cold calling Archives - Page 2 of 4

Am I Doing Something Wrong?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

My clients often ask me to help figure out what’s wrong with their marketing. The first question I ask is how much marketing they’ve been doing, since many failures have more to do with quantity than quality. But assuming you’ve been sufficiently active at promoting yourself, here are some other ways in which your marketing might need fixing.

There are three areas you should examine — the package of services you are offering, your marketing strategies, and your sales methods. In order to market and sell effectively, your package of services should meet the following requirements:

Rejection: It’s Not About You

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Mindset

One of the most persistent barriers to success for self-employed professionals is fear of rejection. Sometimes this fear is quite conscious. You know that you are avoiding marketing and sales because you’re afraid your prospects will say no.

Other times the fear is lurking in the background, making an impact you’re not always aware of. You may find yourself procrastinating about making a phone call or setting up a sales appointment, and blame it on laziness or poor time management. Or you may avoid following up because you “don’t want to bug people.” Or perhaps it feels pushy to ask directly for a sale.

You Already Know How to Market… So Why Don’t You Have All the Clients You Need?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

For the past twenty-plus years, I’ve been asking self-employed professionals to tell me the most effective ways they know to get clients. No matter where and when I ask this question, their answers are always the same: “networking,” “referrals,” “word of mouth.” These are the right answers. The professionals I ask know this to be true.

But then I ask a follow-up question: “What are you doing right now to market yourself?” And what I hear back is surprising, given the answers to my first question. More than half the people I ask tell me their primary focus is on something other than those answers. They’ll tell me they are building a new website, or mailing out postcards, or running pay-per-click ads, or cold calling strangers, or launching a Facebook page, or exhibiting at an expo, or posting promos on Twitter.

Did You Ask for the Sale?

by Kristine Carey | Sales Conversations

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was on the organizing committee for a huge event. We rented out a venue that could hold 1500 people and hoped to fill it as full as possible. We engaged a well-known author and speaker. We had multiple teams of volunteers handling the event promotion, venue logistics, lunches, back of the room book sales, travel and other arrangements for the speaker. In short, we were on it.

As event day drew closer, we noticed ticket sales were lower than hoped. Not to worry, we thought; we know that many people wait until the week or two before an event to buy their tickets. Nonetheless, the promotion team redoubled their efforts to get the word out. One week before the event, ticket sales still lagging, we realized we had a serious problem and were not likely to meet our goal. Again, the promotion team made one last effort to get the word out.

When the big day arrived, we had fewer than 100 people in attendance. We barely broke even on the event and our efforts to fill the organization’s coffers — and bring a message of hope and transformation to a big audience — were, well… failing.

What Does a Sales Conversation Sound Like?

by C.J. Hayden | Sales Conversations

A sales conversation is the exchange between you and a prospective client where you find out what the client needs, explain what you offer, and see if there’s a match between you. It’s neither a lecture nor arm-twisting; it’s a discussion between peers about an arrangement that will serve you both.

Here’s what a conversation like this sounds like in real life, with a few asides to note what you might learn from it.

Accountant Meg: Hi, Jack, this is Meg Jones, the small business accountant. How are you today? (Meg re-identifies herself to Jack. She also doesn’t launch right into a lengthy speech.)

Prospective Client Jack: I’m good, but a little busy right now.

Meg: I hope “busy” is good news for you. Do you have just a few minutes to talk about us working together? Last time we spoke you said you’d like to explore that idea. (She acknowledges Jack’s situation, but doesn’t just end the call. She asks permission to continue, and reminds him of a reason he may want to.)

Come in from the Cold: Warm Up Your Marketing

by C.J. Hayden | Sales Conversations

Do you feel uncomfortable trying to market your business to strangers? Most of us do. Making cold calls, knocking on doors, or attending networking mixers where you don’t know a soul can be challenging or even painful. Happily, cold approaches like these are not all there is to marketing. In fact, you may never need to use them at all.

Perhaps you already know this, and have been marketing your business in other ways. For example, launching a website, exhibiting at trade shows, running pay-per-click ads, distributing flyers, sending emails and letters to people who don’t know you, or posting promos on social media. But all of those approaches are “cold” as well, and many of them can be expensive.

Whenever you are trying to start a marketing conversation with a stranger — with no introduction, referral, or shared connection to help you — it’s a cold approach, whether you make it on the phone, in a room, by mail, or online. And cold approaches, across the board, are less effective than warm ones.

Your Market Niche: an Essential Key to Success

by C.J. Hayden | Success Ingredients & Tools

How important is it that you have a clearly defined market niche for your professional services? Can’t you simply make yourself available to work for anyone who might need you? Doesn’t having a niche limit you to serving only a small portion of possible clients? Why would you want to rule out any possible sources of business? Discovering the answers to these questions can have a powerful impact on the success or failure of your business.

When you have a market niche, it defines either your target market — who you wish to target as prospective clients -– or your professional specialty –- the services you specialize in providing within the broader scope of your profession. The most effective niches define both these elements.

Your Marketing: One-to-One or One-to-Many?

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Plans & Strategies

It seems like there’s a new way to market your business appearing every five minutes here in the 21st century. How can self-employed professionals know which marketing methods will make the most sense for them?

When evaluating possible ways to market your business, it can help significantly to apply a quick test — is the marketing method you’re considering “one-to-one” or “one-to many?” Here’s how they’re different.

Get More Clients by Doing Less

by C.J. Hayden | Getting Things Done

I’ve been hearing from a lot of overworked entrepreneurs lately. “I’m worn out from going to networking events,” they say, or, “I’m tired of always having to think up new stuff to post online.” They’re working pretty hard at marketing, it seems -– networking, blogging, posting to social media, speaking, making calls, sending out email blasts, and more.

When they don’t get the results they want from marketing, entrepreneurs usually try to take on more. If their focus has been on in-person marketing, they begin marketing online. Or if they have been writing articles and blogging and being active on social media, they decide to start speaking and giving workshops. Or if they’ve been going to lots of events and lunches and coffee dates, they add in a call-mail-call campaign.

Huff, puff… it makes me tired just to write about all that activity.

Find Your Marketing Muse: 5 Types You Can Choose

by C.J. Hayden | Marketing Mindset

Are your marketing activities in need of a boost? Motivation? Inspiration? Consider adopting a muse.

A muse is a person or being that serves as a source of inspiration. To adopt a muse means to intentionally choose a model individual to inspire your work. Following a chosen muse can guide you as a self-employed professional to sort out what you need to do in order to market yourself successfully.

Here are five Marketing Muses you might consider adopting. Each one embodies a different set of abilities and personal qualities which you might be able to relate to, or to emulate.

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