High End Secrets
User Manual: HIGH-END
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Action Plan Marketing 1 The 5 Key Strategies of Attracting High-End Clients How marketing and selling to High-End Clients can transform your business and your income. Hi, my name is Robert Middleton, the owner of Action Plan Marketing. Since 1984 I’ve been working with Independent Professionals such as management consultants, business coaches and corporate trainers to help them attract more clients. For years, my primary goal was to simply help clients be better marketers of their services. I helped them get past the struggle and effort or marketing and implement marketing strategies and tactics that really worked. But for years I was missing one of the most important things of all. I wasn’t paying much attention to the kind of clients my clients were attracting. That is, whether the clients they were attracting were ordinary clients or high-end clients. To make a long story short, what I discovered was that it didn’t take a lot more work to attract high-end clients. And when I started to teach my clients to attract high-end clients, their income shot up as well as their fulfillment in working with their clients. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 2 In this five-part report I’m going to explain the most important secrets to attracting high-end clients. This could be the most important report you’ll read in your business this year (sure, everyone says that), but I know it’s true because when you master the art of attracting high-end clients, you’ll transform your whole business. You’ll have more money, more time, and more satisfaction that the work you’re doing makes a difference. The first part covers the basics of attracting high-end clients, how to define high-end clients and the three essential ingredients of attracting high-end clients. Part I - Attracting High-End Clients Everyone wants to attract more clients. But I think it’s even more important to set your sights on attracting more high-end clients. Right now, I’m working with 20 high-end clients through my Marketing Mastery Program. This transition from “average clients” to “high-end clients” over the past few years has transformed my business and my lifestyle. I define high-end clients in the following three ways: 1. They are “ideal clients.” That is, clients you can really make Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 3 a difference with and whom you love to work with. 2. They are “long-term clients.” These are clients with whom you can offer programs and services for a year or more. 3. They are “high-paying clients.” They understand the value you offer and are willing to pay you more than average clients will. By attracting a consistent stream of high-end clients you have several advantages over attracting average clients. 1. Both you and your clients will experience more fulfillment in working together. This is no small thing. When the experience of working together is one of partnership and possibility, your work doesn’t feel like work. It’s more like play. Working with ideal clients is more fun and productive. Ideal clients are not resisting you; they’re cooperating with you as you work with them to make significant changes in their businesses and lives. You might say they are “sincerely growth oriented” and will do what it takes, with your expertise and support to produce results on a very high level. 2. By working long-term you will get to know and understand the needs of your clients much better. This often leads to even more long-term work. And of course, you’ll earn more money than with short-term clients. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 4 If you could effect substantial change in a few days, the world would be a very different place. The fact is, it takes time to change, even if the work you’re doing provides the best information and service available. When you work with clients long-term it’s not so that you can earn more (although that’s a side benefit), it’s because you can do more that will make a longlasing impact. 3. When you charge more, you’ll feel that you are being valued for what you’re worth. You’ll be able to give better service and make a bigger impact, without feeling you are being taken advantage of. The matter of fees is a big issue for many Independent Professionals. Many are afraid to charge what they are really worth. They rarely look at the results they produce in contrast to the difference they make – often to the bottom line. For instance, if you help a client earn or save a million dollars, that’s worth at least $100K to a client, not $10K. So how do you attract more high-end clients? Well, all the marketing approaches I’ve taught over the years also apply to attracting high-end clients, but there are a few steps that you must follow: 1. To attract high-end clients, you need to design high-end services. It’s like selling a Mercedes instead of a Ford. And you Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 5 need to put in the commitment, time and energy into developing high-end services and programs that will deliver higher end results than you offered previously. The good news is that it’s easier than you think. Designing and packaging high-end services often starts with a specific program. The way I start is with a letter that explains these services in great detail. The elements of these letters include the following. a. The name of the service or program, in results-oriented language. “The Marketing Mastery Program.” b. A few paragraphs outlining the need for the program. This talks about what’s missing, not working or currently broken that the prospect needs to fix. c. A few paragraphs about what things could be like once the situation is fixed. I called this the Ultimate Outcome. d. A few paragraphs about how your service gets a client from b to c. Stories and case studies are ideal here. e. Several bullet points of all the benefits and advantages the client will get when they use this service. f. A description of the basic structure of the service and how it’s implemented. g. A call-to-action to find out more about the service. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 6 Writing a high-end service letter like this is a bit of an art, yet those are the key components. 2. Your marketing messages, materials, marketing strategies and sales processes need to communicate the message that you offer higher-end services. Perception is essential. Every impression you make should communicate: “I offer high quality, pay attention to details, follow-up professionally and produce great results.” There are several pieces of marketing material needed for effectively marketing high-end services. They are actually the same materials used for marketing average services, just presented more professionally and targeted to the high-end. These materials include the following: a. A professionally designed web site that incorporates both good design and well-written copy. The main purpose of this web site is to educate prospects about your services, and to prove that you are credible and capable. You need information on who your clients are, how you work, details on your services (above), case studies and information about you and your expertise. Everything needs to be clear in concept and in the outcomes your clients receive from your services. b. A good article or report that you can circulate to Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 7 qualified prospective clients. Whenever you meet a prospect through networking, give a talk or webinar, or when a person calls you from a referral, a report or article is the ideal piece of information. It educates without selling; it increases your credibility and it helps to qualify the prospect. If they are interested in the article they are more likely to be interested in your services. c. Audios or videos. These can give an even better taste of you and your services than written materials. However they are harder to produce than written materials, harder to edit and easier to highlight your weaknesses. You’ll often need a professional to help you in this area. These are not absolutely essential, but something you can work towards developing over time. d. A questionnaire to provide to prospective clients after they have committed to meeting with you to explore how your services can help them. Having a prospect fill out a questionnaire gets the prospect thinking actively about their current, situation, goals and challenges. Questionnaires work for individual clients, leaders in large corporations and everyone in-between. 3. With a clearly designed high-end program and professionally designed marketing materials, you have earned the right to charge more for your services. After all, Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 8 you’ve organized your business to produce higher-end results, and done it in a way that makes your clients feel like high-end clients. They feel like they’re at the Ritz Carleton, not the Holiday Inn, and they’ll be happy to pay fees that give them that experience. Marketing and selling high-end services isn’t something you can transition to overnight, but if you really want a sustainable business that makes a lot more money and is more fulfilling, there’s really no other way to go. Part I Wrap-Up: Attracting more high-end clients is a choice. It won’t happen accidentally. It needs to be done by design. If you commit to developing this design and implementing it consistently, there’s no reason that in a year or less most of your clients will be high-end clients. In Part II I’ll explore the mindset required to market and sell high-end services. Part II - The High-End Clients Mindset In the first part I outlined the key things you need to do to attract more high-end clients. It’s all about packaging your services at the high-end so that the perception, delivery and outcomes of your services justify a high-end price tag. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 9 But I left out the most important part of all – and that’s the mindset you must have to attract high-end clients. I’m not talking about abundance thinking or having a prosperity attitude about making more money. Sorry, but in my experience those don’t work. If they did, all you’d have to do is think positive, abundant thoughts about attracting high-end clients. And presto-changeo, you’d have more high-end clients before you knew it. Wow, wouldn’t that be great! Think all the abundance thoughts you want, affirming that more clients will flow effortlessly into your life. But underneath all those prosperity thoughts would be the thoughts you *really* believed. Perhaps some of these are familiar to you: - I’m not ready to attract high-end clients yet - I don’t have the experience and services to offer - I’m not the kind of person who makes a lot of money - If I made a lot of money bad things would happen to me - Money is the root of all evil (and I want to be good!) - Good people aren’t focused on making money - Only greedy, dishonest people are rich Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 10 - It takes too much work to make lots of money - Making more money will turn me into a shallow person And if these underlying thoughts are stronger than your abundance thoughts, you simply won’t take the actions necessary to attract those high-end clients. Those negative thoughts will literally neutralize your positive thoughts. I advocate a very different approach to changing mindsets. Let me tell you about two participants in my Marketing Mastery Program from 2010. They were a couple from England who did high-impact business coaching for corporations. Their coaching to top executives made a significant difference to the bottom line of their clients. Their clients loved working with them and valued their work highly. And they were charging about half the going rate. I explored this with them, and an interesting set of beliefs emerged. They went something like this: “We consider ourselves, good, honest professionals. If we were to charge more and make more money we’d be bad, dishonest people.” Sounds crazy, I know! They both believed this to their core, so I explored that belief with them. “Where do you think that belief might have come from?” I asked. They told me they were brought up in Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 11 relatively poor households where their parents kept telling them how bad and dishonest rich people were. I remarked that this was a great message to justify being poor! And with a little more conversation they clearly saw how they had taken on this belief, with little real evidence to back it up. So we explored this belief in more depth and they realized a few things: a. This belief was simply not true. No solid proof at all. When they believed it, it became almost impossible for them to ask for higher fees from their clients. It was just unthinkable. It actually made them feel like bad people. b. They noticed when they did the thought exercise: “How would you set your fees if you could no longer attach to that belief?” they told me immediately, “We’d double our rates!” c. And with a little more exploration into their povertyrelated beliefs and creating an action plan for increasing their rates, they took the plunge and did it. And they didn’t need “abundance/prosperity thinking.” Instead, they started to think realistically: “People who make more money are not necessarily bad, dishonest people, and if we raise our rates there’s no reason to Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 12 think we’ll change as people.” And, “We really are undercharging for our services in this marketplace, which makes us look less valuable than we really are. Time to raise our rates!” So they doubled their rates, didn’t feel bad or dishonest about it and got virtually no pushback from their clients. Happy end to story! My guess is that you have a similar story, but not necessarily with a happy ending yet. Perhaps you’re not charging enough, haven’t packaged your services on the high end, or your services are not designed to produce measurable results, etc. But most of all, even if you’ve done all of that, you need to ruthlessly examine your disempowering mindsets about money and realize how these beliefs are only undermining you. When you replace constrictive beliefs about money, with expansive beliefs, everything changes. It’s as if you have been hypnotized into believing that you simply can’t earn the kind of money that would make you financially independent. Well, in my experience, that’s just not true. If you are producing great results for your clients, you should be rewarded handsomely. Part II Wrap-Up: I want to assure you that this is something you can do. With a transformation of your mindset, and a few changes in the way your present, market and sell your services, it’s not only possible, but predictable that you can start attracting Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 13 higher end clients who will love working with you. In the next part we explore why it’s so important to take responsibility for producing results for your clients if you want to gain a reputation for offering outcome-producing, highend services. Part III - Client Results are Your Responsibility If a client hires you as a coach, consultant or trainer and the client doesn’t get the results they expected, who’s to blame? You are! After all, they hired you to produce results. But all the time, I hear excuses like the following. • “Well, they were responsible for doing the actual work – and they didn’t follow through.” • “It’s hard to measure something like this - there are so many variables.” • “Given the scope of the job, it wasn’t realistic that they’d get the kind of results they expected.” • “Well, my clients just don’t have the budget to pay for the more in-depth programs I’d like to offer that would produce the results we want.” Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 14 All of this absolves you of responsibility. And in my humble opinion this is no more than professional negligence and ignorance of how business actually works. Let me answer each of these and explain the role of “high-end programs and services” in all of this. 1. “Well, they were responsible for doing the actual work – and they didn’t follow through.” Yes, they were responsible for doing the actual work but you didn’t set things up to make sure the work actually happen. You didn’t provide the support and follow-up necessary to get the results they wanted and needed. Look, clients will resist change. That’s a given. So you need to package your services to take that into account. You need to be able to offer more information, support and resources, if required. One client I worked with wouldn’t do any assignments I gave him. He couldn’t keep his promises and rarely completed any of the work I gave him. Instead of blaming him, I talked to him three times a week and outlined very specific step-by-step actions he could take. I also worked with him on changing his mindset. Ultimately he got his work done. Not only that, he produced exceptional results, and started to attract more high-end clients. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 15 2. “It’s hard to measure something like this - there are so many variables.” It’s hard to measure because you didn’t try or require it from the client. Are you in business to help clients improve their situation or are you in business to go through a process? If clients are paying you to perform a process to check off a box, they’re idiots. Don’t work for them. Find clients who are committed to producing results - and charge them a premium. Great clients are open to measurement and accountability. Make this a keystone of your all services and programs. And then take the initiative to make things happen and measure success. 3. “Given the scope of the job, it wasn’t realistic that they’d get the kind of results they expected.” Then why did you agree to the scope if it couldn’t produce results? Can you imagine that a doctor would say to you, “Well, OK, I know this operation is not in your budget, so we’ll just do half an operation. You can sew yourself up and save quite a bit.” Insanity, right? But that’s exactly what we do when we agree to do a project or service that simply won’t produce the results you want. “You want three days of training to transform your leadership. Err… ok we can do that!” NO, YOU CAN’T!!!!!!! Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 16 4. “Well, my clients just don’t have the budget to do pay the for the more in-depth programs I’d like to offer.” Sounds reasonable, right? The thing is, you forget that you are not selling coaching, consulting or training. Those are just processes, remember. No, you are selling results, tangible outcomes that make a measurable difference. And that’s worth a whole lot more. So in your sales process you need to spend a lot of time exploring with your prospects what they REALLY want. Nobody goes into enough depth here. It’s all superficial. “We want to increase sales.” OK, next question. No, you need to go much deeper than that: Why do they want to increase sales? What will it mean to them if they do? What will it mean to them if they don’t? And why are they having such a hard time increasing sales? What’s underneath that? Do they want to change that as well? When you have listened and understood the deepest yearnings of a potential client and demonstrated that you can help them fulfill those longings, you have a prospect that will pay you to help them produce those results. What you need to do. Now I’m not saying you won’t bump into idiot prospects who want miracles from you without doing their part or Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 17 suggesting a project that has virtually no chances of success. And many prospects say they want huge results but have a small results budget. But you don’t have to work for them! If you want to grow your business, you need successes that are measurable, that make a real difference to your clients. And you need to be paid what you are worth. If you don’t, what foundation are you building your business on? This is why I feel it makes sense to focus ALL your marketing efforts on attracting high-end clients. A high-end client is a great client that understands what it takes to produce a result and is willing to invest in that result. They are also willing to take the time necessary to produce a result. They know big change doesn’t come instantly. Finally, they are willing to pay fees considerably higher than ordinary clients. If you attract clients like this, you’ll not only produce results you’re proud of, you’ll get more word-of-mouth business, attracting the attention of even more high-end clients. And one high-end client is usually worth 4 or 5 ordinary clients. Oh, yeah and your income will increase pretty dramatically as well. Would that be OK with you? I hope so! Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 18 Part III Wrap Up: You don’t produce the results you could in your business because you are not working on projects that have the remotest possibility of producing those results. So you blame your clients. Instead, take responsibility for attracting high-end clients who will gladly pay you to work with them to produce results at a whole new level. In Part IV I’ll explore how you can attract better clients by offering more value. And more value doesn’t always mean more time and expense on your part. Part IV - Earn More by Adding More Value to Your Services One of the biggest issues in attracting higher-end clients is how to actually add value to your services. After all, getting high-end clients isn’t just about charging more. You need to offer more so that you can increase the chances that your clients will get much better results. The first thing I ask is, “If budget was not a consideration, what service or program would you offer your clients that could virtually guarantee that they would produce the results they wanted?” It’s an important question, because you’re now thinking Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 19 from a high-end mindset, not a limited, low-budget mindset. What people come up with are various ways they would support their clients in producing results beyond what they are offering their clients now. So, if you’re a coach, perhaps you’re meeting with a client once a week for about an hour, and that’s it. What else could you add to this? Some of these will take a little more time on your part, and some simply add value. By the way, this same process applies to consultants, trainers and other professional service businesses. Here’s are some that I and my clients have offered: 1. Unlimited contact and answers by email, with response within 24 hours or sooner. 2. Additional, short phone sessions, as needed. Just let them know the hours you are available. 3. Actual written feedback on various materials, from reports and articles to scripts, proposals, etc. 4. Links to online content of yours, including articles, podcasts and videos. 5. An interactive Forum for all your clients to share ideas amongst themselves. 6. Weekly email blasts on various topics that are more inCopyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 20 depth than your regular eZine. 7. A requirement that your clients send you a report before each session. This saves you time on the call and enables you to get to the most important issues more quickly. You must always have the mindset that the coaching that you offer is much more than a one-hour meeting a week. Remember, you are committed to outcomes, not processes. And, of course, in the promotion for your services on your website, you would outline all these extras they would get with your coaching, where you emphasize that you are committed to their success and will do just about anything in your power to help them succeed. The next question is: “How do I prevent my clients from taking advantage of me if I give them so much more service, access and information?” The way you do that is by charging much more for your services! There’s a direct correlation here. If you are charging $500 per month, it may feel that you are giving more than you’re getting. But if you charge $1000 or $1500 or more, then you won’t have a problem giving your clients more value. Also, in my experience, I enjoy working with clients at this Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 21 level much more. It’s more fun, fulfilling and exciting. My clients feel they have a real partner in me who will do whatever it takes to help them get results. It all starts with valuing yourself and your services. If you can really make a substantial difference with your clients, then you’ll never worry that you’re charging too much. You can just put your attention on your clients and do the work you need to do in order to produce great results. Another big issue that often stops people: “How can I really communicate to my prospect that I’m worth more than the average coach.” Simple: Actual client results. You want to make every single client you work with into a documented success story. You need to write down the situation of the client before you started working with them and track their progress over time, showing the gains they have made. Then turn these into written case studies and show them to your potential clients. This is very powerful proof that you can produce the results you said you could. And ultimately, this can justify higher fees. Finally: “What if I don’t have any impressive success stories yet?” Well, you can only start where you are. Put all your efforts now into going the extra mile to make a measurable Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 22 difference with each and every client you have - even if they’re not perfect clients. Before too long you’ll have a number of case studies. And you can add more and better ones as you continue to work with new clients. Again, this work will give you more evidence and validation that you can charge higher fees. Part IV Wrap Up: You’ll ultimately make a lot more money in your business if you offer more value - not just for the sake of doing more - but because this value helps your clients get better results. Commit to that and you’ll experience a change that will rock your world. Part V – An Action Plan for Getting High-End Clients To summarize what we’ve covered so far in this report: 1. What exactly are high-end clients and what do you need to do to consistently attract more of them to your business. 2. The mindset necessary to attract high-end clients and why it has nothing to do with “abundance thinking.” 3. Why you must take responsibility for the results your clients produce and why this is key to attracting high-end clients. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 23 4. How to increase the perception, delivery and outcomes of your service to more than justify the high-end price tag. The fifth and final part will give you a step-by-step action plan for enrolling clients into your high-end programs. Presentations are the key! My favorite way of enrolling high-end clients is through some kind of presentation. This can be a talk at a professional group or conference, a webinar, or a teleclass. You actually don’t sign-up clients for your high-end services through speaking; you pre-sell them on your concepts and programs and then follow up with them. For my Marketing Mastery Program, I do a series of teleclasses to introduce the ideas in the program. I don’t sell, I educate. And in fact, I let people know that the program won’t be open for enrollment until mid-January. If you are offering a high-end service or program for groups, this is a good approach, but you can also offer high-end services to either individuals or companies. Speaking is also the most effective way I know to qualify prospects for your program. After you give your talk, you get cards (by offering an article) and in some cases offer what I call a Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 24 “Strategy Session.” For instance, your talk might be about how to increase profitability in software firms. Your strategy session would be called a “Software Profitability Strategy Session.” You offer it at the end of the talk or teleclass as follows: “I hope you’ve gotten some useful ideas from my talk today that will help with the profitability of your software company. Can I see a show of hands of those who are committed to increasing the profitability of your company by 10% or more in the next year? “OK, great. For those people, I want to offer something that will help you achieve that goal more quickly. I call it a ‘Software Profitability Strategy Session.’ This session is valued at $750 and we can make it available for up to five people in the audience today. In this session we look at your current situation, explore your specific profitability goals, and also the challenges that may prevent you from increasing your profitability. “If you’d like to take advantage of this session, all you need to do is write on the back of your card, “Strategy Session” and hand it to me at the end of the talk, and I’ll be in touch with you about the session and send your more information. “OK, who would like to take advantage of that session? (Get a Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 25 show of hands.) Great, just hand the cards into me and I’ll be in touch with you right away.” If you are doing this on a teleclass or webinar you do it very much the same, except that you ask them to send you an email letting you know if they are interested in a strategy session. You don’t have the added advantage of people raising their hands, but it still works quite well. Strike while the iron is hot! After you get the cards or emails, you follow up by the next day at the latest. You want to send them an email inviting them to take advantage of the Strategy Session. It might go something like this: Dear Jean, Thanks for attending my talk on profitability for software companies. I hope you got some useful ideas. And thanks for also requesting a strategy session. Because I have a very busy schedule, I can only offer a limited number of these sessions, valued at $750, on a complimentary basis. Let me tell you more about the session. In the session, which is by phone, and typically lasts 90 minutes, we will cover the following. 1. Your current situation, including discussion of your profitability and other relevant company issues. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 26 2. The goals and vision for your company. Where do you want to go with your business in the next few years? 3. The challenges you are facing in growing your profitability and what you need to do to overcome those challenges. 4. A discussion of next steps and an action plan to move your company towards profitability. In order to schedule this session, I ask that you fill out the questionnaire below and send it back to me. The more completely you fill this out, the more I can help you. Please send it back to me within one week or less to ensure that I can fit you in. This little email script (of course, altered for your situation) is like a magic recipe for getting appointments with qualified prospects. Get the attention of prospects through a talk, follow up with this email and you’ll have an over-abundance of highly qualified prospects to speak to about your services. Here’s a sample questionnaire: Software Profitability Strategy Session Questionnaire 1. What is the current profitability of your company, both in total profits and as a gross and net percentage of total sales? 2. What are the measures you have taken up to now to Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 27 increase your profitability? What has work and not worked? 3. What is the ultimate profitability goal for your company? 4. Are you ready in the next few months to commit the time, energy and resources to increasing your profitability? 5. If you increased the profitability and reached your profitability goal, what would it mean to a) your company and b) you personally. Please be as specific as possible. 6. What else would you like to say about your business and/or your profitability that would be useful for me know before the strategy session. - Of course, your questionnaire will be different, depending on your clientele. The point is to get the prospect involved before the strategy session so it isn’t just another sales conversation. Conducting the Strategy Session I can’t go into all the details of the Strategy Session here, but I will outline the main parts briefly as a guide: 1. State the purpose of the session, which is always an outcome: “…to help you increase your software company’s profitability.” 2. Ask about the current situation of the company, using the answers to the questionnaire as a guide. Go deeper and try to Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 28 really understand what is working and not working. Don’t talk about solutions or tell any stories during this part of the meeting. 3. Learn about the goals and vision of the company (or individual). Go really deep here. This is what they are buying from you - the transformed future. So you need to get them to articulate it as clearly as possible. You might use a story or two here of clients with similar aspirations. 4. Discuss their challenges. What is preventing them from getting their goals? Is it lack of clarity, a lack of strategy or plan, lack of skills, a non-supportive environment or other issues? This is a good time to tell a few stories of clients who had similar challenges and overcame them. 5. Present your services. If it’s a bigger company, you’ll want to present them more generally and then do a proposal. For smaller companies or individuals where you offer a fixed program, present the outcomes, benefits and structure of the program in detail. You can tell stories here as well. 6. Make your call-to-action. My favorite is when you ask the client to sell you on the value of your program: “Jean, can you let me know why you think this program is a fit for you?” Never talk about the price until you know it’s something they want to do. With bigger companies, don’t give the price until *after* you’ve presented a first draft of the proposal. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 29 If you follow the recommendations in this report on attracting high-end clients, you’ll attract a whole lot more of them! Part V Wrap UP: Attracting high-end clients is the key to success in your business. When you attract more high-end clients you not only make more money (often a LOT more money) you have more fun, produce bigger results for your clients and feel you are making a real difference. What could be better than that? Make it a priority in your business to learn how to do this to the very best of your ability. About the Author I’m Robert Middleton and I’ve been working with Independent Professionals on their marketing since 1984. I’ve helped thousands of professionals to make them better marketers of their services, through individual coaching and consulting, workshops and manuals, and programs conducted by teleconference and online. I’m the author of the InfoGuru Marketing Manual, the WebSite ToolKit, and the Action Plan Marketing Club. My weekly eZine, More Clients, now goes out to more than 40,000 small business owners all over the world. Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing 30 My experience is that I’ve never met a person who couldn’t be a better marketer by taking the time to learn and practice my seven proven strategies for attracting more clients. A New Approach to Marketing Professional Services If you’re open to a new and successful approach to marketing your professional services, I invite you to check out the Action Plan Marketing Club that instills the practices and skills to attract as many ideal clients as you’ll ever need. All the best for great marketing, Robert Middleton Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. Action Plan Marketing Copyright © 2012 Robert Middleton, Action Plan Marketing All rights reserved. You may forward this article exactly as is. 31
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