You can find our newest blog posts at:
Attract More Business
and at
Margaret Adams.
5 weeks ago
Thursday, 23 September 2010
Tuesday, 31 August 2010
Starting A Consulting Business - 100 Tips
Just started out on my odyssey.
I'm writing 100 tips to help those starting a consulting business to get things right during their first year in business.
Actually the tips apply to businesses at all stages in their development.
You can use them in an established business and in a business development unit.
I've called the first tip, tip zero. If you're just starting out, then you need to do this before you begin.
If you're established in business, then do this every time you launch a major new programme.
You can read the advice by clicking on:
I'm writing 100 tips to help those starting a consulting business to get things right during their first year in business.
Actually the tips apply to businesses at all stages in their development.
You can use them in an established business and in a business development unit.
I've called the first tip, tip zero. If you're just starting out, then you need to do this before you begin.
If you're established in business, then do this every time you launch a major new programme.
You can read the advice by clicking on:
Starting a consulting business – Time to change career
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Starting A Consulting Business
Starting a consulting business can be a daunting task, especially in 2010.
It's a task that takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of commitment.
If you're looking to do that they you will need to think carefully about what you want to achieve.
You will also need to plan your progress carefully.
When I support organisations and individuals I encourage them to build their businesses around six pillars of success.
You can download a pdf of the six pillars of success by clicking on this paragraph
It's a task that takes a lot of time, a lot of effort and a lot of commitment.
If you're looking to do that they you will need to think carefully about what you want to achieve.
You will also need to plan your progress carefully.
When I support organisations and individuals I encourage them to build their businesses around six pillars of success.
You can download a pdf of the six pillars of success by clicking on this paragraph
When you think about the six pillars you need to think first about your vision.
Everything starts with your vision and your profit plan. You need to work out what people are prepared to buy.
Then you need to think about your key messages to your marketplace. You must have something to say that the world wants to hear.
Your reputation, your image and your brand are all important, too. The more you are respected, the more people will trust you.
Fourth on the list is your approach to marketing. There are so many ways you could work. Just find one that works for you.
Your website and your use of social media matter, too. You need to attract interest and convert interest to action. That's sales.
Finally, you need to think about your products and services.
Strange isn't it, that these are last on the list? Yet, most people think about these first.
Everything starts with your vision and your profit plan. You need to work out what people are prepared to buy.Then you need to think about your key messages to your marketplace. You must have something to say that the world wants to hear.
Your reputation, your image and your brand are all important, too. The more you are respected, the more people will trust you.
Fourth on the list is your approach to marketing. There are so many ways you could work. Just find one that works for you.
Your website and your use of social media matter, too. You need to attract interest and convert interest to action. That's sales.
Finally, you need to think about your products and services.
Strange isn't it, that these are last on the list? Yet, most people think about these first.
Do you like this model?
Saturday, 19 June 2010
Planning for austerity in FE
Times are tough and getting tougher.
At such times some businesses stop trading. Some retrench. Some cut back. Some take stock and reinvent themselves.
Guess which ones are best placed to make the most of the current situation and to respond to new situations as they arise?
Of course, it’s the businesses that reinvent themselves.
Reinvention is just another way of talking about aligning yourself with your market.
In business, when the market changes, the rest of us have to change, too.
As colleges and other providers look to reinvent themselves, there's a very important question to ask.
This means your organisation needs a value proposition that is built around two themes.
Most people in business know that there are three things their customers will buy.
These are:
Two action points come out of this.
The first is to make sure you are offering to deliver real value to employers. The second is to make sure that employers recognise the value you are offering.
So check out how you promote your organisation to employers and if they see things in the same way that you do.
Do this quickly, because it's part of your process of planning for austerity, and today no one in FE has any time to waste.
If you would like to reproduce this article for your own newsletter, click here for details.
At such times some businesses stop trading. Some retrench. Some cut back. Some take stock and reinvent themselves.
Guess which ones are best placed to make the most of the current situation and to respond to new situations as they arise?
Of course, it’s the businesses that reinvent themselves.
Reinvention is just another way of talking about aligning yourself with your market.
In business, when the market changes, the rest of us have to change, too.
As colleges and other providers look to reinvent themselves, there's a very important question to ask.
What exactly does the market want?
Most organisations out there want, first, to survive and second to be ready to take advantage of opportunities as they appear.This means your organisation needs a value proposition that is built around two themes.
- How will working with your organisation help an employer to be more likely to be around in two years’ time?
- How will working with your organisation help an employer to be well placed to seize opportunities in the coming months?
Most people in business know that there are three things their customers will buy.
These are:
- Guidance and support on how to make more money.
- Guidance and support on how to keep more of the money they make.
- Guidance and support on developing their capacity to do the two activities above.
Does our key message address all three of these issues?
If it does, you can expect your business to grow even in difficult times. If it doesn’t, then promoting your products and services is going to be an uphill struggle at any time, even when you’re “selling” free programmes. It will just be more difficult now.Two action points come out of this.
The first is to make sure you are offering to deliver real value to employers. The second is to make sure that employers recognise the value you are offering.
So check out how you promote your organisation to employers and if they see things in the same way that you do.
Do this quickly, because it's part of your process of planning for austerity, and today no one in FE has any time to waste.
If you would like to reproduce this article for your own newsletter, click here for details.
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Your customer pipeline (3) - Is it helping you to build your business?
Customer pipelines are great marketing tools. People love the concept of the customer pipeline. It’s a very popular search term on the internet. There are lots of new readers finding this blog as a result of searching for “customer pipeline”.
All of this is excellent . . . but is using the concept of the customer pipeline helping you to build your business?
Once you’ve used your customer pipeline to help you to differentiate between your different customer groups you can decide which groups merit having large or small amounts of marketing money spent on them.
This allows you to spend less on reaching all your contacts and to focus spending on the two groups where you have most to gain from your marketing efforts.
These groups are:
Alternatively you could spend the same amount of money but undertake more targeted and more relevant marketing. You’re almost certain to get a better return on your investment in this case because your approach is tailored to the specific circumstances and needs of defined groups of employers.
If you build your relationships with the employers in your customer pipeline who you have identified as your advocates you can save lots of time and money. All you have to do is to ask your advocates to refer you on to others.
It sounds simple but most providers don’t ask for referrals.
Those providers who do ask don’t ask often enough or in the right way.
Yet, your advocates are longing to tell the world just how good you are.
Spend some time helping your advocates to help you and you’ve just recruited a skilled and motivated free sales force.
This means you can spend less time on bringing in new business and more time on the important task of building relationships with employers.
Your customer pipeline could just remain a mechanism for establishing your relationship with each employer on your list. On the other hand it could become a valuable key account management tool and a generator of income.
It’s got the potential to be more than a great metaphor, so use your customer pipeline well.
See also:
Your customer pipeline - why it matters
Your customer pipeline (2): Building friendships
Have you created your customer pipeline?
All of this is excellent . . . but is using the concept of the customer pipeline helping you to build your business?
- You already know that you can differentiate your customers, using your customer pipeline.
- You know that your customer pipeline can help you to be clear about the quality and depth of relationship you’re likely to have with individual employers.
Your customer pipeline saves you money because . . .
Using your customer pipeline well helps you to save money because you can get away from “fingers crossed” marketing. That is marketing to every one on your list and hoping – or keeping your fingers crossed – that some of your efforts work.Once you’ve used your customer pipeline to help you to differentiate between your different customer groups you can decide which groups merit having large or small amounts of marketing money spent on them.
This allows you to spend less on reaching all your contacts and to focus spending on the two groups where you have most to gain from your marketing efforts.
These groups are:
- prospects with whom you have a well-established relationship who have not yet bought from you
- customers who have done one piece of business with you and who you want to encourage to make that second purchase.
Alternatively you could spend the same amount of money but undertake more targeted and more relevant marketing. You’re almost certain to get a better return on your investment in this case because your approach is tailored to the specific circumstances and needs of defined groups of employers.
Your customer pipeline saves you time because . . .
Used well your customer pipeline can also save you time and, as you know, time is money.If you build your relationships with the employers in your customer pipeline who you have identified as your advocates you can save lots of time and money. All you have to do is to ask your advocates to refer you on to others.
It sounds simple but most providers don’t ask for referrals.
Those providers who do ask don’t ask often enough or in the right way.
Yet, your advocates are longing to tell the world just how good you are.
Spend some time helping your advocates to help you and you’ve just recruited a skilled and motivated free sales force.
This means you can spend less time on bringing in new business and more time on the important task of building relationships with employers.
Making your customer pipeline work for you
Now you’ve got your customer pipeline set up you need to take steps to make it work for you.Your customer pipeline could just remain a mechanism for establishing your relationship with each employer on your list. On the other hand it could become a valuable key account management tool and a generator of income.
It’s got the potential to be more than a great metaphor, so use your customer pipeline well.
See also:
Your customer pipeline - why it matters
Your customer pipeline (2): Building friendships
Have you created your customer pipeline?
Friday, 21 May 2010
Your customer pipeline (2) - Building friendships
Your customer pipeline is a great tool for helping you to decide which employers are most likely to work with you and hence which employers are going to be of most value to you in the long run.
Used well your customer pipeline will help you to differentiate one employer from another and to make a judgement about how much resource to spend on building relationships with particular employers.
In simple terms you can use your customer pipeline to help you to work out how much value to place on an employer and hence how much to spend marketing to that employer.
It’s really difficult to sell to strangers. You don’t know anything about them. You don’t know about their needs and wants. You don’t know what keeps them awake at night. You don’t know if what you’re selling could be what they might want to buy.
Marketing to strangers is costly and not particularly rewarding. It’s hit and miss. You might be lucky, but then again, you might waste a lot of time and money trying to build a relationship with someone who has no intention of buying from FE – ever.
FE providers who don’t use the principle of the customer pipeline are doomed to sell to strangers forever, because they don’t take steps to convert strangers into friends. They don’t take steps to get employers into their customer pipeline. They don’t monitor employers’ progress as they travel along the pipeline.
Friends, on the other hand, are a little bit closer to you.
They are beginning to learn a bit about you. You know a little bit about them, too. You also know just how close you can get to them, because they send out signals, and if you’re on the ball, you pick those signals up.
In marketing terms friends are happy to learn more about you but they’re probably not ready to buy as yet. They will probably sign up for your newsletter. They might follow you on Twitter.
Make a hard sell to them, or bombard them with marketing messages, and they’ll disappear. They’re not that close to you as yet.
Yet, they’re in your pipeline. That means you can develop relationships with employers, provided you take care.
Help them to travel a little bit further along your customer pipeline. Help them to get to know you better by using the knowledge you already have of them to tailor what you offer them. Just make the offers without frightening employers away.
Pay attention to your friends for other reasons, too.
It will also be cheaper to market to them than trying to convert more strangers into friends. You already have established ways of getting in touch and keeping in touch, so the hard work of relationship building is done.
You hope your friends will become customers in the near future. That means you hope they’ll do business with you. It’s a reasonable expectation. You’ve taken time to build the relationship. You know they like you a little, so there’s more chance of making progress. You’re not talking to strangers.
After that, provided you manage the relationship well, they could become clients, making multiple purchases from you, or fans, or advocates and so on.
It’s worth doing.
Remember the basic points in the chain or in the pipeline: suspect, prospect, customer (makes a single purchase), client (makes multiple purchases), fan, advocate and lots of other types of employer in between. Vary your approach to marketing depending on where an employer is in your pipeline. Targeted marketing will be more effective. It will also save you money.
As you plan your new campaigns remember that clients are worth more to you than customers. Fans are worth more than clients Advocates are worth more to you than just about any other customer.
They’re all worth more to you than strangers.
When you start to think about it, your customer pipeline should encourage you to spend more time, money and other resource on your existing employer customers than on new customers.
It’s strange then, that so many providers focus on turning more strangers into friends, than on helping friends become customers, clients . . . and so on.
When you think about it, focusing your marketing efforts on strangers doesn’t really make sense ….. does it?
See also:
Your customer pipeline – why it matters
Used well your customer pipeline will help you to differentiate one employer from another and to make a judgement about how much resource to spend on building relationships with particular employers.
In simple terms you can use your customer pipeline to help you to work out how much value to place on an employer and hence how much to spend marketing to that employer.
Turning strangers into friends
Employers who don’t know you are strangers.It’s really difficult to sell to strangers. You don’t know anything about them. You don’t know about their needs and wants. You don’t know what keeps them awake at night. You don’t know if what you’re selling could be what they might want to buy.
Marketing to strangers is costly and not particularly rewarding. It’s hit and miss. You might be lucky, but then again, you might waste a lot of time and money trying to build a relationship with someone who has no intention of buying from FE – ever.
FE providers who don’t use the principle of the customer pipeline are doomed to sell to strangers forever, because they don’t take steps to convert strangers into friends. They don’t take steps to get employers into their customer pipeline. They don’t monitor employers’ progress as they travel along the pipeline.
Friends, on the other hand, are a little bit closer to you.
They are beginning to learn a bit about you. You know a little bit about them, too. You also know just how close you can get to them, because they send out signals, and if you’re on the ball, you pick those signals up.
In marketing terms friends are happy to learn more about you but they’re probably not ready to buy as yet. They will probably sign up for your newsletter. They might follow you on Twitter.
Make a hard sell to them, or bombard them with marketing messages, and they’ll disappear. They’re not that close to you as yet.
Yet, they’re in your pipeline. That means you can develop relationships with employers, provided you take care.
Pay attention to your friends
When you’re looking to find new employer customers it will make more sense if you focus on your friends.Help them to travel a little bit further along your customer pipeline. Help them to get to know you better by using the knowledge you already have of them to tailor what you offer them. Just make the offers without frightening employers away.
Pay attention to your friends for other reasons, too.
It will also be cheaper to market to them than trying to convert more strangers into friends. You already have established ways of getting in touch and keeping in touch, so the hard work of relationship building is done.
You hope your friends will become customers in the near future. That means you hope they’ll do business with you. It’s a reasonable expectation. You’ve taken time to build the relationship. You know they like you a little, so there’s more chance of making progress. You’re not talking to strangers.
After that, provided you manage the relationship well, they could become clients, making multiple purchases from you, or fans, or advocates and so on.
Use your customer pipeline to differentiate one employer from another
You can differentiate all the employers who are in contact with you using the concept of the customer pipeline.It’s worth doing.
Remember the basic points in the chain or in the pipeline: suspect, prospect, customer (makes a single purchase), client (makes multiple purchases), fan, advocate and lots of other types of employer in between. Vary your approach to marketing depending on where an employer is in your pipeline. Targeted marketing will be more effective. It will also save you money.
As you plan your new campaigns remember that clients are worth more to you than customers. Fans are worth more than clients Advocates are worth more to you than just about any other customer.
They’re all worth more to you than strangers.
When you start to think about it, your customer pipeline should encourage you to spend more time, money and other resource on your existing employer customers than on new customers.
It’s strange then, that so many providers focus on turning more strangers into friends, than on helping friends become customers, clients . . . and so on.
When you think about it, focusing your marketing efforts on strangers doesn’t really make sense ….. does it?
See also:
Your customer pipeline – why it matters
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Your customer pipeline - why it matters!
Do you have a customer pipeline? Does having a customer pipeline help you to attract more employer business?These are all good questions, and they’re exactly the sort of questions that providers are asking, especially since most people in FE know they need to bring in more revenue from employers.
Your customer pipeline matters
First of all, your customer pipeline really matters because it’s a mechanism you can use to help you to be clear bout how likely employers are to do business with you in the near future.Employers at the mouth of your pipeline are least likely to make a purchase now. That’s because they are just contemplating beginning a relationship with you. Maybe they’ve agreed to attend an event. Maybe they’ve signed up for your newsletter. They have some interest in you and what you do, but the relationship is just beginning.
When you’ve begun building that relationship and employers know you better they’ll be more likely to buy. That is as they travel down your customer pipeline they’ll be moving closer to that first purchase.
Customer relationships also matter
People buy from people.People also buy from those they know, like and trust.
Helping employers to move along the know-like-trust continuum is the same as moving people down your customer pipeline.
The concept of the customer pipeline helps you to build this relationship at the right pace. It also helps you to avoid the wrong sort of selling.
You want all your employers to move a step further along your customer pipeline every few weeks. You don’t necessarily expect them to buy from you immediately.
Thus, once they’ve signed up for your newsletter, you want them to read it and to start clicking links in the publication. When they know a bit more about you, you want them to get in touch with you and possibly get some information sent to them. A little bit later you want to visit them or establish personal contact with them . . . and so on.
With each activity the employer is moving further down the customer pipeline and further along the know-like-trust continuum. It’s a slow, but often very rewarding, business.
Bombarding someone with “Buy now!” messages will send them out of your pipeline quickly. Helping employers to come to know you better and to like what they know about you will help all aspects of the relationship building process.
Monitoring your customer pipeline
Probably the best customer relationship management task you can undertake in the near future is to work out where employers are in your customer pipeline. That way you will know what sort of contact they are likely to value, and what will drive them away.Monitoring your customer pipeline will help you to differentiate your approach to marketing and to developing and managing your relationship with individual employers.
Doing this well will be repaid with more business. That’s why the customer pipeline really matters.
See also: Have you created your customer pipeline?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
