Session #5/8 with 2 Financial Coaches: Marketing Their Seminar!

October 18, 2010 By

By the end of the 5th session, M&M no doubt feel a little
like this guy. One of them says to me, “I can hardly wait
for the next session!” with a little more than a touch of
sarcasm. I can be highly creative, but I can also be meti-
culously analytical, and this is the session where that side
of me comes out in spades! I lead them step-by-step through
a detailed discussion of how to market their signature portal
seminar.

They want to penetrate a local, not national, market, so we
explore an entirely local strategy—yet this session will
stimulate your marketing juices, even if you are doing on-
line marketing. So the question we answer in this session
is, “What are all the ways you’re going to reach your
market?”

We list all Touch-Point 1 venues again–churches, Rotary Clubs
and other affinity groups, schools and referral partners, and then
(and this is where it got painstakingly detailed), we moved through
every step in the communication process with each venue.
What does the initial outreach look like for most of them? Usually,
it’s calling to ask what form of contact they prefer: letter, brief face-
to-face appointment, phone call, email? They would do this with
referral partners and the places where they would actually give
their seminar. Then, we look at every communication piece
they will need, from letters of introduction, to a phone script, to
leave-behinds such as fliers or postcards. They’ll need something
for their referral partners (marriage counselors) to hand out to their
clients about the signature program, and they’d need something
to hand churches, schools and affinity groups that would describe
the event and its benefit to them.

This may all seem common sense, but I tell you, very few people
subject their marketing to such microscopic analysis until it’s
right upon them, and then they become overwhelmed. M&M may
feel blown away with all the initial footwork and planning that’s
entailed in formulating all of the promotional communication,
but it’s better to be overwhelmed with lots of time on your hands
than with very little–which is the case for most.

We also talk about networking options for them, such as NAWBO,
BNI and Meet-Ups, and the communication pieces that are require
for those scenarios. I tell them the secret that helped me stand
out at networking events: handing out a postcard–not a flier and
not a business card–that described my 2-hour live event and acted
as a “ticket,” elevating its status above typical leave-behinds at
networking events.

And we discuss publicity options such as, of course, the required
press release, but also the idea of M&M, as that “older and wiser”
couple, videotaping themselves interviewing younger couples
on the street, as a way to get some local publicity and also as
a way to move them onto the internet, by putting those videos
on their blog.

Finally, one of the “M”s asks me, “What key phrases tend to get
people to take action; that would have them want to come hear
this?” And I told them one of the Brain-Sticky tricks of marketing
communication: humans hate to not know something; to re-
alize there is information they don’t have. We can’t stand it. That’s
why the 5:00 news trailers always say something like, “What is
the dangerous bug that could be hiding out in YOUR child’s stuffed
animal? Tune in to find out.” Are you going to watch? Heck, yes!
I’ve even DVR’d a local news segment because they “got me” with
one of these. We cannot stand not knowing information—if it is
relevant and important to us.

So I tell M&M that they want to employ this in their marketing
copy, namely teasing couples with the fact (and it is a fact) that
they are embroiled in a secret cycle that is causing their financial
problems. Because it’s stimulating the brain’s “need to know,” and
it is extremely relevant to their couples, they will want to attend
the seminar just to find out what that secret cycle is.

So, detailed, methodical and not exactly sexy, but the topic of
this session was, as M&M both concluded, the “kick in the pants
they needed to get all of this started.” Maybe it is for you, too?
Here’s an action-item for you: write down all of your Touch-
Point 1 venues (where you’ll reach your market). Then next to each,
determine the first point of communication—what is it? And what
communication piece will it require? Then, what other communi-
cation pieces will you need as you deepen your relationship with
each venue?

TOMORROW you can see the first promotional video about
the 8 CD-Set, which will be available on Wednesday! Come back
here to find out where to go, or get on my list (above) to get
the information sent to your email. Session #5 is tomorrow, so
stay tuned for what I do next with M&M!

Filed Under: Eavesdropping on Sessions, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Session 4 of 8 with 2 Financial Coaches: The Signature Program!

October 15, 2010 By

In the last session of this 8-session consultation where I
help two financial coaches Get Clients With a Signature
Program that Sells AND Transforms, I saw what M&M’s
“brand concept” could be—a teaching point that would
differentiate them from every other financial coach (and
everyone period, actually). It was a 3-phase ineffective
communication cycle that was the root cause of financial
trouble for couples who’d been married over eight years.

In this 4th session, we dive very deeply into their signature
seminar event. In fact, I create, point-by-point, M&M’s entire
90-minute portal seminar, using the “Transformation Arc,”
where the couples experience the “ick” they’ve been wading
through for years—an essential part of transformation. We
entitle the program, Feast or Famine: Breaking a Couple’s
Secret Cycle of Financial Breakdown.

In this session, I teach M&M the transformational coaching
tool I used to use with my clients when I was a personal
growth coach to shift them immediately from one fixed way
of thinking to a completely new, empowered one. This, of
course, is necessary for couples who have been cycling
through these 3 phases of ineffective communication: they
have been rooted in one way of thinking—for instance, the
thought that my spouse will kill me if tell him I just spent
$900 on the kids’ clothes—and must move into another one
that is just as true, but far healthier for the family and their
financial future.

So, in this transformational seminar, not only do M&M teach
the couples what the 3-phase communication cycle is–
creating an awareness they will never be able to forget– but
also how to get out of it, by using this coaching tool to instantly
“boot” them into new beliefs about communicating with
their spouse.

Once the couple moves through this transformation tool,
they can never go back to the Feast or Famine Communi-
cation Cycle. They’ve been changed forever. Armed
now with tools for changing how they communicate, their
couples are ready to look at the next cause of their financial
struggles: budgeting and reducing debt.

Believe it or not, we accomplish the design of their program
quite quickly in this session (I’ve had tons of experience!)
and move on to some very practical issues, namely how to
“repurpose” the teaching concept in this portal
program. “This teaching should be in everything you do,”
I tell M&M. Breaking the Secret Cycle of Financial Breakdown
should be the topic of their opt-in report, what their YouTube
videos, ebook, articles, blog posts—all of their marketing and
promotional material—should focus on. This is why I call it a
“brand concept.” And we spend some time detailing what those
items will be.

So what about you? Do you have a single, powerful
teaching concept that could become your brand? Have you
given thought to your signature program—and what the root
cause of your market’s main problem is?

Remember, next Tuesday, October 19th, you can
eavesdrop-in on all of these sessions when I release
the 8-Session CD set. Hear every juicy detail!

Filed Under: Eavesdropping on Sessions, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Session 3 of 8 With 2 Financial Coaches Who Want More Clients

October 14, 2010 By

In my third session with M&M, we delve very specifically
into the topic for their “portal,” signature program. In order
for this seminar to be Brain-Sticky, it must solve their market’s
biggest problem—based on our work on their “Trigger Event.”
The couples M&M serve, and want to serve more, bring in a
decent income; income is not their problem. Their problem is
that despite good income, they keep coming up short every
month. They have nothing to show for the hard work and
respectable salary. And from the Trigger Event exercise, we
realize that the husband most commonly blames the wife
for spending too much each month. He’s said it before, but
is never heard. The wife believes wholeheartedly that what
she purchases is necessary. Then, we uncovered that perhaps
the husband is making purchases that aren’t showing up on
the credit card—secret purchases.

I ask M&M, what is the bottleneck problem? If it were removed,
everything else would flow? We bandy about some ideas, but
then recognize that the essential issue, the one that must be
removed before the subject of budgeting or debt reduction
can be addressed, is ineffective communication between
the spouses. If that were cleared up, their money struggles
would disappear because they could actually work on them
together, instead of from opposite sides of the ring.

Well, “communication” needs to be defined and pulled apart.
We spend a good portion of this session determining what
kind of communication is going on, no matter how ineffective.
And with some hair-splitting analytical questions from me,
I begin to help them form what will become the cornerstone
of their teaching concept. We determine that there is a
“cycle” that couples go through in communicating (which
includes not communicating) about money in particular.
It is a 3-phase cycle that is predictable and very common. I
said to them during this session, “If you put a name to this
cycle, you could brand it.” What I would later say is that
“Your entire business can be branded from this ‘teaching
concept.’ I call that a brand concept”—a unique, differenti-
ating teaching idea you can be known for. (see earlier post.)

Once we had this 3-phase ineffective communication
cycle, we looked at the “objective” for their portal seminar
and decided it was, “to give couples the tools to alter this
cycle forever, so that they can begin a life of financial ease.”

It follows, naturally, that the free portal seminar would
provide those tools. So, next we needed to determine what
the tools are that would break this cycle, and how would
we move the audience through them to a powerful shift?

This would be, as you can see, a transformational seminar.
Not merely an informational one. And this is the secret, I
believe, to the “new age” upon us: to create transformation
in any audience, on any topic, even one as—at first blush—
boring as finances.

Come back tomorrow because session 4 is the most GOLDEN
session of all 8! We plan their 90-minute transformational
portal seminar. See you then!

And remember…Tuesday is the release of the 8 CD set of
these 8 sessions with M&M!

Filed Under: Eavesdropping on Sessions, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Session 2 of 8 With Two Financial Coaches Who Want Clients

October 14, 2010 By

In the first session, M&M and I looked quite deeply at their
target market. What would be the natural next question?
How do you reach them? I call these your Touch Point 1
venues. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to convince M&M that
speaking is hands-down the best way to connect with a
market; they had already done some speaking.

So in this session, we delve deeply
into this subject, again gathering
data and building upon it. Where
have they spoken before? Where
could they speak that they’d never
thought of, and which are the three
most effective venues? We decide
that to attract couples, they would
reach out to churches, libraries,
Barnes & Noble (they could ostensibly
speak on Dave Ramsey’s book), and
local boards of education to see if they
promote workshops for parents.

From there, we begin to touch on content. What have they
spoken about in the past? Well, their previous topics have
been rather dry, focused on how to budget and reduce debt,
so I draw us into thinking about what would be most Brain-
Sticky. To determine that, we must know who would be in
the audience (target market), and what would get them there.
So we need to understand the Trigger Event (see yesterday’s
post) and their market’s most acute pain, and of course
M&M’s special solution.

I advised them that this time, they need to give more than
just an information-based seminar. In this day and age,
I told them, you want your audiences to be transformed
in some way, right away. And you do that by taking them
through what I call the “Transformation Arc”: this is a certain
trajectory that guarantees a powerful shift in thinking and
very often a shift in behavior.  This “arc” begins by getting
their market immediately into the ugly emotion they deal
with (even unconsciously) every day. I call it “getting
them into the  ick.”

The male “M” of M&M, who has done all the presenting in
the past, is unsure of this direction. He has always worked
with audiences in what I call the “Old Paradigm,” where
he hauls out a Power Point (aaaaggghh!) and didactically
transfers knowledge, without much engagement with those
in the room. I point out to him that in order for his audience
to be moved enough in this  free “portal” talk to then buy
a service package with M&M, they must FEEL—and you can-
not tell someone to feel; you must set the stage for them to
experience emotion themselves. This, and only this, creates
transformation in them, and a far stronger interest in
buying.

Next, we need to solidly determine what the “ick” is for their
particular market. What is the emotional sludge these
couples are wading through, as it pertains to their financial
struggle? Well, in the next session, three, we hit pay dirt!
Together we figure this out and with that knowledge, we begin
to sketch out the Brain-Sticky concept of their portal,
signature program…that could become the differentiation
for their entire business! Be sure to come back tomorrow to
see what it is!

As for you: is speaking on your list for strategies to get
more clients and build your list? What Touch Point 1 venues
will best reach your market? And what about the “ick” your
market stews in day in and day out—how can you have them
experience or come face to face with that “ick” in a talk you
give? Would love to hear your thoughts below! And feel free
to share this post so others can get eavesdrop, too!

Filed Under: Eavesdropping on Sessions, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

8 Sessions with 2 Financial Coaches Who Want Clients

October 12, 2010 By

I had an 8-session consultation with two financial coaches
who wanted more clients to walk in the door. There was one
thing they were clear on: once they had clients, these two
coaches would do amazing work with them. The trick was
getting them in the door! Sound familiar?

Over the next 8 days, you’re going to get the chance to
“eavesdrop” in on my sessions with “M&M” and get some
ideas for your own business. This is just a sampling of
the work I do and I decided to make it public—not just
in these blog posts, but in a CD product I’m launching
next week! You’ll be able to get the actual sessions,
plus 2 great bonuses, starting next Tuesday.

So Session 1 with M&M. Of course, I need to get the lay of
the land: how long have they been coaching, who have
they been coaching, etc. They tell me they were trained
through Dave Ramsey and have been coaching couples
on and off for ten years, mostly giving their coaching
away. Now, they’re ready to make money! I am pleased
to see that they have a somewhat Brain-Sticky differentia-
tion already, promoting themselves as, to paraphrase,
the “seasoned couple working with younger couples.”
This is, of course, very appealing, as what younger couple
wouldn’t want to be guided by an “older and wiser” couple,
who had weathered financial storms in marriage?

I am also pleased to see that they have a target market!
I can’t tell you how many service entrepreneurs don’t.
“Couples” is still too broad, but we can begin to focus this
down by looking at the age of their market’s children. Do
M&M work with very new couples, who have newborns?
Or those who have preschoolers? Or are they in high school,
facing the issue of college? Each “era” has its own difficulties
and it is critical to know which difficulty they want to
address as coaches. They tell me that most of their clients
have children in elementary-school, indicating that (generally),
the parents have been married at least seven years, and up
to 14 years.  These are often pressure-cooker times, when
the honeymoon is over, financial issues are no longer
ignorable and volcanic eruptions occur.

I begin to take M&M through a process I call the “Trigger
Event.” The fact is, humans walk around thinking they can
handle most of their issues by themselves, or at least with
the help of friends and family. But something happens, one
day—in fact, one moment—that triggers their dawning reali-
zation that they need help. This is a tough exercise for most
people, and M&M and I move right in like “Google Earth” on
their couples, looking in on a typical scene when such an
awakening might occur. They decide the couple is reviewing
a new credit card statement and we move through the entire
scene: what the conversation is like, what eruption occurs,
and what finally “pops the cork;” has one or both of them
blurting out, “We can’t do this alone!”

Why is this important to know? For starters, it is critical
to understand that you won’t make money if your market
isn’t hungry—and they aren’t always hungry. I always tell
my clients and students that your greatest competition is
not someone else, but rather the idea, “I can do this myself.”
But there will be a tipping point when they are in such pain
or frustration they are finally ready to spend money. And
you want to know what that pain is—on a very specific level
—so you can refer to it in marketing copy, creating intimacy
with your market as they “self-identify,” saying, “That’s me!”
—and so you can potentially influence that trigger event in
those who haven’t had it yet. The trials and tribulations are
there in the background, like a humming furnace, but they
haven’t realized they need help yet. You can help them
realize it, by talking about those moments, only if you know
what they are.

So, what is a moment that would wake up your market
from enduring and tolerating whatever is not working for
them? Would love to hear your ideas below! And be sure
to come back tomorrow, when M&M decide on the strategy
they’re going to use to get more clients!

Filed Under: Eavesdropping on Sessions, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What’s Your Business’s “Brand Concept”?

October 5, 2010 By

The service entrepreneurs I work with—coaches, healers
nutritionists, consultants, therapists–love to perform their
services, but they also love to inform: so they speak
or give seminars. But often, what they’re speaking about
has no “through-line.” I just had coffee with a wonderful
new friend last week, who reminded me of this term.

 A “through-line” is a theater term that means, “the
theme that runs through the plot of a film or other
dramatic work.” I would say it’s fitting to consider
businesses “dramatic work,” and so we want a “theme
that runs through the plot of our businesses.” And when
we’re giving a seminar or even a single presentation,
we want to ensure that it is inside of the through-line,
promoting that theme, reinforcing it, growing it. But
again, too many presentations and seminars are “isolated
incidences” that have no roots to a larger theme.

I am one week into my intensive program, 12 Sentences:
Ultimate Business Creation and Articulation, and the
participants are soon going to be considering their
business’s theme, so that everything they do—from
the articles they write to the opt-in gifts they offer to
their blog content…to the presentations they give—
runs through the “spine” (another word for through-
line) of their business.

Next week, I’m going to be launching my first CD set!
SO excited about that! And as you will see in the videos
I’ll be releasing about it next Tuesday, one of the many
things I did with two financial coaches was help them
develop their “teaching concept” for the free seminar
they would be giving to attract more clients. By teaching
concept, I mean  the main premise of that signature
program. This teaching concept soon became their
“brand concept”—the premise or idea they were putting
forth not just in their free signature program, but the
premise or idea that supported their business and that
they would teach everywhere.

This teaching concept would be threaded through
the free report, ebook or video training for their opt-in;
it would be what they’d teach about in their articles,
and emphasize in their blog posts. It would be the subject
of radio interviews, local promotions and even a book,
should they choose to write one. I began referring to this
as their “brand concept.” The teaching concept “theme
running through the plot of their business.” It was created
as we developed the teaching premise of their signature
program, and then bloomed into the brand concept of their
entire business.

So, how do you know if you have a “brand concept”—or
even a teaching concept for your presentations? Well, let’s
start at the very beginning. Ask yourself this first, “Does
my presentation have a through-line, a theme that runs
through the plot of my business, or is it a tactical device,
a one-time talk I’m just ‘throwing together,’ with no strategic
roots”?

Next, “If I were to have a signature program—a free or
even paid event that people know me for—what is the
single concept I would teach in it?” (We won’t even consider
right now if it’s Brain-Sticky or not. Just consider the single
idea you would teach.)

And from there, ask yourself, “Could I teach this every-
where, in all of my marketing pieces, and feel that I was
teaching the most salient information out of everything
I could teach?” In other words, is this single idea the most
important and interesting I could put forth?

These are some ideas to get you started. But be sure to
register above in Blog Telecalls, for this week’s free
call at 1pm Thursday Oct. 7, where we’ll discuss this idea,
and I’ll share with you my signature program teaching concepts.

And stay tuned for the release of my 8-CD set next week,
the first in my Eavesdropping Series: How to Get Clients
with a Signature Program that Sells AND Transforms!

Filed Under: Business Articulation, public speaking, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How Marketable Is Your Service Business?

September 8, 2010 By

 

Very soon, I’ll be leading my intensive, Masters-Degree-
Level program, 12 Sentences: The Ultimate Business Creation
and Articulation Course, and one of the first issues we address
immediately in The 9 Strategic Inquiries Manual is the question,
“Are you marketable?” And it’s a tough inquiry. It’s scary to look
at whether what you have is good-enough. Perhaps you’ve put
months and years into learning a process that really matters to
you—but is it something the market really wants? You think it’s
a great idea, but does anyone else? And can you support (prove)
your claim that they would want it?

In this particular chapter and corresponding weekly call, participants
must face a few hard realities about the viability of their services.
When they don’t have enough clients, I always say, “Maybe they’re
just not that into you.” And sometimes that’s something you can
change (with a vamped-up Brain-Sticky differentiation, and/or a
new target market, and then strong, Brain-Sticky communications.)

But other times, you just aren’t selling anything the world wants.
We probably all remember what happened with New Coke. But
Pepsi failed, too, with its Pepsi A.M. and Crystal Pepsi. As Wallet
Pops writes on its blog:

      In the late 1980s, Pepsi came up with the brilliant plan
      to cater to the  breakfast cola drinker, under the assumption
      that because Pepsi contained caffeine, it must be a natural
      substitute for coffee. Well, you know what they say about
      assumptions — but needless to say, Pepsi AM was not successful,
      and neither was Pepsi’s later foray into clear cola, Crystal Pepsi.
      Apparently, when it comes to cola, the consumers know what
      they want — they want it brown, and they want to drink it all day
      long.

Then there was bottled water for pets, Harley Davidson Perfume,
Maxwell House Ready-to-Drink Coffee, RJ Reynolds smokeless
cigarettes and, of course, the Ford Edsel. These are enormous
companies, with vast resources, and certainly the ability to
conduct meticulous market research—yet in the end, the idea
failed. Nobody wanted what they were offering. And it
cost them millions. In many cases throughout business history,
it cost a company its entire reputation. It had one shot and blew
it.

So, can you escape this fate yourself? Or is it part and parcel of
being in business? I personally think it is, absolutely. Ideas are
going to fail. The trick is to not put all of our “eggs in one basket”;
to not fixate on one idea for business, stubbornly refusing to alter
direction. This is an issue I see with many of the students and clients
I’ve worked with over the years: they want to have the business
they want to have and no matter what they have to do, they’re
going to push that round peg into the square hole. People need this
service and come hell or high water, they’re going to get it! 

And then their sales are limp and they blame the economy, or make
excuses that they’re too busy to really promote their business…
when the reality is that the public doesn’t want what they have.

And I hate to say this, but I see this with greatest frequency among
service providers—coaches, wellness practitioners, speakers. They’re
not offering a marketable product or program.

How can you tell if you’re one of them? For starters, are you feeding
a significant pain? A service business solves a problem, and it
must be front and center, top-of-mind. You cannot be in a position
where you are convincing someone that they need you. They need
to ”get” that they need you—and they will if they’re acutely aware
of their pain.

Are you really focusing there? Or are you focusing on your great
service? Have you just earned a certification through an energy
healing school and are you all excited about how powerful and
transformational the work is? Or are you blown away by your
coaching school’s unique technique and can’t wait to share it?
Neither of these techniques will be marketable until they solve
a very noticeable problem.

You are un-marketable until you have a market with acute pain.

Now, maybe I’m going too far. You may be marketable to a market
with mild pain—but you’ll be relegated to your market’s “discretionary
income” column in their budget. You will be a luxury because without
a significant issue they need alleviated, there’s no urgency to buying
you.

In the service industry, people buy what they cannot do themselves.
And their spending rises in direct proportion to the degree of their pain
and to their inability to do it themselves. That’s why we pay a pretty
penny for lawyers, accountants, electricians, plumbers: we need them
badly and we don’t have their expertise.

You fall into the category of “highly marketable” when you find the
sweet-spot between these two.

So, to recap, to be marketable you need to solve an acute problem—
for the right market and have a specialty that they don’t have and that
they recognize they need, in order to alleviate their pain.

Now luckily, unlike most products, a service can be adjusted.  Indeed,
an entire service business can be adjusted (and must be!) to meet the
tastes of a particular market. A truly ho-hum, unmarketable business
can suddenly jump to life when its programs and services are revamped
to diminish or eliminate a specific pain in a truly original way.

One of the twelve sentences participants have to write in my 12 Sentences
course—after they’ve finished the incredibly rigorous strategic work–is,
“Why you MUST buy my service over doing nothing?” This, I tell them,
is their greatest competitor–not someone else in their field. When you
can answer this, (and all the other sentences) you are marketable. When
their pain is sharp enough and ”doing nothing” is unacceptable or just not
possible, they’ll buy you. So, try your hand at this one this week.

And tune in for the 3 free calls next week that give a sneak-peek into
12 Sentences. I have a feeling that Pepsi may have escaped their
major blunders if they’d taken it. 🙂

Filed Under: Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Get Your Heart On Straight

August 31, 2010 By

All of us are bombarded with “buy this!” messages, and as
business owners, I think we can sometimes drown in the
self-doubt these messages activate. “I should be doing that?!
I didn’t know that!” Furthermore, “inspired entrepreneurs”
—those wanting to change the world—can easily drown in
the constant quest to do it “right” because they feel a bit out
of sorts in the business arena, and so grab at countless promises,
praying they’ll be a life-line.

In other words, there’s a lot of fear that passes through the
hearts of coaches, wellness practitioners, authors and
speakers when it comes to business. And fear, as we know,
is entirely corrosive. It eats the healthy parts of us and all
too often kills our businesses all together.

Today, I’d like to make a suggestion: Get your heart on
straight. Take your head, in fact, and set it aside for a while
as you re-acquaint yourself with the meaning of your life.
Your mission. Your mission. You. You have one. One that
is independent of your business. Ask yourself, “What am I
here for? What am I very clear I am not here for? What is my
highest purpose on this earth?”

And put it on paper.

And ask yourself, “Am I living this?”

If you’re not, it is absolutely time to get your heart on straight.

Then, step your thoughts back into your business. What is its
highest purpose on earth? What is it to accomplish that will
move humanity forward? At the very pinnacle of its success,
what will it have achieved…that is important to our evolution?

Be called by something bigger than yourself and the marketing
messages you receive constantly will fall into two categories:
those that do not match your personal and business missions,
and those that do. This will be clear to you and you will be
far better equipped to say no to the wrong ones and yes to the
right. The fear and self-doubt these messages can invoke will also
fade as purpose–far greater than your little self and your little
business (not to be condescending, but just factual)–fills your
heart and transcends the minutiae of daily marketing messages.

Something must both anchor and emancipate you as you move
through the busy-ness of your business. Otherwise, you will be
swallowed up by the latest fads, trends and concepts—in the hope
that one will be your savior.

Your “savior” is connecting back to what you are here for. And
then ensuring that every action you take aligns with that–including
the business you offer and the way you offer it.

So, get back to the basics and get your heart on straight. Putting your
personal mission and your business mission into words—and then
sharing it with others—will ground you when you get unfocused,
and free you when you get tangled in fear and self-doubt. You are
here for a reason. When you do business from that realization,
nothing will stop you, and you will pull to you the right and perfect
guidance.

This is the first “Strategic Inquiry” we address in my upcoming 12
Sentences Business Creation & Articulation Course. More on that
soon.

Filed Under: A Little Inspiration, Business Articulation, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Your Target Market *IS* Your Business: Choose Wisely!

July 13, 2010 By Leave a Comment

 

Camp Brain-Sticky is open now, which means I’m
consulting privately with a few new clients. I thought
I’d give you a chance to eavesdrop on some of our
sessions. (Be sure to watch, btw, for my brand-new
”Eavesdropping Series” CD’s coming soon!).

So, there’s absolutely no where I can go with a client
until we determine who their target market is. I say to
every single client or student, “Your target market IS
your business. Switch target markets, and your programs
and information products change.” They must, because
they (services + products) must cater to the specific
needs, pains and desires of the market. In order, then,
to create or revamp those products and services, the
market must be clearly defined. This, believe it or not,
is much harder said than actually done.

There are 3 criteria through which every solo service
professional must pass their ideas for prospective target
markets: 1) Are you passionately interested in this market?
2) Are they hungry-to-starving for what you offer? 3)
Can they afford you?

If you cannot give an enthusiastic “two thumbs up” to
each one of these, you must go back to the drawing
board. Now, what does that mean?

Well, in many cases, it means that you scrap the market
you’ve been working with or considering. If you’re not
passionate about them, you won’t be able to sell them.
If they can take you or leave you (aren’t hungry), you
won’t be able to sell them. And if they don’t have money…
need I say more?

Here’s the process I took one client through yesterday:
I focused for quite a while on the first criteria: who is
she passionate about. I asked her these two questions:
1) What is the pain out there in the world that you would
most like to heal? She was aware enough to be able to
answer very quickly, and said, “Isolation.”

Next, I asked her, 2) “What section of the population
feels most isolated?” And to stimulate a strong answer,
I began taking her through human developmental stages
by “decades.” So, I said, “Are you interested in working
with children ages 1-20 on isolation issues?” She knew
she was not, so I moved to those in their twenties, and
because she had some interest, I asked her to answer on
a 1-10 scale. Then, to further refine things, I asked her
to discern whether she was most interested in working
with women or men in that decade. We quickly learned
that she wanted to work with women, so we continued
on through the decades, looking at her interest on a 1-10
scale, and ended the inquiry in the decade of the 70’s.

By doing this, we were covering the first two criteria
quite thoroughly. We began by my asking her the pain
she most wants to heal—which, in most cases, locates a
hungry market. If they’re in pain, they’re most likely hungry.
And then we addressed the gender question and the age-
range to see whom she is most interested in working with.

Her highest 1-10-scale score was for women in their fifties.
So, naturally from there, we dove into the precise nature
of their “isolation pain.” Every decade would have a unique
portrait of issues. We both felt that the pain for this decade
had everything to do with the “empty nest” syndrome, where
these women now feel isolated from their peers (no more
Booster Clubs to attend), have a recognition that they are
isolated from their husbands, now that the distraction of
kids has been removed. And they can very often come to
a realization that they are isolated from themselves: from
a knowledge of what they really want to do in the world.

Knowing the issues this group faces uniquely then enables
us to formulate the types of services and products this client
could offer. Do you see how different they would be if she
had chosen men in their thirties? Or women in their sixties?

The issues facing different markets is profound and it is
critical to ferret them out–in order to create programs that
are marketable; that will be bought.

After this work, I put this client in an incubation period of a
two days to determine if indeed this is the group she wants to
work with. If she sleeps on it and wakes up saying, “I just
don’t feel it”—then we have to go back to the drawing board.

If she does decide she wants to craft her programs around
this market, there is still more target-market work to be done:
diving deeply into the psychology of their wants and fears.
This information (which virtually no one explores) is crucial
to crafting not only the perfect program and product, but the
perfect marketing language that will pull that market out of
their reverie (i.e. denial) and into the program.

More on this later in the week!

Camp Brain-Sticky is still accepting applicants. Read
more here.

Filed Under: Business Articulation, Sales and Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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