The key problem for all of her consulting clients was the marketing.

Listen in as Debra explains why she decided to become an Attracti0n Marketing Associate:

http://attractionmarketingassociates.com/more-info/

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‘How Much Do You Charge Per Word?’

Needless to say I was a little taken aback by the question … I had never thought of the copywriting work I do as being a certain amount of money per word. Seemed like a crazy idea to me … I mean if it is just words she was after I should have replied with $1 a word and handed her the dictionary. After all its packed full of words and I could have gone on a nice holiday.

It got me thinking though about you and your business. More importantly about how you view the work you do, how you value it and therefore how do you charge for it.

To many people in service based business charge for their services based on a rate per hour. Having come from the coaching industry I know that when coaches get together the conversation nearly always turns to the question of how much do you charge per hour.

This is akin to the question how much do you charge per word.

Here is what you must understand … your prospective customers do not want to buy words or hours of your time. What they want is a SOLUTION to their PROBLEMS!

So you must begin thinking about the VALUE you provide to your customers.

You need to ask them what it is worth to them to have the SOLUTION.

Knowing this information you then price your services based on the VALUE of the SOLUTION to the customer or client.

Let me give you an example from my business …

When interviewing prospective new clients one of the key peices of information I am interested in is the life time value of a new customer. So in other words if I help my clients develop a new marketing system that just attracts one extra client to them … what is that client worth to them.

Let us say I am talking to a Mortgage Broker who has an upfront commission of say $2,000 for each new client they bring on board. This means if I can help this Mortgage Broker to find just one new client then that puts $2,000 into their bank account … important information to know, right?

So in knowing this information I know that if I can help them find just 3 or 4 new clients then that will pay for my services. The way I then position it to my prospective client then is this … i explain to them that when we start working together if I can help you find just 3 or 4 new mortgage clients then I am free to you … and everything else after that is a bonus.

Here is the question … would you give me 3 of your clients and in return I develop for you a marketing system that will attract a life time supply of new clients?

Naturally they nearly always say YES!

Can you see how pricing your services based on the VALUE of the SOLUTION can be so powerful?

So how do you establish the VALUE of the SOLUTION you provide to prospective clients?

Well you ask them …

Lets suppose you are a Personal Trainer …. the type of questions you could ask are …

”What is it costing you not having the energy you need each day to enjoy greater success?”

A Recruitment Consultant could ask a prospective client …

“How much does it cost you each time you employ someone who is not right for the role? What does it cost you to replace them?”

A Taxation Consultant might ask …

“If I can get you $3,500 back on your Tax return … what would you do with the money?” and get the client talking about all the great things they could do that maybe they can not afford to do right now.

The key is to ask a lot of questions and have the prospective client establish the VALUE of your services for you. You need to know what are the right questions to ask of course so it requires a little planning and thought.

If you can get to the point where your prospective client is telling you what you services are worth to them … ie what the solution is worth to them, then you can easily price your services based on the value of the solution.

Now the real key to making this work is having unshakeable BELIEF in you and the service you provide. In coaching clients I find that one of the biggest shifts I can make with them is installing greater belief in their worth to the marketplace. In doing so they shift their thinking from how much can I get per hour to what is the VALUE of the service I provide and how can I price my services based on this VALUE.

How can you apply this to your business?

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This week I would like to congratulate Ludwina Dautovic of The Red Tent Woman for achieving her first $20,000 month as a Business Coach. Ludwina works primarily with woman in business and has developed a step-by-step system for them to grow their business.

When I first started working with Ludwina I could see opportunities in her business that she may have been missing. Often we get too close to our business and miss the goldmine we may be sitting on. So with a few adjustments to her marketing funnel and systems, development of a unique step-by-step process plus a few minor adjustments Ludwinas business has taken off. In fact her average value of a new client has grown by six times.

Congratulations Ludwina!

It just goes to show that working with a Marketing Coach can transform your business. Will it work for you? Find out by requesting a Marketing Audit (Valued at $297) www.ProfitMinute.com/audit.htm

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More importantly … why is your target market is ignoring your marketing material?

As a specialist in Attraction Marketing I certainly have asked this question many times. Both of my own marketing and of the marketing of my clients. Why is it that some marketing gains attention and the majority is completely ignored?

This past weekend I had the good fortune to be invited to the “Mouthing Off For Big Money” seminar which was all about building your business through speaking. At the event each of us were given the opportunity to stand up in front of 100 people and give our speech for 6 minutes. Well as you can imagine there were some nervous moments for a lot of people.

For most of in attendance though the biggest lesson came from a lady named Melissa. She had virtually everyone at the seminar in tears, managed to earn $2,300 per minute as a professional speaker without trying, and created over $65,000 in value for two people … needless to say it was a life changing experience.

How did she do all of this in just 6 minutes?

Simply by being Authentic and sharing her story of her Passion!

When Melissa was picked out of the audience to come on stage and give her speech you would never have guessed what was about to unfold. She appeared nervous and unsure … in fact she even appeared as though she was unprepared for the 6 minutes.

What she did was simply to share her story. She talked about how she had been advised by doctors that she was going blind and to prepare to live as a blind person. She mentioned how her dream had been to be a Mountain Bike Racing champion but now she feared that would never happen.

Melissa went on to explain how she took up Mountain Bike racing anyway and became quite good at it …. until she had heart related illness that doctors told her was life threatening and she had to give up Mountain Bike Racing. For 16 weeks she didn’t ride her bike … and she was miserable.

Finally she decided to get back on the bike. The Australian Championships were coming up … a 24 hour endurance event. She entered and with her 11 year old son as her only support crew she managed to come second and qualify for the World Championships in Canada.

It was an amazing story!

She gave one of the most inspiring speeches you could ever hear.

She received a standing ovation that lasted for nearly 5 minutes.

Here is the key … none of it was because she was a great speaker. She didn’t use any fancy presentation techniques. Her speech was not particularly well structured.

She simply shared her Authentic story. She opened up her heart and soul to people.

The big question out of this is … are you sharing your Authentic self?

Does your marketing share you Authentic story? How can you make your marketing more attractive through your authentic story.

Okay … many of us will not have an inspirational story to share like Melissas … however you could start by sharing WHY you do what you do and why you are so passionate about it.

So what is your Authentic story?

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Is the furniture removal industry stuck in the old days?

Ok maybe it is not a sexy industry to do a marketing case study on, however they do provide a much needed service and like all small businesses have a need for effective marketing.

Recently my wife and I sold our house. Here in Melbourne the most effective sales method is to use the Auction system. Approximately 95% of homes in our area are sold through Auctions.

The Auction process involves a four week advertising campaign, then the results of the Auction are published. The reason I share this with you is to let you know that for at least four weeks we were advertising the fact that we are about to move to everyone who would take the time to look.

During the four weeks leading up to the Auction we had a grand total of ZERO marketing efforts from removal companies … I was suprised by this being a Marketing consultant and all.

Not a single contact, flyer, letter, phone call or door knock from an overly keen Removalist Sales Person!

Then three days after the sales results were published in the paper it happened.

On the same day we received a total of 9 letters from removalist companies. All on the same day …

Now let me say well done to those 9 companies for making some marketing efforts to win our business. I am sure there are far more companies that made no effort at all.

Here is the challenge, and this challenge is not just for removalist companies. This is a marketing challenge for all small business owners regardless if you are a coach, consultant, professional advisor such as an accountant, lawyer or recruitment agent. The challenges is gaining the ATTENTION of your potential client.

The nine removalist companies all sent nice flyers talking about how long they had been in business, how many vans they have, were they could move us to, how much care they take etc etc.

They all basically said the same things.

Two of them included a tea bag in with their letter which is kind of novel but lacks marketing punch.

All of these flyers came in plain white envelopes addressed to “The home owner”.

Now here is the killer point ….

None of them have contacted us again!

Think about it … here we are busy renovating our new house in another city, both my wife and I run businesses, we have active interests in other areas as well so we are flat out busy.

To busy to analyse, study, research and make a decision on which of the nine (who all sound, look and smell the same) removal companies to contact.

Imagine if just one of them contacted us again … ie followed up … we just might use them

It is interesting to see how similar and ineffective the marketing efforts are within this very narrow industry. It is what I would call the dumbing down of marketing initiative. This is where businesses within an industry all start to copy each others marketing activities until they reach a point where they all look the same and the potential customer has no way of identifying which company to choose.

You see this dumbing down of marketing occuring in many industries such as Real Estate, Accounting, Mortgage Brokers and Financial Planners, Personal Trainers and Life Coaches. They all tend to replicate the marketing of each other.

So what can we learn from this?

Well here are a few thoughts on what these removal companies could have done differently:

* First & Early – The first thing I would do if I was in removals is to make sure that I was the first to market my services to the potential customer. I would be sending my initial marketing peice as soon as the sales campaign started … something along the lines of … hey we see you are selling your home, good luck with the campaign and let us know if we can help.

* Database – I would then follow up within the same week and offer a FREE Report along the lines of ‘How To Maximise The Sales Value Of Your Home’. The report would be available at the website of course and require people to enter their names and phone numbers etc. Who knows … while they are at the site requesting the report they just may look at your removal services.

* Follow Up Prior To Sale – Next Step would be to send a good luck card the week of the Auction with a simple reminder of your services.

* Congratulations – When the property is sold at Auction I would send a letter of congratulations that included a booklet on how to select the right removal company.

* Offer A Quotation – I would then follow up three days later with another letter offering to drop by for 10 minutes and provide a comprehensive no obligation quote. If you can get in the door and meet them, or get them on the phone you will seperate yourself from the rest.

* Have You Decided Letter – Finally I would send a letter about two weeks later along the lines of have you decided yet and if not let us handle it for you.

Now these ideas are straight of the top of my head with no real thought gone into it but I am sure you get the idea, right? Marketing needs to have the right strategy in place. It is a process rather than a single event.

So how can you take these ideas and implement them into your business?

Do you look, feel and smell like all of your competitors? Now I’m sure you think you are unique … but what about your potential customers?

This is one of the reasons why we provide our complimentary Sales & Marketing Audit (Valued at $297) to help small business owners identify where there marketing challenges are and what they can do to attract more clients.

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The democratic candidate campaign currently being run between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton has been fascinating indeed.

Just take a look at You Tube as an example of how the two candidates are embracing technology.

Here are the current stats:

Barack Obama

Number of Videos Uploaded – 847
Number of Channel Views – 13,302,236
Number of Channel Subscribers – 42,416

Hiliary Clinton

Number of Videos Uploaded – 309
Number of Channel Views – 1,427,418
Number of Channel Subscribers – 12,445

It looks like Barack and his team have embraced You Tube (and no doubt other Web 2 marketing technologies) in a big way having uploaded more than double the number of videos uploaded by the Clinton campaign.

Now this in itself is not going to dramatically impact the result, however just take a look at the number of channel views … Obama and his team have achieved 12 Million more views.

That is a significant difference and may in fact be enough to have a dramatic impact on the final results.

As an interesting study take a look at the type of videos being uploaded. Barack has uploaded tons of short snippets (2 to 5 minutes long) of key moments in his speeches. They are compelling viewing and demonstrate a clear message that there is a wave of momentum swinging to Obama of people ready for change.

Clinton on the other hand chooses to upload TV ads and the like, as well as videos by other senators and notables endorsing here.

If you want to take a look at how the Democratic candidates are utilising You Tube to market themselves then follow this link:

http://au.youtube.com/youchoose

Another interesting aspect of marketing their respective campaigns through You Tube is that for the first time the people have a voice. In just one of Barack Obama’s videos there have been more than 6,000 comments left.

According to Seth Godin (Author of Meatball Sundae) this is one of the key marketing trends of the future … entering into a dialogue with your clients and potential clients and building a sense of community.

The question I have for you is this … ‘Is it possible that Obama is more in tune with the mood of the people in 2008 and how they are receiving information about the election campaign than Clinton?’

Also … have you been following along on You Tube with the election campaign and how is it impacting your views in the race?

What can we learn about effective marketing utilising new media such as You Tube for your small business?

Leave your comments and thoughts.

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