add value, benefit or quality to your potential client. It must be short and concise and you must know it so well that the words just roll off your tongue and you could repeat it in your sleep. You must also realise the difference between an elevator speech, which sells you and explains how you can help other businesses or people, and a statement which will inspire no further conversation. Introductory statements that are not elevator speeches include: “My name is Michael and I am a financial consultant.” “My name is Mary and I work as an accountant for XYZ.” “My name is David and I’m a marketing consultant.” 40 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods None of these statements stimulate any conversation and will probably drive potential clients to the other side of the room, saying to themselves, “So what?”. Remember every potential client is thinking “How can you help me in my business?” If your elevator speech leads someone to say “So what’s in it for me?”, you are selling benefits. So change your introductory statement to something along these lines: Think in term s o f w hat yo u custo m er d o es w ith yo ur p ro d ucts o r services after they’ve been p urchased “My name is Michael and I help clients with their mortgages/retire early/maximise their investments.” “My name is Mary and we help clients with proven, practical ideas so that they can increase their profitability.” “My name is David and our organisation helps businesses improve the way they promote and market themselves, so that they can close more sales and find more clients in a cost effective manner.” Remember your goal is to keep the conversation going and to stimulate a response from the person you are speaking to. Your goal is not to talk about yourself and what you do but it is to find out what the other person does and what is important to them, i.e. “what’s in it for them”. Create a great elevato r sp eech and all k ind s o f d o o rs w ill o p en To prepare your elevator speech, first identify how you can help your potential clients. List at least five things that you could do to help your clients, and then list five reasons why people should be doing business with you. 41 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business List five things that you do to help your clients List five reasons why people should be doing business with you 42 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Craft your elevator speech in two parts. Part 1 describes what it is that you do, i.e. “I help clients to maximise their investments in the most tax efficient manner”. Part 2 describes how they would derive benefit from what you are selling them, i.e. so that they may retire earlier; so that they may have their mortgage paid off in ten years time; so that their children’s education at top universities are taken care of. Part 2 should always include a phrase such as “so that””. Yo ur elevato r sp eech sho uld alw ays stim ulate a resp o nse fro m the p erso n yo u’re sp eak ing to “So that they can increase their profitability.” “So that they can close more sales and find more clients in a cost effective manner.” Key points • • • • • • Your goal is not to be talking about what you do and who you are. Your goal is to find out more about the other person and what’s important to them; Discover needs by asking questions; By encouraging others to speak, you become known as a great conversationalist; You can use your elevator speech any time, even on the phone; It’s fine to have different elevator speeches for different products or services; Always get their business card and follow up with a call within two days. Strive to be w ell received by tho se yo u ap p ro ach by setting yo urself up fo r a friend ly callback 43 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Write out your elevator speech 44 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Vo i c e m a i l s We are all constantly plagued with voicemails and often in a quandary over whether we should leave a message or not. Try using your elevator speech the next time you leave a message. It could be something like the following: “Hi Mr Jones, this is Frank Furness on 8526039051. I help businesses to improve their internet security so that they cannot be attacked by hackers or people who can access confidential information. I would like to meet with you and was wondering if I could take a few moments to tell you a little more about what I do. I will try calling you again on Monday to see if we can get together late next week. My phone number again is 8526039051 and I will be in the office for the rest of today and tomorrow. I am looking forward to working with you.” Do n’t let call reluctance and the fear o f rejectio n sto p yo u o n yo ur ad venture o f build ing yo ur business Key points • • • • • Speak slowly and clearly so that they can understand what you are saying; Leave your telephone number twice, once at the beginning of the message and again at the end. This makes it easy for them to write down your number; State the nature of your call so that they know why you’re calling; Try using yo ur elevato r sp eech the next tim e yo u leave a m essage Leave a time when you’re available for them to phone you; State what it is that you would like them to do. 45 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Prepare your plan of action for answering voicemails 46 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Cl u bs and s oc i al a c ti v i t i es When I arrived in the United Kingdom in 1994, I didn’t know where to start. I needed to meet business people and successful and wealthy individuals. To do this, I decided to join a number of clubs. I joined a golf club as well as a prestigious cricket club. The cricket club was very snobbish, but a great thing happened within a month of my joining. They asked me if I would assist with the coaching of the juniors and every Friday evening the parents would come to fetch their sons after practice. We would soon strike up conversation, I would give them my elevator speech and the business followed. I also joined an upmarket health club, where I was known as the mad South African because I would speak with everyone, but once again the business rolled in. My best friend and training partner was the top sports lawyer in Britain at the time and he really networked the health club and got an incredible amount of business for his practice. I had been involved with Toastmasters International for 13 years in South Africa. They are one of the largest non-profit, selfdevelopment organisations in the world and many of their members are senior executives and professionals wanting to improve their speaking skills. When I arrived in London, I approached them and asked if I could set up a club in the town where I lived. They agreed and within two months I had 25 members in the club who were exactly in the target market that I was working. Set yo urself a target o f beco m ing invo lved in at least tw o clubs, charities and selfd evelo p m ent o rganisatio ns 47 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business My advice to everyone is to become socially mobile and give your elevator speech all the time. You can also get involved in great charity organisations such as the Rotary Club and Lions that do so much good for society and at the same time allow you to meet and develop relationships with people in your target market. Develo p stro ng relatio nship s w ith k ey o rganisatio ns in yo ur area Most recently, I have developed a strong relationship with the Chambers of Commerce and Business Links in my area and have done business with or through them at least six times in the past year. Key points • • • • • Set yourself a target of becoming involved in at least two clubs, charities or self-development organisations; Join your local Chamber of Commerce; Attend meetings at least weekly, network and develop relationships; Volunteer to be part of the committee or management. Get into a position of power and help others; Have fun. Success stories 48 A chap that I knew in South Africa was incredibly successful at sales due to his innovative way of finding new clients. His target market was wealthy individuals, successful businesses and executives of large corporations. His typical working day was to have sales appointments at 7.30am, 9.30am and 11.30am. Every day he would then have lunch with one of his existing The Fundamental Prospecting Methods clients who was celebrating a birthday – on the proviso that that person brought along someone else of equal stature to join them for lunch. Every afternoon at 3pm he would play golf with another of his clients who was celebrating a birthday – on the proviso that they brought two people of equal stature to make up the four-ball. He said that he was living a dream lifestyle, having lunch and playing golf every day, but more importantly, the three new people he met each day became appointments in his diary and many became clients themselves. Have fun w hile p ro sp ecting and netw o rk ing 49 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Write out your plan of action to develop more relationships through clubs and social activities 50 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods I nt rod uc er s and prof es s i o nal co nnection s Introducers and professional connections are people who can provide you with an endless source of leads. Think of anyone who would be able to provide you with leads and who you can reward either with similar leads, or financially. Make it a part of your target each month to meet with two potential professional introducers and prepare an excellent presentation of how you can work together and what would be in it for them. If you develop enough professional connections providing you with an endless source of leads, your business will sky rocket. Key points • • • • Arrange monthly meetings with your professional introducers with a view to cross-referencing clients; Educate them in very simple terms on what you do and how you can help them; Place articles in their newsletters; Arrange monthly meetings w ith your professional introd ucers w ith a view to crossreferencing clients Copy the introducers on all correspondence relating to mutual clients. Success stories When I was involved in financial services, I would meet up once a month with a partner of a large accounting firm, law firm and commercial insurance brokerage. Each of us would bring five good referrals that we would give to the others. The benefit for each of us was that we left the breakfast 51 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Daily activity d eterm ines m o nthly p ro d uctivity 52 meeting with 15 qualified referrals from trusted professionals. We would then phone, meet and develop the relationship with the referrals and business would follow. Think about who you could meet with each month to develop your network. Action planning Write out a list of potential introducers and professional connections and an action plan for how and when to approach them. The Fundamental Prospecting Methods G roup pros p ec t in g t hrou gh s em i na rs Some questions to ask yourself before you start are: • • Where do my prospects gather in groups? How/what can I contribute to them The advantages of group prospecting are that it saves time, it is much more productive and it’s a lot of fun. Wo r k i n g w i t h t o p e x e c u t i v e s Secrets of working with top executives When prospecting, one of the biggest problems most of us face is trying to get in to see a top executive. They all have welltrained “protectors” who are excellent at shielding these top executives. Before you approach any chief executives you may want to know what some of their favourite business discussion topics are. These include: • • • • • • As yo u gro w p erso nally, so w ill yo ur business, and , as yo ur business gro w s, so w ill yo u The company’s image and what it stands for; The company’s mission statement; The team and its products; Staying ahead of the competitors; Measurable and tangible results; The success of the company. These are things that should be spoken about during the meeting. But how do we get in front of these top executives? Normally a lot of research would need to be done before phoning, mailing or making 53 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business any contact. I would recommend that you contact the company, take a look at their catalogues, brochures and annual reports and study their website. This can give you a lot of information and a good feel for the company. Develo p the sk ill o f build ing business rap p o rt The next step would be to send out a pre-approach letter to the chief executive marked, “private and confidential” and for their attention (this will still be opened and checked out by the protector). Start with a headline statement of 40 words or less – you find that if you read any magazine such as Time, Newsweek or any newspaper, you normally look at the headline first and if this grabs your attention, you will read further. • • The headline statement should: Address the needs and relevance to the organisation; Establish your credibility; • Be based on factual information; • Refer to other credible clients. • Highlight the benefits of doing business with you and your company; and Spend a lot of time on preparing this headline statement. The letter you’ll be sending will be made up of one page with this statement, some bullet points and a call for action. Remember, busy executives don’t have time to trawl through pages and pages of information. They want to take a quick look at what you’re doing and then you can follow up with a phone call to set up an appointment. 54 A great idea is to add a postscript at the The Fundamental Prospecting Methods end of the letter, as most people will read this. In the PS write, “I’ll call your office on Wednesday the 11th of May at 8am.“ At that time when you phone and get through to the protector, you can confidently state, “Mr Jones is expecting my call and I’m running a few minutes late. Please connect me.” This way you’re not lying and if the chief executive likes what you are offering, he will be waiting for the call. One word of advice. Always phone exactly on time. To reach VIPs, establish relatio nship s w ith their secretaries and p erso nal assistants 55 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Write out an action plan to get to those top executives that can help grow your business 56 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods P r o s p e c t i n g t h ro u g h s p eaking e nga gem en ts Most people fear speaking more than anything else. Many years ago I joined Toastmasters International and the very first time I spoke my mouth dried up and I froze. Now I am a professional speaker and I present in 47 countries. I have an incredible lifestyle and visit exotic locations, but it took a lot of practice. Speaking is like anything else, the more you practise, the easier it gets. The best part of speaking professionally is that I am constantly in front of qualified prospects who will buy my products and services. You need to do the same; here are some basic rules to follow: • What are you good at? • What do you know that many other people would want to know about? • What are you passionate about? Mo st p eo p le fear sp eak ing m o re than anything else This will determine your topic. Here are some other pointers: • • • • Have a great opening and ending to your talk; Tell stories, people love to hear stories; Use humour; Include the 7 Es: Energy Excitement Entertainment Emotion Enthusiasm Education Ending. 57 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business How to market yourself as a speaker locally and internationally Identify clients you have spoken for in the past that have international offices. Get a referral to the decision maker in the overseas office. Email or send a letter and follow up with a phone call. The best p art o f sp eak ing p ro fessio nally is that I am co nstantly in fro nt o f qualified p ro sp ects w ho w ill buy m y p ro d ucts and services Dial and Smile – pick up the phone and cold call. When I started out, I identified companies and banks that had international offices and phoned the president. One of those calls resulted in a business relationship with a company that spends between $50k and $100k each year sponsoring me to speak to their clients around the world. Find five clients that will provide you with 50% of your work each year. I have five large international companies that each book me for between six and 30 talks each year. I also have two or three companies that I am developing should any of the ‘big five’ drop out. Actively prospect when speaking abroad. When speaking overseas, I will scan the local papers, magazines and yellow pages for potential clients. I’ll then phone and establish who the decision makers are and endeavour to set up a meeting and sell my services. A lot of these companies are open and receptive to meeting with you. Always ask for referrals. Apart from existing clients with whom I do repeat business each year, I have over 200 potential clients that have been given to me as referrals. If you leave the client satisfied, they will always give you referrals – if you ask! 58 The Fundamental Prospecting Methods When working abroad, add on an extra day to meet with potential clients. Wherever I speak in the world, I add on an extra day to see potential clients and bureaus. I can normally fit in five appointments during that day and this always results in at least one extra booking. On a recent trip to Singapore I managed to give a keynote speech to a large insurance company and in the same day have five meetings with potential clients. One of these meetings was a cocktail party where I met with 20 of the most influential business leaders in Singapore. This was only achieved because I had developed a centre of influence in Singapore who had arranged the talk and all of the meetings. He was rewarded with a percentage of the fee, which made it a win–win situation for everyone. Find the client’s other offices. When speaking internationally, find out where the international client for whom you are speaking has other branches around the world. Find out who you should contact at the other offices to do the same talk. In January last year I spoke at a large software company in Dubai. The CEO from London was in Dubai at the time and heard me speak. After the talk he asked me to contact him to replicate the talk to their other international offices. They have offices in 33 countries. Network and socialise. Before going on an international talk, surf the net to see what social events are happening while you’re there. Then arrange an invitation, as you’ll always meet potential clients at these events. Have fun and tak e a to ur – if I visit a co untry fo r the first tim e, I’ll alw ays tak e an extra few d ays to see the p lace 59 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business I have o ver 200 p o tential clients that have been given to m e as referrals. If yo u leave the client satisfied , they w ill alw ays give yo u referrals – if yo u ask ! Have fun and take a tour – If I visit a country for the first time, I’ll always take an extra few days to see the place. This normally includes a half-day bus tour. It’s amazing who you can meet on these tours. I’ve met and become friends with the VicePresident of one of the largest insurance companies in the USA and a grand old lady who turned out to be the wife of the owner of one of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains. Find out who the speaking bureaus are internationally and meet with them. When I spoke in South Africa five years ago, I met with the leading bureau. This resulted in bookings to speak in Sun City, Mauritius and Cape Town. Optimise your website. By doing this I have just secured a talk with a large multinational for their conference in Athens. This has also generated three other enquiries, one with an international company who needs someone to speak in five different countries. A lo t o f co m p anies are o p en and recep tive to m eeting yo u 60 Always meet with the decision maker at the event. I was recently booked to speak in Scotland to a company who had just merged with a German telecommunications company. After the talk we spent some time with the German CEO, which lead to presenting the same talk to the German counterparts. Take a look at my 15-CD programme Coaching for Speakers at www.coachingforspeakers.org The Fundamental Prospecting Methods Action planning Write out an action plan to develop and market your talk. 61 Marketing and Promoting Your Business There are many ways to market and promote yourself and your business using sales promotions and public relations. Tr a d e s h o w s a n d e x h i b i t i o n s These are excellent places not only to promote your goods and services but also to spend a day or two walking around. Many people at these exhibitions will be exhibiting their goods or products and this is a good time for you to strike up conversations with them and see if they could be a potential client, a professional introducer or a centre of influence. Do not approach them with the attitude of “What can I sell them immediately?”, but rather think to yourself “Are there any areas of common interest?”. Nov elties s uch a s p ens an d calen dars Everything abo ut yo u o r yo ur o rganisatio n sho uld be selling yo u in so m e fo rm Everything about you or your organisation should be selling you in some form. Small novelties such as pens work fairly well but what I have found to be excellent are the small a-framed calendars that you provide to clients at the beginning of each year. This way they are subconsciously studying their calendar at least 20 to 30 times a day and your name is in front of them all the time. 63 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Chris tm as , birthd ay and s pec i al oc c as i on c ards Everybody likes to feel special. Why not send cards to your clients, their partners or spouses and their children? Also call your clients early on the morning of their birthday and congratulate them. Most times they will be in a positive frame of mind and this is a good time to ask for additional referrals or even to get together to review their own business situation. Remember to keep in touch with your clients all the time. Rem em ber to k eep in to uch w ith yo ur clients all the tim e Pres s rel eas es an d f eat ure ar t icl es Build your profile and exposure in the community with articles in magazines and newspapers. There are thousands of publications in circulation. Find out which relate to your industry and area of expertise, write articles and submit them to the editors. Always remember to include a photograph of yourself as well as your contact details. Find out who your biggest clients are and whether they have an inhouse magazine. If so, get your articles published there too. Should your organisation launch any new or updated products, create a press release so that clients and potential clients can find out about these immediately. Remember to always keep building your profile. Media interv iew s 64 Find out which are the local radio stations and approach them with a view for a radio interview. For the radio interview, be Marketing and Promoting Your Business confident, be prepared and have three main points that you want to get across to the listeners. One organisation that I work with has a one-hour radio slot every week and this has built tremendous exposure for the organisation and keeps the phone ringing constantly. If your area of expertise fits in with any of the television stations, i.e. Bloomberg, CNN or any other local television stations, once again approach them as they are always looking for interesting people to interview. Success stories Some years ago I wanted to get some exposure through the press. I approached the Financial Times with a view to having an article published in one of their international publications, but was rejected. I persisted and this resulted in me having my own full page column with my contact details in this publication for two years. I could not have afforded this kind of advertising, but getting the full page free resulted in huge amounts of business and helped to build my exposure globally. Be co nfid ent, be p rep ared and have three m ain p o ints that yo u w ant to get acro ss to the listeners. 65 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Write out an action plan to attract some press and media attention for you or your company 66 Marketing and Promoting Your Business N e w s l e t t e r s a n d e zi n e s Develop a monthly, weekly or quarterly newsletter or ezine (internet newsletter) for your clients. This does a number of things: • • • • • It keeps your name in front of your clients all the time; It helps to establish you as an expert in your field; It gives you a massive online exposure; It gains you further credibility with your current clients; and It also forces you to package your knowledge into concise articles on a regular basis, which you can recycle for many other marketing uses. At every networking meeting that you attend and with every potential business contact that you meet, you should be collecting business cards, capturing these and then obtaining permission to send out newsletters or ezines to these people. The newsletter or ezine puts you in front of your clients and potential clients all the time and helps to sell more products and services. Co llect business card s at every o p p o rtunity Key points • • Ensure that you have a main article that always provides a lot of information that your readers will find valuable; Have links to related articles and other sites that may be of value to your readers; 67 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business • • • • • Mak e yo ur p ro sp ects an o ffer they can’t refuse • • • • • • • • 68 Offer tips to your readers such as books, reports or anything else that can help them in their business; Market your own products, services and workshops through your ezine; Have an editor’s note at the beginning of each ezine or newsletter; Incorporate power words; Have links to products that you want to sell; Offer testimonials from satisfied clients; Give real life examples and show how you’ve helped clients; Case studies always position you as the expert in your readers’ minds more effectively than you coming out and saying so; Jot down eight questions your clients have asked you in the past and answer each one in a short article, as there may be many other clients who have the same questions in mind; If you have been to any industry conference workshops or seminars where you’ve picked up some helpful hints, share these with your readers; Offer a list of your top five to ten tips on a certain subject; Recommend books or resources and offer reviews on some of these books; Include stories and photos from clients. Marketing and Promoting Your Business Last year, someone suggested that I start a newsletter as I have so many contacts. I made a lot of excuses, saying that I wasn’t any good at writing and did not have the time. Eventually I relented and send out my first newsletter to about 3,000 people. The very next day, I received a phone call from Singapore from someone who had been forwarded my newsletter. He said that he liked what I was doing and had two sales teams in Singapore and Australia. He then enquired if I could travel out and train the teams. This turned into multiple assignments in Asia and if I had not sent out the newsletter, I would have missed out on massive potential income. It is also important to monitor your newsletter. My list has now grown to 15,000 subscribers and increases weekly. It is very important for me to find out how many people actually open the newsletter, how many unsubscribe and how many click through to my website www.frankfurness.com Give real life exam p les and sho w ho w yo u have help ed clients To automate everything, I needed to find a system that would automate everything, insert audio or video and monitor the flow of traffic and clickthroughs. I now use Constant Contact www.frankfurnessresources.com/ constantcontact You can try a demo as I did. I now find it the most cost effective way of keeping in touch with my clients and subscribers on a monthly basis. Take a look at their site and try them for free at www.frankfurnessresources.com/ constantcontact 69 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business In my newsletter I cover four topics, Sales and Marketing Tips, Technology and Emarketing Tips, Motivational Tips and Speaking and Presenting Tips. If you would like to receive my newsletter with tips, resources and free ebooks, software and video tips, please go to www.frankfurnessresources.com/newslette r Use so ftw are to auto m ate and m ark et yo ur new sletter I also use an excellent tool to build my lists and market my newsletter on the internet. Take a look at this useful and easy to use software at www.frankfurnessresources.com/ ezineannouncer This is a great product. I bought it and saw the results immediately. It will help you to: • • • • • 70 Automate your ezine marketing by up to 100% using one software product – not two or four; Instantly access over 1700 resources to promote and market your ezine – you could easily waste 12 months wandering around the internet trying to find this information yourself; Suck in 50–700 subscribers in a single week by sending one 17-line e-mail! Advertise your ezine to thousands (even hundreds of thousands) of potential ezine subscribers for free – without using free classified ads; Create your own “ezine virus”, let it spread the word about your ezine automatically – just sit back and let it go! Marketing and Promoting Your Business • • • • Get high rankings in all the major search engines – automatically! (takes you no more than 30 minutes of work per month; Find all the content you’ll ever need for your ezine. In fact, you’ll have new content e-mailed to you every day/week! Get more subscribers – guaranteed! I don’t care if your newsletter targets gardeners or small business owners – it doesn’t matter; Get hundreds of new leads every week utilising a few simple, proven tactics. I have produced a short video to demonstrate how I develop my newsletter each month, take a look at www.frankfurnessresources.com/news Take a look at the archives of my newsletter at www.frankfurnessresources.com/nla Develo p a 10to uch p lan fo r yo ur clients. The easiest w ay to co nnect w ith them at least ten tim es a year is w ith yo ur ezine 71 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Develop an action plan for your newsletter or ezine 72 Marketing and Promoting Your Business Lis ts Lists can be purchased with contact details of “opt-in” prospects that may have an interest in the products or services that you offer. A word of caution, ensure that these are not spam lists and that the list brokers are reputable. Also make some initial checks that the lists have up-to-date contact details. Adv ertis ing Advertising has been and always will be a great way to keep your name in front of clients and potential clients. Some questions you need to ask yourself before placing an ad are: • • • • • • What is the message you want to convey? Who is your target market? What is the most effective way to reach your target market? What is your budget? Stro ng relatio nship s w ith yo ur clients are m o re im p o rtant than p rice alo ne When is the best time to advertise? Where is the best place to advertise? Key points • • • • There are many ways that you can advertise; Brochures – professionally designed and written on high quality paper, they increase credibility significantly; Direct mail – good for name recognition and exposure; Novelties – inexpensive and constantly remind your clients of you; 73 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business • • • Print ads – expensive and effective; Radio and TV – expensive but reaches the demographic group you desire; Website – for millions of online users, the shopping centre of the future. Factors to consider Always test and measure. Advertise in different publications, on different days, using different scripts. Measure and see where you get the best results. Alw ays test and m easure Avoid advertising on the left hand page. Think about when you open any publication. Where do your eyes go first? To the right hand page. Words are important. You have to give them some reason to take action now. Great headlines are crucial. Whenever people open any kind of publication, newspaper, magazines, or website pages, the first attention grabber is the headline. I use a great little package to create headlines, it is simple to use and in four steps it will create 100 headlines for me to choose from. Take a look at www.headlinecreator.co.uk 74 Marketing and Promoting Your Business Action planning Write an action plan for advertising 75 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Creat i v e m ar ke ti ng About 90% of beautifully produced colour brochures end up in the bin, so what can you do to promote your business in a different way? Putting all of your goods and services onto an interactive CD is an excellent and innovative way of providing a huge amount of marketing information in a creative way. This can include video clips, photographs, articles, product ranges, order forms, links back to your website and sound files. Successful p eo p le o ften d o the things that failures hate and avo id d o ing Advantages of using creative marketing are that they are normally passed around from person to person, rather than discarded: they are interactive; they convey a mood; and they are able to provide video and sound. There are many companies that provide this kind of service and the company that I have found to be excellent and whom I have used often in the past is 1 Vision in St Albans in the United Kingdom. Their website is www.1viz.co.uk. (Mention that you got their contact details from this book and Dave Simmons will send out a free sampler CD.) Success stories When I first started speaking, I used expensive brochures as a marketing pack and very soon realised that they were being thrown in the bin or put aside for when someone had the time to study them. I then decided to have a video produced (at great expense) but found that I didn’t like it once it was delivered. I also had to have different formats for different countries. 76 Marketing and Promoting Your Business Success came when I had a marketing CD developed. This had everything on it to sell me and my services. We live in a multimedia society, so I included: • Video clips; • PDF files; • • • • Audio clips; Client list; Client testimonials; Client feedback videos; • Biography; • Word documents; • • • • • Photographs; Speeches; Products; Fee schedule; and Media interviews. All this was on one CD that cost less per unit than a colour brochure and produced a 95% success rate after being sent out. Key points • • • • • • • Have a brainstorming session to think of how you can put your products or services on to an interactive marketing CD; Have a brainsto rm ing sessio n to think o f ho w yo u can p ut yo ur p ro d ucts o r services o n to an interactive m ark eting CD Video your products; Video testimonials with satisfied clients; Put your order form on the CD; Have links back to your website; Show a list of satisfied clients; Display a list of comments from satisfied clients. 77 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Develop an action plan to create a marketing CD 78 The Internet We b s i t e s When speaking to audiences around the world, I always ask who has websites and most of the people raise their hands. I then ask who generated a large or even small proportion of business from their website or generated some decent leads. Very few hands are raised. What is happening is that so many organisations have developed websites that are really worthless. It is like receiving the glossy brochure in the mail that goes straight into the bin. Most of the time, the organisation will have a decent website that is not seen by anyone. Or it does not market the company’s goods or services effectively. Perhaps clients don’t return because the website is not updated with new information. Or perhaps they are simply not given any reasons to return. Not only must your website act as an online brochure, but more and more this must become a prospecting, marketing and sales tool for you. Is it attracting more clients, selling more products or services and establishing you as an expert in your field? Nowadays with millions of people shopping online every day, your website needs to look good and be a magnet that attracts potential clients to you. You will normally need to find two web specialists with different skills: a designer and someone with the technical abilities to get you to the top of the search engines. You will also need to find somebody who knows about emarketing and affiliate Internet service p ro vid er AOL, has m o re subscribers than the ten largest new sp ap ers in the USA 79 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business selling. Research shows that there are in excess of 515 million people online with millions each day searching the web for free information. Some questions you need to ask yourself about your own website are: • Is your website updated constantly? • Do you have free giveaways, i.e. articles, booklets etc.? • Research sho w s that there are in excess o f 515 m illio n p eo p le o nline w ith m illio ns each d ay searching the w eb fo r free info rm atio n • • • • • • Is there a reason for people to return to your website? Do you track the number of visitors? Are you set up to take orders online with a secure banking facility? Can your goods, products or services be sold through affiliates? By using other affiliate programmes, i.e. Amazon, could you increase your sales? Does you website rank highly enough to attract visitors there in the first place? Do you have goods or services that you can promote and sell to bring in passive income. (Most companies can do this. I even know of one accounting firm that brings in a large income through selling articles over the internet.) If you have answered yes to all of the above, your website is definitely a marketing tool. If not, a lot of work needs to be done as an effective website can potentially increase your business substantially. 80 The Internet Some of the essentials for a good website are: • • Great content – provide good valuable information; Links – develop a linking strategy. Have all your clients link to your website and in return you link to theirs. Also, develop a strategy to link to other sites with high Google rankings. I use a great piece of software that finds me linking partners based on keywords and then automates the complete system for me to develop links. Take a look at www.tinyurl.com/pmcfo I also discovered an incredible ebook on linking strategies and search engine optimisation that has really assisted me in getting high rankings for my sites. It is written by a recognised expert and if you would like to receive a free copy, please download it at www.frankfurnessresources.com/SEO.pdf Key points • • • Most people online nowadays are looking for free information. Give away free articles and information that is updated monthly. This establishes you as an expert in your field and will convince potential clients to use you over your competitor; Establish m any link s to o ther high rank ing sites and this w ill help yo u to go higher in the listings w ith m any search engines Have contact details on every page, make it easy for clients and potential clients to find and reach you; Monitor the flow of traffic to your site and the various pages and see how 81 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business • A high search engine rank ing fo r yo ur w ebsite is so essential that if yo u have the slightest d esire to actually succeed in yo ur business, there is no w ay yo u can co ntinue to avo id the issue long visitors stay on each page. If they are leaving very soon after they’ve come in, you may consider redoing this page; Establish many links to other sites and this will help you to go higher in the listings with many search engines. One of the things that I discovered when I first built my website was that every time I made any change to the site, I was sent a bill and this mounted up over time. (My wife asked if I had shares in the website company!) I changed website providers and now use an organisation called Advenzia, see www.advenzia.com. The biggest advantage to me is that I now have a back office system where I am in complete control of the site. I can make changes, add articles and add products at any time. I also have a full ecommerce system for selling my products as well as a great affiliate system where people can sign up as affiliates to market my products and earn healthy commissions for doing so. If you would like to become an affiliate, please sign up now at: www.frankfurnessresources.com/ affiliate The system I have on my website tracks all affiliate traffic, commissions and is simple to use. Take a look at a short video I produced that demonstrates my back office system: www.frankfurnessresources.com/backoffic e 82 The Internet Getting your website seen There are many ways to get your website seen and drive traffic, opportunities and sales for your business. • • • • The main techniques are: Proper keywords; Articles; Linking strategies; and Pay per click. The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you, the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue. At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. The reason for optimising your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what search engine optimisation is all about. You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimise your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely Alm o st all search engines use link p o p ularity to rank yo ur w ebsite 83 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage. The title bar is the coloured bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would be your company name. Search engines list sites that co ntain quality co ntent, no t scintillating grap hics Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other. The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords – the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site. Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking in search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format. 84 The Internet To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings. Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula. To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the browser menu bar, and select “source” This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps. Link p o p ularity is an extrem ely im p o rtant facto r in term s o f search engine rank ings Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page. 85 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business A go o d w ay to check the p o p ularity o f yo ur w ebsite is to use w w w .alexa.co m If you type “free link popularity check” in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially, this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website. Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful internet marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimisation company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this all-important factor in internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way. A good way to check the popularity of your website is to use www.alexa.com Type in your website and it will provide a lot of basic information. 86 The Internet Adv ertis ing y o ur s erv ices on the inter n et Advertising your services or products on the internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website. Pay-per-click is one of the options you can choose, along with developing a search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign. Pay-per-click advertising Pay-per-click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines now offer. You bid an amount that you will pay on a “per-click” basis and then each time the search engine directs a visitor to your site you pay the bid amount. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines. As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee. Pay-p er-click d o esn’t d em and any sp ecific technical k no w led ge 87 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you’re up and running. It doesn’t demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier and more effective the process will be. The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position – which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword. In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $12,500 in profits and there were 25,000 visitors, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors. The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click. 88 Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit. The Internet The key to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research. (By the way, please email me at [email protected] and I will send you two ebooks on search engine optimisation and Google Adwords for free. They are written by a top expert and are 80 pages each.) The good news is there isn’t a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no need to optimise your site to index a particular set of keywords. Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others, but they will not cost you anything except the time to set up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer payper-click, one called Overture (now Yahoo) provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after you enter a description of your site. In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing enough to attract ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to ensure that your bid is profitable. Another essential element of pay-per- Yo u m ust use exp ert m ark eting co p y to guarantee that yo ur d escrip tio n is bo th p recise and enticing to attract the m o st id eal cand id ates to yo ur site 89 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and Google Adwords, usually appear on other popular search engines. Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find that the bidding price escalates too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit. Co nstantly m o nito r yo ur bid s If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding war. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis. Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behaviour can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs and will also ensure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success. Take a look at the video I produced on keywords at www.frankfurnessresources.com/keywords Take a look at one of the best tools available to analyse keywords: www.frankfurnessresources.com/ wordtracker 90 The Internet M ar ke ti ng w it h a rt i c l es on the inter n et A great way to drive traffic to your site is with articles. As stated earlier in the book, you must be writing articles and getting them published both offline in magazines and newspapers and online. Whenever I speak to audiences, I ask how many are looking for free information online. Almost everyone raises their hands. The truth is that the internet was originally set up as a medium to share information and almost everyone who has a computer today looks for free information. Right now, someone could be looking for information that you could be providing, whether it is to do with business, relationships, hobbies, sport or hundreds of other topics. What is it that you know that everyone else would like to know? Share this information in articles Right no w , so m eo ne co uld be lo o k ing fo r info rm atio n yo u co uld be p ro vid ing Articles dictate a lot in the success and the drive of traffic to your site. They create links back to your sites and build your credibility and branding. Article writing and submitting has become a key element in making a site work and earns you a profit. Anyone with a website must have the good sense to include articles on their site that will work for them and earn them the many benefits articles can give to their site. Articles play a massive part in giving site high rankings in search result pages. The higher a site ranks the bigger slice of the traffic flow pie you get. With a huge number in traffic flow, there are more profits and more potential for other income generating opportunities as well. 91 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business But, it is not just about stuffing your site with articles; they have certain requirements as well. These requirements must be met to obtain the maximum benefits. A well written article will catch the eye and interest of your customers and keep them coming back for more. They would also be able to recommend your site to others. There are four things all articles must have to make them successful in making your site a profit-earning and trafficoverflowing site. Whenever yo u read a new sp ap er o r m agazine, the first thing that cap tures yo ur attentio n is the head line Headlines Whenever you read a newspaper or magazine, the first thing that captures your attention is the headline. If it looks compelling, this will encourage you to read further. It is just as important with sales copy, brochures, websites and any other marketing materials that promote you or your business. I use a useful piece of software www.headlinecreator.co.uk that enables me to create 100 headlines by just completing four sentences. Take a look at it, I find it invaluable. Keywords and Keyword Phrases Articles must always be centered on the keywords and keyword phrases. Among all the visitors that go to a website, there are those who are not just browsing but are actually looking for specific information. The important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site. For example, if you maintain a recruitment site, you must be able to have articles about recruitment, conducting interviews, how to prepare a 92 The Internet CV, etc. There are many tools on the internet that provide services in helping people determine what keywords and keyword phrases are mostly sought out. I use many of these, but one of the best is free and can be downloaded at www.goodkeywords.com Some of the others you can use are: • • Overture Dowser Keyword density Now that you have your keywords and keyword phrases, you must use them fully. An article must have good keyword density for a search engine to “feel” its presence. Articles should at least have 10-15% of keyword density in their content for search engines to rank a site high in their search results. Getting a high rank is what articles do best for a site. Good article content Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out. Articles m ust be able to entertain p eo p le as w ell as p ro vid e go o d info rm atio n and help fo r their need s The body of the article must contain information that is valuable to your reader. People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic. As more people believe in you, they will be able to trust you and your products. 93 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Top writers around the world will write for you – outsourcing The content of your articles or website tells a whole lot about your business. They will basically describe what your site is about and also tell people what your site has to offer. Articles and website content makes a whole lot of difference to your site because they can catch the attention of your website visitors and keep them in there. Use o nline reso urces to help yo u w rite yo ur articles With good website content you get the benefit of clearly depicting what it is you want to share with people. Also, good content and articles can lead people to your site. With more traffic, you get to earn more from your site, making it profitable. A site’s success, be it for profit or not, is the amount of flow of traffic to your site. So how does good content and great articles get you traffic? Well, many search engines rely on the keyword and keyword phrases of a site to put it in their results list. If your content contains a good number of keywords and keyword phrases, it may be chosen to be a part of the top listed sites in the search result pages. But before you think of just plastering your site with all the keywords and keyword phrases it could hold, be aware that search engines also filter out that abuse. You must have good well written articles that incorporate the keywords and keyword phrases properly in their content and articles. 94 There are many who cannot afford the time to write their own website contents and articles. While writing content and The Internet articles specifically designed for the internet may take some getting used to and some researching and learning, there are many writers that can be found all over the world who could do it for you. Many of us do not have the time to learn web content writing and article writing designed for the internet. There are writers who have great experience in doing this and charge only a minimal fee for such work. Writers like this can be regarded as experts in this style of writing and can greatly help your website to get that coveted spot in the search engine rankings. Other than getting your site in the web results page of search engines, they can also provide your site with meaningful articles and content that can impress your website visitors and entice others to view your site. Every website could use the extra traffic website visitors could invite. Then there are those who need papers to be done either for their school or office work. Top writers around the world are very knowledgeable and do extreme researching to get a job done right. They are also very adept in many writing styles that best suit the client’s need. Yo u m ust have go o d , w ell w ritten articles that inco rp o rate the k eyw o rd s and k eyw o rd p hrases Many writers around the world charge a minimal fee depending on the type of writing job needed and the number of words needed in the content. Usually, a 250-word article would cost from 4 to 8 dollars depending on the writer’s experience and ability. This is a small price to pay for having a content rich site or for a well-researched and written paper. There are also many sites that can offer you these services with their team of well- 95 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business trained and experienced writers. They offer many writing services to cover any writing needs. A writer can be based anywhere in the world and they guarantee to offer good content and articles. Each article is doubly checked, edited and proofread so that you get your money’s worth. Find ing a go o d w riter o r a site that o ffers w riting services is sim p ly d o ne by searching fo r them in search engines Finding a good writer or a site that offers these kinds of services is simply done by searching for them in search engines. Type down your keyword or keyword phrase (e.g. content writers, article writers) and you will see a long list of sites that offer these services. Some that I use include: www.elance.com www.craigslist.com www.rentacoder.com The top sites would probably be the best since they have done a good job of keeping their content at a high quality to get them high rankings. But you may also want to shop around and read some of their sample work to get an idea of how much it will cost you. Linking Articles 96 If you are going to submit articles to ezines and/or contribute your articles to newsletters and other sites, don’t ever forget to include a link to your site. A little resource box with a brief description of your site and yourself should always be placed right after the articles you have submitted. If people like your articles, they will most likely click on the link directing them to your site. Google also places a lot of importance on link popularity, and this is the easiest way to get links back to your site. The Internet Submitting your article to article directories You must submit your article to as many article directories as you can. I submitted 12 articles to one directory and to date they have been downloaded 1232 times. It can be a laborious task submitting to the various article directories. I use a great piece of software that makes the submission process quick and easy. Take a look at www.articlesubmittingsoftware.com This software allows you to submit one article at a time to 163 article directories and will save you a great amount of time and effort. Article resources I use many resources to promote my articles and have put together a valuable software` package for my readers and subscribers. Take a look at www.netsalessecrets.com Peo p le resp o nd w ell to figures, facts and statistics Linkin g s trategies If you want to increase your website’s rankings in the search engines, you will need to have inbound links to create link popularity. To do this, you can use link building directory submission services or promote link building by submitting to article directories manually. Link popularity is crucial for search engine rankings. Search engine bots automatically assume that the more back links there are pointing to a particular website, the more popular and valuable the website is. Search engines love back links from content rich pages, such as article pages; in the previous section I detailed how to do 97 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Yo ur w ebsite m ust beco m e a p ro sp ecting, m ark eting and sales to o l fo r yo u this. There are article submission services and software programs that can make the submissions for you. I use a great programme called Article Announcer which allows me to link with high ranking sites that are complementary to mine. For more information please see www.frankfurnessresources.com/seo If you want to do it manually, try and devote a few hours one to two days a week just focusing on building links. It takes a lot of effort, but the results more than compensate. 98 The Internet Action Planning Develop an action plan for your website, articles and linking strategies 99 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Blog ging Everyone should by now have their own blog. It is so easy. In 10 minutes you can have your own blog published, and the best part is, at no or low cost and with no complicated knowledge needed. The two most popular places to start are www.wordpress.org and www.blogger.com Blo gs are a great w ay to get yo ur m essage acro ss o n the internet and have it p ublished alm o st im m ed iately 100 Blogs are a great way to get your message across on the internet and have it published almost immediately. It is the ideal way to provide information, education and, if done well, can create wealth and multiple sources of income for you. For your blog to be effective you need to ensure that it either solves someone’s problems, removes their pain or increases their pleasure. To me, it is the perfect online selling tool that will drive business, leads and sales. I have found that the best way of having an effective blog is to make it conversational and interesting, with valuable content, while also engaging and involving the reader. I started my blog three years ago and now have 20 blogs covering different subjects and all producing me money one way or another (I love that word...!) Initially, I just published my existing articles to my blog. Now each month when I produce my newsletter, I also include those articles as well as other information that may be of interest. The search engine spiders love blogs as they always have new and interesting content. I try to share a combination of personal stories and high The Internet content business articles so that the blog will appeal to a large audience. I have a lot of links within the blog articles back to sections of my websites and my products. The quick tips section in the blog drives traffic to the www.frankfurnessresources.com website where there are videos, tips, resources and a subtle sell to my products (there we go again…!) I also use the blog to drive traffic to the section of my main website with free ebooks and software. This takes them to a form that also signs them up to my newsletter and in turn I get hundreds of new subscribers each week. I submit my blogs to the many blog directories and whenever I add articles I ‘ping’ the blogs to www.pingomatic.com I drive traffic to my blog from a lot of other sources, the most popular right now being YouTube. I have 70 videos on YouTube and at the end of each video I have a message offering free information or ebooks that drives a ton of traffic to my blogs. By using blo gs and article subm issio n strategies, I no w have tho usand s o f link s back to m y sites I recently learned a great traffic strategy for my blog. I search for very high ranking blogs in my niche and then add a comment to articles on those blogs with a link back to my website. This is great for the spiders as they now see high ranking sites linking back to my blog and this pushes me up in the rankings and drives traffic. A lot of people ask me what the differences are between blogs and websites and the most common are as follows: • No need for a webmaster for updates; 101 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business • Publish directly from your computer; • No complex uploading; • • Don’t need knowledge of HTML; • Customer interaction; and • • Subm it yo ur blo g to blo g d irecto ries to increase yo ur exp o sure Content changes instantly; Automatic archives; Instant syndication . By using blogs and article submission strategies, I now have thousands of links back to my sites, get more bookings, sell more products and build my newsletter subscriber list. The best part is that I’m not a “techie”. All I concentrate on are simple sales strategies, although I am learning the more advanced strategies that include trackbacks, permalinks and how to get the best from RSS directories. So remember, for the businessperson, a blog has many practical applications. It will: • Increase targeted traffic to your site; • Boost your search engine rankings; • Increase the lifetime value of clients; • • • • Build rapport for increased sales; Prove your expertise; Complement your newsletter; Generate press coverage . I would suggest that you also submit you blog to the directories. Some of the more popular directories to submit your blog to for a free one way backlink include: 102 http://dir.blogflux.com/ www.blogcatalog.com/ www.bloghub.com/ www.britblog.com/ The Internet www.blogarama.com/ www.blogwise.com/ www.blogdirs.com/ http://blogs.botw.org/ www.blogrankings.com/ www.bloggeries.com/ www.blogtoplist.com/ www.bestblogs.org/ www.findingblog.com/ http://blogannounce.info/ www.blogtastic.com/ www.addurlblog.com/ www.blogoozle.com/ www.blogsweet.com/ www.blogfinds.com/ www.spillbean.com/ So don’t wait, whatever your hobby, business or passion, share your stories with the online world. Take a look at my blog at www.blogger.frankfurness.com Take a look at my video interview with Mike Stewart who is an expert on audio and video and how to maximise your blogs using these tools in Wordpress: www.frankfurnessresources.com/audiovide o Co m bine o nline vid eo w ith blo gs and create a vlo g (a vid eo blo g) 103 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Develop an action plan for blogging 104 The Internet On l i n e s a l e s a n d m a r k e t i n g I realised some time ago that I was the business and that if I didn’t work, there would be no income. I then developed a plan of action to produce products and market them both to existing clients and online. Along the way I have made many mistakes that have cost me a lot of money, but now products form a large part of my income. Over the last few years I have produced 32 products and resources including books, ebooks, CDs and DVDs. Take a look at www.frankfurnessresources.com/products At first I found that very few sales were being generated online because I was confusing potential clients. I was promoting speaking, training and products so left potential buyers in a state of confusion from where the easiest option was to do nothing. I now have over 200 domain names and I am developing a one-page website for each product. It is a one page sales letter that gets the potential buyer involved and focused on only one product and then encourages them towards the action of buying. This has really worked well and has generated sales of up to $7,000 in a week. The best part of this is that it is passive income. I earn it whether I’m sleeping or sitting on the beach. I used a number of tools to create my one-page websites. One of my favourites is an online service that helps you create long copy sales letters very quickly. Even people already good at copywriting use this because it saves lots of time. If yo u sell p ro d ucts o r services o n the internet and m ess up the ad vertising co p yw riting, yo u w ill fail m iserably 105 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business If you sell products or services on the internet and mess up the advertising copywriting, you will fail miserably. You must be able to write the words that move people to action . . . in most cases we want them to pull their wallets out of their pockets and give us money. The 60-second sales letter saves enormous amounts of time and helps you organise your thoughts quickly. Create ed utainm ent – ed ucatio n co m bined w ith entertainm ent It used to take me a week or more to write a good sales letter and this tool has reduced that time to a few hours at most. Take a look at this software at www.frankfurnessresources.com/saleslette r Header Generator is a new tool that gives you the winning edge over your competition. If you are looking at how to aesthetically enhance your site to give it the extra edge for your soon to be customers, this new software, is a great solution. Take a look at www.frankfurnessresources.com/headers Using these tools to generate my one page sales letter (take a look at www.walkingwithtigers.com), I generate an ongoing income that is independent of me and develops multiple sources of income. You can generate the same. Marketing w ith v ideo 106 There has been a virtual explosion of video on the internet in recent times. You only need to take a look at the success of YouTube to realise that the new phenomenon in low-cost, no-cost marketing is video on the web. The Internet All it takes is a webcam or video camera and some software and you can be seen by millions in hours. The easiest software to use is Microsoft Video which is free and easy to use. I use a number of other programmes which are excellent. Pinnacle Pro is an inexpensive video editing programme that I have been using for years. I also use the more advanced Sony Vegas and Adobe Premier Elements. If you really want to have special effects, for instance an interesting background (you could be seen to be speaking in Moscow, outer space or on the beach), I use Visual Communicator from Adobe. The software is brilliant and it comes with a green screen, good microphone, great software and an extensive manual. Take a look at my video on how it works at www.news.frankfurness.com/greenscreen The new w ay o f m ark eting is vid eo o n the w eb If you receive my newsletter, you’ll know that I send out regular video sales tips using this software. I have also uploaded these tips to internet video sites including, YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video and Metcafe Video. So far I have had close to 500,000 viewings. Take a look at www.youtube.com/salestips This is truly free marketing. The results – product sales, speaker and training bookings and thousands of new subscribers to my newsletter and hits to my sites. You can do the same for your business. 107 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business My favourite piece of software is Camtasia. www.frankfurnessresources.com/camtasia This captures the screen of your computer while you speak. I use it to promote products, explain and show how different pieces of software work and explain any technical concepts. Take a look at an example at www.frankfurnessresources.com/ headlinevideo So m e sites o n the internet w ill p ay yo u fo r yo ur vid eo s Once again I use this to show video hints and tips on Microsoft products, software programmes, view PowerPoint presentations and much more. Anyone can use this software – there are just so many applications for it. You can also upload the videos you make to your website or put them in your one-page sales letters. Now that you have made the videos, there are plenty of video sites on the internet that you can upload them to. Some even pay you. Take a look at www.frankfurnessresources.com/tipstricks to see the various sites. I recently bought an excellent ebook for $37 on how to use video with YouTube to generate traffic, lists and sales. To my surprise I found that after I had bought it, I now had the full resale rights so only had to sell one copy to recoup my investment. 108 This was over and above the brilliant tips and strategies that I picked up from the book. I immediately put five new strategies into place on YouTube that had already had a dramatic effect on my business. Take a look at the book on www.youtubestrategies.com and if you buy it you also receive the resell rights. The Internet Brilliant…! You can also have your own channel on Youtube. Take a look at www.frankfurnessresources.com/ videosites.pdf to see the various sites. Online m ark eting w ill create m o ney w hile yo u sleep 109 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Develop an action plan for online marketing 110 The Internet M ar ke ti ng w it h e boo ks Ebooks are a great way of marketing yourself, your organisation or your services. It is low-cost/no-cost marketing and establishes you as an expert in your field. Once someone has read your ebook, if they see you as the specialist in your field, the phone will keep ringing and sales will follow. Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace. They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing information, ideas, techniques and expert knowledge. Each day the number of people accessing the internet grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase incrementally. It’s obvious why electronic self-publishing has become so popular so quickly. The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend to forever banish the printed word to the dustbin of history. Books in print have their own special qualities and merits, and the world would be diminished by their disappearance. Ebo o k s are a great w ay o f m ark eting yo urself, yo ur o rganisatio n o r yo ur services Having said that, let’s look at what makes ebooks so important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities and qualities that other mediums do not possess. For example, ebooks are fairly easy to produce and their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about it: you don’t need a publisher, an agent, a printing press, offset film, ink, paper or even a distributor. You just need a great concept, the ability to write it or to hire a writer, and the right software. 111 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Additionally, ebooks are easily and rapidly distributed online. They are also easily updated; they do not require a second print run. All you need is to go into your original creation and modify the text or graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can change and grow as fast as you can type. Ebo o k s are easily and rap id ly d istributed o nline. They are also easily up d ated Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You don’t have to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download the ebook from a website, and hey presto! It’s on your computer, ready to be read. Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for customers to purchase your products or goods, sound and video that draw your reader into the virtual world of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites that will expand your ebook outwards. The potential is virtually limitless. Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks remain on your computer for as long as you choose, and they can be read and reread whenever you wish. They can even be printed out and stored on the shelves of your traditional home library. 112 Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no barriers in terms of publishing. You don’t need to go through the endless process of submitting your manuscript over and over again, and then once you land an agent, having the agent The Internet submit your manuscript over and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands of dollars for printing a selfpublished book. All ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software. Figure out your market, write your book, post it on your website, and with the right business savvy, your audience will come to you. Ebo o k s have no barriers in term s o f p ublishing Finally, you have creative control over your ebook. You don’t have to compromise with an editor or the publishing trends of the time. You don’t have to haggle with a designer or wait for proofread galleys to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control of the design and the text. How to use ebooks for marketing and promotion There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote your business and drive quality traffic to your website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them into a daily course, which brings your customer back to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free gift for making a purchase or for filling out a survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by inserting the disc into your sales packages. The most effective marketing products are those that are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately you have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can offer to the public. People will have to visit your site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow of quality traffic and the potential of sales and affiliate contacts. Ebo o k s p ro vid e yo u w ith an invaluable w ay to gather m ark eting info rm atio n 113 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business The m o st effective m ark eting p ro d ucts are tho se that are unique Use yo ur ebo o k to d isco ver w hat the sp ecific go als and p ro blem s are in yo ur ind ustry 114 Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it frequently as the market and trends change. Add new advice and techniques to show your prospects how your goods or services can enrich their lives. By constantly keeping abreast of new trends and techniques, you can continue to see profits from your ebook for years after your original creation. Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can test their marketing potential without spending hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook one copy at a time, each time you receive an order, eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By this method, you can gauge the saleability of your ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn about your market and your customer habits and motivation over a period of time, without risking your precious financial resources. They also provide you with an invaluable way to gather marketing information, which you can use in many different facets of your business. Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and problems are of your specific industry. Then figure out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook with this invaluable information. This will increase the value of your business, upgrade your reputation and get you known as an expert in your field. You can extend the value of a single ebook by breaking the book down into chapters for a serial course, into special reports available on your website, or into The Internet audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into several different promotional materials by taking some of the articles and using them to promote your product. You can include a catalogue in your ebook to promote all the products or services you sell. You can include a thankyou note for reading your book and an invitation to download a trial version of your product. Or you can include a form for your audience to contact you for further information or with questions, thereby building your business relationships and your mailing list. Print yo ur ebo o k s to beco m e bo o k lets o r self-p ublished bo o k s Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of individually producing separate promotional materials. You can use a single ebook to attract new prospects and to sell new products to your current customers. No other medium has this kind of flexibility and ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go and create that web, and see how many customers and prospects you can catch! 115 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business Action planning Develop an action plan to market using ebooks 116 Prospecting Toolbox Pro s pec t i ng m a nag em ent There are many systems for organising your prospects and clients and these include software programs such as Outlook, Goldmine, ACT and many others. In some ways a very simple system also works whereby you keep the details of all your prospects on 3x5 cards. Have as many details as possible of the prospect on the cards and rate these prospects either A, B or C. Then just keep them in a box in various sections: • • Hot leads – these are clients you should be phoning immediately; Prospects and leads; • Current month’s appointments; • Clients; • • Future months’ appointments; Not interested. The secret is doing whatever works for you, but more importantly getting a system and following up on it. Pro duc t s t o h elp y ou g row y ou r bus i ne s s Walking with Tigers This trip le aud io CD set co vers the secrets o f success o f the to p salesp eo p le in the w o rld . Frank interview ed o ver 500 to p salesp eo p le o n ho w they achieved such great results. The d etails o f the research as w ell as a 21-p o int p lan to achieving greatness in sales w ill give yo u id eas to m o ve yo ur business fo rw ard . Finding New Business and Clients This trip le aud io CD set shares num ero us id eas o n p ro sp ecting and ho w to find new business. Everything is co vered fro m netw o rk ing, referrals, sw ap clubs, article p ublicatio ns, centres o f influence, co ld calling and m uch, m uch m o re. Selling for Fun … and Profit This is a co nd ensed series o f Frank ’s w o rk sho p w hich has been p resented in 40 co untries. Everything fro m the basics o f selling to ad vanced id eas is shared in this series. Includ ed are: the sales cycle, p ro sp ecting, telep ho ne 117 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business sk ills, interview ing and nego tiatio n sk ills, clo sing, p erso nality styling and custo m er service. The series includ es m any p ractical scrip ts o n p ho ning, d evelo p ing rap p o rt, o verco m ing o bjectio ns and clo sing. Trip le aud io CD set, Single CD, Vid eo and DVD. Business Presentation Skills One o f the m o st effective and fastest w ays to bo o st yo ur career success is by co nsistently d elivering excellent p resentatio ns that really engage the hearts and m ind s o f yo ur aud ience. Yo u m ay be p resenting o ne-to -o ne, to a sm all gro up o r a large aud ience, ho w ever, the co re sk ills that m ak e yo u an engaging and insp iratio nal sp eak er are the sam e. In this trip le aud io CD set, m aster p resenters Frank Furness and Hilary Wilso n share co m p rehensive and highly p ractical d etails o n all the k ey asp ects o f beco m ing a first-rate sp eak er. The Secret Power of Questions In this aud io CD Frank Furness and Keith Banfield share id eas and p ro ven questio ning techniques that w ill enhance sales, business and relatio nship s if used effectively. Secrets of Successful Consulting In this trip le CD aud io series Frank Furness and To m Lam bert share p ro ven id eas o n ho w to attract m o re business and run a successful co nsultancy p ractice. To m ’s ten bo o k s are glo bal best sellers in 13 m ajo r languages. This series shares id eas that w ill enable the d ed icated p ro fessio nal to build a p erso nal p ractice cap able o f earning a six-figure sum . Coaching Fundamentals Get the info rm atio n yo u need to succeed as a co ach right no w ! This d o uble CD aud io series is fo r anyo ne w ho w ants to im p ro ve their co aching sk ills o r w ants to fo llo w a career as a co ach. How to be More Assertive, Confident and Happy Get the info rm atio n yo u need to succeed in life right no w ! This 2-CD aud io series is fo r anyo ne w ho w ants to im p ro ve their relatio nship s, be m o re assertive, co nfid ent and hap p y. How to Find New Clients for Speakers, Trainers, Coaches and Consultants – 21 strategies to Find New Clients and Business. Get the info rm atio n yo u need to right no w . With three CDs, a DVD and a CD w ith vid eo d em o nstratio ns, this is a p ractical series w here yo u w ill learn p ro ven techniques. It’s All About YOU This is a trip le CD series w ith an actio n p lanner to help everyo ne to reach their go als and d ream s. NLP 4 Sales 118 Prospecting Toolbox Get the info rm atio n yo u need to succeed in business no w ! This 6-CD series is fo r anyo ne w ho w ants to im p ro ve their sales sk ills. Sales and Marketing Toolbox for Small Business and SMEs Get the info rm atio n yo u need to sell m o re right no w . With fo ur CDs, a DVD and a CD w ith vid eo d em o nstratio ns, this is a p ractical series w here yo u w ill learn p ro ven techniques to increase business. Sales Strategies for Financial Advisors Pro ven tip s, to o ls and tactics to find new clients and m ark et financial services. Speak for High Fees in Many Lands Frank shares tip s, techniques and co aching o n p resentatio n sk ills, m ark eting and ho w to beco m e an internatio nal sp eak er. Telephone Sales Skills for Winners This trip le CD series co vers all asp ects o f m ak ing ap p o intm ents by telep ho ne. Media Tactics – How to Work with the Media With this trip le CD set yo u w ill share the to o ls, tip s and techniques o f ho w to w o rk w ith the m ed ia and hand le TV, rad io and p rint w ith ease. Order now from www.frankfurnessresources.com/products 119 Ho w to Find New Clients and Business G re a t w e b s i t e s a n d s o f t w a r e t o g r o w y o u r bu s ines s Video editing software: www.technologytips.co.uk/avsdemo www.frankfurnessresources.com/flv www.videowebwizard.org/ www.frankfurnessresources.com/camstudio/ (free) Upload all your videos to YouTube and other video sites automatically: www.technologytips.co.uk/videouploader Others: www.businesscardscanner.co.uk/ www.articlesubmittingsoftware.com/ www.youtubestrategies.com/ www.simpleheadlines.com/ www.netsalessecrets.com/ www.internetaudiosecrets.co.uk/ www.frankfurnessresources.com/websitewizard www.frankfurnessresources.com/directorysubmitter www.frankfurnessresources.com/peelads www.frankfurnessresources.com/audacity (free) www.technologytips.co.uk/peelads www.frankfurnessresources.com/tipstricks www.walkingwithtigers.com www.coachingforspeakers.org www.speakeropportunities.com www.saleslettergenerators.com 120
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