Lessons

Lesson Info

Promotion Offline

We're going to dive into promotion, and this is about promoting your packages to your ideal clients for maximum profit and unmatched value, and this promotion is based on offline. We've got another segment coming up about online, so we're not diving into the social media component of this just yet sit tight, I want to emphasize again, you can have a very successful business without using social media. I know that is shocking. Some of you are absolutely fallen over in your chairs by that news flash, but it's entirely true, I have colleagues, and occasionally, although rarely clients who proved that fact and I think it's really cool because it has everything to do with the relationships that they've built and what they've been able to do with those. So the reality is you do have to promote, okay, but it doesn't have to be icky or sliming. We want to make this a comfortable, uh, natural process where you're just standing in your enthusiasm. You're standing in your passion with your purpos...

e and you got a plan and the plan is toe let the people who will most benefit from your services and or your products know about them, because if they don't know about them, they cannot get the transformation that you deliver, can they? So this is about letting people know it's not about selling don't panic sell remember I said to my four letter word I don't use it we educate them into it okay really important difference there all right so this is all offline techniques we're gonna have some interaction here I got attached to some of my slides this was in my favorites this is about face to face and it's also about voice to voice the face of faces my favorite method of communication when I am face to face with anyone I ignore my cell phone I usually have it on mute it is very rare for a lot of people but I haven't a mute I am in charge of when I answer it please do not allow your cell phone to control your life for your business take control of when you answer a call and if you're in front of somebody and you answer a call you need to have let them know in advance that you're expecting one or better be an emergency because otherwise it's just plain rude yes spoken as a bottom baby boomer I get it so this is about networking and why you need to do it networking is about doing more business with better clients to make more money and it's the fastest way to grow your business because face to face you are singularly more powerful then you will ever be hidden online I have more power face to face with people than I do on the telephone with um and you do as well even if you are a full on introvert and that makes you really uncomfortable and you're thinking no way melissa I'm not going to do it yes you are we're going to make it fun, I promise I've got a couple of introverts and we can prove it right here in this room so excited about that opportunity to prove it with my interview and what one is grating when he's like I'm not so sure about this what's she doing s o do you network now in real time? Are you strictly online? Are you strictly hiding behind your computer and you're not getting out to real life face events and thinking, oh no, melissa, I'm online and I'm not getting any business from it, but I'm but I'm doing it has that working for you ok there's a dr phil moment um, no, we got to get you out from behind. In fact, I have effectively dennis with every client I've worked with in my private coaching practice and it's so fun because I have to make them pushed out from behind they've been hiding and they may not even be introverts sometimes they are sometimes they're not and I pushed them out of that nest of the computer and I put them into real time and I say ok, I want you divine networks in your area that have your ideal client at them, and you're not going to know until you get there if it's actually ideal client, and so what happens is they get out there, and usually they're complaining to me the first couple of events, I'm getting those text back saying, not my peeps total waste of time. I hate this and I want to do it. I'm like, come on one more by about the third or fourth I get that tax it says that I found my peeps, I found my peeps. So you too confined your peeps in real time and turn them into your ideal clients. If you don't get out there, you're not going to find them, and I truly mean that it's rare that somebody has a solely online business, there are cases I know we've got a couple of them in the chat room. Do I have some people saying that you are working for their arguing with me? They're saying, no, I'm not going to know we're okay all of a conversation with you later. Yeah, I get that they're going to be having sit tight for the next segment because we're going to go into social media, but interestingly, if you take what I'm gonna teach you in this segment and you apply it to your online work you're going to be a lot more effective and a lot more engaging and that's what really matters here here's what we're going to learn in this segment where to network for your ideal client the answer is not everywhere and this is not about being random what to say when you network for conversation starters that's the big sticking point for everybody and yeah, you know is the speaker they say imagine everybody naked is a network of these say imagine it's your party sometimes that works sometimes it doesn't it's just great if you have in your back pocket some super easy conversation starters and how to follow up to generate a fortune remember what I said everything involves follow up so you won't establish your follow up at the front end now we've already discussed some ways you can follow up I'm hoping you've pulled out the best ways they're going to work for you and as michelle said she does thank you notes three each morning what a cool way to start your day ingratitude and remembering people I think that's absolutely awesome so if you're not starting your day that way or closing your day that way it's a great way to start in close your day gratitude for clients and potential clients works really really well all right, so where you gonna network in real time? We've got to identify the best places this is based on what we already covered and pick your ideal client when you know who your ideal client is you'll be able to identify based on what I'm about to go through where they're hanging out because there's no sense and you go into events where they're not going to be where you're gonna be hooking up with a lot of colleagues and I don't mean hooking up in the sense you just heard it I mean, connecting with your colleagues, I know that was something interesting when I launched my design practice back in nineteen ninety four I literally didn't network except to meet clients for the first five years, then I started going to some association meetings and met my colleagues, but I couldn't build my business by meeting my colleagues and association meetings that didn't make any sense, so my priority was to meet potential clients and that needs to be your priority as well. Hanging out with your colleagues is a lot of fun, but it's not going to get you new clients and new customers, so be aware of that. Um, you can you can juggle both, but you just need to know what they're doing. So we're identifying the best places in your market to meet and one more line in their potential glance so want you to tweet, tweet, stop networking and start net living potential clients are everywhere when I say not living, what I mean is when you're out and about running errands let's say you go into the grocery store dropping by the dry cleaners you might be sitting in a beauty salon for an hour and a half or so you have no idea where you might meet ideal clients until you have that crystal clear picture of who they are and if in that crystal clear picture it says hey, they go to the nail salon every two weeks they go to the hairdresser every three or four weeks and you do the same thing they d'oh oh maybe some of my idea clients or hanging out right in the same because I already go on a regular basis how easy and cool is that we discovered the yoga connection that maybe some of your ideal client because you didn't go to yoga they go to yoga are hanging out of the yoga studio okay become keenly aware of the people that are around you all the time and it makes it so much easier becomes net living instead of net working because most often networking is only one letter away from not working and too frequently it doesn't work all that well so commonplace the golf course now I don't personally play golf I like to write a round of golf court after after midnight at high speeds with margaritas that's the whole story for another time, however I do know an awful lot of people are betting, you know, a lot of into that are going to play god and they plan a weekday and you're like, well, how is that possible? Because they're doing business on the golf course aa lot of corporate america does a lot of business on the golf course they both played golf doesn't really matter the handicap I'm not even sure what that means and golf terminology, but what matters is they're both out there together or in a group of four or a six amore ate some, but the reality is is something you have in common is that point of connection to blow both play golf? You both go out like any talk about business and the potential of doing business together and the big project coming up and the services they need and you find out about the personality and what they're like toe work with okay way mellower then and networking situation in terms of going to a business networking event so these opportunities are all around you sporting event. Are you an avid sports fan? Do you go to a lot of live events? Is your ideal client also an avid sports fan? Do they go toe live events also because if they do then they're probably going to some of the same events that you are you might meet him in line at the hot dog stand you might meet him sitting next to you or behind you never underestimate the power of the obvious we tend to make this much harder than it truly is we tend to look in all these hard places for our clients I've never found my clients and hard places never I always found him in the easy places when I was doing something that I loved you know like sitting on that bus doing that art tour and they're sharon sit next to me and a year later you know we find out that she wants to hire me for to your project how cool is that so you really do want to pay attention to the obvious places you're going on a regular basis could be errands you're running could be experiences you're having another big one is obviously the gym and it was funny because I just found out at the it's not that jim and I go to its more classes that I attend that one of the gals is another inter designer she does a lot of kitchen bath design and we've had chats and we've thrown resource is back and forth even though I'm doing very little designed these days you know I still have a need for resource is here and they're so does she so we're able to swap stories about that and contractors we liked and didn't like and things like that so the gym is a good place to go. Um, if your ideal clients go to the gym, if your idea clients are particularly religious and maybe that the same religious persuasion is you, if you go to regular church services, look a church. Don't underestimate the power of the obvious. Hey, one of my favorite resource is made up dot com. If you have not experienced meetup dot com, it is an incredibly cool place to go to explored any possible interest you might have business or personal. And I have ah, a colleague of mine in online marketing who actually wound up on oprah because she had built such a large meet up group. It made headlines of sorts, and she wanted being on the oprah show to talk about her group in what she did with them and that group today she's moved them from being strictly online to being also a very thicket, um, online component where she does a lot of ritual trainings, but it started out as live workshops and that's. What she was running so made up is a really wonderful opportunity for that whether you want to do it for that or maybe your ideal client is a lot of hiking, so you want to join to meet up that has a lot of hikers in it. And see if any of them also have the other criteria that your ideal client has remember, your idol client has more than one criteria, and you want to look at several of those criteria, okay, where do people that do these activities hang out? How can I meet these people and the hiking groups? A lot of the meet up groups are age specific. They'll have aged ranges on him of anywhere from fifteen years to twenty years and sometimes shorter your spans than that, so it could be super helpful. You goto one you don't find what you're looking for, you don't have to go back, you go to the next one and the next one learn to say next instead of never again, never again put you in a place where you're not willing to experiment and that's just a shame, because you're missing out on some real gold country clubs. The favorite country clubs is you don't have to be a member of the country club that's the really cool part. Country clubs have women's groups, they have golfer groups, they have all sorts of groups of their members, interest groups, special interest groups, so to speak, and what that does is gives you an opportunity go, and I've done a lot of speaking at country clubs, they have luncheons, monthly get on the calendar. As I promised, I'm going to put one of my speaker one she templates up in the facebook group and I'll let you all have a shot at that so you can create your own template id um signature one sheet and you can have three of those three cool topics threequel titles related to each other and with bullet points that you have these at the ready and you can get on these circuits and do this speaking and each time you speak you have an opportunity to get in front of your ideal client, connect with them and bring them into your business for for better growth volunteerism I've got a lot of really cool volunteers in my live audience here I'm betting we probably got a lot of people online who are doing a lot of volunteer work too and they're not thinking in terms of exploring whether or not their client is at their elbow working on that volunteer project with him and that makes a really big difference so start paying attention things you love to do because chances are good if you love to do it you're in your element you're in your passion, your in your flow you're in your purpose and you're going to be magnetic when you're there now another really good one that's often overlooked or really especially groups military men and women of service it's a specialty group does your service or product have a particularly good fit with them? Does it resonate a lot with them? Their aa lot of business owners out there who have created things specifically for men and women of service, so you're going to want to go and hang out where they hang out, find out where those places are not necessarily on base. You can't get on base unless you're also military, but there are other places surrounding the basis, and they're also remember they're not just military. They're also moms and dads and sisters and brothers, and they love sporting events and other sorts of things that just one piece of who they are charity events is another big one. Um susan g komen, the breast cancer cure walk, bike rides we have these all the time in atlanta and if your ideal client in your profile, if you stated, hey, my ideal client is one who's goingto be a sponsor on these and he's also going to be an active participant, they're going to be walking that five k, they're going to be running that ten k, they're going to be showing up at that event so that they can contribute and participate you may want to consider, okay? I don't normally do this sort of thing, but I'm willing to do it this one time because I want to see if I can net live my way into some new connections and have a different kind of experience get out of your box, you've been in a box for a long time. You've been doing the same things that get in the same result, and if they were working for you, I hate to say it, but she wouldn't be here with me right now. I'm thrilled that she r I really am, but it also is an indicator that what you're doing isn't working as well as you like it, too, so let's change it up and do some different things. I'm hoping that some of these are ideas that people had not previously seen before, so let me know if you get some of that feedback. Chris yeah, people are just sharing with their what they've been looking for. Some people talking about hang out near military bases, connecting with service members for their businesses. Always people are looking for their ideal clients and turns out in the chat room, there are some ideal clients for the businesses that people have so that's the perfect opportunity like that is a golden opportunity golden opportunity at an art opening is a good place if you if your ideal client is into the arts and enjoys going to gallery openings, it's a great place to meet. Um another really easy one easy on a level is weekly networking bien I and power core okay so business networking international air power core and I mentioned these in segments yesterday these are the ones where they only allow one a person from any given specialty to attend at any given time typically remember for a minimum of a year it's every single week it is a significant commitment and you are not allowed to miss if you miss you have to find a substitute to come in give your little elevator conversation starter and their own so it is a big commitment I have done both of these groups at various times I for me didn't find them particularly effective I have colleagues who found him very effective and the one who did was um an accountant and the reason she did was because her follow up was fantastic she actually had crafted now she's an email fallout and she also sent a personal note but her email follow up literally said great to meet you oh by the way here's to a great fit for me is and she details her ideal client and then she says let me know how I can help you grow your business wow I immediately thought that was no brainer I should have done that myself and when you concede tail for somebody who your ideal client is that's when they're gonna be able to go through their men told roland dax and start to match you and connect you with people they know if you are non specific in your ideal client if you say everyone who or anyone who I've tuned out my eyes are glazed over I cannot access my role it x and I cannot deliver to you what you most want, which is new clients and customers get specific don't be scared of that if you're still trying to figure out who ideal client is go back to yesterday's segments and you can always get the work burke when you invest in the program all right, so being higher power core another good one on a committee for a cause for a cause like a partnership against domestic violence is one that's near and dear to my heart. What about political campaigns? Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, um that's a really good place to be and especially since birds of a feather flock together you're going to be able to find you know lots of people and make sure you go in the window. How can your service help them do more of what they're loving to do? Find out what they love to do first and then find out how your service will contribute to that if mom's or your market mom's day out, a lot of churches have these I think some schools have them moms have never really been my market but it is a huge markets is extremely lucrative. Market s o you definitely won't want look at the mom's day out, so right now take a minute based on one of just shared and where will you network live? Not just online to meet with your ideal clients and chat room. I want to hear from you on the it's when I really do all our online guests chime in, get out of your box! I know you're saying, oh melissa, I'm already online that's all I need work with me here unless your business is one hundred percent online that's not going to be the case, okay? And I know not everybody in there is one percent online, so I really do want to hear back from you on that one already charming in melinda says, I go to events that I'm interested in my client's also go to them things like food truck events three d printing events volunteer stacy says volunteer, is brilliant that's a great way to network and also help my community at the same time it is it is voluntary makes a big, big difference you're seeing in a very favorable light you're giving it forward, yeah, really awesome.