Ummm… Where do
I get more information?
There’s a right way and a wrong way to do business. And then there’s the way it actually happens.
Usually I’d have a Web page up telling you all about a new program before I announced the preview. But I’ve been thinking about that dang Web page since February. You could say I have a block.
There’s one sure-fire way to get un-blocked, and that’s to reach out to you. By offering the free preview, I’ve lit a fire in my belly and I get to find out what’s on your mind when it comes to getting clients.
So when you sign up for the preview, you get to help shape the course.
And, everyone who signs up for the preview will get 24 hours advance notice when the page goes live. If learning how to get customers and clients that fit just-right sounds good to you, that will be important. The class size is limited, so that lead time could make the difference between getting in or waiting up to a year for the next session.
Drumroll: Announcing the Tele-class and Tele-retreat Schedule for 2008
Here’s a sneak peak at what the rest of the year has in store.
The Goldilocks Strategy for Getting Clients that Fit Just-Right
Six consecutive Tuesdays beginning June 10 and ending July 15, 2008. Noon - 1 PM EDT (9 - 10 AM PDT)
The Three-Legged Stool: How to Make a Living at What You Love
Six consecutive Wednesdays beginning August 6 and ending September 10, 2008.
3 - 4 PM EDT (Noon - 1 PM PDT)
The Goldilocks Marketing Strategy
Six consecutive Tuesdays beginning October 14 and ending November 18, 2008. Noon - 1 PM EDT (9 - 10 AM PDT)
The Bedside Table
I brought Fooled by Randomness to Campbell with me and on the off chance that I have time for recreational reading, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith.
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When I wrote the following article about this time last year, I was in Peru visiting CARE projects. This year I’m in Campbell, California, in a workshop with Sean D’Souza, whose work is the subject of a case study at the end of the article.
To top it off, the topic is directly in line with the topic of the coming teleclass, The Goldilocks Strategy for Getting Clients that Fit Just-Right.
Whew! I’m so glad I have such good reasons to reprint this piece.
Enjoy.
PS: Be sure to read about the free teleclass preview in the sidebar. :-)
Does Working for Yourself Have to Be Lonely?
Wouldn’t it be great if self-employment meant enjoying the support of a committed community? Well, it doesn't have to be a pipe dream. But to leave isolation and loneliness behind, you may have to rethink your position on selling to your customers.
What Makes a Community?
Community begins with shared ownership of things physical or metaphysical or both. In order for a community to grow up around your business, your customers need to share ownership with you and with each other.
Inviting people into the community isn’t hard. One time-honored method is to give something away. This makes it safe for someone to approach your business and evaluate your offer. If it is not a fit, the prospect can walk away with no harm done. (Remember, we’re talking about a community of just-right customers.)
If your give-away is valuable to her, your prospect may hang around. If you keep giving away valuable information, eventually she becomes part of your community. Right?
Wrong.
How “Free” Gets in the Way
Community begins with shared ownership, and if all you offer is free information, how can your prospects take ownership?
They can’t. The only way for customers to take ownership is to buy something from you. That means you have to sell something to them.
Until you ask your prospective customer or client to buy, you haven’t given them a way to invest - let alone to participate - in a community of shared interests. No investment, no return on investment.
That’s not just semantics. Sure, people can benefit from reading a free newsletter for years without buying a thing. But until you ask for investment, you may have admirers, but you won’t have community.
The Trust Factor
There’s a direct relationship between selling to your customers and gaining their trust. That’s because authentic trust is the result of commitments that are made, tested, and kept. What’s more, there has to be some risk involved. Without risk, the only kind of trust available to your customers can have is naïve trust, the half-blind hope that since you haven’t betrayed them so far, you won’t betray them in the future.
The kind of trust that builds long term relationships and communities grows as individuals exchange commitments while remaining aware of the risks entailed. Will the other party come through? Can you live up to your part of the bargain? And how do you manage when something unexpected happens?
Selling Builds Trust
The way to build trust with your just-right customers is to ask them to take just such a risk. Offer them something you believe to be of value, and ask them to pay it. Then live up to your end of the bargain.
Does the idea of coming right out and selling to your customers give you the heebie-jeebies? It did me. I’m fine with marketing, but selling? Yikes!
For eight of the nine years that I’ve been writing this newsletter, the content was more than 90% editorial. Until this year, there were less than a handful of times that I sent an email to this list that wasn’t focused on delivering content.
I began to send emails to promote (and sell) the Authentic Wealth Tele-retreat, I got some pushback. Most of it came from friends, who care a great deal for me and had my best interests at heart. But they were not and are not my just-right clients, and they didn’t and don’t know anything about a business like mine.
(Yes, sports fans, I’m in business. Keep reading to find out why that’s a good thing for you if you happen to be a just right customer.)
Until I decided to sell to this list, life here at Shaboom was part dream, part nightmare, a rollercoaster of excitement and depletion. My energy would go up when you praised me and down when you didn’t. I lived in fear of pissing you off.
That’s no way to build a long-term relationship, let alone a thriving community.
When you avoid selling you keep customers at arms length, turning them into strangers. I’m here to tell you, neither you nor your business can survive by relying on the kindness of strangers. (And why should strangers take care of you, anyway?)
Enough. It’s the upside to this story that I am itching to share, so here’s the good news. When you sell to your customers, everything changes.
How Selling Builds Community
When you sell and a customer buys, the whole world changes. Does the customer love what they bought? Wonderful! Find out how else you can help, and sell them something else. Not to milk them, not to take advantage of them, but to help. (That is why you’re in business, isn’t it?)
Is your customer dissatisfied? Excellent! Find out why. Ask how you can improve the product or service, and, provided that the customer fits your business “just right,” they’ll tell you exactly what you need to do to make them happy and to attract more people just like them.
More customers mean more people taking ownership, and that is the basis for a community. Yes, there’s more to growing the community than this, but you won’t have one to grow until you start selling.
The Real Reason Nice People Don’t Sell
Do you know why nice people like you and me resist selling? It’s simple: we would rather be liked than have profitable businesses. Another way of saying that is that we’d rather be liked than do what it takes to deliver value to the people we can help.
Okay, you may be more evolved than I am. But consider these classic reasons for not selling to customers.
- You don’t want to seem pushy. (You want to be liked.)
- You are afraid your work isn’t good enough. (You are afraid a customer might be disappointed and then they wouldn’t like you.)
- You can’t stand rejection. (What is rejection except the belief that the person who is saying “no” doesn’t like you?)
If you have read this far, odds are very high that you, like me, place a very high value on being liked. There is nothing wrong with that. But are you willing to let the desire to be liked prevent people from benefiting from your work? Are you willing to place being liked ahead of creating revenue streams that will energize your business and help you generate quality products and services on an ongoing basis?
Smile. Your Customers Love You.
Here’s the part that will make you smile big time. Imagine having plenty of bandwidth to take care of your customers. Imagine being comfortable in your own skin, satisfied to be doing your best for your just right customers. (Goodbye, perfectionism!) Imagine looking forward to feedback, both positive and negative, from customers that are part of a growing community.
That’s what selling can do.
Talk back: I love to hear from you, and I read every letter personally. Send your thoughts to letters@authenticpromotion.com. And be sure to let me know if you prefer not to be quoted.
Case Study: How the Brain Audit Transformed Readers in to a Community
[Reprinted by permission from the author, Sean D’Souza]
[W]hen we first started out on the Internet in 2001, we had a website with great content for a good year or more. How do we know it was great content? Because we had thousands of subscribers who signed up for the newsletter, even though the only incentive was the newsletter itself (which it is, to this day).
The point was, our community grew only once we sold. Once we started selling our first product called the ‘Brain Audit’ - that was the first time we started getting a real response. That’s when we started getting evangelists. Even today at the Psychotactics site, we give away loads of product on website conversion, and other stuff. It all helps to create a factor of trust. But you don’t get raving fans and you don’t get community. And you certainly don’t get a cent in el banco.
If you really want a relationship factor involved with clients. If you really want to separate the yak from the customers, you’ve got to sell.
Talk is cheap.
Sean D’Souza
How to Get Clients that Fit Just Right
The first step to getting clients that fit just-right is to get and
read
The Way of the Accidental Entrepreneur.
It’s a book for people who work have something to give but are stuck when it comes to finding the customers and clients to give it to. You can learn all about it
here.
The second step is to sign up for the free preview tele-class of
The Goldilocks Strategy for Getting Clients that Fit Just Right. (If you don’t have the book and don’t know yet if you are going to by it, you are are welcome to sign up for the preview. But you’ll need to get the book to register for the actual tele-class.)
The Goldilocks Strategy for Getting Clients that Fit Just Right will show you how to use what you already have to get clients that fit just-right. It shows you how to build that holy grail of entrepreneuring -- multiple streams of income -- around your just-right customers. And to do it in a way that respects and delights everyone involved.
Free one hour preview teleconference: Introduction to The Goldilocks Principle
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Noon EDT, 9:00 AM PDT
Sign up here.
This will take you to a “billing information” page, however you will not be asked for your credit card number and you will not be charged for this class. And while it should go without saying, I will never sell your contact information or rent it or give it to anyone without your express permission. You can opt out of this or any other mailing in an instant with the *** link at the bottom or by phoning 360-421-1985.
If You Can’t Attend
This teleconference will be recorded. If you want to hear it but cannot attend, just register. You’ll receive all the information other participants receive along with a link to the recording.
PS: Sign up before midnight, Friday 5/16 and you’ll get a copy of the Party Planning Wheel. It’s a playful and incredibly effective way to brainstorm ways to attract your just-right customers and clients.
Here’s the thing: you have to sign up now if you want the Planning Wheel. After May 16th, it will no longer be available unless you sign up for the tele-class. And if you’ve already signed up, you’ll receive your link to download the wheel on Saturday.
Privacy Statement & Subscriber Info
This mailing is part of a regular series of more or less weekly newsletters and informational mailings about our products and services. It is sent only to confirmed, double opt-in subscribers who have signed up at mollygordon.com, shaboominc.com, authenticpromotion.com, learntolovemarketing.com, or by emailing a subscription request or signing up at a partner Web site.
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Publication and Reprint Info
U.S. Library of Congress ISSN: 1530-311X
Unless otherwise attributed, all material is written and edited by Molly Gordon, MCC. Copyright (c) Shaboom Inc.(r) 2008. All rights reserved. Visit our extensive archives at www.mollygordon.com .
You may reprint material from Authentic Promotion in other electronic or print publications provided the above copyright notice and a link to http://www.authenticpromotion.com is included in the credits. Please send a copy of the publication along with a note referencing the reprint.
"Shaboom, Inc." and "Authentic Promotion" are registered trade or service marks of Shaboom, Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.
Shaboom, Inc
Life could be a dream!
PO Box 195
18718 Third Avenue NE
Suquamish, WA 98392-0195
P 360-697-7022
F 801-996-7022
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