 
 Serving the global online business community since August 30, 2000 | 
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Serving the global online business community since August 30, 2000 |
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Should You Give Up On Cold Calling as a Small Business Marketing Tool?
by Charlie Cook Ever had second thoughts about using cold calling to find new clients? Before you pick up the phone to make a single cold-call, there are several things you should know. First, few people are naturally successful at cold calling. Second, cold calling has a bad reputation as a marketing tool. Most people find cold calls intrusive and obnoxious. Third, conversion rates for cold calls are typically about 2%, compared to 20% for solid leads and 50% for referrals. With three strikes against cold calling, shouldn't you cross this marketing strategy off your list once and for all? No! The reason most cold calls fail is simply because they're done wrong. If you're thinking of giving up on using the phone to generate leads, first ask yourself if it is cold calling that annoys people, or the way its done. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - many small businesses have been built on the basis of successful cold-calling campaigns. One of my clients, Steve, confessed that he didn't want to be bothered with most small business marketing activities. Give him a list of leads and a phone and in a couple of hours and he could find a warm prospect. Instead of alienating prospects, his cold calls resulted in more business. Cold-calling worked for Steve because he was a master at it. You too can become a master of cold calling when you know how to prepare and how to make the calls using the strategy detailed below. Why Do People Hate Most Cold Calls? We're all assaulted by hundreds of advertising messages each day. Many we choose to ignore, a select few catch our interest. The ones that annoy us the most are the ones we are forced to pay attention to without any choice. If you want to overcome this natural resistance you?ll need to find out how to make your cold-calls less intrusive. Get Your Prospects' Permission One of the most effective ways to generate a lead on your website is to ask a prospect to give you his or her email address and then, with their permission, send them ideas and information they want. The same is true when you pick up the phone to call a prospect. Get your prospect's permission, give them the information they want, and you can generate a warm lead and a sale. The traditional approach to small business marketing and cold calling shoves a 'sell' in the prospect's face. Most people don't respond well to this. The more effective alternative is to get a prospect's attention, ask permission, find out what they want and then give them what they asked for. How To Generate Leads and Sales with Your Phone Calls Before you make the call; prepare for your marketing success A. Don't blindly pick up the phone and except to get results. When at all possible, research your prospects' needs. The more you know about what they want the more effective you'll be on the phone. Depending on who you're calling, you can: - Research the individual company and person to identify problem areas where you could be of assistance. Send a letter or a series of postcards in advance of your call. - Use a response form on your web site or a postcard to prompt your prospects to tell you what they are looking for. On the form, ask the prospect to tell you what his biggest or most intractable problem is. When a prospect completes an inquiry form on your web site, you've got the most important thing to a successful call; their permission for you to contact them again, to discuss how you can help them. - Survey your existing clients to define the 3-5 reasons they find your products and services valuable. B. Your first objective with a prospect isn't to sell to them. Before a sale can take place you need to establish rapport and find out what they want and need. If you haven't already done this with your marketing then you'll need to take the first couple of calls to do this and then you can move towards a sale. Making the call - partner with your prospect 1. State your name and ask the prospect if they have a moment. (Get their permission to continue the conversation) 2. If they're busy, schedule a time to call back. This way you?ve got their permission to have the next conversation. 3. Give them a reason to listen. Let them know you'll be brief and tell them why you are calling. Tell them what your firm does in terms of the benefits you provide. For example, 'We help hotels like yours increase bookings and generate more revenue per guest.' 4. Tell them you'd like to ask them a couple of questions and get their permission to proceed. Then find out what's working and what's not and what types of solutions they are looking for. 5. Summarize what they've told you about their needs and wants. Then ask them if you could solve the problems they just told you they wanted solved, whether it?d be worth schedule at time to talk further. Next, schedule a meeting or follow-up conversation. Advertising, web sites, email, and sales letters are great ways to market your products and services, but... picking up the phone and personally talking to a prospect can get immediate results when you apply fundamental marketing principles and techniques. Use these 5 steps to master marketing on the phone and you'll generate more lead and sales and have more fun marketing on the phone. The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com
How to Create Explosive Sales With Your Marketing Message
by Charlie Cook If you live in a small town like mine on the Connecticut coast, you'll be spending the 4th of July watching fireworks, along with your family and friends and everyone else in town. Why is it that people love fireworks? Fireworks grab attention with a dazzling display of color and lots of noise. Unlike the sparklers you can hold in your hand, the sound and size of fireworks can't be ignored. Imagine if your marketing was as effective at getting people's attention! Diane was starting a new business coaching service and came to me looking for small business marketing fireworks. She knew that she needed a marketing message, one that described what she did and would get her prospects' attention. Her dilemma was that she works with clients to solve numerous types of problems and instead of having one strategic marketing message, she had a laundry list of them. Solving lots of problems is good, but when you are trying to communicate what you do, it's the equivalent of a handful of sparklers as compared to having one large attention-getting display. In order to grab prospects' attention, Diane dispensed with her laundry list of messages and replaced it with one umbrella marketing message. Here's how to get started on your own strategic marketing message. 1. List the concerns of your target market relative to your services. This should generate a list of 10-30 problems you solve. 2. Organize your list in order of importance to clients. What are your clients' primary concerns? 3. Use the most important client concern on your list as the basis for your marketing message. If you don't have a summary sentence, then write one. |
In our town when a particularly spectacular firework goes off, the audience ooh's and ahhs. You may not get ooh's and ahhs from your marketing message but you do want it to prompt prospects to action. When you use your marketing message, fireworks or at least a spark should ignite in your prospects' minds when they make the connection between their needs and your services. If your marketing message has done its job, people will ask you how you do what you do or contact you for more information. With a brilliant marketing message you'll grab your prospects' attention, increase opportunities. The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com
Eliminating Objections to Increase Sales
by Charlie Cook You want to increase the flow of sales revenue, but you are stymied by prospects' seemingly endless objections. Prospects say they're not interested. They tell you your price is too high, or this isn't the right time. You've heard all the objections. What can you do to get rid of these once and for all? Engineering Your Marketing When I was seven, one of my favorite ways to spend a hot summer day with my friends was playing a backyard game we called "waterworks". We'd use a trowel to construct channels in the dirt, put the hose at one end and watch the water flow. If we wanted the water to go straight, we'd remove rocks and debris to clear a path. We became sophisticated engineers, guiding water around corners and across short aqueducts. We felt like masters of the universe, directing the water where we wanted it to go. (You can bet my mother loved seeing us come into the house at the end of the day.) Plan your marketing to take charge of increasing your sales. Your marketing can lead prospects to your products and services the way my friends and I engineered our waterworks; by making clear paths and removing obstacles. Channel your prospects' attention and interests and eliminate objections. Below are the four most common objections and ways to eliminate them. Lack of Interest Prospects need to understand what you do before they can become interested in what you have to offer. It is that simple. If you're marketing yourself as a lawyer, coach,accountant or fitness center, you're not telling people why they should be interested. To capture their interest, explain the problems you solve from their perspective. Lack of Leads You want people to email you, call you or go to your website to buy your products and services. But first you have to motivate them to contact you so you can market to them. Once you have their attention, use your conversation, your emails and your web site to ask them what they want and need. Lack of Credibility You want prospects to see you as the expert; the person and the firm that has the products and services they can rely on. One of the biggest challenges to attracting new clients is gaining their trust and being seen as the essential expert. Use your articles, e-zine, and web site to demonstrate your expertise. Use testimonials from clients to tell prospects about the results you and your products have achieved. Pricing Objections Whether it is a $25 subscription or a $50,000 consulting fee, prospects object to price when they don't understand the value of the purchase. Establish a set of questions you can use to help prospects define what they want and what you are providing. When price is put in context, it becomes much less of an obstacle. Still not converting as many prospects to clients as you'd like? Use questions to find out more about what they want, and what their concerns are. Then address each of these objections up front and remove them as potential sales killers. Think of your target market as a reservoir of water waiting to be tapped. If you eliminate the barriers between them and you, you could send a steady stream of new clients and customers your way. Now, don't just imagine it, do it. Start eliminating your prospects' objections and create a clear path for them to become clients and customers. Help your prospects get what they want and you'll get what you want, more clients.
2004 © In Mind Communications, LLC. The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com
Do Your Prospects Know What You Do?
by Charlie Cook How do you explain what you do to prompt a sale? Last week I got calls from two people at Wall Street financial firms, who both had the same question. How to explain what they do in 15 seconds or less? Why were these professionals from prominent firms with large marketing departments looking for a better way to talk about what they do? One, I'll call George, had been stockbroker, a profession everyone knew and thought they understood. You may remember stockbrokers got a bad name selling stocks on commission as the last market bubble burst. Now when people ask George what he does, he doesn't want to say he is a stockbroker, and in fact it no longer applies. Recently some of the larger investment firms restructured brokers' jobs, changing both pay structures and responsibilities to provide more comprehensive financial services. George isn't a stockbroker anymore and is having a tough time describing all he now does to prospects in a sentence or two. When you can't describe what you do in a 15 second marketing statement, it is difficult to spread the word about your services. Learn how to find the right words to explain exactly how you help prospects. With a brilliant small business marketing message you?ll attract more clients right away. Use the ?15 Second Marketing? guide to create more business opportunities. If you have trouble explaining what you do, take these steps to develop your marketing message. 1. Identify your target market Who specifically are your clients? Who are the people you'd like to become your clients? 2. Clarify your prospects' problems and concerns. What are they worried about? How are they wasting time and money? What do they want? 3. Define the benefit you offer What do they get from your products or services? 4. Put the above together into a single sentence. Whether you offer one type of service or ten, the objective is to use your succinct marketing message to get the conversation going. Then you can ask questions to clarify your prospect's specific needs and describe the solutions you provide. Don?t get stuck like George without a way of explaining what you do. Get your small business marketing message working and see your business grow. The author, Charlie Cook, helps small business owners and marketing professionals attract more clients, whether you are marketing in print, in person or online. Sign up for the Free Marketing eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your business', full of practical marketing strategies you can use to increase profits at www.MarketingForSuccess.com
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