Unleash Your Lead Generation Machine

Lead generation is a funny thing. It's the lifeblood of any growing business, yet many approach it in a casual manner at best.

Consistently generating leads for your business takes momentum and momentum takes energy.

In my experience, lead generation energy is best created by effectively approaching your very well defined target market from several angles, advances and mediums.

Your multi-pronged attack should come just short of making them feel that you and your business are everywhere they want to go.

One way to accomplish this is through the carefree spending of bucket loads of money on advertising. It's an approach that has actually worked for some, but I don't recommend it for most small business owners.

A more effective small business lead generation machine, one that generates the greatest return on investment, is best created through the blending of targeted advertising, consistent public relations and a systematic approach to referrals.

This three prong attack is the stuff that momentum is built on.

Advertising

For most small businesses, direct mail is one of the best ways to target specific markets. The key to making small business direct mail, or any form of advertising, work is to use your advertising to gain marketing permission, before you try to gain a sale.

In other words, focus your advertising message on creating a lead. Make them an offer of a free report, seminar, evaluation, newsletter, or other low cost or no cost education message and let them begin to get to know you through this two step process.

The fact is you can't really expect a prospect to make a buying decision about your product or service from the 127 words you can cram onto a postcard. You can however, get their attention with a free report that offers them 5,000 words of your expertise. Once they have consumed that, they will be primed and ready for your follow-up sales message.

Public relations

PR is a big field but for the sake of this article, I'm talking about two things - Getting nice articles about your firm in publications read by your target market and placing expert articles, written by you, in publications read by your target market.

If you aren't doing both of these as part of your lead generation strategy, you are missing the boat.

When a prospect reads an article in a newspaper or magazine it carries much more credibility than an ad. The fact that someone else (the publication) thinks that you are great is a very strong endorsement.

Target the publications you want to appear in and then start to market to them. Read them, send information and notes to writers on staff, find out what guidelines they have for guest authors and start creating some positive PR to go along with your advertising.

Here's a quick tip. Ask your best clients what publications they read and rely on the most. This can be a great way to find the best publications to advertise in as well. Every industry has dozens of trade publications, but only a few are actually read.

Referrals

It's a good bet that a large percentage of your business came to you by referral. Cousin Louie liked what you did for him, so he told two friends and the rest history.

Referrals are a great way to build a business. Leads that come to you by way of referral generally cost nothing. Clients that come to you by way of referral are often your best clients.

Most small businesses get this, but few approach lead generation by way of referral in a systematic way. And, asking a few people if they know anybody that needs what you do is not a systematic referral approach.

Here are the steps in the system:

Target a referral source - this could be your clients, but often the best referral sources are actually strategic partners that also serve your ideal target client

Educate your referral source - Create a one page document that your referral sources can use to introduce what you do, how you do it and why they should consider having you do it for them. The biggest potential pitfall of a shoddy referral approach is that you get tons of leads that aren't right for you.

Communicate a creative referral marketing offer - If you can create a game out referral lead generation everyone will want to play. Reward your referral sources in creative ways. Co-brand powerful information products and show your strategic partners how to use them.

Creative referral offers also make great news stories for your PR program.

Are you starting to get a glimpse of how some of this works together, builds momentum and creates energy?

John Jantsch

How To Make Your Best Ever Presentation

The most important tip...EVER!

Make sure that you always think of your audience - when preparing your talk, writing it and presenting it. Put yourself in the audience's position at all times and your presentation will go with a swing. Remember your audience does not want to know how marvellous you are, or how brilliant your product is. What they do want to know is something that will help them. Find out what your audience needs to know first and your presentation will be bound to succeed.

The second most important tip...EVER!

When you prepare your presentation do not include any bullet points or text whatsoever. All your slides should be pictures, illustrations, charts, cartoons etc. That way your audience does not have to read anything and can concentrate on what you are saying. Equally, if you lose your way in your presentation it is not obvious - with text, the audience knows you've made a mistake!

The third most important tip...EVER!

MOVE! Whenever you are presenting make sure you move. Animation helps your audience and it helps you. Movement stops your muscles from tensing and also puts extra air into your lungs. When you move you relax. When you relax you perform better. So don't be static, get moving!

Use flow charts

If you need to demonstrate the way a project is proceeding or how you plan to achieve something, use a flow chart rather than a list of bullet points. This way you can make the flow chart visual, using icons and symbols.

Avoid too much colour

Try not to make your slides loo like an explosion in a paint factory! Too much colour will be distracting. Try to use 'complementary' colours which you'll find opposite each other on the 'colour wheel' found in most software packages that can produce slides. For instance, you'll find that yellow is opposite red on the wheel. Never use colours that are next to each other on a colour wheel as they will clash.

Prepare different handouts

Many people give printed copies of slides as their handouts. This is next to useless as the slides rarely make sense without the accompanying spoken words. So, the best handouts are those which are a written version of your talk - simply write a summary article with plenty of subheadings and bullet points. That way your audience will be able to review what you said more easily. True it takes more time to do this, but it is considerably more effective. Top presenters never give handouts of their slides.

John Jantsch

How to Create a Powerful Personal Marketing Message

Try this exercise to help you develop a personal marketing message that grabs your prospect's attention.

Quite often small business owners will ask me to reveal the most powerful marketing strategy I have seen. I can say without hesitation that the most powerful marketing strategy has little to do with advertising, direct mail, websites, referrals or blogs.

No, before any of those things will really have an impact on your business, you've got to uncover and communicate how your business is different from every other business that says they do what you do. You've got to get out of the commodity business. You've got to stake your claim on a simple idea or position in the mind of your prospective clients.

You've got to create and bring to life a powerful personal marketing message.

The following is an exercise that I have developed that allows you to find your message by focusing on creating a marketing based answer to one very important question.

And the question is: What do you do for a living? The answer to that question is something that I call "Your Talking Logo."

Like a traditional printed logo, a talking logo is a tool that allows your firm to communicate verbally the single greatest benefit of doing business with your firm. A talking logo is a short statement that quickly communicates your firm's position and forces the listener to want to know more.

The talking logo is generally played in response to the comment, "So, tell me about your firm or tell me what you do." Everyone has attended a networking event or Chamber of Commerce breakfast where you are given a minute to describe your firm...another great place to use your talking logo. When it comes to referral marketing, the talking logo is how you communicate the value of your firm to referral sources.

How do you create your talking logo?

Remember, a talking logo must be a short statement that leaves the listener wanting to know more. Think about your clients or potential clients ... they want to know what's in it for them. Don't just tell them what your firm does- tell them in a way that matters to them.

"I'm in the insurance business." "I'm a registered architect." "I'm a painting contractor." "I'm a computer repair specialist." The only thing this type of response will get you is, "Who cares?" or worse. A talking logo grabs your prospect's attention.

Your talking logo is created in two distinct parts. Part 1 addresses your target market, and Part 2 zeroes in on a problem, frustration or want that market has.

You know you have a great talking logo when a person hears you deliver it and immediately says, "Really, how do you do that?"

"So, if you ask Bill the architect, "what do you do for a living?" Which do you think is more powerful? "Oh, I'm a registered architect" or [Talking Logo] "I show contractors how to get paid faster."

Now if you're a contractor you've got to know more, right? In the example above Bill has focused on addressing a key frustration that he knows contractors (his target market) have.

What about this one? "I show small service professionals how to triple what they charge?"

Do you see a pattern?

Here's the pattern: Action verb, (I show, I teach, I help) target market, (business owners, homeowners, teachers, divorced women, Fortune 500 companies) how to xxxx = solve a problem or meet a need that you know your marketing has.

Now ask yourself, "Who wouldn't want to know more when you heard a talking logo that spoke directly to you?" Communicating a powerful message like this will get you referral appointments too.

Now, once you get their attention with your talking logo answer to what you do for a living, it's time to deliver the goods.

So, now they utter, "Really, how do you do that?"

You must be equally prepared to answer this supplemental question. Once your prospect says, "Tell me more," you need Part 2, and that is when you tell them how you plan to solve their problem.

The key to this tool though, is waiting until you have their full attention with your talking logo.

Part 2: Again, the architect from above - "Well, we have developed relationships with every zoning board in the metro area and can make sure that your projects don't get hung up by red tape, ensuring that you get to that first pay request faster."

By understanding your positioning and your target market and then communicating it through your talking logo, you will be miles ahead of most of your competition and well on your way to generating referrals and leads from anyone you meet.

By John Jantsch

http://www.ducttapemarketing.com

The 7 Core Principles

1. Strategy before tactics

Determine a marketing strategy and then build your marketing activities around delivering on the strategy.

2. Narrow market focus

Stop trying to be all things to a very large market. Concentrate your marketing efforts on a small, niche market and become the dominate player.

3. Differentiate or compete on price

Find and communicate a hook that allows your prospects to easily see how your firm is different from everyone else in the industry and price comparisons go out the door.

4. Marketing materials should educate

No one likes to be sold to. Create brochures, websites and other forms of communications that allow your prospects to really experience your expertise.

5. Lead Generation is a 2-step process

Let your prospects get to know you through advertising that invites them in for a gift, free analysis, and useful information. Get permission and then sell.

6. Embrace technology and the Internet

The Internet provides your small business with a powerful way to automatically find, connect and server your clients and prospects.

7. Live by a marketing calendar

The best way to move your marketing forward as you run your business is to create a calendar and schedule marketing activities every single day.

Do the Two-Step

Forget cold calling--now, getting leads is as simple as counting to two.

Every business needs leads; they're the lifeblood of your marketing machine. The trick is to set up a marketing system that lets you create a steady flow of leads without having to subject yourself to the torture of cold calling.

Create a two-step lead machine, and you can say goodbye to cold calling while still generating all the qualified, permission-based leads you can handle.

The basic idea behind the two-step approach is to create a free information product that your target market will see as a valuable read or listen, such as a workshop, evaluation, checklist, newsletter, course or tipsheet. It should have a catchy title that's related to your business, like, "How to Tell if Your Roofing Contractor Is Lying," or "101 Things You Can Do With Your iPod." This is sometimes referred to as bait.

Now that you have your value-packed information product, every bit of your advertising--Yellow Pages, magazine ads, direct mail, business cards, letterhead, e-mail signature, website--should focus on getting people to request, pick up or download that report. Don't try to do anything else with your advertising; let the report sell for you. That's Step One. For startups, this approach is so much more effective than traditional advertising for several reasons. First, this tactic allows you to draw interest without having to tell your entire story--something that's tough to do in a small ad. Second, it allows you to demonstrate your expertise in a nonthreatening way: on the prospect's terms. Nobody likes to be sold to, but if they take the time to read your report and understand that what you do has value, the relationship can begin.

A prospect who has requested your free information is officially a hot lead. When prospects visit your website, they're effectively raising their hand and identifying themselves as being interested in what you do. When that happens, the hardest part of your sales job is done. Capture all the names and e-mails of those who request the report. Then your sales efforts can focus on taking that group--and only that group--to the next step in the process. That may mean following up with an appointment or simply a series of more advanced mailings. That's Step Two.

If you take this advice to heart, everything about how you market your business will change. And finding new business will become a much more rewarding and valuable experience.

You'll probably find other uses for your free report as well, including:

• Referrals: Ask your sources to introduce your business to others by way of your free report, web page or newsletter. This makes referrals easy for them and assures that your story is told.
• Cold calling: I know, I know. You should never need to cold call. But if you do, do it this way: Call those prospects on your list and, instead of trying to convince them to give you five minutes of their time next Tuesday, offer them the address for your power-packed free info, then shut up. Your prospecting time will be much more productive.

John Jantsch

The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

Patience.

Google was a very good search engine for two years before you started using it.

The iPod was a dud.

I wrote Unleashing the Ideavirus 8 years ago. A few authors tried similar ideas but it didn't work right away. So they gave up. Boingboing is one of the most popular blogs in the world because they never gave up.

The irony of the web is that the tactics work really quickly. You friend someone on Facebook and two minutes later, they friend you back. Bang.

But the strategy still takes forever. The strategy is the hard part, not the tactics.

I discovered a lucky secret the hard way about thirty years ago: you can outlast the other guys if you try. If you stick at stuff that bores them, it accrues. Drip, drip, drip you win.

It still takes ten years to become a success, web or no web. The frustrating part is that you see your tactics fail right away. The good news is that over time, you get the satisfaction of watching those tactics succeed right away.

The trap: Show up at a new social network, invest two hours, be really aggressive with people, make some noise and then leave in disgust.

The trap: Use all your money to build a fancy website and leave no money or patience for the hundred revisions you'll need to do.

The trap: read the tech blogs and fall in love with the bleeding-edge hip sites and lose focus on the long-term players that deliver real value.

The trap: sprint all day and run out of energy before the marathon even starts.

The media wants overnight successes (so they have someone to tear down). Ignore them. Ignore the early adopter critics that never have enough to play with. Ignore your investors that want proven tactics and predictable instant results. Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul. Because that's how long it's going to take, guys.

By Seth Godin