At the recent Power Consulting Live event I attended, our co-hosts Mark Harris and Mike Griffiths went around the room and asked “What are some of the challenges you are facing as a consultant?” Responses included:
* Too much marketing "noise"...
* How do I market my expertise?
* How do I convince prospective clients "...they can't do it themselves?" and...
* How can I create a lifestyle business that suits my lifestyle?
Position those replies against Mike's statement that "the biggest opportunities for consultants are happening right now."
Specifically...
On Monday, Mike reiterated that C-Suite executives, Executive VPs, Division Directors, business owners, and entrepreneurs - consultants’ ideal prospects - need to continually create, reinforce, correct and manage their business plans. These prospects are almost always "time-starved" and they lack the ability to get the information they need to make proper decisions and as a result, end up making decisions based on incomplete information or "get-feel".
So what's the bridge that would carry these consultants from the challenges they all faced, to Mike's "opportunity of a lifetime"?
The answer for the consultants - and likely for you - is a systematized, automated marketing and prospecting system that moves the prospect from “unaware of you or your service” to “seeking you out as a trusted provider”.
The place to start is with the “Dream 100” strategy described in Chet Holmes' book "The Ultimate Sales Machine."
Essentially, you create a list, typically one hundred (or as many as you think you need) of your ideal prospects and enter them into a database. Then, you (or preferably your team) will add the history and anticipated needs of your prospects to the database. Curating this information will take time and effort but it gives you a far better insight into the present and future pain points that your prospects need to address. This research also positions you far ahead of the competition by allowing you to tailor your services specifically to the prospect’s needs.
At this point, you use the information you’ve compiled to create a lead magnet that addresses the executives’ biggest needs. Usually, that is a way for them to quickly digest information that is important to them in their daily activities. Typical examples include Executive Summaries, Market Reports, or Case Studies and you leverage automation by sending one of these lead magnets to each new addition to your Dream 100 as they are added.
The goal here is OFFLINE - ONLINE - OFFLINE
You use the OFFLINE lead magnet to drive them online - for example, a video hosted on your website. With videos embedded on your website we can not only direct them to the next (or
previous) video, you can monitor how much of each video is being consumed. If your prospects are dropping off your video at 2:13, you can (and should) look to see what you said immediately prior that caused them to disengage. With each video, you include some kind of additional offer that includes F.U.D.U. - fear, uncertainty, doubt, and urgency:
* Get the case study - Here's how XYZco solved the email deliverability problem
* Provide market data (NOT product data) - 15 emerging trends that make
communicating with your past buyers more difficult
* Take the quiz - Is your company eligible for tens of thousands of dollars in
employee retention credits? Take the quiz.
* Give them a list of purchase criteria which highlights YOU while revealing a
competitor's deficiency - The CEOs Guide to Choosing the Right ERC Consultant
Monitoring the actions chosen by your prospect indicate your prospect's level of interest in your service. Obviously, a prospect that watches 6 videos in a row and downloads 2 of your offers is a much hotter prospect than one that watches half of the first video and then drops off. You need this data to know where to focus your efforts.
WARNING: Building your Dream 100 automation requires motivation and a significant investment in time and money, and reaching your Dream 100 prospects does require ongoing effort. This is never a “one and done” process.
Next week we'll discuss this further.
If you want help with this, reach out to us for a 90-minute strategy session where we’ll build you a visual marketing plan where you can see how all the pieces fit together and we’ll even include 6 months of access to our mapping software. The 90-minute session and software access is just $297 and you can schedule a time HERE.
