Use Your “Hidden” Mind Reading Power to Easily Attract More Clients

In marketing, knowing your prospect’s needs, wants, challenges and problems are important keys to selling them.

Now suppose you had a way to know almost exactly what your prospect wants when he or she lands on your web site or reads your email marketing message? Think that would be give you a better chance to make a sale?

OK. Well, the first two things your prospect is looking for are universal and if you aren’t taking them into consideration with all your marketing, start today and watch your sales jump.

Thing 1: People want useful information when they are looking to solve a problem or fulfill a need. Drop the welcome to your site stuff and the here’s a list of all the services and products we offer.

Thing 2: They want information quickly.

So, useful and quick. Understanding and acting upon that alone and will put you so far down the track ahead of most of your competitors.

However, you can leave them in the dust by supercharging your marketing with an understanding of what your prospect is experiencing or thinking at the time they are presented with your marketing message.

While you can’t know exactly what’s on your prospect’s mind, you can make some pretty good guesses based on information you already have. What it comes down to is having a clear understanding of who your ideal client is and why they bought from you.

Something tipped the scales in your favour that made your current clients pick you when it came down to making a buying decision. After all, they probably had many options.

If you aren’t quite sure, start asking. When you have an understanding of why they chose you over your competitors, you’re in a position to develop marketing messages that tap into your prospect’s brain.

And your road in is your prospect’s Reticular Activating System.

The Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the “attention center” of the brain. It works 24/7 and determines what we pay attention to by acting like a filter. It’s impossible for the brain to focus on everything it is exposed to during a day so the RAS keeps your brain on track by allowing it to focus on what’s important to you.

Here’s a common example of your Reticular Activating System in action.

You decide to buy a new car. Let’s say it’s a CHEVY TrailBlazer. From the minute you start looking for a place to buy it, you will see CHEVY TrailBlazers everywhere you look. That’s your Reticular Activating System allowing you to see them.

Now, think of how that can impact your marketing.

Your prospect has needs and wants. And he or she frames up many of those needs and wants in the form of problems that need solutions. By presenting your offering in the form of a solution to a problem, your marketing will tap into what your prospect is thinking -giving them EXACTLY what they want.

If your prospect is looking a service and visits a number of websites which are presenting the same pick-me sales message – here are all the products and services we offer blah blah – think about how you can cobble together a marketing message that immediately shows up on your prospect’s RAS radar because it matches up to what he or she is really searching for – a solution to a problem.

Think that will increase your chances of attracting attention?

You can bet it will! Which is why it’s so important for you to establish your main marketing message – your USP – and make sure you promote it on your website and in all your other marketing as a solution to a need or want your prospect is searching for.

That way, instead of surfing past your message because it looks like so many others, your prospect’s Reticular Activating System will send a message that says, “Hey, stop, that’s what you’re looking for!”

Happy selling.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Canada who works with clients in the US and Canada.

7 Questions Your Home Page Should Answer 

There’s a time-tested school of thought professional direct mail copywriters draw upon to inspire them to create attention-grabbing and compelling promotions.

It goes like this: Picture your prospect sorting through his or her daily mail standing over a trash bin. The primary objective is simple: dump as much of the stuff as possible.

A typical sort might include the following three categories:

*’forget it, no interest’
*’this is a must keep.’
*’this looks like it could be of interest, I’ll take a closer look.’

A similar approach is used by people looking for products and services on the internet.

Your prospect arrives at your web site with his or her finger on the mouse.

Because they have been conditioned by a seemingly never-ending sea of boring, self-promoting, hard-to-follow web sites, many have very low expectations.

They are LOOKING for a reason to click away – almost as soon as the home page fills the screen. Unfortunately, many marketers make it easy for them to press the button.

The real tragedy is that many of those same marketers have everything the prospect wants. They just don’t know how to communicate online.

Selling is selling. Face to Face. In ads. Via email. And especially on your web site.

You can have all the traffic in the world but if your content doesn’t grab your prospects’ attention and lead them through your sales story, you may end up with very skinny children.

Here are 7 questions your prospect wants answered:

1. What exactly is your service or product and why should I be interested? You have 3 seconds to answer this question. Otherwise, click: lost sales opportunity. Most home pages do a poor job which is why many business owners view their web site as a cost instead of an investment in what should be the most cost-efficient, productive salesperson they could ever hope to find. And make no mistake: it’s the “why should I be interested?’ part of the question you want to focus on. Put another way, they are really asking ‘What makes you different from your competitors?’

2. Will it work for me? The information on your home page must instantly send a compelling message to the prospect that says, “If you have a need for what our product or service does, we GUARANTEE it will work.” I’m not saying you must offer a guarantee but you must provide the kind of details that leave no doubt in your propspects’ minds that you can solve the problem or satisfy the need they’re bringing to you. Remember, you have the upper hand here. The prospect is looking for something. That’s why they came to your site. It’s your job to demonstrate why you have the best solution.

3. What kind of results can I expect? If you have won the “attention and interest battle”, you’re on your way to the front of the stage where you will have an opportunity to continue making your case. Make sure your answer takes the following into consideration: We think in pictures. That is, we “see” how a service or product can improve our lives. Your job, as a marketer, is to paint a picture that will allow the prospect to “see” how your product or service will improve their lives. Once we’ve done an effective job of engaging the prospect emotionally, we need to include logical reasons why this is a sound buying decision. As you know, people buy for emotional reasons (make me look better, feel better etc) first and then back up their emotional decision with logic eg. (these guys have an impressive customer list, the
organization has been in business for 11 years etc).

4. Who else has used this service and what were their results? This is where we need to offer irrefutable, third-party evidence that we can deliver. That means sprinkling compelling and meaningful testimonials around that leave no doubt in the prospect’s mind that they are in good hands. I wrote an article that I give to clients that offers a simple system for getting strong testimonials from your clients and customers. Not the “Mary was so nice and helpful’ blah blah that really does nothing to hammer home the true value you deliver but quantitative feedback you can use to extract winning testimonials. It’s simple to use. If you’re interested, email me and I’ll send you a copy.

5. How exactly do your services work? What’s the process and structure? This is an important part of the process. It demystifies your offering by helping the prospect establish some expectations. It increases the prospects comfort level. Especially if they have to answer to someone else. If you don’t do this, you run the risk that some
prospects will may away. Details sell and bring your offering to life.

6. Are you credible? Do you have the experience to help me? The prospect must be convinced you are the real deal. This is no time to be shy. Get your track record in front of their eyes – on the home page where it can win the day. I often see clients burying credentials in their site. Sadly, the reader never gets that far. That’s the kind of a selling ammunition you need on the front line – your home page. Make sure to highlight an industry awards you’ve received. For some businesses, a client list and numbers of years in business are other facts that can be used to convince the prospect.

7. What do I have to do next to get and use your services? Probably the second biggest mistake (and just as fatal) many web marketers make. They don’t identify the next step in the buying process for the prospect and invite him or her to take it. Huge mistake. And very costly. Prospects are lazy. Complacent. Easily distracted. Not self action-oriented. Guess what they do when we omit this step? Right. They just drift away after all the hard work we did to keep them in front of our message. Missed opportunity. Happens all the time.

Once your home page provides answers to the questions above, your conversion rates – getting your prospect to take the next step in the buying process – will increase.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.

How to start an avalanche of referrals

There is no better new customer than a referral from a happy customer.

But most businesses don’t have a plan in place to generate referrals. They simply take them as they come without giving much thought to how they might be able to create a steady stream of referral business.

Before you can do that however, it’s important to understand the following referral truth.

Satisfied customers do not send referrals in droves. The referral avalanche comes from clients and customers who are enthusiastic, inspired and awed from their experience with you.

Bottom line: Being good ain’t good enough if you want tons of referrals. If you continue to simply meet your customer’s expectations, your referral rate won’t change.

So what can you do to have your customer rave about you?

Consider what one dentist did. He provides dental care to children. After attending a seminar on creative thinking, he identified a number of things he could do to tailor his practice to the needs of his patients.

Here are some of the things he did:

*He redesigned his office to provide maximum comfort to his target market. He lowered the reception staff into a pit behind the counter so they were at eye level with the patients.

*He hung giant photographs of each dentist and dental assistant along with descriptions of each person’s hobbies and interests, so new patients could pick their dentists and assistants based on having something in common.

*He gave away free bicycles! Every patient got a “homecare follow-through Report Card” for his or her parents to fill out. If the Report Card came back to the dentist with all As, the child got the bicycle. (Imagine – there’s little Johnny riding around the neighborhood on his new bike and people ask him who got it for him and he answers, “My dentist.”)

*He called each new patient at home the evening after treatment to see how the patient was feeling.”

*He called each parent the day after the the child’s treatment.

*Each new patient left the office the first time with an autographed “8 x 10″ glossy of his dentist and dental assistant.

The result of his creative thinking?

He multiplied his practice by ten in just one year without any  increase in his advertising budget.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.

Your Marketing Funnel: A Key To More Sales Leads

A past client of mine, whom I’ll call “Brian,” is a business coach and a excellent one.  

He’d had a web site for several years that pretty much served as an online brochure for his company. When Brian came to me, he was looking for a way to convert more people from qualified prospects to happy purchasers of one of his coaching programs.

The problem?

He was attracting people to his web site and getting them sign up for a free coaching session. But when they discovered at the end of the introductory session that his coaching programs cost several thousand dollars, many ended up thanking him and going on their way.

They simply weren’t ready to plunk down that kind of money so early in the relationship.

After learning about the problem, I asked Brian what he was doing with the people who didn’t decide to invest in his coaching program.

I can still remember the frustration in his voice when he told me that there was really nothing he could do at that point. He didn’t have an answer. Which, for Brian, was a real dilemma because, like most us, he has a genuine passion for wanting to help people.

So I introduced him to the strategy of using a marketing funnel. If you picture a funnel, you know it’s wide and open at the top, and narrow at the bottom. At the top of the funnel, where you offer free stuff, is where most of your prospects will enter. At the bottom of the funnel is your HIGHEST PRICED service or product. The middle should offer in-between levels of services/products and prices.

The idea is to create a marketing funnel that gives your prospects the option of jumping in where they want, and then move them along so they can benefit from your higher priced products and services.

In Brian’s case, he had three things in his funnel: his free coaching session, a hardcover book that was priced about $300 and his coaching programs that ranged from $4,000 – $10,000.

He had the first step down pat: Get your prospect IN the funnel.

Offering something FREE is the ideal way to get lots of people into your funnel. Most business owners collect prospects by giving away something free, suchas a report, an ezine, or a teleclass. When people sign up for these valuable giveaways, you get their names and e-mail addresses, allowing you to contact them again.

At the top of Brian’s funnel was his offer of a free exploratory coaching session. And at the bottom were his pricey coaching programs. But there was really nothing in the middle.

Many self-employed professionals, such as coaches and consultants, fall into this trap. There’s either free or high-fee. This is the reason many of them have so muchtrouble converting prospects — people usually aren’t ready to make that big jump from $0 to several thousand dollars.

Without a less expensive way for prospects to sample the value Brian had to offer, the prospects simply fell by the way side.

I recommended he create several information products (“info-products”) along with a home study coaching program for do-it-yourselfers that would allow him togo back to those who weren’t ready to jump into a coaching program and offer them a less expensive way to get started.

It has expanded his marketing funnel and created a passive income stream he didn’t have before.

You can do the same thing.

By packaging your knowledge into info-products, you give your prospects the chance to “sample” you at a lower price, filling the middle of your funnel.

Here are a few ideas to get you started:

* Books
* E-Books
* Special Reports
* Manuals
* Workbooks
* Audio downloads, CDs
* Video downloads, DVDs
* Home Study Courses

Creating and selling these products on your web site gives you passive income which means you aren’t trading time for money.

But most importantly, it gives you a practical means of converting interested prospects into lifelong clients instead of having to turn them away because you don’t have a less-intimidating way they can test the waters.

Take some time now and see where your marketing funnel could be adjusted so that it’s easier for your prospects to sample your expertise and buy from you.

Gerry Black is a marketing writer based in Toronto, Canada who works with clients in the U.S. and Canada.