A Personal Message From Bernadette
One unexpected benefit of becoming a mummy is the time management
miracle that appears to have taken place over the past 5 months.
Before I had my baby my working days were pretty unstructured.
I wrote when inspiration struck me. If I woke up one day and didn’t
feel like working, I simply took the day off.
As any parent knows, having a baby changes all that. Now, my working
hours are cast in stone. I no longer have the luxury of waiting
for the muse to appear before writing my newsletter. I have to
arrange for inspiration to synchronise with the 30 hours a week
that lovely Elena, the Spanish girl who came to live with us when
my baby was 12 weeks old, looks after Benan. They’re besotted
with each other (see the picture right.)
Those precious 30 hours are the time I have to do all ‘my’ stuff – that
includes work, exercise, meditation and a very essential weekly
massage.
Bottom line: I have just 20 hours a week for business. I’ve
got to admit, the first 5 weeks of this new working system were
hell. Feeling forced to work ‘set hours’, something
I had always made a point of avoiding, I was like a sulky and rebellious
teenager.
But having hard edges between my work time and free time has paid
off in unexpected ways. When I’m working I’m more focused,
a lot more organised, and because my free time these days really
IS free time, I return to my desk feeling truly refreshed.
If you, like me, want to get maximum results in minimum time,
then this week’s article will provide you with some practical
tips to help you leverage your marketing hours.
Teleseminars, Masterclasses And Events
The first live group coaching call of my Seminar Marketing Mastermind
Group takes place next Tuesday 30th January. During this call I’ll
be explaining why marketing techniques fail, critiquing a participant’s
marketing campaign, and answering your questions about marketing
seminars.
In the ‘hot seat’ this time round is Una Doyle (no,
we’re not related!). You may have seen Una on Living TV’s
Extreme Makeover where she is their resident confidence coach.
Now the tables are turned as Una undergoes her own ‘Extreme
Marketing Makeover’ live during this call.
If you want to join this call, then please know that membership
of my Seminar Marketing Mastermind Group is exclusively for owners
of my manual ‘How
to Make Money Marketing Seminars, Workshops and Training Courses’.
You can download this manual and get 3 free months membership here.
(If you already own the manual, and want to activate your free
3 month trial contact Liz).
Client Feedback
“My practice is going from strength to strength
- that depends on lots of factors now, of course, not least
doing a good job with the people I see and their recommendations
- but the fact that it ever got off the ground in the first
place is down to the shift in belief in myself that I got
from doing your seminar, and I couldn't put a price on that!”
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Linda
Lloyd, Homeopath
If you're a complementary therapist who wants to get results
like this, check out my brand new course EXCLUSIVELY
for complementary
therapists
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Featured Article
How To Get More Done In Less Time
One big question I hear over and over is ‘how on earth do
I find time for marketing and selling?’ The challenge of
running your own business is that typically you are not only the
sales manager, you’re also the person delivering the service
to your clients.
This is something I can strongly relate to, as I struggled with
it myself when I first set up my corporate training business back
in 1996.
What made the biggest difference for me was replacing one-to-one
sales and marketing activities with one-to-many activities.
One-to-one sales and marketing techniques are just
not effective for the small business owner. You can’t possibly
reach all the people you need to reach, establish their needs,
propose a solution, close the sale, deliver the goods and follow
up effectively if you are doing it on a one-to-one basis.
Trust me, that’s a very fast route to burn out.
When things really started changing for me in my business was
when I dropped one-to-one marketing and selling and I turned it
into one-to-many marketing and selling. What this meant was that
I was making offers simultaneously to large groups of people, to
both attract them as prospects and then to convert them into paying
customers. Without cold calling. Without time consuming face-to-face
meetings.
So let me give you some examples of some one-to-one activities
that you may already be doing, and show you how you can transform
them into one-to-many techniques.
Going to a networking meeting where you meet one person at a time,
talk to them and exchange business cards is a one-to-one technique.
However, if you arrange to be the speaker at that meeting and provide
practical, solution oriented content along with a clear next step
and call to action at the end of your talk, you’ve just turned
it into a one-to-many technique.
Cold calling is definitely a one-to-one prospecting technique.
There are a finite number of people that you can cold call over
a period of a week. Send a well crafted direct mail piece, however,
and you have replaced it with a one-to-many technique. When I started
my business, I couldn’t afford to hire a sales team, and
I just didn’t have time to prospect by phone, have the face-to-face
meeting AND deliver the training (highly ironic considering my
specialism was cold calling) so I started using direct mail to
promote my training courses. Suddenly, instead of me having to
try 6-8 times to reach the MD of a company, his secretary was calling
ME to request a meeting. (This technique isn’t for the faint-hearted
though, and you need a cracking foundation in direct mail and copywriting
techniques before you plunge in. Check out my friend Lorrie
Morgan-Ferrero’s
Copywriting Bootcamp which is starting soon)
Free introductory consultation is a one-to-one technique, but
you can turn it into a one-to-many technique by hosting a teleconference
that still enables you to connect with people, but in a group setting.
I know of one coach who has built a multi six-figure business and
he credits this one technique for his success.
Calling on a customer with a box of doughnuts
is a one-to-one relationship technique. There are only so many
customers you can
see, and only so many doughnuts you can eat! A newsletter like
this one is a one-to-many relationship building tool. For example,
it takes me the same hour to write this newsletter each week whether
it's read by 100 people, 1000 people or 10,000 people. And I don’t
have to eat a single doughnut! You do the same amount of work but
your results keep increasing. And that's what gives you the edge
over people who are stuck using one-to-one techniques.
The main advantage of replacing one-to-one techniques with one-to-many
techniques is that you get a better return on your investment of
time, because in that hour you’re potentially reaching hundreds
of thousands of potential prospects rather than just the one. So
you need to replace your one-to-one techniques with one-to-many
techniques.
If you want to grow your business exponentially and you want to
be in a position where your calendar is full and you’ve got
people knocking on the door for your services, switching from one-to-one
techniques to one-to-many techniques is crucial.
Put this principle into action now! Write down all the things
that you currently do to promote your business. Determine whether
they are one-to-one or one-to-many techniques. Then brainstorm
some creative ways that you can turn those one-to-one techniques
into one-to-many techniques. (If you want help with this, feel
free to post a question on my blog.)
Want more? The concept of replacing one-to-one marketing tools
with one-to-many marketing tools is just one of the ideas I cover
in my Masterclass ‘How to Attract Corporate Clients’.
If you’re tired of banging on the door of big companies and
you want them calling YOU instead, then this masterclass is essential
listening (and reading). Get all the details right
here.
© Bernadette Doyle, 2007
WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE? See
more articles at my website
Want To Use This Article In Your Newsletter Or Website?
You can, as long as you include this complete info with it:
Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals.
If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them,
then get your free tips now at www.clientmagnets.com
Coming Next Week
How to Make Your First Online Sale!
See you next time.

Bernadette Doyle
http://www.clientmagnets.com
http://www.howtomarketyourworkshop.com
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