Laurie Hayes, “The HBB Source,” helps home-based business owners and those who are considering starting their own homebased business, get clear on their goals, excited about the possibilities, and organized in their thinking, planning and actions.
Laurie is not only a Professional Coach, but also a Mentor and Resource to her clients and readers. Laurie has authored numerous articles on work/life balance and small and home-based business practices and strategies. She is regularly invited to contribute articles to online, small business magazines.
It’s all about your list and attracting targeted qualified leads. Focusing your efforts on building a massive list regardless of whether or not they are your ideal client or customer is a waste of effort and money. It’s important to know exactly who your ideal client is and where to find them.
It’s all about relationship building. We are bombarded by requests to subscribe to publications every single day and are now being much more cautious in whom we give our name and e-mail address to. Years ago, it was easy to get subscribers. Today, you really have to stand out and offer quality information and value.
In order to attract and keep qualified leads on your list, you will need to focus your attention on building a relationship with the reader. Find out what their most pressing need is or problem that need’s to be solved and find the solution for them. It’s no longer about bombarding people with information overload, but creating relationships and filling needs.
Jay Abraham Insider’s Club Ali Brown’s Boost Business with Your Own Ezine David Frey’s Marketing Bible Michael Port’s Product Factory David Wood’s Build Your Practice While You Sleep
Make it worth their time and effort to promote your
product/service. They can even make the majority of the profit of each initial purchase because your real profit will come through the back-end when these referrals start purchasing products and services through your promotions.
Your product or service has to be perceived as a benefit to your affiliate, so always strive to provide absolute value and benefit to your clients / readers / customers, etc., otherwise, your affiliate may no longer see the value in promoting your product or service.
2. Allow affiliates a percentage of all subsequent sales you make on products and services indefinitelyMany programs offer commissions on referrals up to 60 or 100 days only. This is very unappealing. If anyone they refer makes a purchase of any product or service outside of the initial purchase and at any time afterwards, allow the affiliate to benefit as well.
Also make commission payment easy and provide alternative payment options. Some programs pay only through PayPal. This does not appeal to everyone. Some prefer a cheque instead. Always think of what will provide the most value for your affiliate.
3. Educate your affiliates and provide necessary resourcesProvide them with text and banner ads and great copy so they don’t have to do the work. Make it as easy for them as possible to promote to their lists.
Not all affiliates will be technical gurus, so, if they require, provide support and guidance on how to insert promotional tools into their e-mail messages, newsletters and websites. Also, provide ongoing support through newsletter articles. Dedicate a column or small space with an “Affiliate Tip of the Month” for example.
Help them, while at the same time keep the value of your affiliate relationship at the top of their mind. Place testimonials from affiliates in your newsletter indicating profits made over a certain period. People need to see and hear success stories.
What are the best ways to contact prospects prior to their initial incentive expiring? Phone? Email? Snail Mail?If I understand building rapport as being a critical step in developing a downline, can you talk about relationship building musts to help move warm prospects into long time users of our products and services?
To increase your success rate, a two-step process is best.Step #1: Contact your prospects via e-mail with an informative, helpful communication designed to provide value. This communication may provide educational tips, success stories from previous or current clients, exciting future promotions, etc.
Within this e-mail, notify your prospects that you will be following-up via phone call.Step #2: Extend additional support and to measure how your initial incentive served them.
During this conversation, find out what benefits they experienced, what they’d like to see more or less of, and whether the experience was more or less than they expected and why.
Communicate your intention to make your relationship as profitable and rewarding for them as possible and that in order to carry out your part of the deal, their honest input is required and valued. Listen to what they tell you and then do what is necessary to meet their needs.
By following up your written communication with a phone call, you will increase your success rate by 30 to 50 percent.
To build strong, lasting relationships, you must find out what are your prospects’ biggest frustrations and challenges. You need to help them find clarity by asking, “What would it look like if things were operating they way you’d like to see them?”
Once they are clear on what they want, you need to educate and motivate them. Don’t just give them information, but give them action steps, support them in creating the results they seek. Providing information alone is not enough.
Create a level of trust. Never put your interests ahead of your prospects. Always provide what is in their best interests and not only will your relationship grow stronger, they will start singing your praises to their friends, family and business associates.
In the words of the brilliant Stephen Covey, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Listen to your prospects and truly understand what they need. Put yourself in their shoes and see their situation through their eyes then ask yourself, “How can I have the most positive impact on this person?”
Sometimes prospects won’t make a decision because they don’t want to feel foolish. You want to show them that your product or service or relationship will make them feel good about themselves.
Remove as many obstacles as possible in order for them to work with you. Sometimes concepts are too confusing for prospects the first time, so instead give them examples to help clarify.
These are just a few strategies that are powerful in creating lasting, rewarding relationships.The most important underlying message here is, “I am here to serve you, to help you, to be your partner in realizing your goals.” It has nothing to do with you or with selling. It’s all about them and how you can benefit them.
My challenge to you is to review these strategies and measure them against your current practices. Are you currently using them? Can you expand on them or make minor (or major) changes?
Implement and test these strategies and see what kind of response you generate from your prospects. As always, measure your results and test and tweak as necessary.
I’m having such a hard time finding customers, I thought it would be much easier than this. Although I’m getting a lot of visits to my web site, the conversion of leads to sales is much less than I had hoped for. What am I doing wrong?
One of the biggest mistakes new home-based business owners make is not having a clear idea of who their target market is. Instead of narrowing the marketing focus on a specific niche, they try to be everything to everyone.
You may get a whole lot of visitors to your web site, but many may be “looky-lou’s”. In others words, just curious folks with no specific problem or need you are prepared to fill.
To get better-qualified leads and, in turn, more customers, you need to know who your target market is. This is the group of people who have a problem or need that you have a solution for. The problem they have has to be important enough to them to make them want to spend money on finding a solution.
More people will make a purchase to solve a problem than they will to fulfil a desire. Keep this in mind when deciding what you are going to sell and to whom.
When choosing your target market, be specific. For example, “I work with Canadian female entrepreneurs who have decided to start a home-based business after retiring from the corporate world.”
You can even take this one step further …“I work with Canadian female entrepreneurs who have decided to start a home-based business in the health services field after retiring from the corporate world.”
Having a really clear vision of who you want to work with and who have problems you can solve, will help you target your marketing efforts effectively. By knowing who makes up your target market, you will be able to determine where they hang out, what they read, what interests them and what keeps them awake at night.
Knowing exactly who your target market is will also let you know if they have money to spend.Creating a web site and expecting the sales to roll in is unrealistic. You want to identify your target market, then find them and invite them to your site. Participate in related discussion boards, join the Associations your target market joins, subscribe to the same publications, have the copy on your website speak directly to your target market instead of just anyone.
Write articles and submit them to article directories. Other publishers will pick up your articles and distribute them to their readers. These readers will be specifically interested in what you’re offering and will be seeking a solution to a problem when they visit your site.
Be very clear as to whom you want to work with and sell to, then customize your efforts to reach them. Once you have your target market identified, your efforts will be much more focused and the right people will be drawn to your business.
My business isn’t progressing at the rate I’d like it to and I’m getting burned out by the continuous demands on my time. I can’t seem to get into a groove or get any one thing done. I’ve got 20 projects on the go, yet nothing is being completed. How do I stop this merry-go-round and get onto a clear path?
You may have too much on your plate right now and an absence of real structure. When this happens, confusion overwhelms and downright frustration results.
One thing you can do right now is to stop focusing on getting things done. Yes, that’s right. Stop thinking about everything you have to do.
Now … shift your focus for a minute, and start thinking about what will bring you closer to your success as a home-based business owner.
Might it be completing a special report to offer as a free gift to new subscribers or customers? Taking one of your newly learned marketing strategies and implementing it immediately? Creating a new product that will provide great benefit to your customers?
Take five or ten minutes and make a list of all of your daily activities. Once complete, review these items and determine how much time out of every day is devoted to each of them.
Now, how many of these tasks have a direct impact on what is needed to bring you closer to success?If the majority of these activities are not moving you towards your goal, you need to make changes. Your time must be spent completely focused on creating your vision. For activities that take you away from your vision, you must either delegate them to someone else or remove them from your daily activities.
If this is just not possible, then set up a specific window of time during the day or week to deal with them. Assign a time limit for these tasks and don’t deviate from it.
Mastering self-discipline, creating structure, and clearly identifying and acting on those activities that must be carried out to move forward in your business will allow you to focus your attention where it needs to be and will get you off that merry-go-round for good.