1 HOW TO BE THE ONE YOUR CUSTOMERS CHOOSE
1 HOW TO BE THE ONE YOUR CUSTOMERS CHOOSE Hello there, Ivana Taylor here from DIY Marketers, and I want to welcome you to ‘How to be the One your Customers Choose’. Can I just add - ‘Every Time, Regardless of Price’. How to be the One your Customers Choose, every time, Regardless of Price’. This is a fantastic program that’s going to help you make more money in less time and with less effort. So before you go, and reading into the slide, just take a moment to close your eyes and think about what if every customer or client that you worked with was a complete joy? Low maintenance, happy, satisfied and loyal? What if your clients were more loyal and used more of your services? And not only that, what if they gave you referrals and testimonials without your even asking? I mean, just picture, day after day, getting emails saying ‘hey, this customer that works with you said I should talk to you. Hey, I just heard that you do this often thing - I want some!’ This is not a dream, nor is it an impossibility. This is how every day can go for you. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 2 Why? Because there is a process for that. It might look as if it comes out of luck. It might look as if it’s serendipity for you. But believe me, it’s really a process. This is something that you can manage, that you can run, just like any other kind of money machine. Overall, this process looks like this. It’s all about finding your sweet spot. In marketing terms, we like to use the words differentiation or positioning, but quite frankly it’s really nothing more than the coming together of three critical elements. The first is your strength. What you like to do and what you do well. So the first circle is all about YOU. Who you are, who you’re being in the world, what you’re committed to and what you’re really, really good at, right? The second circle is really the circle of your customers’ world and what’s important to them when they’re buying what you’re selling. The third area, the third circle, the third world of things, are some things that I like to call a strategic difference. It’s sort of those features that you offer already that really make a difference, and then when those things are combined with what you’re good at and what’s important ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 3 to your customer, you get the shaded little circle inside there, that shaded section. And that’s called your sweet spot. You know, in the world of tennis or something, tennis racquets have a sweet spot. And this is exactly what this looks like. It’s that spot where the ball just hits. It’s effortless, and it bounces in the perfect direction, very little effort on your part, things just happen. Well, things don’t just happen magically. They really happen when these three areas come together perfectly, and this is no accident either. But it helps to really understand what a sweet spot is, okay? I like to look at a sweet spot as sort of like a big idea. Another way you can look at a sweet spot is maybe what you’re committed to in the world. What matters to you, right? In essence, a sweet spot, when something matters to you, when you have a big idea, when you’re committed to something, you’re going to notice that when you live your life that way, let’s say whether it’s what you value, what you’re committed to, what’s important to you, you’re going to find that you structure your whole world around that. Here’s an example. Let’s pretend that you actually are a runner. You like to run, right, and you like to put your miles in every single day. If that’s something that you’re really committed to or that’s important or if that’s a value that you hold, it’s a philosophy that you have in running your life, what’s going to happen is you’re going to have a certain behaviour around that. You might structure your day so that you either get up early to run in the morning if you like that, or that you have time at the end of the day when you ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 4 like to run. You’re going to make sure that - let’s say if you’re travelling, that you get there and you’re kind of checking out saying, hmmm, I can run here, I can run there. You see that? That’s something you’re committed to and you structure your world around that inside your life, right? If, let’s say, you’re at home and you’re really committed to being there for your kids, one of the things that you’re going to do is you’re going to schedule your day in such a way so that maybe you’re home when they get home from school, or maybe that you free up time so that you can participate in sporting events that they participate in. That’s a commitment and then what you do is you structure your life so that you can meet that commitment, so that you can do what you want to do, so that you can do what’s important to you. Your business is absolutely no different, right? I mean, every individual is committed to something different. So what I’d recommend that you do is if you don’t have a piece of paper or something to write on, I’d recommend that you kind of pause right here and go and get that, because I think that as I talk you’re going to come up with some really, really terrific ideas that you’re going to want to use later on in your system. I have a handout for you if you haven’t printed it out yet you might want to do that, because then you can write on that, okay, because there’s worksheets and kinds of things. But right now, take a moment to just grab yourself a paper and a pencil or turn to a blank page in your handout so that you can brainstorm as I talk to you about this, because things are going to pop up in your head that you’re going to want to use, okay? Alright then. So now you’ve got your little piece of paper and something to write with, and now I’m going to really get into helping you identify what your sweet spot is. First thing you want to do is think about what you stand for as a business. What is it that you believe in? How do you believe things should run? What do you believe is so and true in your business? Just write down a few things, like I think I should respond to phone calls. You should get a call back. If you call me, you should get a call back, you know, within the day, within 24 hours, within 5 minutes, whatever. I believe that emails should be responded to within a certain amount of time. And be real specific, so it’s saying something like I believe that you should get a good value for the money that you spend. That’s a great place to start, but you want to get more specific than that. I have a client ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 5 who’s an attorney, and one of the things he says is I believe that every client should get ten times their investment with me. So whatever they spend with me, tack on a zero. That’s the benefit that they should receive. See, that’s really, really specific. Another area that you can brainstorm about is what beliefs or values drive your business? So let say, for example, if you value speed, then you want to write that. If you value quality, then you want to write that. But even inside, once again, inside of quality, what is it that quality looks like? You know, let’s say if you’re in the business of actually creating some type of a product, quality has to look a certain way, right? If you provide a service, quality looks a certain way. Let’s say if you provide a service to homeowners let’s say you’re a carpet cleaner, right? You come into a home, maybe quality means that I’m going to do it the way you would do it, right? I’m going to move your furniture, I’m going to put that furniture back, I’m going to leave it better than it was when I came in, right? So that’s a belief or a value that can drive your business and the kind of services that you provide, and the way in which you provide those services or those products. Another way that you can identify and start digging through what your sweet spot is, is to find out what is your unique philosophy in doing business? What is it that you believe or that you think everyone should have? I’m going to give a big example of some companies that maybe you’ve experienced. So think about like Southwest Airlines. Before Southwest Airlines came along in the 70s, very, very few people flew in an airplane. I mean, I think it was something like 20-some percent, if that. It was mostly either business travellers or people with lots of money. Flying was a privilege reserved for the wealthy. Southwest Airlines came along, they said hey! Everyone should be able to fly, not just the rich people, everyone should be able to fly. And then they had to structure their business a certain way so that everyone could fly. Do you see what I mean? So you can like Southwest or not like Southwest but their business is structured on a specific philosophy, and that is that everyone should be able to fly. So think about your business. What is your unique philosophy in doing business? What is it that you believe every customer deserves? For example, inside of DIY Marketers, I really believe that small businesses deserve the big time marketing that huge ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 6 corporations have, and so basically my intention is to provide everyone the highest level of marketing for the lowest price. One of the things I could share with you is I’m a ridiculous HGTV and Food TV fanatic. I like it. If I have a free moment, that’s what I’m watching. One of the things shows that I really like are the ones where they show you the super-expensive room, you know, it might cost $50, $80, $100,000,00. It’s got the best of everything in it. And then the designer comes in and then she helps you achieve that very, very same look for like $5,000. That is my unique philosophy in doing business. That’s what I’m committed to. So everything I do, everything that I’m going to show you is what really, really big brands do that’s super-effective. And we’re going to talk about it from the perspective of this is how you do it. We’re going to extract the most relevant ideas. So that’s my unique philosophy of doing business. What is your unique philosophy? So kind of brainstorm a few elements there. If you’ve come up cold on all of those, which I can’t imagine that you have, but if you have, ‘cause I have been there, think about what your passions or peeves are. A peeve is really nothing more than a complaint and a complaint is what happens when you don’t get what you’re committed to. So here’s an example. Let’s say you’re committed to having your kitchen clean at the end of the day, right? And let’s say you were out and about and had a really, really busy day and when you came home you found out that your family was there, they had dinner, they had everything and they left this huge, horrible mess for you. What are you going to do? Are you going to complain? You’re going to complain why does this kitchen look like this? Why is there such a complete mess. I hate it when this happens! The reason you’re complaining is because what you’re committed to is having a clean kitchen at the end of the day. I know that’s a mundane example, but you kind of see how that goes, right? So I actually have this - I always say that I am the worst possible customer for any web designer or logo designer, because I’m committed to really, really high end looks for low money, right? So when they give me something cheesy, guess what I do? I complain. I complain, and when I think about what my complaint’s about it’s because I’m like that is not good enough. I know you can do better for less money, right? So think about what your peeves or complaints are because those are often hiding a value or a philosophy or ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 7 a belief that you have about how your business should go. What kind of experience your customer is worthy of, okay? And so that’s something that you can, you know, come back to this section if you need to, but this is like a really, really fantastic way to dig up what your values and your commitments are, because those I promise are going to make you unique. Speaking of uniqueness I’m going to bring up one thing. Take a look at your hand. Put your hand in front of your face and take a look, and just look at your thumb print. By definition, you are unique. No other person has your thumb print, no other person is the way you are. If you have employees, by definition they are unique. The uniqueness of all of you working together is unique, okay, and the only problem is if you think that there are a lot of people doing what you’re doing and there probably are, what sets you apart from everyone else is exactly what we’re talking about. So do take time to have this conversation with yourself, have this conversation with your team mates or associates, and have this conversation with the people that are around you who can help you dig up some of these things. Sometimes other people see us better than we see ourselves. So get that other feedback from friends, from family, from colleagues, and from other people, okay? Okay, let’s go moving on. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 8 Let’s take a look at your strengths, right. It’s really sometimes like I said, it’s really, really hard to see the strength inside yourself, so I have come up with this very, very cool tool that you can use to come up with your strengths. It’s included in your handout and this is actually a tremendous amount of fun. You can go through it yourself and I recommend that you do that, but I’d also recommend that you take some time and go through this with a few other people, and just kind of have this as a conversation. Just so you know, this is a highly, highly - this belongs in the realm of market research. It’s what really, really big corporations do and believe me they pay tens and thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars for this process, right? And now I’m going to show you the nittygritty, most important part of that process, and that is to come up with your strengths by doing it yourself and then having a series of conversations, maybe with some existing customers, maybe with colleagues, friends and family. The more input you get, the better it’s going to be. So here’s this wonderful process, this is part of my signature strength process, and what it does is it takes who you are and divvies you up into these 6 categories. And inside these 6 categories are a variety of attributes. So the first thing that you’re going to do is just kind of read through each one and each one of these little bullet points and just circle or mark any of the ones that resonate with you, right? They resonate with you because these are attributes that you naturally give to others. This is what people know you for. This is what people are left with whenever they interact with you. So you might realize that people might say these things to you, like oh, your energy is always so high! Or, you’re always up, you’re always optimistic, you’re always smiling. So that would be one of those things that you choose. Or people always say wow, I can always count on you to get the job done, get it done on time and so on and so forth. So think about the kinds of things that people have said to you, that you might hear more than once within the course of a week, that you might hear from different kinds of people. So circle all of those, okay. And when you’re done with that, you’re going to go through phase 2 of this process which is choose 5 of these attributes that you’ve circled that you most enjoy giving to others. Now, you notice the distinction right? There are things that you naturally do for others and then there are things that you do that you actually enjoy, right? So maybe you love organizing things. Like, people know that you’re organized and they say ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 9 wow, you’re always so organized! And at the same time you’re like, here, let me organize this for you! So that’s kind of - that would fall into that category, so choose 5 of those. And then, of those 5 I’d like you to choose which one you give most often. I’m going to push you to try to get to the one. You might be torn between like one to three or whatever, but you know, if you pick 3, okay, then I want you to get to the point where you’ve chosen one, okay? So again, go through this list, pick out the ones that you naturally give to others, out of all the ones you pick choose 5, and then out of those 5 choose THE one, right, that you do most often. So that would be like you hear this all the time. So this is something that people say to you, you hear it more than once a week, it’s something that you naturally give to others and it’s something you really, really enjoy doing. So this is going to be another component. We’ve gone through your little brainstorm of your sweet spot and what you’re committed to, and now you have this idea of like who you are. Who you are as a person inside of your business. So these are going to really, really lend some strength to your positioning and what sets you apart, and it’s going to tell you why people want to choose you do to business with. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 10 Your Signature Strength REALISTIC Building Things Fixing Things Growing things Making Things Work Shaping Environments Solving Problems INVESTIGATIVE Advancing Ideas Analyzing Information Discovering Resources Investigating Things Getting to the Heart of Matters Making Connections Putting Pieces Together Researching Things Translating Things SOCIAL Awakening Spirit Bringing Joy Building Relationships Creating Dialogue Creating Trust Facilitating Change Getting Participation Giving Care Healing Wounds Helping Overcome Obstacles Instructing People Resolving Disputes CONVENTIONAL Doing the Numbers Getting Things Right Operating Things Organizing Things Processing Things Straightening Things Up ENTERPRISING Bringing Out Potential Empowering Others Exploring the Way Making Deals Managing Things Opening Doors Persuading People Selling Intangibles Starting Things ARTISTIC Adding Humor Braking Molds Creating Things Composing Themes Designing Things Moving Through Space Performing Events Seeing Possibilities Seeing the Big Picture Writing Things 1. From the list above identify those attributes that you NATURRALLY give to others? 2. Which 5 of those attributes (from #1) do you MOST ENJOY giving to others? 3. Of those 5 listed in #2, which do you give most often? ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 11 Now we’re going to move into the second circle, the circle of who your ideal client is. It’s really important, because ideal clients love you, and you love them, okay. It’s pretty simple, right. You smile when the phone rings ‘cause you know it’s them, you love doing projects with them, you can’t wait to see them, they can’t wait to see you - that’s an ideal client. And you wonder, well, why is that? I’m going to tell you about what an ideal client really is. An ideal client is someone whose needs and the things they want from you fits your system perfectly. Let’s say, for example, if you like to work online and you like to work virtually, and then you have ideal clients who would prefer to see you face-to-face, those two systems don’t fit, right, because seeing you face-to-face and working online are two different things, right? So it’s when your two systems match up perfectly. Let me give you a real life example, and if you’ve worked in any kind of an office you’re going to know exactly what I’m talking about. So when I worked in manufacturing I would have this office and my office would have a window that would look out into this cubicle area of customer service. And I can see all my customer service reps, I can see all of the reps that are talking to my customers. And one day, I happened to be actually looking at a margin report, you know, that tells you which customers are more profitable and which ones are less profitable, and I’m looking at this report, and I don’t particularly care for numbers. And I’m just looking at it, and, you know, heavy sigh, right? So I look up, and I’m looking - gazing at the customer service folks and I notice something. I notice this pattern. I notice that there are customer service reps and one in particular. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 12 The phone rang, she picked it up, she smiled, she typed something into the computer, she smiled, they talked again, typed something else again, and pretty soon she was off the phone. I don’t think that conversation lasted longer than 2 minutes. A few more calls came in kind of like that. But then at one point I noticed a call came in, she picked up the phone, and I mean, within 10 seconds, her head was back, her eyes were rolling to the back of her head and I can see her soundlessly, quietly muttering a four letter expletive. Now I’m interested, right? Who is that, and what’s going on? And I can see she’s typing on her computer. I can see she’s not happy. She’s typing again, typing again, not happy. She puts the phone down, runs over to a file cabinet looking for something there but doesn’t find it. Runs to another file cabinet very, very quickly, looking for something. Doesn’t find it. Comes back on the phone, picks up the phone. She’s talking again, talking again, and you know finally like after something like 10 minutes, she kind of puts that phone down, slams it down and goes off. I can see her like walking off to the break room. So I follow her. She’s walking off to the break room, and this was a while ago, she has a cigarette and like pisses off 30 other people. Now they’re all angry, and they’re talking about so-and-so, and I go up to her and I said, hey, who was that who called? That had you running around like this? And she goes, oh, that was customer xyz. I’m like, wow, you know, that’s what I understood to be one of our big customers, big brand name, big giant company, and I was like, wow! I said, well, who was this other person you were talking to? She goes, oh, that was so-and-so, and she was like oh, I love them, they are so easy and you know, they are always happy. And you notice the difference, right? Apparently this really, really large, big brand name company, they wanted things that we could not deliver easily. They had entire departments where we might have only had one employee to do something. They wanted this, they wanted that. Our system did not fit what their requirements were. So in addition to pressing us on price and making, wanting us to be cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, not only that, they actually required a ton of time and work on the back end. You know what I’m talking about, right? There are easy people, and then there are difficult people, and the reasons some people are difficult and you perceive them as being even more difficult because you know, you know you’re going to make x amount of money, you know it’s down to the why or you’re not making a lot on the work that you’re doing and they ask you to spend a lot of time on the phone. They need a lot of hand-holding. They need stuff you can’t deliver or it’s hard for you to ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 13 deliver. Easy for them, hard for you. That is not an ideal customer. An ideal customer looks at you to where they are hungry and thirsty for what you have to offer, and when you give it to them, they are thrilled to bits. They’re easy to work with, they like what you have to offer and they never, ever, ever complain about price. The reason they don’t complain about price is because what you have meets their need and the systems fit perfectly together, like two gears working together. That’s an ideal client. So how do we go about finding this, right? Maybe you’ve never thought of it this way before, right? So I’ve come up with this little ideal client profile. This is the one that I use. Again you may want to tweak this a little bit, but this will be a good place for you to start. Look, if you’ve got some customers already, excellent. You can use the sheet and fill one sheet out for each customer. You’re going to list their business name, what industry they’re in, what their annual sales are, where they’re located. Also if you have a business-to-consumer type of a business then you want to describe and profile a series of consumers that you have that you work with. Your objective here is to come up with a profile. You are looking for patterns, right? So for example, what you might find actually, let’s talk about this other section here where you have your talents and strengths. These are things that your customer buys from you. It’s what they value from you. It could be that what you list here are a series of products or a series of services, right? It also could be that you list things that you do for customers, like things that they admire, like I return emails right away or I come and see them or whatever that is, you ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 14 want to list that there, right? So what you’re looking for is a pattern. So you’re going to take the customers you already have and now you’re going to look for a pattern. So some patterns that you might notice is that you might notice that you have certain companies or customers or people that always require you to do something at the last minute. And it just so happens that you happen to be a great under pressure kind of person, you love working fast and you love doing good stuff fast, and you deliver that. So you can see how you’re strengths match up with what they’re looking for, and how they might see value, and then you start looking and saying well, what kinds of companies do this, or what is it that causes them to always be on a - what is it that causes them to always be in that deliberate yesterday mode, right? Now, if you don’t currently have any customers or clients start by profiling who you believe to be your ideal client, okay? That means just go down the list and say oh, I wish this company were my customer. And if they were, this is how it would be, because this will be your good place to start. So just create a handful, even if you don’t have any customers or clients, create what you believe to be so and why, because ultimately what’s going to happen is that you’re going to be talking to those people and saying what you want from those people or what you can do for those people, and then you can test your theory and see how true it is, alright? So take some time to do this. Probably you can spend about - well it just depends on how many customers you have. You don’t have to profile all of them. If you’ve got lots of customers, you know, gosh, you can maybe do 10, 20 or 30. If you don’t have as many, do as many as you have or that you can. Remember, your objective is to spot a pattern that you’re going to use in your marketing, and in your marketing message to get them to choose you. And remember, you can see already when it’s easy, when you like someone, when you’re doing something you love that you’re good at, you are going to be making more money, I promise you. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 15 ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 16 Again, still inside the world, let’s talk about what’s important to these customers. If you filled out these worksheets, what you’re going to find is that you’ve got a pattern and now you’re going to find out what’s important to them when they’re buying what you’re selling. Now, you might be able to just make a list of these things and if you’ve got it well write it down. If you’ve got stuff that you know that is important, write it down, okay. Try to get to like maybe 7 frustrations, 5 to 7 frustrations. Try to get to the things that they might say. So for example, if I were the ideal client for a mover, one of the things I might say that will be important to me is don’t break my stuff, right? That’s the first thing that goes through my mind. Notice that I just said something that my little voice inside my head is saying. This is what we’re looking for that’s important. So words like solutions and quality and all that, blah, blah, blah, that’s for other people. We’ve got to be really, really pragmatic and we’ve got to have it so that as soon as something is said, there’s a connection, okay? So we’re not trying to be Nike here, we’re not trying to have this Just Do It, get it done we’re not trying to be fancy schmancy. What we’re trying to do is identify exactly what matters to our ideal customer and then say it, right? Because we don’t have a lot of money to waste on ads and these different things. We’ve got to just say what matters because think about it when you’re building a relationship with someone, let’s say whether it’s your significant other or whether it’s a friend or whether it’s a customer. Notice, if you were to break down some of your original conversations, what ties you together is actually saying something specific, like whether you like a particular TV show, or something that you like that says something about who you are and what you’re committed to. Bam! Now you’ve got a connection. You didn’t say something goofy like just do it - you said something very, very specific that had them say, hey, that person is interesting to me. Alright? So you’re going to be very specific, you’re going to talk about what’s inside your head. Our aim is to pull out exactly what your customer is saying inside their head that they may not say out loud. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 17 One of the ways to do this is to take advantage of the millions and millions of dollars of research that’s out there, that you will find in magazines. The way you’re going to bring your ideal customer to life is by literally doing what I call a collaging exercise, right? So go to your local bookstore, your local store where you’ve got magazines and pick out, I don’t know, 3 to 5 magazines that your ideal customer would buy. Not just the professional ones. But you might choose like Golf, or you might choose Gardening. Whatever it is that your ideal - you might choose Parenting, right? It just depends on who your ideal customer is, what their profile is, right, that we now know, and now we’re going to look at some of these magazines and we’re going to cut out and we’re going to build a visual that our ideal customer simply can’t resist. So the first part of the visual is to maybe find what I call a persona, right? That would be the people that are on the cover. People like people who are like them. We buy from people who look like us, who seem like us. So if you’re looking at all these magazines that your ideal customer reads, take a look at the ads, take a look at the people that they’re featuring and cut out a male and a female version that you feel most represents that ideal customer, right, make sure they’re in the right age range. If your business does deal with one gender more than the other then choose one that 80% of the time you’re working with guys, then choose a guy. If 80% of the time you’re working with women, choose a woman. If you want, do one of each, but either way whatever you do, kind of start profiling that person okay? Now you might be thinking that this is a fru-fru woo-woo exercise but I promise you what I am telling you is based on tons of brain research, and companies use this all the time, that’s why they do storyboards. This is why they pay millions of dollars for stuff, and I’m telling you how to do it here for nothing, for the cost of a couple of magazines and ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 18 maybe an hour of your time. I want you to get a piece of poster board or a piece of paper or whatever and start creating a collage magazine for your customer. Just the cover of the magazine. You notice this one I just happen to have chosen a picture of Entrepreneur Magazine, but you can create a name for your magazine that maybe puts your ideal customer in the headline. It might be called ‘Busy Mom’, it might be ‘Crazy Busy Executive’. It might be whatever, right? Put that up there. And then I want you to put that composite picture of your ideal customer on the cover and then kind of go through this magazine or all the magazines that you have and look at the headlines. Look at the words that they’re using. Look at all of these things and just incorporate those things and put inside these headlines and stories things that might be important to your customer that they would say inside themselves. Now remember, these magazines would not have been printing this stuff if they didn’t know that people were going to read it. So use that research to your advantage. One of the benefits that you’re going to get from doing all this is that what it does, rather than just writing things down, when you’re writing things down on a piece of paper you’re thinking with the left side of your brain and you’re being organized and even though you’re using words you’re predominantly using the left side of your brain. When you start interacting with graphics and you start cutting and pasting and looking at pictures, it is going to access the right side of your brain. So then 80% of your thinking will be on the right side. And you know what happens? You are going to make some insights, you are going to get insights about who your customer is, things are going to pop up for you about them, and I recommend you write those things down, right? Because you’re going to be reading and choosing and all that other kind of stuff, you’re going to get great ideas for yourself that you are going to be using later on in this course. Okay, so make sure that you do that. Get that magazine cover built and you’re going to benefit from their millions of dollars worth of research for nothing but the cost of some magazines and your time, and you’re going to access hidden insights that your brain has packed away that you have not been paying attention to, right. Oh yeah! One more benefit that you’re going to get. You’re going to see designs and fonts and colors and things that you like that resonate with you and in that you are going to actually be able to use that information to guide your marketing designs that you’re going to use in ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 19 the future, right? So fun activity, huge benefits, definitely something I’d recommend that you do and you take that and you do that. It’ll take about an hour of your time, I mean, maybe two hours if you count in heading to the store to get some magazines, alright? So that’s how you work with that. Now we’re going to use everything we’ve just worked on. We’re going to use your sweet spot brainstorm. We’re going to use your gift worksheet. We’re going to use what your strengths are and everything that you’ve developed there. We’re going to use your ideal customer profile. We’re going to use all of this information to develop what’s called an irresistible offer. What are you going to sell them? Let’s be clear about what an offer is. And this is an analogy I like to make. Think about a butler. And the butler is carrying a large, silver tray, and on that silver tray is your offer. It might be a product, a service, your routine, the quality, all those elements and the price, and where you find it, and all that other kind of good stuff. That is what’s sitting on your offer, right? The butler is just the sales vehicle, but the offer is everything that you have. That is the reason that people choose you, they don’t choose you because of your price. They don’t choose you because of the product. They don’t choose you because of you. They choose you because of all of these things working together. And that’s an irresistible offer. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 20 I can tell you when I first started this process it was really, really hard to wrap my arms around it. But lucky for you, I have simplified it. I’ve simplified it into this very, very basic table that has four columns on it. I have this on a piece of paper here that’s in your workbook, but what you can have is you can actually have this existing as categories, like maybe on a whiteboard, or on poster boards so that each poster board has its thing and you can actually use sticky notes, which is actually a terrific way to do this. Or index cards which is another terrific way to do this because then you can start putting these messages together as you create marketing content that’s going to make you irresistible. If you create a story that’s completely founded on what matters to your customer. So let me explain how the sheet works and why it’s so powerful. Anyone who’s read anything about marketing or you hear people talk about it, you may have heard people say features, benefits, features, benefits. Well here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to flip that around because it’s neither features nor benefits yet. The first thing that you encounter when you are out there and looking to attract customers, the first thing that you’re going to encounter is their inside voice. The voice that’s inside their head that is always judging, always evaluating and always looking for a connection. So when you connect with the voice that’s inside their head, you’re going to have a sale. Here’s a very simple example. A few years ago I got one of these computer viruses, I won’t go into that, but what I knew was that I needed help to clean it up, right then and there. Of course my virus I’d got was out of date and so on and so forth, so I go to the big website for the big virus people - it was either Macafy or Symantec, I don’t even know. Suffice it to say that their website was actually targeted towards their ideal customer who is an IT ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 21 executive. An IT technician, not an entrepreneur, right? So I could not find anything to help me. I couldn’t find the update, it wasn’t targeted to the consumer. It was targeted to a corporate IT person. But then I found this one, and when I landed on this site it said, do you have a virus eating your computer, or something like that, and I’m like, YES! Yes, that’s me! I mean, it was only $25 or something but I bought that thing without blinking an eye, I never thought twice about it. They said what my situation was, there was a big button there for me to click on, I cleaned up my virus in 5 minutes, I was right back to work, I was a happy camper and I was a subscriber to that service for quite a while. So you see what I’m talking about. You have to speak to the voice that’s inside your customer’s head, and what that voice is saying is what they want. Remember, they’re like a little radar. Their radar is going off about what it is that they want. So if they’re looking for whatever your business is, right, so let’s say for example that you have a day care. And if you have a day care and what your customer wants might be maybe a place that’s open at 6 o’clock in the morning. I’ve got to find a place that’s open at 6 o’clock in the morning! Or, I’ve got to find a place that’ll keep my kids till 8 o’clock at night, right. Off hours. That might be something if you have a day care that your customers might want. Another thing that’s very important to people when they go to day care is maybe it’s really important that they have like that they’re super, super clean and hygienic, right, because kids are always getting sick. I actually have a friend who told me that his day care makes them, like, what and what makes everyone wash their hands before they even walk into the facility. You know, that’s an example of how they keep the place clean and germ-free so your kid doesn’t get sick, right. You do the best you can. Some people care about security. Maybe there could be issues where there is divorce and different things in the family and you only want certain people to pick up your kids and you don’t want them to have these kids go home with anyone else. There are security issues that might be important to you, or maybe you work or live in a part of town where security’s really important. So those are the kinds of things that go on inside your head about what’s important. That’s what your radar is all about. In the meantime what do you deliver? Well, now this is where your features come in. So ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 22 if cleanliness and having healthy kids inside of a day care that they don’t get sick as soon as they go, what you deliver is procedure that has people wash their hands when they walk in and they have to wash their hands like every hour and after every activity. Something like that, right. That would be what you deliver that meets that want of a specific person. Or more so, what about that one where security might be an issue, right? That you have these specific sign-in procedures and, you know, we’re not going to give your kid to anyone else, you have to authorize it and go through this paperwork and blah, blah, blah. Some people want that complexity, so if you have a system that does that, that’s the feature that you deliver, right? And of course this is where you get the pay off and the benefit. The benefit is very, very simple. Either you’re going to not worry about your kid when they’re in day care, you’re not going to worry about them being sick, you’re going to have healthy kids, you know, benefits like you’re used to listing benefits. But let me talk a little bit about this what if section. This is where the magic really happens, in this what if section. For example, let’s go back to our day care example and let’s talk about, let’s say, security. So security’s really important, and so on and so forth. You might say, hey, I could have a webcam in my day care so that the parents can always look in and see the security there and see what they’re up to. That would be sort of a way to manage that, right. So that’s how the what if section goes. The what if section is what has you come up with something so interesting but the only way you’re going to come up with that idea is by having done all these exercises up until this point, because that’s where the creativity really comes in. I have a client who’s an elder law attorney and one of the things his customers want is they want to get through a very, very complicated process that elder people have to go through if they’re going into a nursing home or anything like that. It’s very, very complicated and it requires a lot of time and effort, and quite frankly older people - it’s overwhelming for them. So what the attorney delivers around that is a process that is foolproof and can take as little as a couple of weeks, whereas it might take other people 6 months or more. The pay off and the benefit is that his clients get their paperwork in order and they get to save huge amounts of time and money and never have to worry about their loved one if they’re going into a nursing home or assisted living facility. They’re not going to have to worry ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 23 about going broke, they’re not going to have to worry about having their paperwork in order, it’s all going to - and they’re going to get the benefits that are due them that they may not have known about. But there’s something that we realized when we were going through this exercise about their ideal customer, because one of the problems we were having is part of the process is that you have to go to these banks and to these other places, you’ve got to go to these places and you have to sign things and fill out paperwork. And there’s a lot of stuff that goes on and for elderly people that can be challenging. They don’t like driving downtown, you know, it’s hard for them to get in and out of a car or walk around and so on and forth. So our what if was hey, what if we hired a limo? You know, like a car and driver? The car and driver picks them up, takes them downtown, takes them everywhere they need to go, has everything taken care of, walks them in, I mean it’s absolutely perfect. And you might think that’s expensive but compared to the cost of missing out on getting a benefit, or compared to the cost of waiting, the price, the couple of hundred dollars that it takes to use a car and driver to get this work done, was actually hugely profitable and it was the one way that my client attorney differentiated himself from every other one. And it really showed his strength, which was caring about people, and the other strength he had is ridiculously detail-oriented, got to get it done, get it done fast, get it done on time, get it done right. So you can see how this whole thing works together, and that’s the process that we use together. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 24 ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 25 But after you’ve done this now you’ve got to get your ideal client to find you, right? And here is how we’re going to do that. We’ve got some basic tactics and systems and strategies that we’re going to use. You’ve got referral systems, filling out your LinkedIn profile, Facebook, Twitter, blogging using some directing marketing, landing pages and possibly subscriptions. These are all things that might work for you. I’m going to go into some of these in more detail than others but believe me there are other products and programs that I’m going to recommend at the end of this process that will get you into a lot more detail. But these are just the bare bones. I’m going to give you enough that you can work through, like you can actually go through this and get this done. But there’s other support tools that will be available for you if this, what I give you here, is not enough. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 26 Now let’s talk about referrals as an actual marketing strategy. You notice here that I’m calling it a referral system. I’m calling it a referral system because referrals are not some kind of happy accident or some surprise that somebody actually talked about you and told a friend or a family member or colleague about your product or service. It’s not a surprise. It’s not even good luck. It is the result of a terrific system. So what’s involved in a referral system? The first ingredient that you’re going to need is what I call a referral guideline. A referral guideline is really nothing more than a sort of a selling sheet that you’re going to go over with your referrers. So there’s a selling sheet, you’re going to treat your referrer like a sales person, someone who’s going to sell you, right? And you’re going to go over these different categories of how they’re going to sell you. Let me give you a short recap of what’s inside of a referral guideline. The first thing that’s inside of a referral guideline is a description of your business or what sets you apart. The second thing that’s in a referral guideline is maybe like a vision or a purpose or a mission to your business. I’d like to also call - it’s just like a short tagline - like what is your business about? I like to say for my business that it’s to become the obvious choice for your ideal customer, right, or else I like to say marketing simplified, profits maximized. This is like what I’m committed to in the world, right? Easy marketing making more money. What is it that - it’s sort of like the hook that’s going to describe you or that’s going to stick inside of the mind of your referrer and make it easy for them to remember you and to refer you. So the first category is what sets you apart, so if you sell insurance, what sets you apart from any other person that’s sells insurance? Do you sell to a specific customer? Or if you do financial planning what sets you apart from other financial planners? Maybe you specialize in financial planning for single moms or for divorced women or for single dads or teachers or who knows what. But those are the things that set you apart and that makes it easy for those people who are going to recommend you, makes it easy for them to remember you. And the same thing goes for the second category which is your vision or mission or whatever, just the easy way like a tagline to remember you. The third category is a description of your ideal customer, this profile, and in this case what you’re going to talk about is that maybe busy moms who want to feed healthy meals to their children. Something like that. So you want to describe your ideal customer ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 27 in terms of a sentence or a profile. And the next section after that would be what I call referral triggers. These are things that people might say that should make you think of the person you’re referring. So if you sell glasses, for example, and you’re talking to somebody at a cocktail party and they say oh, I went to the eye doctor and I just can’t believe the price of glasses! Or, I can’t find the kind of glasses I want! That would be a referral trigger. Say hey, there’s this great new shop downtown that sells these terrific glasses. So that just sort of give you an idea there. After that section you’re going to want to talk about how do you want to be referred? What are some things that you want the person to do. For example, you do not want the person to sell you, you typically want to say hey, I know this guy, or I know this woman, and I think you need to speak with her. Another thing that you might do is give a series of questions that people might ask. So if you’ve run into someone that is wearing glasses you might say hey, those are terrific glasses, where did you get those? Or, how do you like those glasses? Or, you know, what are some qualifying questions that we as your referrers, can ask of people who look like they might be your ideal customer? So that’s teaching me how to refer you, okay? There’s also two other sections, and the thing sort of peters out, which talk about thank you for referring and why you should refer, and the last question is how you want to be thanked. Some people share revenue, some people just give gifts now and then, some people aren’t allowed to do anything because of the business that they’re in. So that is the summary of a referral guideline. That’s your first main ingredient. The second main ingredient actually includes the next three points. Inside refers, partners and centers of influence. So these are all types of referrals and you’re going to want to create a list of the people that are in your business and your life and you’re going to want to categorize them as insiders, partners or influencers, and these are the people that you’re going to schedule meetings with to have this conversation with the referral guideline. And that’s just an overview of the referral system. I do have a referral system program that you can get into the nitty-gritty details into and will take you stepby-step and have you developing one of these referral money-making machines for your own business, but I do want - I spent a lot of time on this section because it is so very ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 28 powerful. I really, really recommend that everyone run a referral system. And for more ideas on referrals check out John Jance’s book The Referral Engine. You can find it on Amazon. It is absolutely outstanding, it gives you lots and lots of examples that you can use to develop your very, very own referral system. Now, hand in hand with referrals is LinkedIn. You know, I talked a little bit about this referral guideline. That referral guideline is the raw material that you’re going to use to develop your LinkedIn profile. Your LinkedIn profile should contain a professional headshot, you know, this is not Facebook, this is not something casual. If you don’t have a professional head shot taken, invest the time and effort to go ahead and do that. It’s not as expensive as you think and you’re really, really going to want to have one, you’re going to want to use it on your website, you’re going to want to use it on your LinkedIn profile. If you do any kind of public speaking or you’re going to be a speaker somewhere you’re going to need a great looking head shot. The second point I want to make about LinkedIn is that it needs to be keyword rich. Remember in the referral guideline we talked about having - using words that stick in the mind of those people who are going to refer you. So you want to have a key word rich description. Get lots of endorsements. Obviously these are testimonials and nothing sells like testimonials. So you want to take the time to reach out and you can see how the LinkedIn and the referral strategy work well together, because you’re going to be reaching out to people, you’re going to be having these conversations. They can refer to ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 29 your LinkedIn profile, you can be connected on LinkedIn and then you can also get an endorsement or a testimonial for them. So This is just a terrific hand-in-hand strategy. Another option in LinkedIn, but most people don’t use it but it’s really affordable, is to advertise. Advertising on LinkedIn, especially if you have a specific offer that’s tailored towards business owners or professionals. You should really consider advertising on LinkedIn. It could really be a good deal. But you’d want to get some assistance, if you’re not an expert in Google Ads or anything like that, you want to get some help in that area. Something simple that you can do is join a group and participate and be a valuable asset and member to that group. Don’t just - lots of people join groups and I have to tell you I’ve joined a ton of groups but I don’t participate in all of them. Pick a few that you’re going to participate in and then just be a really, really active participant. Be a resource for those people on LinkedIn. If you see that there’s a connection there, go ahead and make that connection, and say hey, you know, you really ought to talk to such-and-such. Now you’re triggering what’s called the reciprocity trigger. People want to help people who have helped them. So do your best to introduce others, be a resource, be someone that people can count on for a specific thing, so don’t go all over the place. Focus on a specific area. Facebook continues to be probably the world’s largest social network. People spend an average of 45 minutes on Facebook. It’s very, very valuable. Do not sell on Facebook. Facebook is not a place where people want to be sold. I know people sell stuff, I know ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 30 they advertise stuff. When you’re on Facebook you’re connecting and interacting with friends. That’s what you’re doing, period. You don’t necessarily want to buy anything, you’re kind of getting information and it’s more light and fun, so the way you “sell” on Facebook is by sharing things. Let’s say I have a friend who’s in the promotional items business and one of the things that he often does is he will take pictures of himself at trade shows with his promotional items and he will feature that. Or he would say, hey, look at what these people are doing, or hey, this is a very cool thing that we did. And he combines all these things. So your Facebook page is not like a blatant sales page, it’s a page where you’re engaging with your customers and having interactions. Facebook advertising is also one of the best places to advertise because you can focus on a specific audience, and that’s really critical. I mean, you can actually - they will tell you how many people are looking or will be exposed to your ad or your category, it’s actually mind boggling. So Facebook is a strategy that you’ve just decided to take, definitely invest either in some books or some courses, Marie Smith has some terrific stuff all about Facebook. So I would recommend that you do that. Twitter. Twitter is a terrific strategy and it’s just a great way - it really is - what would you call it? I think of it as like a - what is that called? Like a newsfeed, right? Lots of people - or I like to look at Twitter as a bar, like ‘cheers!’, right? When you walk into a bar or restaurant you can see that there are people talking to each other, you can watch the newsfeed, you can listen in on conversations, you can pop from one conversation to another, or you can just kind of sit there and look around and Twitter’s a lot like that. I think what’s messed Twitter up over the last few years is that people try to sell on ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 31 Twitter. And Twitter is not a sales environment. Twitter is for reading, learning and interacting on a specific topic. It’s for sharing information, sharing information about things, notifying people of what’s happening. I like to use Twitter for research quite a bit and I like to use it to build relationships with new people. But to do that you really have to engage in good conversations, and that can be a little challenging especially in 140 characters. Twitter isn’t for everyone and it’s not for every business. Twitter along with Facebook is if you have a business that’s business to consumer, and you’re really looking at building up the quantity of people and engaging with a quantity, Twitter can be a terrific strategy to use for that. And especially if you make it a point to engage, and I guess that’s the one thing that I see that business owners really struggle with. I think that people get so overwhelmed with the number of tools out there that they try them all but they don’t stick with them. And if you don’t stick with it, or if you don’t really engage fully with a strategy, it just really isn’t going to work for you. So if you’ve made the commitment to use Twitter, like really use Twitter. Have conversations with people. If you are a business to consumer or you’re using, you know, offer specials or share things, but don’t sell. Inform, educate, build relationships. I know, all in 140 characters but it is possible. Blogging - got to do blogging, people! Really, I mean think of it this way. If you look at a newspaper and there’s a full page ad there. People pay for that, right? On the web, but not everyone may see the newspaper ad, right? On the web, every time you post a blog article it is the full page ad. Especially for the people who are specifically interested in your topic, because when we search Google, when we search on a specific topic, blogs ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 32 will come up as resources and then that’s what you’re reading. You’re reading that full page ad. So share your expertise, offer tips and resources and most importantly, educate potential customers. When people are online they’re looking for a variety of things. If they’re looking for a product or service and the first thing they do is search online. You know, they might just be collecting a list, the first round is maybe just collecting a list of who plays in that field. And then they start digging deeper and saying alright, who do I like, who can I trust, who has what I’m looking for? It’s almost like, okay, once I’ve identified who the players are and what the product features are that I’m looking for and I’ve narrowed it down, it’s these subtle differences, if you can match up to that ideal customer with the words that they use, or the things that are important to them, you’re going to make that connection. Especially if you have what’s called a high involvement purchase. High involvement purchases are purchases that are a lot of money and take a lot of thinking about and involvement in purchasing. So when you have that kind of thing going on, running a blog that keeps people informed about things is really, really important. Direct marketing. You can also call this email marketing or snail mail marketing, these are wave mailings where you use a list. You can use three dimensional or lumpy mail and the reason you would use it is to show off your skills. To show off the unique features that set you apart. So what’s really, really cool these days is you can use - direct marketing as an umbrella term right, under direct marketing is email marketing as well as the hard mail marketing that I’m talking about here. But the key is you notice I said ‘wave mailing’. So the key is that you’re interacting with your list all the time. Sometimes you ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 33 might send an email, sometimes you might send a lumpy mail. The key that I’d like to point out here is that you are jumping from one thing to another, that there’s interaction between digital and real life. Direct marketing’s super effective especially if you love writing and communicating, like if you seem to express yourself better on paper, if you’re like a Cyrano and you can express yourself better on paper than in real life, then direct marketing and using email marketing is a killer, killer strategy, because it allows you to express yourself and more fully and be more engaging than maybe you would be speaking, or being the center of attention. So there’s a lot of terrific direct marketing strategies, probably the king of direct marketing would be Dan Kennedy and Bill Blazer, a couple of terrific books out there that you can get that will teach you all you need to know on that. So direct marketing is especially terrific if you have a specific list. Remember, there’s a difference between Twitter and Facebook and some of these those are more mass marketing, meaning like you throw stuff out there, people see it, right? With direct marketing the key differentiator for you to decide if you want to do direct marketing is do I know who you are and where you live? Can I connect with you directly? Do I have an email, do I have an address? If your ideal customer or target customer is finite, identifiable, like you know who they are, you can reach them, then direct marketing by far is the best strategy. It allows you to control your marketing costs and it allows you to control your message, to control your interactions, which the other tools do not do so as much. Like anything else, if you put an advertisement on television, people will see it. Some of them will respond, some of them won’t. You have no - you don’t have a very hard connection to that, whereas if you’re using referrals and are engaged in a conversation, or if you’re using direct marketing where you can specifically reach out to someone, any time that you can control the interaction you’re going to get better return on your investment, okay? ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 34 And so we’re winding down almost to the end. We’ve got a couple more to go. The other one I want to talk about is landing pages. One of the things I want you to notice is how all these strategies potentially can work together. You don’t want to take them on all at once, but they do subtly work together. Landing pages are super powerful, you know what I’m talking about, you land on a specific page, the key distinctive factor of a landing page is that it has only one call to action and that is to leave your email, okay. It is a prospect magnet. It is written for specific audience, using specific keywords. It’s got emotional writing, it’s targeted to an ideal customer, it’s intention is to build your list so anything you have to do to attract - it’s the magnetic marketing page. So when you have - when you’re really, really clear about who that ideal customer is and what’s important to them when they’re buying what you’re selling and you have an irresistible offer then a landing page is just a killer way to go. I mean with just a single page or probably maybe no more than three web pages you can generate yourself some serious cash. I mean landing pages are outstanding. And it’s a great way to start. Again, if you’re clear on your ideal customer and what’s important to them, you’ve got an irresistible offer and you can put up a landing page and then you can use your direct marketing to drive people there. You can use your referrals, you can use your LinkedIn. When you have a landing page, that is your funnel. Your objective is to get everyone on that email list that fits that profile. So landing pages you really, really cannot beat them and there are some terrific tools out there that if you have a WordPress blog the copy blogger folks have a tool called Premise, which is just a plug-in for your WordPress blog. It is absolutely fantastic. It throws up a landing page in minutes and they’ve already pre-populated it. So for the ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 35 gifted class like me, I love that sort of thing. And there’s a couple of other tools that you can use to test the success of landing pages and the effectiveness of landing pages. So you know, I think one is Omtimizely, and I have a few other that are written in the report that I’m going to mention in your handout. So definitely want to explore that. And finally the last category that we’re going to talk about is called subscriptions. Now this is kind of interesting. If you have a lot of information that’s targeted at a specific audience, subscriptions are a terrific marketing strategy. Basically you can - you know, in a way you can talk about landing pages as being an attractor for subscriptions. That is how you generate subscriptions by having a landing page. You know, people subscribe to what you have to offer. Maybe what you have is a free product, maybe what you have is a newsletter, maybe what you have is a list or a list of tips. So subscriptions are a terrific way. Another twist on subscriptions is maybe like a membership strategy which is really, really exciting and interesting. If you happen to have a lot of information on a specific topic or if you have ways that you can teach people, or if you have any kind of a recurring event just like a magazine or a school or an eCourse or anything like that, you can offer subscriptions as a marketing strategy. So subscriptions are another terrific way that you can use what you know about your business. What is your strength and what sets you apart, who your ideal customer is, what’s important to them when they’re buying what you’re selling, developing your irresistible offer and now we’ve covered all the different strategies that you can use to get your ideal customer to choose you. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected] 36 So we’ve got all kinds of information on www.diymarketers.com, new stuff launching all the time, so be sure to come back to the site, stay on the list and we’ll keep you posted on everything new that’s going on. So thanks a lot for joining us and that really concludes our session on how to get your ideal customer to choose you, every time, regardless of price. ©DIY Marketers 2012 [email protected]
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