You can find our newest blog posts at:
Attract More Business
and at
Margaret Adams.
12 years 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?
Saturday 8 May 2010
Client Attraction Basics - the ten posts
The ten posts in this series will help you to get started on the task of attracting more business or help you review your current practice.
Apply the advice in all the posts and you’ll be making progress.
The series started with a post entitled:
Can you attract more business now?
This is the best place to begin because this is something you’re likely to be asked to do over the coming months and years.
The second post asked:
Are you turning business away?
If my experience, lots of providers do turn business away, whether they realise it or not. Calls aren’t dealt with correctly. People’s enquiries are lost in the system. Employers are affronted when they’re treated like students and so on. Therefore, the question raises a lot of issues for providers.
Posts three and four dealt with the impression you make on employers.
Will they remember you?
What sort of first impression do you want to make?
Both posts asked you to think of how you are perceived by employers.
Post five focused on your website.
What should your website do for you?
Today so many people visit an organisation’s website before making contact. It’s important to create the right impression on line. If you don’t, you may never receive a direct contact from an employer.
Post six was about metrics.
Are you marketing in the dark?
Do you know what your marketing efforts are achieving? Lots of providers don't, so they don't know if they're spending their resources wisely.
Posts seven, eight and nine focused firmly on the customer and on some of the key tasks associated with building a strong customer base.
Post seven asked:
What sort of customers is further education looking for?
Post eight asked:
Are you building your list?
Post nine was all about the customer pipeline.
Have you created your customer pipeline?
The final post asked you how you were progressing with the task of becoming a client magnet?
Are you on the way to becoming a client magnet?
This is the key question because the modern ways of doing business are built around getting business to come to you.
Which are the most important of the ten client attraction basics?
For me the website and the customer list are vital elements. If you don’t have a good website, you won’t convert interest into action often enough to build your business as quickly as you would like. If you don’t have a list of prospects and customers, you’re not really in business.
What do you think?
Which is the most important of the ten client attraction basics as far as you're concerned?
Apply the advice in all the posts and you’ll be making progress.
The series started with a post entitled:
Can you attract more business now?
This is the best place to begin because this is something you’re likely to be asked to do over the coming months and years.
The second post asked:
Are you turning business away?
If my experience, lots of providers do turn business away, whether they realise it or not. Calls aren’t dealt with correctly. People’s enquiries are lost in the system. Employers are affronted when they’re treated like students and so on. Therefore, the question raises a lot of issues for providers.
Posts three and four dealt with the impression you make on employers.
Will they remember you?
What sort of first impression do you want to make?
Both posts asked you to think of how you are perceived by employers.
Post five focused on your website.
What should your website do for you?
Today so many people visit an organisation’s website before making contact. It’s important to create the right impression on line. If you don’t, you may never receive a direct contact from an employer.
Post six was about metrics.
Are you marketing in the dark?
Do you know what your marketing efforts are achieving? Lots of providers don't, so they don't know if they're spending their resources wisely.
Posts seven, eight and nine focused firmly on the customer and on some of the key tasks associated with building a strong customer base.
Post seven asked:
What sort of customers is further education looking for?
Post eight asked:
Are you building your list?
Post nine was all about the customer pipeline.
Have you created your customer pipeline?
The final post asked you how you were progressing with the task of becoming a client magnet?
Are you on the way to becoming a client magnet?
This is the key question because the modern ways of doing business are built around getting business to come to you.
Which are the most important of the ten client attraction basics?
For me the website and the customer list are vital elements. If you don’t have a good website, you won’t convert interest into action often enough to build your business as quickly as you would like. If you don’t have a list of prospects and customers, you’re not really in business.
What do you think?
Which is the most important of the ten client attraction basics as far as you're concerned?
Wednesday 28 April 2010
Are you on the way to becoming a client magnet?
Are more employers working with you this year than last? Are you earning more of your organisation’s income from employers this year than last? Are more employers working with you for a second or third time?
You want to be in a position to answer all of these questions positively.
If you’re achieving this sort of success and, if you’re hoping to achieve even more success in the future, there’s a good chance that you’ve accepted that client attraction marketing really works.
That means you’re applying the lessons set out in this series of posts.
Getting business to come to you is vital in the modern world of FE because, for the future, you’re likely to have limited amounts of money to spend on more conventional approaches to promoting your organisation.
If you adopt client attraction you can do more with less, in one sense so the cuts in budgets may be less serious for you than they would be otherwise.
However, you will have costs. It’s just that your costs will be calculated in different ways.
That’s why, now you’re on the road to becoming a client magnet, you’ll want to continue travelling in the right direction.
This is the tenth and final post in a series about client attraction basics.
You want to be in a position to answer all of these questions positively.
If you’re achieving this sort of success and, if you’re hoping to achieve even more success in the future, there’s a good chance that you’ve accepted that client attraction marketing really works.
That means you’re applying the lessons set out in this series of posts.
- You’ve defined a market that you are going to serve.
- You know who you want to attract to work with your organisation.
- You’ve made sure that prospective customers from your chosen marketplace can find you.
- You’ve made sure you are memorable in a positive sense when customers interact with you.
- You’ve created a great website that really is the hub of all your marketing and business communications.
- You’re building your list of prospects and customers.
- You’ve created a customer pipeline.
Getting business to come to you is vital in the modern world of FE because, for the future, you’re likely to have limited amounts of money to spend on more conventional approaches to promoting your organisation.
If you adopt client attraction you can do more with less, in one sense so the cuts in budgets may be less serious for you than they would be otherwise.
However, you will have costs. It’s just that your costs will be calculated in different ways.
- Client attraction costs in terms of staff time.
- Client attraction costs in terms of skills. You definitely need people who have skills that can be in short supply, for example, webmaster skills.
- Client attraction doesn’t need to cost a great deal in terms of financial outlay.
That’s why, now you’re on the road to becoming a client magnet, you’ll want to continue travelling in the right direction.
This is the tenth and final post in a series about client attraction basics.
Monday 19 April 2010
Have you created your customer pipeline?
If you’re going to succeed in bringing in more employer business and more new employer business, too, you'll need to differentiate your list of customers and potential customers.
A good way of doing this is to think about employers as making a journey through your customer pipeline.
However, you need to know where employers are in the pipeline to help you to decide how to manage your relationship with them. You need to do this for several reasons.
When you know more about the employer and you think there is a possibility of doing business with him or her, then the suspect becomes a prospect.
When you do your first piece of business with the employer, he or she becomes a customer.
As you build the relationship the customer becomes a client. You start to tailor what you do to meet each client’s expectations and offer a differentiated set of products and services.
Clients with whom you work well become your fans and will, if asked, promote you, or give you a reference.
A few of your fans will become your advocates. These are the employers who take the initiative in promoting you. They are always looking for opportunities to let people know what a great job you do. These are the people who reach the end of your pipeline.
Your customer pipeline is an essential element in building your business.
Have you worked out where each employer sits in your pipeline? If you haven’t, you need to.
This is the ninth in a series of ten posts about client attraction basics.
A good way of doing this is to think about employers as making a journey through your customer pipeline.
- Customers enter the pipeline via a wide funnel.
- They then travel along the pipeline.
- When they reach the end of the pipeline they have become your advocates and promoters.
However, you need to know where employers are in the pipeline to help you to decide how to manage your relationship with them. You need to do this for several reasons.
- You deal with employers in different ways depending on where they are in your pipeline.
- You allocate differing amounts to resource to managing your relationship with them when they are at different points in the pipeline.
When you know more about the employer and you think there is a possibility of doing business with him or her, then the suspect becomes a prospect.
When you do your first piece of business with the employer, he or she becomes a customer.
As you build the relationship the customer becomes a client. You start to tailor what you do to meet each client’s expectations and offer a differentiated set of products and services.
Clients with whom you work well become your fans and will, if asked, promote you, or give you a reference.
A few of your fans will become your advocates. These are the employers who take the initiative in promoting you. They are always looking for opportunities to let people know what a great job you do. These are the people who reach the end of your pipeline.
Your customer pipeline is an essential element in building your business.
Have you worked out where each employer sits in your pipeline? If you haven’t, you need to.
This is the ninth in a series of ten posts about client attraction basics.
Wednesday 31 March 2010
Are you building your list?
If you’re going to attract more business you need a list of prospects and customers and a good list, too.
I’m not talking about the lists you buy in or the lists on your database.
I’m talking here about the lists you build – one address at a time.
Good lists take time to build because when you build these lists you are starting to build relationships. As you know building relationships takes time.
So how many lists do you need? There are three that will really help you to attract more business.
Your opt-in list
Your most important list is your e-mail opt-in list. This is the list of people who have agreed that you may contact them from time to time and they welcome your contact.
That doesn’t mean they have given you permission to send sales messages to them every day. In fact, you’d be wise to limit the number of sales messages you send out to this list.
The people who have opted into your list have given you permission to send them interesting and useful information that they will value. That’s what they want and that’s what they expect.
Your challenge is to make sure that your communications fulfil their expectations because you can lose people from your list as well as gaining them.
Your Twitter list
You also need to be on Twitter.
Attractmorebiz is on Twitter. Find us here.
I’m on Twitter. Find me here.
You need to follow people and organisations that you are interested in and which serve your marketplace. As a result some of them will follow you.
Again, the rule is to make your tweets interesting and that means avoiding too many sales pitches. It also means remembering that Twitter is at the heart of the social media revolution. Social is the word to remember. You’re creating links and relationships with this list. Be social. Communicate. Interact.
So get onto Twitter and get a Twitter list going.
RSS Feeds
This is a different sort of list, and it’s strictly not your list. You don’t directly know who is on this list but you can check how many of them there are.
When you blog – and, of course, you should be blogging as well as tweeting and building up your opt-in list – you should offer your readers the opportunity to subscribe to your RSS feed. This means that each time you post an item on your blog they will be notified about it.
The majority of people still subscribe to blogs via e-mail, which means your blog post ends up in their e-mail inbox, so remember to make sure that your RSS feed allows for this type of subscription.
All very basic stuff, but it will pay off in time and if you keep working on list building.
We have a growing opt in list and a monthly newsletter that is starting to be passed around. We know this, because people join the list as a result of receiving a newsletter from a colleague.
We are growing our lists of followers on both our Twitter accounts.
And, yes, statistics for our RSS feed show increasing numbers of subscribers.
These are the ways to build lists and to build business. Make sure you are building your lists in all these ways.
This is the eighth post in a long-running series about client attraction basics.
See also: What should your website do for you?
I’m not talking about the lists you buy in or the lists on your database.
I’m talking here about the lists you build – one address at a time.
Good lists take time to build because when you build these lists you are starting to build relationships. As you know building relationships takes time.
So how many lists do you need? There are three that will really help you to attract more business.
Your opt-in list
Your most important list is your e-mail opt-in list. This is the list of people who have agreed that you may contact them from time to time and they welcome your contact.
That doesn’t mean they have given you permission to send sales messages to them every day. In fact, you’d be wise to limit the number of sales messages you send out to this list.
The people who have opted into your list have given you permission to send them interesting and useful information that they will value. That’s what they want and that’s what they expect.
Your challenge is to make sure that your communications fulfil their expectations because you can lose people from your list as well as gaining them.
Your Twitter list
You also need to be on Twitter.
Attractmorebiz is on Twitter. Find us here.
I’m on Twitter. Find me here.
You need to follow people and organisations that you are interested in and which serve your marketplace. As a result some of them will follow you.
Again, the rule is to make your tweets interesting and that means avoiding too many sales pitches. It also means remembering that Twitter is at the heart of the social media revolution. Social is the word to remember. You’re creating links and relationships with this list. Be social. Communicate. Interact.
So get onto Twitter and get a Twitter list going.
RSS Feeds
This is a different sort of list, and it’s strictly not your list. You don’t directly know who is on this list but you can check how many of them there are.
When you blog – and, of course, you should be blogging as well as tweeting and building up your opt-in list – you should offer your readers the opportunity to subscribe to your RSS feed. This means that each time you post an item on your blog they will be notified about it.
The majority of people still subscribe to blogs via e-mail, which means your blog post ends up in their e-mail inbox, so remember to make sure that your RSS feed allows for this type of subscription.
All very basic stuff, but it will pay off in time and if you keep working on list building.
We have a growing opt in list and a monthly newsletter that is starting to be passed around. We know this, because people join the list as a result of receiving a newsletter from a colleague.
We are growing our lists of followers on both our Twitter accounts.
And, yes, statistics for our RSS feed show increasing numbers of subscribers.
These are the ways to build lists and to build business. Make sure you are building your lists in all these ways.
This is the eighth post in a long-running series about client attraction basics.
See also: What should your website do for you?
Saturday 13 March 2010
What sort of customers is further education looking for?
When I run workshops to help providers from the further education world to enhance their approaches to employer engagement I always ask the question in the title.
Sometimes the question isn’t taken very seriously. Sometimes the response is given in a way that suggests I’m asking a stupid question.
Sometimes, in fact most of the time, the response is:
“We’re looking for organisations with money to spend.”
Good start
Thinking like this is a good start, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Just because an employer has money to spend doesn’t mean he or she is going to spend it. Neither does it mean that the employer will choose to spend any money with an FE college or with a private training provider.
You need to do a lot more to identify prospects you may wish to develop relationships with, and ultimately gain business from, before you are in a position to answer the question in the title.
Do they have a problem?
Individuals and employers are more likely to spend money to help them to address problems than they are to spend money on things that are nice to have.
Unfortunately, lots of training and many qualifications are viewed by employers as nice to have, but not essential. The world won’t stop turning just because someone doesn’t have a qualification or isn’t given time off to attend a development programme.
Yet, employers will often throw money at the business problems they are facing and take action to deal with the issues that impact on their abilities to achieve.
They will look for a solution once they find a problem that is affecting their ability to achieve their objectives.
This presents you with a very clear question to answer.
Are you selling solutions to problems?
If you think you have the answer to this question, there’s another that is even more important.
Are you selling solutions to the sort of problems that employers are interested in solving?
In order to give a positive answer to the question you need to stop selling training, qualifications, NVQ, Skills for Life, Apprenticeships and so on as development programmes for individuals. They need to become solutions to business problems.
You’ll get more interest from more employers if you make this shift.
Are they willing to do something about their problem?
The answer to this question is, of course, about the real difference between needs and wants. An employer might have a whole series of needs, some of which you might help him or her to identify via your organisational needs analysis.
However, until the need is clearly pressing, that is until the need is keeping the employer awake at night, it’s going to be an uphill job selling a solution to the vast majority of employers.
Finding employers with money to spend is relatively easy. Finding employers who are prepared to spend their money on your solutions is the difficult bit.
Can they make up their minds?
You must have experienced this sort of situation. You’ve been to see the employer. You’ve got on well with the people you met. You’ve put together your proposal and sent it off . . . and nothing has happened.
You ring. You e-mail.
Nothing seems to be happening.
Well, you need to look to yourself first, and check that you really have been speaking to the right people. If you haven’t been working with the decision makers, then they probably don’t even think there is a decision to be made. After all, you haven’t put a proposal to them. There’s a proposal somewhere in their organisation, but they aren’t looking for it and they have no commitment to doing anything with it.
Then there’s the issue of the choices you have left the organisation with. Have you given them too much choice or too little? Have you made the various options clear? Make a point of checking that your prospective customer knows what the choices are and the benefits of each.
What’s the decision-making process in the organisation? Is it complex and convoluted? If it’s a long and drawn out decision-making process and you don’t have a strong advocate on the right committee, your proposal may never be reviewed in any detail.
When you find yourself in any of these situations make a judgement. Are you going to get anywhere, or should you write off your efforts?
Good customers
Employers who have problems they are prepared to do something about, and who have the money to buy a solution, are to be found in all sectors of the economy. They are there in the public sector and in the private sector. There are people in large organisations and in small ones who are prepared to commission work from colleges and from other provider organisations.
Your challenge is to seek them out, and build a relationship with them, because these are the customers you really are looking for.
This is the seventh post in a series of ten about client attraction basics.
Sometimes the question isn’t taken very seriously. Sometimes the response is given in a way that suggests I’m asking a stupid question.
Sometimes, in fact most of the time, the response is:
“We’re looking for organisations with money to spend.”
Good start
Thinking like this is a good start, but it doesn’t go nearly far enough.
Just because an employer has money to spend doesn’t mean he or she is going to spend it. Neither does it mean that the employer will choose to spend any money with an FE college or with a private training provider.
You need to do a lot more to identify prospects you may wish to develop relationships with, and ultimately gain business from, before you are in a position to answer the question in the title.
Do they have a problem?
Individuals and employers are more likely to spend money to help them to address problems than they are to spend money on things that are nice to have.
Unfortunately, lots of training and many qualifications are viewed by employers as nice to have, but not essential. The world won’t stop turning just because someone doesn’t have a qualification or isn’t given time off to attend a development programme.
Yet, employers will often throw money at the business problems they are facing and take action to deal with the issues that impact on their abilities to achieve.
They will look for a solution once they find a problem that is affecting their ability to achieve their objectives.
This presents you with a very clear question to answer.
Are you selling solutions to problems?
If you think you have the answer to this question, there’s another that is even more important.
Are you selling solutions to the sort of problems that employers are interested in solving?
In order to give a positive answer to the question you need to stop selling training, qualifications, NVQ, Skills for Life, Apprenticeships and so on as development programmes for individuals. They need to become solutions to business problems.
You’ll get more interest from more employers if you make this shift.
Are they willing to do something about their problem?
The answer to this question is, of course, about the real difference between needs and wants. An employer might have a whole series of needs, some of which you might help him or her to identify via your organisational needs analysis.
However, until the need is clearly pressing, that is until the need is keeping the employer awake at night, it’s going to be an uphill job selling a solution to the vast majority of employers.
Finding employers with money to spend is relatively easy. Finding employers who are prepared to spend their money on your solutions is the difficult bit.
Can they make up their minds?
You must have experienced this sort of situation. You’ve been to see the employer. You’ve got on well with the people you met. You’ve put together your proposal and sent it off . . . and nothing has happened.
You ring. You e-mail.
Nothing seems to be happening.
Well, you need to look to yourself first, and check that you really have been speaking to the right people. If you haven’t been working with the decision makers, then they probably don’t even think there is a decision to be made. After all, you haven’t put a proposal to them. There’s a proposal somewhere in their organisation, but they aren’t looking for it and they have no commitment to doing anything with it.
Then there’s the issue of the choices you have left the organisation with. Have you given them too much choice or too little? Have you made the various options clear? Make a point of checking that your prospective customer knows what the choices are and the benefits of each.
What’s the decision-making process in the organisation? Is it complex and convoluted? If it’s a long and drawn out decision-making process and you don’t have a strong advocate on the right committee, your proposal may never be reviewed in any detail.
When you find yourself in any of these situations make a judgement. Are you going to get anywhere, or should you write off your efforts?
Good customers
Employers who have problems they are prepared to do something about, and who have the money to buy a solution, are to be found in all sectors of the economy. They are there in the public sector and in the private sector. There are people in large organisations and in small ones who are prepared to commission work from colleges and from other provider organisations.
Your challenge is to seek them out, and build a relationship with them, because these are the customers you really are looking for.
This is the seventh post in a series of ten about client attraction basics.
Monday 1 February 2010
Are you marketing in the dark?
Lots of provider organisations are.
Marketing in the dark is the act of spending money and other resource on marketing activities and not having any idea which approaches are working.
Marketing in the dark is a very common activity.
Metrics matter.
You really do need to measure the impact of what you’re doing, if you’re going to know where to spend resource on bringing in more business.
So what do you measure at the moment?
What do you need to measure to be sure you are using your marketing resource well?
Leave your comments below.
This is the sixth post in a series of ten about client attraction basics.
Marketing in the dark is the act of spending money and other resource on marketing activities and not having any idea which approaches are working.
Marketing in the dark is a very common activity.
- Just how much business does your prospectus bring in?
- If you didn’t have a 16-18 prospectus, would you still fill your programmes?
- If you stopped advertising in the local papers, or if you increased your advertising, do you have any sense of how your change in behaviour would affect your income and enrolments?
Metrics matter.
You really do need to measure the impact of what you’re doing, if you’re going to know where to spend resource on bringing in more business.
So what do you measure at the moment?
What do you need to measure to be sure you are using your marketing resource well?
Leave your comments below.
This is the sixth post in a series of ten about client attraction basics.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
