Don’t Start Marketing When You Need Clients

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Don’t start marketing when you need clients. By then, it’s too late.

You need to start marketing before you need new clients.

I know that sounds self-evident.  Yet so many business owners I speak to continue to do it the wrong way.

E.g.

[In January] “Our high season doesn’t really kick off until April so we we’ll probably look at improving our website around then.”
(Way to miss out on the best time of year)

“We’re quite busy at the moment so we’ve turned off some of our advertising”
(What will your sales pipeline look like when you’re not so busy?)

The Pain of Stop-Start Marketing

Because we specialise in online lead generation and I tend to talk with business owners from many industries where there is both a “sales” and “production” function, I come across many people plagued by Stop-Start Marketing.

Stop-Start marketing occurs when you get very focused on prospecting and land a few deals….

…then go into “production mode” to deliver what you’ve just sold…

…while neglecting your marketing and sales function…

…then once the work is delivered, you find yourself staring at an empty sales pipeline, so it’s…

…back to going nuts on prospecting while your cashflow starves…

The Solution To Stop-Start Marketing

The solution is to introduce more consistency and automation in your lead generation in order to keep sales opportunities flowing (almost worse than too few leads is lumpy or unpredictable lead flow.)

Ideally, lead generation, lead management and actual “selling” should be kept separate (i.e. the same person should NEVER perform both functions).  That ensures your salespeople are focused on SELLING rather than administration and maximises total sales throughput (thanks to Justin Roff-Marsh at Ballistix for articulating this idea so well – grab this free Sales Process Engineering Report if you’re interested in learning more).

There is no doubt that the best way to institute an effective, low-friction lead generation system is using the Internet in concert with marketing automation tools such as autoresponders, prospect filters and CRM systems…underpinned by the right marketing strategy, of course!

Particularly where prospecting activity is labour-intensive and/or passive (think: cold calling, networking and word-of-mouth), Stop-Start Marketing is never far away.

By removing that highly labour-intensive prospecting activity from the process, you’re freed up to spend more time on high-value activities such as sales appointments.

I go into more detail as to what this automated lead generation pipeline looks like in my free course, “7 Steps To Doubling Your Website Leads”

Do you have any feedback on this article?   Why not leave a comment?

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Entrepreneurialism And Escape From Poverty

A change of pace from our usual programming

How often do you consider why you’re in business?

That’s a question I’ve given a lot of thought to recently.

At first, most business owners report starting their own business to “be their own boss”, realise a vision or make money.

These factors certainly applied in my case when I established Marketing Results almost 7 years ago.

But after establishing a toehold, then a foothold, in the internet lead generation space, it seems natural to start thinking beyond these initial goals to the question of how much we are contributing to society at large as a company.

To this end, we decided to get involved in more charitable and pro bono activities.  Rather than contribute money to a charity that (more often than not) simply spends it, I prefer supporting entrepreneurial projects that have the potential to benefit many people (the old “teach a man to fish” concept).

I’ve been donating to Kiva.org (microfinance) for some time, but when I visited South Africa in January an opportunity arose to help a local entrepreneur in a more direct way.

Here’s the background:

While visiting Cape Town, one of the highlights was taking a “Township Tour”.

“Townships” are the name for the crowded, informally planned mainly black communities that sprung up under the apartheid regime. They are typically woefully under-serviced with infrastructure and are in the process of playing catch-up.

Our guide, Siviwe Mbinda was recommended by Lonely Planet and took us on a 2-hr walking tour – providing a brief history on the way, showing us the local sites and allowing us to meet and interact with the locals.

For 34 rand (about $5) the local sheep-head stall will cook you up a whole sheep head, which is a local delicacy. We saw sheep heads being cooked and eaten but declined the offer to try some ourselves.

The townships have a reputation as hotbeds of crime and vice, but in Langa, the community is actually very strong and cohesive, struggling against many social challenges including poverty and HIV/AIDS with energy and resourcefulness.

Siviwe showed us through the upper-class, middle-class and lower-class areas of the township. Upper-class homes were on freehold blocks and were in good repair with electricity and running water. Prices of these homes are between 500,000 and 750,000 rand ($70K to $100K AUD), which is a fortune to most of the people living there (the minimum wage is ZAR 1,300 per month, or about AUD 200).

Middle-class homes were on smaller blocks and tended to be more modest in size (perhaps 2 bedrooms, a living area, a bathroom and a kitchen. These houses go for $30K to $50K AUD.

At the lower end were government owned hostels, which were 6 bedrooms with a common area in the middle. Originally built to house 3 men per tiny room, the hostel we saw now houses 16 families, with kids sleeping in the common area at night. A bed in a room here costs just ZAR 30 per month ($4.50) – a price tag that explains the enduring popularity of hostels.

At the very lower end were the shacks – very small, informal housing constructed by the people out of discarded building supplies, off-cuts and plastic sheeting. The shacks have no electricity or running water and are usually located in the least desirable areas (e.g. right next to a busy highway).

Nevertheless, the people we met were smiling and eager to engage with us foreigners and practice their English (which was much better than my Xhosa).

At the end of the tour, Siviwe took us to watch a local dance troupe perform the “Gumboots Dance”, a dance that originated in the mines of South Africa around 100 years ago. Siviwe gives up 3 afternoons a week to teach the local kids the dance as well as life skills.

We loved the whole experience and would recommend it to any visitor to Cape Town.  I offered to build Siviwe a website and when I returned back to Australia, we convened a volunteer project team to put something together – the result is this Cape Town Township Tours website (membership in the team was voluntary, and I have to hand it to the staff members who participated, who gave up their free time to work on the project.   Thanks to Nick, Ken, Mick and Stroggy!)

Siviwe has already reported a few new clients via the website and his hope is that he will be able to employ others in the township who hold tour guide qualifications in order to expand his business.

This initial foray into pro bono work was relatively successful and I look forward to seeing the results that come from it for Siviwe.  I even got to thinking that it would be cool to have a “Kiva for Services”, where providers can donate expertise to people in need — not sure if something like that already exists?

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Powerful Question: How Can *I* Add Value To *YOU*?

A friend recently shared with me a powerful distinction that I’d like to pass on to you (He may wish to remain nameless, so I’ll preserve his anonymity in this post!)

In many industries, there is a “pecking order” of key contacts, clients or movers-and-shakers who have the ability to unlock doors and smooth the way for you. Let’s call them Linchpins (with apologies to Seth Godin).

What most people do to these Linchpins is to try to extract value from them before providing value.   Pitch them on something.  Sell them something.  Ask for advice or a favour.

Trouble is, everyone else has the same idea.   Linchpins are in demand and surrounded by deafening levels of “noise” that make it very difficult for you to gain traction.

This “get before you give” approach seldom works, yet we all do it.

Rather than think about what we can get, it’s much more powerful and effective to think about how we can add value.   The key question is:

How Can I Add Value To You?

This might sound like another worn-out self-help trope, but have you considered how few people put this into action?

I’m a pretty pragmatic person.  I do what works.  Here are three examples of this technique in action:

• A friend of my friend was a successful affiliate marketer and wanted to break into the “big time” seminar circuit.  He asked this question of a “household name” Internet marketer and ended up helping him with some Google AdWords stuff.  Less than a year later, this friend of a friend found himself on the seminar circuit, doing what he always wanted to do.
• My friend used this approach to build a relationship with the Linchpin in his market space.  Within 2 days the Linchpin himself had taken a good look at what my friend had to offer, endorsed his product and tentatively proposed a joint venture to co-promote his product down the track.
• I used this approach with a person of influence in my target market.  It immediately got some constructive dialogue going — I was able to deliver some value and my “Linchpin” was able to do several things of value to me.

Try this question. It works!

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The Myth Of The “One Stop Shop”

I frequently consult with business owners who are achieving some success via the web and are looking for insights and strategies for improving their results.

After establishing where they are now and where they want to be, I come up with a plan of action to connect the two.

First part of that process is to consider my client’s Unique Selling Proposition – this is the bedrock upon which all other marketing tactics stand.

More often than not, a struggling or semi-successful company has NO Unique Selling Proposition at all.

Typically, the clearer a business owner is about their USP, the better their business seems to be performing (Coincidence? Unlikely.)

Then there are those businesses who have what I call a “faux USP” – the type of USP that is not actually appealing to their target market.

One type of “faux USP” that crops up frequently is the “One Stop Shop”.

e.g.  “We’re a one stop shop for anyone interested in building wealth.  I’m an accountant and I have a mortgage broker and a financial planner and a conveyancer to whom I can refer clients”.

It sounds so great in theory — what could be more convenient?

Trouble is, it seldom works.

This is because One Stop Shops dilute the Power of Focus to convey your expertise to the market.

Whom would you rather entrust your life to: a heart surgeon who is also a brain surgeon and an orthopedic surgeon — or a heart surgeon who specialises in heart surgery alone?

So too with the Internet – searchers tend to be looking for specific answers to specific problems.

Trying to solve too many problems at once can be a mistake when you’re creating and nurturing relationships with prospects.

But don’t your customers want a more complete solution?

But hang on, you say.  If I’m getting my tax returns done, mightn’t I have a need for a good mortgage broker or financial planner?

Sure you might.  And if that’s the case, the accountant could and should refer you on to his colleagues in those areas.

But that’s different from promoting those auxilliary services ahead of time.

Of course, there are some apparent exceptions to this rule that aren’t actually exceptions upon further analysis.

If you promote an overall “solution” which requires the involvement of multiple product or service elements, it’s typically better to sell the whole solution, then package in the components as part of your delivery.  The client doesn’t actually care that you do X, Y and Z to create their financial plan — they just want to see the result.

This approach is the one we take at Marketing Results – the core solution we offer is online lead generation.   While individual delivery components might come into play (e.g. AdWords management, conversion optimisation, search engine optimisation), those services are subordinated to achieving the overall result.

It’s also worth noting that these individual delivery components are situated in a fairly tight thematic cluster around the core solution – in a sense, they are different facets of the same diamond.

While we could offer a broader range of marketing services such as copywriting, graphic design, logo development, marketing plan development etc., these would tend to dilute our “centre of gravity” in the eyes of the prospect and over time, result in less sales effectiveness, not more.

Something to think about…if you’re currently a One Stop Shop, take a quick reality check to confirm you’re not perceived by your market as a “jack of all trades but master of none”.

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Reporting from Maui, Hawaii – looking forward to Perry Marshall’s “Tsunami” Seminar

I’m sitting in the hotel in Maui, waiting for Perry Marshall’s uber-advanced AdWords and Facebook advertising seminar to start tomorrow.

When we arrived yesterday, there was a tsunami warning in full effect and we were locked in Maui’s Kahului airport for a few hours until the eventual “tsunami” – a 1.5 foot wave – lapped over the shores of Oahu and the warning was lifted.   The seminar has now been ironically dubbed “The Tsunami Seminar”

Paid Search Is A Lot Like Chess

Paid search (AdWords, Facebook, CPM banners etc.) is a lot like chess.  You can learn the moves in 30 minutes but it takes a lifetime to become a Grand Master.  And the difference between a good social player and a World Champion is like night and day.

We specialise in paid search management and lead generation systems and in most people’s language I would be considered “expert” in the area – yet there’s a limit to how far you can go on your own.

This Seminar is the most advanced of its kind in the world – 3 days, 100 participants, US$5,000 per seat, no beginner or intermediate strategies – just cutting-edge strategies developed and tested by the best in the world.

Perry Marshall has an expression for this type of environment…

Iron Sharpens Iron

I believe that no matter how much expertise you develop in an area, you have to keep testing yourself and exposing yourself to the best in the field.  A 10 or 20% improvement in ROI increase from paid search (for my own projects and our clients) as a result of this seminar would be well worth the price of admission.

Stay tuned.

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