The 7 Most Cost Effective Ways To Attract Clients and Increase Profits

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7 Steps to
Get More Clients
and
Grow Your Business

by Charlie Cook

NOTICE: This Book is licensed to the individual reader only. Duplication or
distribution via e-mail, floppy disk, network, printout or other means to a
person other than the original purchaser is a violation of international copyright
law.

© Copyright 2006, Charlie Cook, In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights
reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by any means
(including electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior
written permission of the publisher.

Published by:
Marketing For Success
In Mind Communications, LLC
3 West End Avenue
Old Greenwich, CT 06870
203-637-1118
ccook@marketingforsuccess.com

Contents

How To Get More Clients 1
Becoming an expert marketer
A marketing system that works

Make the Marketing Cycle Work For You 2
Understanding the marketing and sales cycle

Getting Attention
Step 1 Generating Awareness 4
Step 2 Motivating Prospects to Action 5

Positioning
Step 3 Establishing Credibility 7
Step 4 Clarifying Your Value 8

Selling
Step 5 Getting a Commitment 9
Step 6 Providing Services that Increase Revenue 10
Step 7 Maintaining the Relationship 12

Identifying The GAPS In Your Plan 14
Setting Goals
Getting Attention
Positioning
Selling
Marketing Diagnostic Results 17
Your Areas of Marketing Opportunity

Your Comments About This Manual 18

Stumped? 19

© Copyright 2006•Charlie Cook•InMind Communications, LLC

7 Steps to
Get More Clients and Grow Your Business
1

How Can I Get More Clients and Increase
Profits from Existing Ones?
If you own a business or are responsible for marketing one, this
should be one of the questions you ask yourself on a regular basis.
Answering it is critical to the survival of your business.

You may be frustrated by the lack of results from your
present marketing efforts. Despite time spent on mailings,
cold calls, meetings with prospects, networking, building a
web site, etc., you aren’t getting as many new clients as you
want. And even though existing clients are highly satisfied
with the services and products you provide, past work doesn’t
translate into new work or referrals as often as you would
like.

Becoming an expert marketer

You have the knowledge to excel at marketing your business.
My role as a marketing coach is to help you leverage what
you know to market your business like an expert. This free
marketing guide is a starting point for creating a winning
marketing plan, one that brings in more clients.

A marketing system that works

Instead of shooting in the dark, you’d like to have a clear,
reliable system for marketing your business. You’d like to
know what to do first, second and third. You’d like to know
where to spend your time and money to get the greatest
return in new business for your efforts.

The marketing cycle and steps outlined in the following pages
provide you with just such a system. In the following pages


7 Steps to
2

you’ll learn the fundamental phases of the marketing cycle
and seven steps you need to help prospects become clients.

This marketing guide gives an overview of the key concepts
and ideas you can use to create a marketing plan and attract
new clients. If you want to develop a comprehensive
understanding of how to market your business and learn the
specific marketing skills you will need, visit:
www.mfsstore.com

Questions

How much more money could you be making if you could
attract more clients?

Use the marketing calculators at the link provided below to
determine your potential income. Visit:
http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/marketing-
calculators.html

Make the Marketing Cycle Work For You
The three phases of marketing are as predictable as the
phases of the moon. Work with the marketing cycle to
generate a steady stream of prospects and to convert
prospects to clients.

Understanding the Marketing and Sales Cycle
No matter how much you might like to have a full moon on
any given night, you can’t skip the quarter moon and half
moon to get there. Similarly, your marketing needs to move
people through three phases and a series of steps to take
them from prospect to client status.


7 Steps to
3

The first phase of marketing is Getting Attention. People
need to know that you exist and what it is that you do or
offer before they can buy. The second phase is Positioning;
before a prospect will part with their hard-earned dollars,
they need to get to know and trust you and understand the
value of what you provide. The final phase of the marketing
cycle is Selling, obtaining first time and repeat sales.

You can’t affect the moon, but you can control the marketing
and sales cycle. You can influence your prospects and
generate a steady stream of clients and customers.

Think of your marketing as a short flight of stairs into your
business. First you help prospects become aware that your
firm exists, then you motivate them to contact you, next you
establish your credibility, etc. Step by step, you move them
closer to a sale.

If you miss a step or two in the marketing and sales
sequence, your prospects will stumble and won't make it in
the door to your business and they probably won’t visit again.
If you mix up the sequence, prospects won't take the steps
you want them to take to become clients.

Getting Attention, Positioning, Selling; a three-step
cycle that you can anticipate and influence using the seven
steps discussed below. Put these steps in order and you’ll
move many more clients and customers through the
marketing cycle to purchase your products and
services.


7 Steps to
4

Getting Attention

Step 1 - Generating Awareness
Introduce yourself to prospects and tell them what you do
and how you can help them. Make sure your marketing
message addresses your target markets’ interests, and then
use it to write ads that pay for themselves, whether you are
using google/adwords, ezine ads, newspaper ads, or radio
spots.

Start with Client Problems
Client’s biggest concerns are their needs and wants, not your
processes or credentials. Too often service providers fall in
love with their services and products. That can be good thing
when it is evident in the passion they demonstrate in helping
clients. It can be bad thing when they focus on detailing their
processes, methodologies and credentials instead of focusing
their marketing on their client concerns.

Questions

What are your clients’ primary concerns?

What client needs do your services meet?

What are the solutions you provide?

What is the end result clients receive from your services?

Which of these results differentiate your firm from your
competitors?


7 Steps to
5

Ideas to Implement

• Develop a brilliant marketing message that describes the
unique value you provide for clients and prompts
prospects to contact you.

• Use your brilliant marketing message as the foundation of
all your marketing efforts including meetings, phone calls,
letters, newsletters, websites, etc.

• Develop marketing materials from your clients’
perspective. Clients buy results. Market the results, not
the product or service methodology. Review and revamp
all your marketing materials so they focus on client’s
primary concerns and on the results you provide.

Step 2 – Motivating Prospects to Action
Use everything from your ads to your business card to your
web site to stimulate a contact or a conversation. Give
prospects a reason to take the next step and respond by
emailing or calling you or visiting your store.

Demonstrate Value
One of the biggest hurdles for service professionals is
convincing people of the value of their services. Whether you
provide haircuts, run a restaurant, or give legal or financial
advice, prospects won’t know how good they’ll look, how
tasty the food is, or the benefits of your advice until they’ve
experienced it.

The best way to convince people of the usefulness of your
services is to demonstrate the value you provide by letting
them “test drive” the benefits of your services or products.
For example, Amazon.com allows users to read the first few


7 Steps to
6

pages of the books they sell, and music lovers can download
samples of tracks on CDs.

Questions

What is the fundamental need or objective that drives
prospects’ decision to use or not use your services?

How can you help prospects experience the benefit of your
products and services?

Ideas to Implement

• Find a way to let people “test drive” your services or
products.

Whether you are offering a sample newsletter, design tips,
or training strategies, before people become customers
they need to understand the quality of work you provide.
The best way to do this is to demonstrate your expertise
or the benefits of your products.

• Become a trusted advisor. Regularly provide clients with
tips for “free”. For example, if you’re an accountant you
could provide them with tax planning tips. Share ideas
that they can put to use immediately and that will clarify
the need for your products and services.


7 Steps to
7

Positioning

Step 3 - Establishing Credibility
People won’t buy from you until they feel confident that they
know and trust you. Use your articles, books, interviews, and
testimonials from clients to establish your credibility and
make prospects feel confident in buying from your firm.

Questions

Does your marketing help establish the trust necessary to
convince prospects to buy from you?

How can you leverage the trust of existing clients to attract
new prospects?

Ideas to Implement

• Collect testimonials. Pick up the phone and call your
customers to ask what they thought of your product or
service, what they liked about it and how it was helpful.
Feature these testimonials in your marketing materials.

• Use articles to establish yourself or your firm as experts.
Invest your time in writing articles to establish yourself as
an expert.

• Give something away. Use an ebook, article, workshop or
free demonstration to build trust.


7 Steps to
8

Step 4 - Clarifying Your Value
Whether you are selling a $15 book, a $10,000 business
consultation, or a $50,000 car, prospects won’t make a
commitment unless they understand in their own terms the
value you are providing. Use your marketing materials, your
web site, and your conversations to help prospects define the
value of your goods or services.

Help Prospects Define the Value
To help prospects understand the value of your services,
don’t tell them; ask them. Most people learn new ideas by
putting them into their own words. Use questions to get
prospects to identify the ways they’ll benefit from your
products. Ask them what they want, what they are looking
for, and how they expect to benefit. Get your prospects to
define their aspirations and objectives for purchase.

These questions actively engage your prospects. By
describing the benefits they are looking for, they begin to
imagine how much better off they’d be with your products
and services.

Questions

Are you presenting your pricing information too soon?

What are prospects’ reasons for buying?

What questions can you ask to get prospects to describe the
value of your products and services?


7 Steps to
9

Ideas to Implement

• After prospects’ have defined the value of the service or
product they’re interested in and can see themselves
using it, then you tell them the price. A price of ten
dollars or ten thousand can scare your prospects away if
you give it to them too soon.

• Increase your sales by pitching to your prospects’
reasons for buying. Use your questions to help prospects
define the benefits of your products and services in their
own words. They will have far fewer objections to price
and you’ll make many more sales.

Selling

Step 5 – Getting a Commitment
Whether it is helping a prospect to sign up for your free
ezine, scheduling a conversation, buying a manual or sending
you a check for your services, to move the process forward
you need to ask for and get a commitment.

Start With Goals
Whether you want to find clients or to increase profits per
client, define specific goals for your marketing efforts.


7 Steps to
10

Questions

What are your marketing goals for this year or for the next
two years?

How much of your time do you allocate to marketing versus
service delivery, product development and administrative
tasks during the week?

Ideas to Implement

• Identify both your long and short-term marketing
objectives. From your list, choose a marketing task, that:

- Is urgent
- Can be accomplished within the next one to three
months
- Uses existing resources
- Has a high probability of success
- Can be measured

For example, you may want to create a strategy for
generating referrals. Break it down into specific steps and
work on them daily or weekly.

• Define who will do which marketing tasks and when they
will do them.

• Implement your marketing strategy in a disciplined
manner just as you would a new fitness-training regimen.


7 Steps to
11

Step 6 – Providing Services that Increase
Revenue
You’ll sell your products or services if they solve a problem or
satisfy a need. Your objective is to give people what they
want. Do so and they’ll be happy. The second objective is to
sell them what they need. Do this and they’ll come back to
buy your other products and services.

Create Opportunities
Standing still in the business world is the same as going
backwards. Change is a constant and companies that don’t
constantly prepare for it get left behind by both the
competition and by their clients’ shifting needs.

Questions

Do you have a strategy for collecting new product, service
and marketing ideas? What is it? How could you improve
it?

Can you identify the cycle your product and service fits into
for your clients? This includes the calendar year, usage, life
stage, product development cycle, etc.

What is your strategy for cross-marketing your products
and services to clients?

How can you reduce clients’ perception of risk associated
with purchase of your products and or services?

What is your strategy for generating referrals?


7 Steps to
12

Ideas to Implement

• Institutionalize the process of collecting ideas for new
products, services and marketing from clients and
employees at every level in your organization. Constantly
look for ways to expand your sources of feedback from
your own employees, suppliers and customers.

• Identify firms that target your clients and create
marketing alliances with them. Get them to market your
services and products to their clients and vice versa.

• Identify the biggest barrier in clients’ minds to purchasing
your products or services. Develop a strategy for reducing
or eliminating this perception of risk.

• Get referrals. Don't wait for the occasional referral to
come in spontaneously. Implement a proactive system to
generate referrals.

Step 7 – Maintaining the Relationship
Once a prospect has become a paying client, you want them
to stay with you and continue learning and buying from you.
Stay in touch, clarify the value of your products and services
and prompt prospects and clients to buy from you and refer
new clients to you.

Build and Maintain Your Network
Most service businesses are relationship businesses. Your
relationship with prospective and existing clients is your
competitive edge. Others may sell or provide similar products
or services, but only you maintain that unique relationship


7 Steps to
13

with your target audience. Building short and long-term
relationships should be your primary marketing task.

The first challenge is to initiate and build relationships with
members of your target market or those connected to your
target market. The second is to maintain these relationships
and the third is to leverage them so they result in a steady
stream of new and repeat clients and referrals from satisfied
clients.

Questions

How many people know what you do, understand the
solutions you provide and could give a one-sentence
summary of your services or products?

When you meet new people, do you collect information
about their primary concerns relative to your products and
services as well as information about their specific
expertise?

Do you use a centralized database in your firm to organize
the above client information and track prospect and client
contact?

Do clients contact you when they have a need or do you
have to contact them?

What does your firm do to maintain relationships with
existing and past clients?

Ideas to Implement

• Instead of using the shotgun approach to networking,
focus your networking efforts on people and firms that
share your target audience.


7 Steps to
14

• Use questions to get key information from networking
contacts. Use the back of their business cards to jot down
a piece of personal information, how their business is
doing and what their biggest concern is.

• Use sign-ups, free offers, and newsletter offers to help
prospects self-select to be in your marketing database.

• Use one centralized database for all the members of your
firm to keep track of prospect and client information,
contacts and opportunities.

• Provide contacts with a concise description of the
problems you solve (your brilliant marketing message) so
they can talk coherently to others about how helpful you
are.

Identifying the GAPS in
Your Marketing Plan
You’ve got a marketing plan but want to determine where
and how you can improve it. Could you be doing a better job
at Getting Attention, Positioning or Selling?

If you are like most small business owners, your business
could benefit from improvements in all three areas. Use the
following marketing assessment to identify specific areas
where you want to improve your marketing strategy, plan
and skills.


7 Steps to
15

Setting Goals
1. How much more would you like to be making?

2. How many more clients do you need to attract this
year to meet your financial goals?

3. How many more products do you need to sell on an
annual basis?

Getting Attention
1. Are you getting as much attention for your products
and services as you’d like?

2. What percent of your target market is aware that your
firm exists?

3. What is the response rate to your ads?

4. What is the conversion rate for your direct mailings or
from your web site?

5. Would you like to increase the percentage of your
target market that understands how you can help them
and why they should contact you?

6. Do you have a brilliant marketing message that
succinctly explains the problem you solve and prompts
prospects to contact you?

7. Do you know how to motivate prospects to contact
you?

8. Do you have a lead generation system that grows the
number of interested prospects you contact each
month?


7 Steps to
16

Positioning
1. Is your firm positioned in prospects’ minds as the place
to find reliable expertise?

2. What is your strategy for helping prospects get to
know and trust you?

3. Do you have defined strategies for helping prospects
clarify the value (in their own terms) of your products
and services?

4. What is your strategy for eliminating prospects’
objections and helping them become clients and
customers? Does it work as well as you’d like?

Selling
1. How many qualified prospects get in touch with you
each week?

2. How many give you their contact information so you
can market to them again and again?

3. How many personally contact you with a question or a
request for your products or services?

4. Would you like to increase the number of prospects
that contact you each week?

5. Is your marketing copy successful in convincing
prospects to buy? Would you like to learn how to write
marketing copy that motivates prospects to become
clients?


7 Steps to
17

6. What percentage of clients and customers buy from
you again?

7. How long (months and years) do clients and customers
continue to buy from you?

8. What percentage of existing clients refer qualified
prospects to you?

Marketing Diagnostic Results
List the areas of your marketing you want to improve in order
of importance on the following page. Be as specific as
possible. For example, is the problem with your marketing
message, a lack of advertising, a lack of articles, or the lack
of a lead generating web site, cold calling skills, etc?

Possible areas for improvement may include:

Getting Attention
• Your marketing message
• Response to your ads
• Your networking efforts
• Generating leads with your web site
• Motivating prospects to action

Positioning
• Establishing credibility
• Your marketing copy
• Using your newsletter to sell
• Using eBooks to grow your business
• Clarifying value

Selling
• Ability to eliminate objections
• Gaining commitments to sales


7 Steps to
18

• Generating sales with your web site
• Getting appointments
• Using the phone
• Closing skills
• Client retention
• Generating additional sales from clients
• Getting referrals

Your Key Areas of Marketing Opportunity

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Your Comments about
this Manual
What are the best ideas in this manual?

How will you apply these concepts and tactics?

How will these ideas help you attract more clients and
customers and be more successful?

Please send your comments to
Charlie Cook at ccook@marketingforsuccess.com


The 7 Most Cost Effective Ways To Attract Clients and Increase Profits

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