by Jason Linett
“Scale Up” by networking with others. Surround yourself with a community of people who are also successfully growing their businesses. Keep an eye out for the opportunity to partner on new projects. The business of a co-production will expand your reach to new audiences. You can leverage your skills or services to new industries in a symbiotic relationship .
A catchphrase from the vaudeville days of entertainment was “The amateur changes their act. The professional changes their audience.” Some performers would become massively skilled at just one thing and tour the world only with an eight-minute act. By networking with another business owner, you take your “act” to a brand-new audience.
There is also incredible value in knowledge. There’s a renaissance of information-products these days as people are hungry for information that works. If you can shortcut someone’s learning curve, they happily trade their money for your experience. Capture the information you’ve gathered into a product you could likely sell for the rest of your life. Modern technology has made it incredibly simple to create information-on-demand products. Affordable video cameras and high-quality microphones are readily available.
There’s likely a book inside you waiting to be written. There’s something of value you could teach in a series of videos. Take your experiences out of your office and onto a platform as you speak about what you do. Hire someone to build you a website. The knowledge you have can change the lives of others around the world.
Want an easy system to produce educational content? One of my strategies is to do a “video shoot disguised as a live class.” I teach my business strategies or hypnosis methodology in a live event while the cameras are rolling. The students in the room benefit from the event, then we can spin the content into a passive income product. A friend and I produced a large class together in Las Vegas. We sold out the event with about three-dozen attendees. We had rave reviews from the students in attendance, and the income was exceptional. In addition to the students, three cameras were rolling to capture the event. We had the content professionally edited and continue to sell this program today.
“But then people will know how to do what I do!” I hear that as a concern from some people. “I don’t want to saturate my market or create competition.” This is scarcity thinking. While I make it a point to arm my students with all the knowledge necessary to take action, many of them become my best referral sources. I also adopt a mindset of transparency and abundance as I step into the role of educator. I have been known to teach the step-by-step methods of what’s working “right now” in my business. I explain this opinion in my courses as “You can’t do it the way that I’ve done it.” I intend no arrogance with this statement, as the next message is that “You shouldn’t do it the way that I’ve done it. Take these principles and strategies and make them your own.” Teaching both specifics as well as the philosophy beneath the specifics empowers someone else in business to bring in their own personal style, skills, and character. Be yourself, not somebody else .
“Scale up” your business while you maintain your business. Thanks to the systems you’ve built in the previous chapters, it’s the strategy of continuing to level up your success and keep the parts of the business you’re the most passionate about.
It’s time to think bigger about what you can achieve. Set some big goals to reach a larger and perhaps more premium audience and take action now.
WORK SMART ACTION STEPS:
☞ Consider who your ideal audience is for the product or service you provide. Brainstorm a bit to figure out what industries have similar needs and explore who you know in your current network that can help you make contact to expand into a new market. Both you and your new partner receive a credibility boost by working together to better serve a specific need. Build a list of people you know and start to brainstorm some joint promotions.
☞ “Scale Up” with systems. In addition to my speaking, I’ve been invited to teach a “Self-Hypnosis for Internalizing Goals” workshop at business events. One of my private clients expressed a need to reduce conflict amongst his staff of medical administrators. I made a few adjustments to the corporate program to transform it into a stress-relief program for his staff. Take an inventory of your current offerings and realize that with only a few changes, you can morph what you do into a product for a different audience.
☞ You now have two lists: influencers and assets. Schedule some phone calls or live meetings to discuss the idea of enhancing each other’s businesses by combining efforts. Set deadlines to keep the two of you on task and provide an outstanding experience for a new audience.
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HARNESS LEAD GENERATION
No matter what line of work you’re in, I want you to focus on selling just one thing.
Are you a real estate agent? Do you work in insurance? Do you have a specific skill like being a photographer, painter, or website designer? Are you a speaker or perhaps even a hypnotist like me?
What if I told you the secret to harnessing the most powerful of sales principles came down to selling the same thing, no matter what industry you’re in? Again, no matter your line of business, there’s only one thing you should focus on selling.
From my start-up to scale up story, you’re going to learn the one product (which isn’t even a product!) that you should focus your efforts on selling. Together, we’ll rethink the “sales funnel” model through the value of relationships. I’ll detail my methods to establish a business that easily attracts the specific people with whom you’d like to work. You’ll learn how to easily navigate people through a successful customer journey.
What’s that “one thing” you should be selling? Keep reading to learn more.
Let’s bring the story back to November 2003. There was a girl at my college that I wanted to get to know better. Imagine how well things would have gone if I had walked up to her and proudly announced, “You and I are going to have children!” It might not have gone well. Then again, after having been married to her for more than ten years and now having a better understanding of her sense of humor, it might have worked.
While this chapter is about the value of a specific method of marketing called “lead generation,” it’s really a focus on creating better relationships. Most people drive their business through a “direct response” method of marketing. They broadcast a sales message and hope people will buy after one or several repeated interactions.
Here’s a product. Here’s the price. Do you want it? How about now? I would never suggest that this method doesn’t work. It does, though it may require more effort and patience. It can sometimes become a numbers game. “If I just make the offer to more people, perhaps I’ll sell more.” It can also be more difficult to offer a product at a premium rate .
The lead generation marketing style builds sustainability and automatically trains you to build your business in the form of systems. When you try to sell to everybody, you often end up selling to nobody. Instead, metaphorically, and sometimes literally, have people raise their hand to express an interest in the product or service you offer. Now you spend your time only with those people, the “leads,” who have already expressed an interest in what you do.
It’s time to rethink the “sales funnel” model. As your potential customers metaphorically travel down the funnel deeper into a business relationship with you, you continue to expand rapport and demonstrate value. This is paramount. Put value at every step of the journey. Rather than thinking in terms of SELLING, you create a potential journey of adding more VALUE the deeper they travel down the metaphorical funnel. Here’s the amazing benefit: you will be inspiring your ideal clients to take action, and you will be allowing those who are not yet a fit for what you do to politely exit the process on their own. You need not be fearful of becoming a dreaded “salesperson.” This business model focuses your efforts on EDUCATING rather than SELLING.
I suggest the best form of lead generation is driven by creating valuable content your potential clients wil
l benefit from. Content can take the form of a video on a website, an article, a speech given in your community, or even the still-viable methods of business cards and paper brochures. The first step of lead generation begins with delivering a valuable experience which establishes visibility in your market and starts a system of reciprocity. If your free information is this good, imagine how it gets better when they step into a business relationship with you!
Establish the ability to the stay in contact with your audience. You’ll ignite the #1 secret method of many successful businesses: the list! Your market and your product will help you define your delivery mechanism. I see the same good results through email marketing thanks to automation tools like AWeber, GetReponse, or Infusionsoft. It’s not the platform, it’s the strategy. You can also do this for social media groups, text message marketing, and even postal mail.
You will deepen the lead generation relationship when your future client “purchases” further information by providing their contact information (most often an email address). A simple online search, or the resources of the email automation provider you choose, will give you the current ethical and legal guidelines for permission-based marketing messages.
“But I hate receiving marketing messages in my email!” I hear some of you already cry. I’ve got an easy solution for you. Don’t do it badly. Seriously, it’s that simple. Like anything else out there in the business world, many good methods get a bad reputation thanks to people who are sloppy in their methods. I know someone who hurt their professional reputation by harvesting emails from websites and sending unsolicited bulk sales emails to people without permission. That’s the definition of spam! Keep contact only with those to whom you have permission to broadcast a message and keep your focus on providing more and more VALUE rather than only sending sales offers.
Provide more value to get more value. There’s no set rule or exact pattern you must follow. Consider sending three or four pieces of valuable content to balance out one direct sales message. Timing is critical, as I’ll aim to only run one or two promotions a month. If all you’re doing is sending “buy now” messages, people will quickly start to opt out of your list. These are likely the emails you hate receiving, right? So don’t do it that way!
When I suggest you lead with value, realize you can also put an offer “below the fold.” This terminology dates back to newspapers, where a headline would be at the top of the newspaper, with content beneath the fold of the newspaper. Imagine the layout of an attention-grabbing email subject line: a positive instruction to interact with something that will benefit the reader; perhaps a link to a video. Beneath that something like “Want more like this? Click here to learn about my program.” It’s a much more natural way of strengthening the business relationship rather than going directly for the sale .
This is exactly what has built for me what is now a million-dollar brand. Build the ultimate system to drive the exponential growth of your business. I maintain a schedule of providing free content. This guides people further down the sales funnel by providing value with an offer to take the next step in our relationship. My list grows every month, and my sales continue to grow.
For those of you with local brick-and-mortar businesses, stay with me here as this isn’t just an online business strategy. A friend of mine, a chef, built a loyal following for his restaurant by using stories featuring his staff and the history of his original recipes. His readers developed a deeper relationship with him, and many of them dine at his location on a regular basis now.
I’ve used a similar method to drive attention to my local hypnosis business. I’m teaching helpful methods to rapidly dissolve stress, sharing tips on public speaking, or even giving insight on how to let go of your own fears. I provide value first. My office schedule easily fills.
You can also deepen the relationship for your lead generation by providing a high-value experience at a lower cost than the core offer of your business. Often called a “tripwire,” it’s an effective strategy to grow your business and get paid while doing it. I teach a week-long training course, and I’ll frequently offer a one-day introductory sampler class for those that are curious. The attendees receive a ton of value from the one-day experience. Those ready to move forward in the relationship sign up for the full experience. Thanks to list segmentation in my email systems, the people who have attended the one-day event receive a different level of communication about the full course as they’re already deeper into the relationship.
I just mentioned your “core offer.” This is your primary product or service. You might have several different offerings. If you’re a service-based business, this is the action of going and performing the service. If you’re selling a product, the product itself may be your core offer. When I spoke before of direct response marketing, this is where many businesses put their focus. They make a direct offer for you to buy their product or service. If you insist on sticking with a direct response model, at least start to put out valuable content to demonstrate the value of your core offer. This also cultivates community, as people will start to follow your brand.
Consider the story that began this chapter. The relationship with my wife first had to start by asking her out on a date. We eventually moved in together. We then got a cat. Then I proposed. We then got married. Then we bought a house. Then we got a dog. Then we had a daughter. Then we moved to a bigger house. Then we had a son. We recently celebrated ten years of marriage together. Imagine your prospective client relationship following the arc of a romantic relationship, and you’ll better understand your business efforts. Asking a stranger to immediately buy a thousand-dollar product may be just as successful as asking someone you’ve just met to go half-in on a thirty-year home mortgage and to trade off whose turn it is that week to scoop the cat’s litter box. I hope some of you are realizing why previous attempts to grow your business may not have worked!
The relationship arc is the foundation when I speak at an event. I’ll deliver value to the attendees during my presentation. I’ll make an offer to continue the relationship by sending resources by email. Some of the attendees will follow me to a vendor area where they will purchase my programs. Others will continue to receive value by way of content sent by an automated email stream or private access to a membership area on my website. There will be the value received at the actual live event, though the real income is created by the long-term relationship we’re building.
The lead generation method allows you to add more steps to guide people to your core offers. You have a greater opportunity to grow your business. You may even discover places to further expand your business by maximizing the opportunities and needs of people who have already taken your core offer. Private coaching? A mastermind group? Deepen the value of the relationship, and you deepen the opportunity to create and receive more value.
Do you know the premise of the velvet rope? Only select people are welcomed into the elite restaurant or private club. If you think of your lead generation methods as a velvet rope, you no longer need to be the person standing there at the entry point of your business. Automation emails, online videos, and other valuable content will handle the selection process for you. Your potential audience will qualify or disqualify themselves in making a buying decision. You potentially negate all buyer’s remorse as those taking action will know exactly what they’re purchasing. This is a good thing: you’re helping your potential client make the best decision.
This is illustrated by a story of my corporate speaking. I teach the audience three strategies to internalize goals in my presentation. One of them happens to be self-hypnosis, which I demonstrate with volunteers from the group. During the sound-check, a man in the organization walked up to me and informed me that he was not going to be a volunteer.
“Have you seen a program like mine before?” I asked. He replied that he had not. I briefly explained that there’s full audience participation at the beginning of the event for people to discover the power of their own subc
onscious minds out in their own seats. It’s only after everyone has experienced entertaining hypnotic phenomena that I invite volunteers to come onto the platform. I playfully told him, “You haven’t had the first experience in the audience yet, so I don’t think you’re qualified yet to make that decision.” He laughed at this, and guess whose hand was the first in the air when I called for someone from the audience!
Model this story. The hypnosis is just an anecdote of this lesson. Put anybody on a stage asking for a volunteer. Why are so many reluctant to come on stage? Perhaps it’s not the fear of being in front of so many people. It’s more likely because the speaker hasn’t yet given them a reason or benefit to volunteer. Give people a reason to take action, and more of them will take action. I gave the volunteer in this story a reason to come on stage. If he had kept his original decision-making criteria, he would have missed out on the experience.
Design your systems for lead generation so you set the criteria for making a buying decision. Do this as a favor to the customer. They’re likely entering into a unique venture doing business with you. If you can provide the map to make the right decision, you’re making their lives easier.
I’m a hypnotist. There are some people out there with fears or misconceptions of the process. Rather than being a loss of control, we’re creating a heightened awareness that they can change their own habits and feelings. My sales process must demonstrate through education how the process actually plays out. In addition to that, it’s most likely a service they’ve never purchased. What other questions should they ask beyond “How many sessions?” and “How much is it?” I’ve created a guide for them to know what credentials are important and how to find if the practitioner they’re researching has a proven track-record. You know the criteria that are important in your line of business. It’s your ethical responsibility to let your audience know.