“How to Beef Up Your Marketing So That You Can Attract Clients You Love, Who Are Willing To Pay Great Money For The Work.“

by Therese Skelly

Here’s a little secret…unfortunately there is no correlation between how good you are, and how much money you make. You can be the best kept secret in town if you don’t have the right marketing message. And I don’t want that for you, my pretties!!! If you’ve been reading my stuff for any length of time, one of the messages I preach is how to own your expertise and get out there so you can serve those you are supposed to serve….while getting paid well! That is a beautiful thing.

Recently I was asked by the Arizona Holistic Chamber of Commerce to speak about “How to Sell Without Feeling Salesy.” It was a big hit because so many people in the holistic professions are very heart centered and marketing and sales is not usually something they have loads of training in. And one of the first points I made was that we have to remember that we are in the business of MARKETING whatever business we are in.

But what if you don’t have a clue about where to start? Or worse yet, you have the fear deep down inside that your marketing ‘sucks’ because it just isn’t working? How about if I shine some light on that for you?

As a bonus to the attendees of the AZ Holistic Chamber, I did a follow up live “Marketing Makeover” in which I spent about 35 minutes with Pam Fox, of www.LipStory.com. I’ll share with you the audio so you can listen and learn, but these are some of the main points I covered with her that you can use also.

Tip #1 – Be sure your website ‘calls out’ to your market. You have 3-5 seconds when people land on your page for them to decide if they are in the right place. At the top, in bold letters, do something that says – “Attention: (insert target here)”

You can use their identifiers like “coaches, consultants, and speakers,” but it’s really much more powerful to use language that is connected to their pain. Even better would be – “Attention frustrated coaches, consultants and speakers who have so much to share, but are sick of not having the marketing in place to get your work in the world so that you can serve the people you want and earn the money you deserve!”

See how that speaks more to both their pain and desire? Play with that for your market and notice if you get more web traffic.

Tip #2 – Your web copy should be about the visitor and NOT about you! A huge mistake I see is when some well meaning web designer (or even inexperienced copywriter) says, “Let’s put your vision, mission and purpose on the home page.” Yikes!!! This is where I go a bit nutto with my clients and tell them to immediately get that off. The cold hard truth is that if a visitor lands on your page and it’s all about you, they’ll click away faster than you can say, “What the heck just happened?”

After you have called them out (tip #1) then you need to tell them that you understand their pain.

Fresh out of Life Coaching School, I realized that while I was pretty good at coaching, I had absolutely no idea how to market and get clients in the door. I found a coach who had probably one of the worst websites I’ve ever seen. It was busy, didn’t navigate well, had no flow, and was amazingly effective…because of one thing.

He had a drop down box which said – “Are you a coach who feels like this:”

• “I love what I do but hate to market”

• I have so many good ideas but don’t know where to start

• I get overwhelmed with creativity and don’t know how to make money

There were about eight more of these, and by the time I finished reading his really annoying site, I was convinced that this man understood my challenges and hired him on the spot! This essence is what you have to put in the first paragraph of your site so your visitors are instantly connecting to you and deciding that you have credibility.

Tip #3 – Make your site also about data collection. I’m just gonna step out and be bold here – if you aren’t capturing names/emails of the folks who visit you, why bother having a site in the first place? People search and find your site, but may not be in a place to buy right then. But if you have a wonderful item of value like a special report that you give in exchange for their email, you can then market to them and begin to create that relationship so that when they are ready, you’ll be top of mind.

Your website is a tool for marketing, and not just a pretty brochure! (And if you are stuck on this one, you may want to get a strategy session with me because we can come up with what you could offer and how it is done.)

Tip #4 – Be in regular contact with your database. Here too is a place where you may have to buck up and get out of your comfort zone. Many people send a monthly newsletter and feel like they are being a pest, so you’ll be stretched when I suggest that WEEKLY contact is the best. Is that little voice kicking off in your head now telling you how you’ll be annoying them, and oh no…what if they get mad or unsubscribe? I say, let ‘em leave you!

It’s like this…you want to be the first person your target list thinks of. Imagine that you used a plumber six months ago and you thought he was just the greatest thing since sliced bread. But you stuck his card in a junk drawer somewhere, so when your pipes backed up again, you grab the phone book or Google and find the closest plumber. But what if every month that plumber you liked sent you tips on how to keep your plumbing working well? What if you had just gotten a post card in the mail reminding you that you were in need of an annual inspection, or even if the plumber had his office assistant call and thank you for your business in the past? (Those were some offline marketing tips, Gang!) Who would you call? Exactly – the person that was top of mind, and in this case, the plumber who was rocking his marketing.

Tip #5 – Be BOLD!!! OK, gotta admit, this is one of my faves. In fact, I have created a whole new program around the acronym of B.O.L.D. which I’ll be rolling out soon. What do I mean by this? It’s about staying true to your gifts, your quirks, your brilliance, and your way of doing things. In my B.O.L.D. program I speak about Owning your vision, Owning your Expertise, and Owning your style. Too often we try to be like our mentors or try to spin a professional image that takes away the personality and “relate-ability” we have. Being bold means making strong claims, having the courage to back them up, and doing in a way that is unique to you, and one that your ideal market will resonate with.

Tip #6- Leverage your marketing. You’ll hear as I coach Pam in the audio below, that I turn her marketing activities around by going from working 1:1 to finding the gatekeepers for her market. Here’s how it works. Let’s say you market promotional products and you are trying to sell to realtors. The one-to-one model is that you go to a networking meeting, find a realtor, have a good connection, then have a coffee date later to talk about what they do and how your services could support them. The leveraged model looks like this – you partner with the associations that realtors belong to. You get to either sponsor an event, positioning you as the expert, or you could speak at the event, or do something else to be in front of their members. Do you see the time differences? Look for the gatekeepers. That means you’ll know who your market is, and where your service can solve their problem. (That’s a huge factor in opening up relationships.) Listen in on how I did it with Pam, and you can get some ideas for your business.

Now it’s your turn! Listen to the audio and send me the top three things you are going to differently to get your expertise in the world in a big way. Click here to listen now.