In this issue: Let your clients help you promote your business
by Eric Albertson (with inspiration from Jeffrey Mayer)
Jerry is a manufacturer's rep. He's very good at what he does, but he's got a problem. He doesn't have enough business.
As we talked, I asked, "How do you get your customers?" He explained that most of his business comes from word of mouth. And like everybody else, he hates to cold-call.
"Well, do you have a marketing and promoting plan for yourself and your company?" I asked.
Jerry gave me one of those blank stares that told me he didn't have the slightest idea what I was talking about.
Marketing scorecard
If you want a fr*ee marketing scorecard to help you see where you and your company might be able to improve, just send an email, with SCORECARD in the subject line, to eric@succeedinginbusiness.com and I'll email you the score card within 24 hours. You'll love it.
Today I'm going to share with you a powerful idea to help you get more business by promoting yourself:
Get quotes from customers. Quotes from satisfied customers are very powerful. They give you enormous credibility.
Let me give you an example: You create a bulleted list of five great things that you do. But when you send it to your customers and prospects, they read it and say, "So what?" It looks and reads like hundreds of other promotional pieces they've opened.But what if each item on the bulleted list was a quote that camefrom one of your customers? And, each bore the customer's name position and company, after the quote? Now you have five items and five quotes. That's powerful.
When you get a quote, you can use it in many different ways, like these:
* Put the quote on the front of your brochures and catalogs, at the top. Make it the first thing your customer sees. Don't bury it in the text or on the back page.
* Use the quotes on all your letters. Instead of saying that you work with ABC Manufacturing, or including a list of all your customers, include the quote from ABC's president that says how good you are, and that she would never consider working with anybody else.
* Put the quotes on your Web site. They'll even get picked up by the search engines.
It's not enough to know that you're good. You need to know why you're good. And when you ask your customers what they like most about your products or services, you know.
Then you can work to get even better at the things they liked so much. And then you've got stories to tell. Like the one in this open letter, written by my client, Dennis Cozen:
Eric Albertson & Succeeding In Business under-promised and way-over-delivered. I wanted to make more money from my practice. Eric gave me what I wanted and more importantly, what I needed.
Here's my story; I was stuck with a full schedule and fees too low to support my goals. I read about Eric's Value Velocity coaching in the www.succeedinginbusiness.com Success Tips eNewsletter. I was not optimistic, but I called January 3rd, 2007, nonetheless.
Eric asked questions about me and my business for almost an hour. Finally, he said he could see a way to help me reach my goals, so I hired him as my coach.
First, Eric helped me understand my unique value to my current customers and to my target market. His questions and perspective helped me to slowly begin to see myself in ways that I had been blind to in the past, and that had cost me dearly for the last twenty years. It makes me cringe to think of all the value I could have delivered and could have received.
Tax season was about to start and I had to decide quickly if I was going to take the risk of raising my fees and possibly losing many or most of my customers in the process. It was one of the scariest things I have ever done. A huge percentage of my livelihood was at risk.
Eric laid out the process. The process made perfect sense. I took a deep breath and decided that if I wanted my income to change that I was going to have to take some action… take the right action, as he keeps saying in his newsletter. It is one thing to read about bold action and another thing to actually do it.
Eric set very realistic expectations, saying that I actually could lose a certain percentage of my customers, but that he would help me replace those with better-paying customers that fully valued my approach to the tax business. He helped me realize that it just wasn't worth it to keep customers that didn't value who I was enough to pay my new fee.
We sent a letter to 350 of my customers stating my value proposition, reminding them of my track record, and letting them know that I was going to be raising my prices. I was ready for a flood of angry phone calls. After the letters arrived, the phone began to ring and ring and ring.
To my amazement the calls were from clients telling me how glad they were to be working with me, that they knew I was good but had never had any idea of just how good. They actually thanked me for having them as a client. I couldn't believe it.
Our letter had perfectly described what my clients wanted most from me:
The biggest refund that they were entitled to under the law
Paying the least taxes possible under the law
True and deep expertise that came from my IRS certification
An extremely low exposure to IRS Audit.
They had never realized the safety, security, the refunds, the tax savings and the professionalism that they had been getting for all these years and they were delighted by this realization.
Out of 350 clients that received the letter, I have had only one person decide not to do business with me. He had been one of my lowest paying customers, so I don't think it was a big deal.
Eric told me that if we didn't have some complaints, that we hadn't raised our prices enough. I did have a few people complain. Eric showed me exactly what to say, how to say it, and how to hold firm. I followed his instructions exactly and everybody who complained is still a client. Eric's value proposition made leaving me seem to be illogical.
The funny thing in all this is that I have always had the value proposition that Eric brought out. Telling my clients about my value proposition in the unique way Eric did helped me deliver value in terms of confidence and a sense of security that my clients value far more than any concerns about my new fees. I was able to raise my fees by over 100% while having my clients value me even more than the fee they pay.
I started with Eric January 9th, 2007 and I am writing this to you February 20th 2007. My financial future has dramatically changed in just 30 days. Eric tells me we have just begun and that we will similarly increase the value I deliver to my bookkeeping and consulting clients, as well. I can hardly wait.
I am writing this open letter because I cannot believe how close I came to not making the call to Eric because I just didn't believe anything could be done with my situation. Nobody else has ever been able to help me with my situation in the past.
Please let me encourage you to call Eric Albertson and www.succeedinginbusiness.com for coaching if you need to understand your value and how to turn it into money. I know he doesn't take many individual coaching clients at this time, but he tells me that he has a book in the works and will be offering a telephone-seminar sometime in the spring of 2007. If you get a chance to work with him one-on-one like I have, or to be on one of his telephone-seminars or read his book… all I can say is "Just Do It." Your life will never be the same.
Sincerely,
Dennis Cozen, EA
That's quite a testimonial, wouldn't you say? And hearing it from a client is a lot more compelling than hearing it from me.
Thanks very much, Dennis.
Here's the magic secret for getting quotes and testimonials:
Ask for 'em!
Call up your customers and ask them how they liked their recent purchase. Ask probing questions, like:
What did you like most?
How have you used it?
Would you recommend this to your friends? Why?
How has it saved you time and money? How has it made you more efficient?
Take detailed notes of what the person's saying. Then say, "You've said some very nice things. May I quote you?" Of course, they'll say yes.
If appropriate, send the person a copy of their quote for final review and approval before you publish it.
When you've gotten your quote, which will probably be several sentences,or paragraphs in length, you can edit it down to one or two short sentences.
If you want to have the words of praise appear on letterhead, write it up yourself, first. Then email it to the customer and ask him or her to print it on company stationery, sign it, and return it to you.
Third-party endorsements are very powerful. Get quotes from all your customers and use them in every way you can think of. It's a sure-fire way to grow your business.
Sales Success ToolsHere are three sales tools that can help you close more sales and make more money:
Cheers,
Eric AlbertsonPortland, ORMarch 19, 2007
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