Leads Magazine

I S S U E

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Artificial Intelligence: Disruption Or

Opportunity?

TOM POLAND: 5 Questions Your Clients Will Ask You

Identifying Your Ideal Client

Sue McKeen: Staying In Business

M A G A Z I N E

Lead

Generation Ideas

CONTENTS 09

12

15

Tom Poland: 5 Questions Your Clients Will Ask You

Identifying Your Ideal Client

Brett Campbell: Do You Have What It Takes?

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22

27

Kerry Fitzgibbon: How Facebook Can Fuel Your Business

Artificial Intelligence: Disruption Or Opportunity?

Frank Bria: Is Your Service Business Ready To Scale?

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34

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Emily Weir: Interviewing Your Lawyer

Sue Ellson: Leads on LinkedIn Short Term Sizzle or Long Term Success

Lead Generation Ideas

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47

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Sue McKeen: Top 10 Tips For Staying In Business

Sales Sucks! By Christine Schlonski

Lael Sturm: Find, Land And Keep Your Ideal Clients

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We created this program with the perfect combination of online resources, tools and support to get you out of any financial distress you’re presently experiencing‌ help you get laser-focused on your highest incomeproducing activities‌ and help you develop and then apply the fundamentals that build multimillion dollar businesses.

CONTRIBUTORS TOM POLAND Tom Poland is the multiple best-selling author of the LeadsologyŽ series and the creator of marketing programs by the same name. His specialty is the generation of a predictable weekly flow of high quality, inbound, new client inquiries. He’s spoken on global speaking platforms alongside the likes of Brian Tracy, Marshall Goldsmith, Dr Ivan Misner, Michael Port and many other marketing greats. leadsology.guru

SUE ELLSON Sue first joined LinkedIn on 21 December 2003 and is one of the first 80,000 people in the world on the platform. She has been consulting on the topic of LinkedIn since 2008 and launched her first three 80,000 word books in 2016 and her fourth, Gigsters, in 2019. She is an Independent LinkedIn Specialist and Career Development Practitioner providing consulting and training on the topics of LinkedIn, social media and marketing to individual clients and organisations worldwide. She also teaches and provides business consulting services to private clients internationally. sueellson.com

EMILY WEIR Emily Weir is a Director/Solicitor at WALLACEWEIR – a Family and Commercial Law firm located on the Gold Coast. She was admitted as a Solicitor in Queensland in 2008 and for over a decade has worked solely as in commercial law specialising in the areas of intellectual property and property law. She has worked in Sydney, Melbourne, and the Gold Coast and is therefore familiar with the respective State Laws as well as Federal Laws.

The wealth of knowledge that Emily has gained in intellectual property law has resulted in her assisting many of her clients to develop and continue new businesses. emilyweir.com.au

SUE MCKEEN Sue is a Fellow of CPA Australia and principal of PGA Accountants Advisers since the passing away of the firm’s senior partner Paul Gillett in 2006. Sue holds a Bachelor of Commerce along with a Master of Commerce. Sue is passionate about family businesses and the need for pro-active succession planning in the event of the unexpected. pgaa.com.au

CHRISTINE SCHLONSKI The Queen of the Sales-Success-Mindset, Christine’s experience includes over 12 years in successful selling and closing High-Ticket Live Events in the corporate world as a top producer and Sales Director making millions in revenue herself and through the successful sales teams she’s built throughout her career. In her coaching business, she has supported thousands of entrepreneurs to enjoy sales conversations and to generate more revenue with ease and to make a bigger impact in the world. christineschlonski.com

LAEL STURM Lael Sturm is a highly effective growth strategist who has applied his methods to companies including MTV, Nokia, Microsoft, CNET and hundreds of others. He runs LPSS Digital Marketing (lpss. co) and supports a client roster of 30+ profitable businesses. Lael earned his MBA at Columbia Business School and lives in San Francisco.

Ipss.co

FRANK BRIA An entrepreneurial veteran with high-tech and financial services experience, Frank has helped businesses grow on 4 continents. In addition to marketing and selling himself, he has worked with numerous firms to help them achieve their market penetration goals. He knows what works and what doesn’t. Frank has captured the strategies of the successfully positioned business to help you with yours. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona and is the father to 3 beautiful daughters. frankbria.com

BRETT CAMPBELL Brett Campbell is a serial entrepreneur, having founded 2 of Australasia’s fastest growing companies in their respected fields. 1. Fiit International - the fast growing fitness franchise at its time, exploding to 35 locations within the first 6 months of operations 2. CLAXON, currently the fastest growing award winning digital growth advertising agency and winner of the accolade of 2018 Best Small Agency of the Year award for Australia and NZ. Brett is a best selling author, global speaker and television personality. brettcampbell.net

EDITOR IN CHIEF GRAEME RIDLER

substantial thought-provoking commentary on a wide range of sales and lead generation topics.

A must read is the article on page 9 featuring multiple best-selling author of the LeadsologyÂŽ series, Tom Poland sharing his wisdom about the questions your clients will ask you.

Kerry Fitzgibbon applies her endless energy to learning about, applying and coaching others in Facebook Marketing. Turn to page 15 to find out exactly how you can use Facebook to fuel your business.

We have also included some helpful articles from growth strategist Lael Sturm, entrepreneurial veteran Frank Bria, finance expert Sue McKeen and commercial law specialist Emily Weir.

Welcome to our first edition of Leads magazine!

You’ll find plenty more to read about: Identifying Your Ideal Client

With access to so much information across the internet these days, it can be difficult to weed out trusted and relevant sources.

Artificial Intelligence: Disruption Or Opportunity?

Leads magazine aims to help small to medium business owners attract more leads and ultimately create more sales by delivering the right information, provided by trusted contributors.

Thanks for taking the time to read our magazine. We hope you find it helpful on your journey toward success.

Our handpicked contributors are all globally recognised experts in their particular field. They will provide

And, Lead Generation Ideas.

Graeme

Tom Poland:

5 Q U E S T IO NS Y O UR C L I E N T S W I L L A SK Y O U

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’ve been a full-time professional in sales and marketing for 39 years and webinars are as close to marketing Nirvana as I’ve ever come.

Here are the 10 questions that I recommend you answer in every event demonstration, be that a webinar or seminar or workshop.

Having established that webinars are your number one best option for demonstrating your capability to new prospects, let’s explore the questions that you will need to answer during the webinar (or in-person event) so that the right attendees are motivated to want to move forward with you.

1. WHAT’S THE ROI? One of the benefits of positioning your webinar as a demonstration is, you get to tell attendees right up front what the outcome or benefit of implementing the system is.

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I don’t recommend that you position your event as a free training webinar, because it’s not. You know, and your attendees know, that it’s a marketing event.

Be clear, open, honest and transparent about what they’ll be attending: it’s a demonstration of how you work with your clients, so they enjoy the same transformation that the attendees of your webinar are seeking. I use my own webinar to illustrate this point.

The title promises generation of weekly flow of inbound new client inquiries, so I show a screenshot from my own consult booking platform where prospects, having attended one of my webinars, have booked a time to talk with me about becoming a client.

That screenshot shows a whole bunch of new client inquiry bookings over any given weekly timeframe. I also show sales from the shopping cart, demonstrating an impressive flow of sales.

I reveal this numeric/metric based demonstration of the return on investment for implementing the model that I’m going to show them, so they are motivated to listen up and so they know right from the get go that I’m the guy that can get them the result they seek.

2. CAN YOU DELIVER ON IT? If your target market can be segmented, use one testimonial from each segment.

I have a short testimonial from a client who targets corporate executives, another from a client who targets small business and another from a financial planning client who targets pre-retirees.

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Each of these express a variation of the promise from the title of my webinar which is around the generation of weekly flow of inbound new client inquiries. It’s only after they are convinced that you have the capability to deliver on your promise that they start to care about things like your professional integrity and whether or not they could work with you.

3. CAN I AFFORD IT? When someone decides that they want what you’ve got, the first question is not how much you charge the rather, but whether they have the budget to pay you.

Price acts like a magnet. Magnetics can attract or repel. If I’m marketing a lead generation program to financial planners who want to attract prospects with more than $2 million to invest, I’m going to do very poorly if I have a price of $97. My prospects will not believe that a program priced so low, would be right for them.

But, I’ll do very well if I charge 20 times or even 50 times that price.

seven days, but to implement a system that generates a weekly flow of highquality, inbound, new client inquiries we need about eight weeks to achieve that.

And that’s assuming the client can give me the time and attention over those eight weeks. Then the system will be in place and the prospects flowing in regularly from that 90 day mark, pretty much forever.

Clearly, the shorter that the duration between your new client starting with you, and experiencing a transformation, the better, but ‘under-promise and overdeliver’ is a great marketing strategy in itself.

75% of your prospects want the answer to only two questions: how much money do I have to put down? And how much money do I have to pay each month?

Remember that this is more around affordability than it is total cost. You can charge $795 for your service or you can charge $795 a month for your same service. You’ll get almost 75% of the same level of sales with the latter pricing then you will with the former pricing but you’ll end up with twelve times the revenue. It’s only the likes of accountants and actuaries that add up to total. The rest of us only need to figure out if we can fit it into our monthly budget.

5. HOW MUCH EFFORT? If you can demonstrate that working with you will deliver a measurable transformation, a significantly better transformation, a transformation is delivered faster, simpler, easier and that promises a better return on investment (not cheaper necessarily) then you will win more clients than your competitors.

To really make this a powerful marketing advantage you might need to do some reengineering as to how you deliver your service. The faster and easier and simpler your client’s experience, the faster and easier and simpler your marketing results will flow.

4. WHEN DO I GET IT? This is about how long your prospect must wait before they experience the benefit of implementing your service advice or software. If I have a private client or indeed a program client, they are going to be generating a weekly flow of new client inquiries around the 90 day mark. I wish I could make it

leadsology.guru

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IDEN TIF Y I NG Y OU R IDEAL CLI E NT EVERY BUSINESS OWNER SHOULD HAVE A STRONG FOCUS ON IDENTIFYING PROSPECTIVE CLIENTS.

T

he central focus of all business activity should oscillate around the ability to find a customer, sell you products or services to that customer, satisfy that customer and turn that customer into a repeat customer.

This one thing can determine business success.

The greater clarity and the more specific idea that you have of who your ideal customer is, the more precise and accurate your marketing efforts will be.

So how do you determine your ideal client?

Here are some effective tools that all business owners can use to help identify what your ideal client looks like: • Define your product and services from the customer’s point of view. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and look at your products and services from a consumer’s point of view. Consider what it is that your product actually does for your customer? How does your product enhance or add value to your customer’s life or work? What problems it solves for them and how does it satisfy them?

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• Identify the demographics of the ideal customer that you aim to sell to. Look closely at exactly who your ideal customer is and examine qualities such as: • Age • Gender • Interests/hobbies • Occupation • Average income • Level of education • Behavioural patterns (e.g.

how and where they shop, spending habits etc.)

• Home life • Identify the specific benefits that your ideal customer is looking for when purchasing your product.

Look at your product and all of the benefits that it offers and then determine the exact benefit that is the most important and valuable to you ideal customer. Determine what is the precise thing that your product offers your ideal customers that sets it apart from other similar products on the market and what it is about your product that satisfies your ideal customer the most.

• Identify your customer’s specific location. Establishing where your customer lives, works and shops is important information so it is a good idea to determine their exact location.

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• Identify your ideal customers purchasing patterns. Look at why your customer has come to purchase your product. What has happened in their daily life that has led them to discover your product?

When do they purchase your product? What time of the year, what month, what day of the week?

• Identify your customers buying strategy. Discovering your ideal customers buying strategy can be very useful. Look at how your customer buys your product and also how they have purchased similar products in the past. Examine the decision making process of your customers buying patterns – how do they buy your product and why?

So many business owners fail to clearly identify exactly who their ideal customer is and for this reason waste a lot of time, energy and resources trying to sell their products and services to a market that is not long term potential customers.

Identifying your ideal customer can be game changer as a business owner and might just be the very thing that sets you apart from your competition.

The ability to clearly identify who is the very best customer for your product or service will help you to determine and target the most specific market for your product. It will also help you to identify potential future customers to ensure that your business has a continual flow of “ideal customers” and continues to grow and succeed.

By successfully identifying your ideal customer you will be setting your business apart from the competition and ensuring that your business has continued success.

Brett Campbell:

D O Y OU H AV E W HAT I T TA K E S ?

M

ost people have something in their lives that is holding them back from achieving their goals.

It may be a belief, a circumstance or a preconceived idea. Brett Campbell is an expert in looking into these blockages and getting you past whatever it is that is keeping you from becoming your best self.

This serial entrepreneur has founded two of Australasia’s fastest growing companies in their respected fields.

Fiit International - the fast growing fitness franchise at it’s time of startup, exploding to 35 locations within the first 6 months of operations, and his award winning digital growth advertising agency, CLAXON, which took out Best Small Agency Of The Year Award for Australia and New Zealand.

So what does Brett know, that we don’t?

“Well, I’m a huge believer in mentors.

We have used mentors here from day one, with Claxon. I have always invested in mentors from the beginning of my career and been willing to learn. If you are serious about what you want to do, you need to invest in yourself,” Brett says.

Running an agency where he is responsible for multiple millions in yearly advertising spend for clients in 30+ industries and generating 2M+ leads in 30+ industries with over 60,000+ customers is an impressive feat that Brett Campbell has worked hard to achieve.

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Coming from humble beginnings growing up in a caravan park in a low socio-econmomic area in a little town in New Zealand, Brett had an internal drive, an entrepreneurial spirit.

“I knew I was destined for more, but I wasn’t able to harness it. With golf clubs in one hand, a plane ticket in the other, I set off to start my journey to the Gold Coast,” he said.

After cracking the Fitness market on the Gold Coast, kicking off one of the first online workout programs which became a fitness empire, Brett was showing his incredible talent for business strategy.

It was a seamless transition into coaching and consulting other businesses how to do the same.

“It grew into Claxon. I teach people how to really scale their business. I get them to ask ‘What are we trying to achieve here?’ And reverse action it. This is key.”

versus reward is so worth it. Walking over hot coals for months and months is worth it for me.”

Another pain point of a new business is soughting an online business partner or agency to get you back on track.

Especially, if you are at the stage of looking for the rescue raft, it is vital to keep a level head and make wise decisions. If you are in rescue mode, be vigilant.

“Do your due diligence. Go to their socials, research the owners, search up what you can before you even talk to them. Anyone can hide behind an online profile. Ask them straight up, who have you worked with? What results have you achieved with them? Contact those people to check out their case studies or clients. Do your due diligence on them as well.”

Are you prepared to do what it takes?

“And, really knowing you’re talking to and why you’re talking to them is everything.”

What one piece of advice about the journey of business, would Brett offer to a new business?

“Do you REALLY want to go on this journey? Building a business is the hardest thing you’ll ever do in your life.

Ask yourself, ‘Do I have what it takes to do this? Do I have the appetite to work long nights? Do I have the hunger to succeed in this?’ Make sure you know what you are getting into. It’s not easy and it’s not always fun, but, the risk

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brettcampbell.net

Kerry Fitzgibbon:

HOW FACEBOOK CAN FUEL YOUR BUSINESS

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ver the last decade, Kerry Fitzgibbon has carved quite a name for herself as a leader in Facebook Marketing strategies, helping thousands of small businesses around Australia and the rest of the world to reach their business potential.

As a former radio host and TV journalist, Kerry has been involved in marketing and communication for the best part of twenty years.

Her focus recently is on the world of social media and how Facebook can open up a plethora of potential customer leads for virtually any business. She has become quite the queen of Facebook Marketing.

Leads Magazine has a chat with Kerry to get some inside tips and tricks that might be helpful to our readers wanting to grow their business through Facebook.

You have become quite the Facebook guru using the platform of social media to attract a constant flow of new leads for all kinds of businesses. Why do you think Facebook is such an effective marketing tool?

Firstly, Facebook has a suite of apps which includes Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Marketplace and Whatsapp, which means there is over 3.5 Billion Monthly Active users across it’s platform. This is half of the world’s population. So it doesn’t matter what type of business, if they market on Facebook and/or it’s suite of apps they will reach their target market!

Secondly, it’s still cheap to market on Facebook, often when I say that I get a fair bit of argument but let’s put it in perspective in order to reach 1000 people via newspaper it costs $32, Magazine is LEADSMAGA ZINE .COM. AU

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$20, Radio $8, TV $7, Google $2.75 LinkedIn 0.75 cents and Facebook it’s only 0.25 cents to reach 1000 people.

But even better – those 1000 people on Facebook are highly targeted compared to mainstream media, which has more of a scattergun approach.

Finally the third reason why Facebook is such an effective marketing tool for any business is you can target any type of audience - from interest based, demographic, behaviour based through to your own database of buyers right inside Facebook and a look-a-like audience of your database! Facebook knows everything it has over 56000 data points on each and every one of it’s users from actions they take on Facebook right through to any online activity and off line activity. They know more about most people than these people know about themselves. Who else remembers what they did this time last year?

What are some of the common mistakes that you or others make when tapping into the world of Facebook marketing?

KF: One of the most common marketing mistakes that businesses make is not understanding and researching their audience. You need to research your target audience so you know firstly who they are and secondly where they hang out and finally what other pages and groups that they follow. The more information you can gather on your potential clients, the better you can target your ads and the more Facebook will reward you by lower advertising costs. Long story but basically Facebook is trying to please two masters, the first being

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the consumer scrolling through the news feed and the second being that it is a business and as such it needs to make money for its shareholders via advertising revenue. If a business markets and is able to come up with ads that their target audiences identify with then advertising costs will start to drop with the more engagement.

Another mistake that is often made is a lack of consistency. A business owner can’t expect to put up one post a week and get results. They need to build a community of raving fans who know, like and trust them – in order to do this they need to create “valuable” content and post at least once a day. Videos and live videos get the most traction, yet most people are not doing them because they don’t know where to start and they are often too scared.

And finally don’t just push the “BOOST” button; I could go on forever on this mistake. Yes it’s easy to do a post and just “Boost” it, but this has limited functionality and they won’t get as good results as actually setting up a proper campaign inside the Facebook ads manager!

Some people believe that Facebook is becoming obsolete – what is your opinion on this and where do you see Facebook heading in 2020 and beyond?

Facebook owns Facebook, Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger and it will continue to dominate the social media world. In 2020 if a business owner doesn’t master Facebook and it’s suite of apps they will be left behind. They either need to learn how to market on Facebook or pay someone to do it for them.

But I think Gary Vanyerchuck sums it up really well in his revised edition of his best seller Crushing It In Chapter 6 titled DO THIS FIRST, Gary says “No matter what kind of influencer you want to become everyone must start with this step – Create a Facebook Business page. Facebook is the cost of entry to building a personal brand, don’t tell me you don’t have to do it because you are targeting the 22 and under, that are not on Facebook in the same numbers as the older group.

As you will see the strides Facebook is making in video make it likely it is about to become more appealing to those younger viewers. You want to be waiting for them when they start opening Facebook accounts. Facebook will get the young demo you can count on. Don’t EVER underestimate Mark Zuckerberg and don’t EVER bet against Facebook!”

If you had to give our readers a couple of top tips to help them use Facebook as a marketing tool in their business what would they be?

Get educated! Even if a business owner wants to pay an agency to do it for them, they need to at least educate themselves enough so they can know what to ask for and what to expect.

I see all to often business owners having no idea what is happening with their marketing and if it is working at all! This is important stuff, it is often the make or break of a business. Get a bit of education and then decide if it’s something to be done internally or through an external agency!

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Every business should be using video in their marketing, there are so many cool video app tools to make this nice and easy and live video trumps everything.

And messenger marketing – we are getting massive traction and results with messenger and chat bots combined.

They will start to dominate in 2020 and beyond.

You have achieved so much in the media, marketing and business arenas – what does the future hold for Kerry Fitzgibbon?

World domination both professionally and personally! Seriously, I am so passionate about helping business owners not just harness but master the power of Facebook and it’s suite of apps for business growth. I’ve always been a step ahead of the marketing curve when it comes to marketing on the world’s largest social media channel and I will continue to do this.

I’m super excited about the power of messenger marketing and chatbots and want to become one of the world’s leading experts in this arena – I don’t

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think I’m far off already! I love the Social Media Marketing Retreats that I am running. This is where I get a small group of business owners to a nice location and we do six months worth of learning and building out a social media marketing lead and sales funnel in three days - it’s intensive but fun!

We are getting huge results with these and I feel I can help business owners more when I’m working almost oneone-one with them and they can get away from their day-to-day and work ON their business! So more retreats and more travelling both professionally and personally with my awesome children Teaghan 12 and Kaeleb 10.

I’m also about to kick start my one-day Facebook for Business Australia-wide tour and in between all this business I’m hoping to qualify for the Half Ironman World Champs which are being held back home in New Zealand in November! 2020 is looking GREAT!

www.socialmediaplusone.com facebook.com/socialmediaplusone/

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Artificial Intelligence:

Disruption Or Opportunity?

A

rtificial intelligence is about to change lead generation and conversion, as you know it, a transformative impact on companies and careers.

Even if you don’t know much about it, you probably use AI-powered technology dozens of times per day. For instance, voice assistants like Alexa or Siri rely on it to understand you and respond, and Amazon and Netflix recommendation engines use it to offer up the products and movies you love.

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AI is a blanket term that covers several different technologies. You might have heard of some of them, like machine learning, computer vision, and natural language processing You don’t need to be an expert on AI to understand how it’s going to transform lead generation and conversion for marketers. In fact, it’s quite simple: AI systems excel at extracting insights from huge datasets, then they use those insights to make predictions.So, does AI really help business to grow? Let’s look at few ways we are handing over our tasks to machines.

1. LEAD GENERATION AI actually generates more leads than our current marketing methods.

Marketingprofs.com reports that businesses that implement AI see 59% better close rates for sales, 58% increased revenue, 54% more traffic and engagement, and 52% higher conversion.

If that’s not enough reason to let robots take over the world, I don’t know what is. On practically every front, AI wins against human marketing. AI is more effective, less expensive, and less timeconsuming.

Of course, you could argue that humans can still deliver a level of personalisation that robots can’t, and you’d be right.

There will always be a place for the human salesperson, marketer, and support representative.

But regardless of human ingenuity, you’ve still got to admit: robots are learning fast. 80% of companies believe that AI will change the marketing industry in the years to come.

If there’s a single reason that AI is going to rule lead generation in 2020, it’s that it provides more bang for your buck than the average human.

2. LEAD NURTURING Most people don’t just visit your website and then buy.

Marketers know that the average prospect will visit your website and see your product multiple times before ever purchasing.

And that is the very reason why lead nurturing is so important.

Lead nurturing is contacting leads with additional information, offers, and followup sequences.

The hope is that, in time, the prospect will turn from a lead into a customer.

Before AI, lead nurturing was accomplished through preset email messages, email segmentation, and even manual prospect messaging.

And because of that personal touch, it’s tempting to assume that lead nurturing is better left to the humans.

But further analysis would prove otherwise. A study done in 2018 showed that 59% of Americans were willing to receive coupons or special offers through a chatbot.

Much of lead nurturing includes sending the right offer at the right moment. Since people are increasingly comfortable with receiving offers from chatbots, using them won’t make your business suffer.

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Because chatbots respond quickly and never forget to send a message, they are the perfect candidate for retaining customers and nurturing leads.

Not to mention all the time it will save you sending email after email.

3. PROSPECT DATA In the world of marketing, data is as valuable as gold.

Without meaningful data, digital marketers are dead in the water. We need validated tests that show us right from wrong.

One of the best ways to run tests on your prospects and customers is through A/B testing.

And A/B testing is becoming even more possible with the rise of artificial intelligence and chatbots.

There is a lot of unknown and untapped opportunity surrounding them, so testing is more important than ever.

But there’s another thing that chatbots allow you to do.

Bots can have a tremendous amount of conversations in a short period of time, and each conversation is a piece of data.

They will be able to provide you more data than you ever thought possible by funnelling noteworthy stats into a spread sheet or analytics tool.

And data generation on the backs of bots is only going to grow in the years to come.

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4. AFFORDABLE COSTS At the heart of lead generation is the desire to gain leads without paying much.

So far, that has been difficult.

Social media ads and paid search quickly create a hefty sum of advertising spend.

Of course, AI can be expensive as well.

Because the more depth your bot has, the higher the cost of it will be.

But when you compare chatbots against traditional lead-generation methods,

58% of businesses claim that AI reduces costs.

And bots aren’t just saving money in regards to lead generation. They’re saving money for companies across the board.

While bots ruling the world is scary to some, our pocketbooks can certainly benefit from the takeover.

In the end, AI might be a go-to for businesses simply to save money.

And any smart businessperson knows that saving money is half the battle to growing a profitable business.

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5. STREAMLINED SEGMENTATION Imagine if bots were able to learn about each person and then send him or her messages that catered to the customer’s specific location on their buying journey.

Basically, that’s exactly what happens with email segmentation.

Low-commitment prospects are sent low-friction emails, so you don’t lose them, and high-commitment customers are upsold on the latest product.

As it turns out, you and I don’t need to fear the robot uprising.

In fact, we should relish in it.

With the increasing abilities and commoditisation of AI, services such as customer support, list segmentation, and prospect data are cheaper, faster, and more readily available.

And that’s a good thing.

It means that more entrepreneurs and solopreneurs can utilise the benefits of AI and build successful businesses with less risk to their wallets.

MailChimp sees a more than 14% higher open rate and a 100% higher clickthrough rate with segmented campaigns.

But the benefit isn’t just for small companies.

And surely, this will spread into the world of artificial intelligence as well.

It’s also for large corporations, where the savings are exponentially greater.

In time, it will be easier for bots to learn about customers and then send them the appropriate message.

In 2020, lead generation will be ruled

by AI because the bots have officially become smarter, faster, and better than us. But don’t be afraid; Robots might rule the world, but we still rule the robots.

Meaning that this whole segmentation business is close to becoming fully automated.

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Better Lead Generation Through AI

By Frank H Bria

F

ew industries get more attention from advanced algorithms and predictive analytics providers as marketing. And why not? According to Forrest Research, marketers just in the United States are expected to invest more than $122 billion in marketing technology by 2022.That represents almost a full 30% of all marketing spend each year.

Just like other industries, marketers are getting on the Artificial Intelligence train, but there is a lot of confusion about what AI is and what it isn’t.One of the newer areas of AI is in lead generation.

Why AI for Lead Generation?

With every new technology comes a cost - both in terms of licensing that technology as well as the learning curve for something new. So is it even worth it to apply artificial intelligence to the lead generation space?

AI is improving the process of lead generation across three critical dimensions: cost, quality, and speed.

Cost Automation has helped bring down the cost of lead generation over the last two decades. Most of that saving has come from reducing time in collecting lists of potential new leads. But human beings are still required to sort through that data and find ones that are truly qualified.

In fact, AI consultants often project cost reductions of between 40% and 60%.

This reduction means your highest cost resources can spend their time focusing on what human beings do really well building relationships and finding new opportunities.

Quality Good lead generation relies on the quality of the data. Things move quickly in the business world and it’s difficult for LEADSMAGA ZINE .COM. AU

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people to keep up. Executives change roles, projects start and stop, needs shift, the market changes, new vendors and suppliers enter and leave the scene. With all that change, it’s difficult to stay on stop of where your prospects are and what they need.

Enter AI to stay on top of these changes. Artificial intelligence can sort through various online and offline data sources. Things like search engine results, social media profiles, internal communication databases and so on often have exactly what you need to update information on your leads. But without some algorithm staying on top of it all, the information gets stale and eventually useless.

Add to all that data crunching AI’s capability to learn. Because success is fed back into the algorithm, AI begins to see which strategies are successful, which data sources are most relevant, and which environmental changes are pivotal. The computer sees patterns the human eye might not pick up. And with that new learning, we continue to see an increase in lead quality.

“AI is improving the process of lead generation across three critical dimensions: cost, quality, and speed.”

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Speed We all know computers are fast. What we’re learning lately, however, is how important fast is to lead generation. A study by the Harvard Business Review found that communicating with a lead within an hour of receiving a query was up to 7 times more likely to qualify that lead compared to those who took more than an hour.

And if an hour sounds ridiculously short, note that companies waiting more than 24 hours lost 60 times the potential for lead qualification.

It should be noted that this study is from 2011. Other research indicates the problem is just getting worse.

One Fortune 500 company was so affected by the problem of cold leads that they completely changed their lead queuing system to work most recent leads first rather than work them as they came in. They reported a significant jump in revenue associated with this change.

How can we qualify leads faster - even within 60 minutes? Artificial intelligence provides the answer. By leveraging a computer, we can respond to lead inquiries within seconds, not days. The first qualification questions can go out automatically. The answers to those questions can often even be handled by the algorithm, filtering the very most qualified leads to salespeople to connect with manually.

How Companies Are Using AI for Lead Generation It seems clear there are rewards to be reaped from AI in lead generation. The next question is where do we start?

There are three scenarios where AI is beginning to achieve the benefits of lower cost, better quality, and faster response: obtaining contact information, finding new leads, and qualifying leads.

Obtaining Contact Information No lead in today’s world is complete without phone number and email address.

Many companies have hired researchers to go out on the internet to find phone numbers and email addresses for key company contacts. This search isn’t always easy. Many times, a researcher may have to guess, applying email address patterns they find in other areas. It’s not always clear where on a website you can find this contact information. So researchers can spend a long time looking.

Enter AI. Software companies are now starting to build algorithms to find the contact information for your leads. They

scour the company’s website, social media sites, and other public information to try to locate critical contact information. These algorithms may even “guess” by using email address patterns to provide a likely contact.

One such software platform is Seamless.AI. Seamless connects to multiple public data sources to find the phone number, email address, and other social media links for leads you’ve already identified.

To make things even easier, Seamless.

AI has a browser extension which reads off lists of contacts in your browser. It adds a small button you can click to send the algorithm off in search of one person’s information.nEach time you search, you use a credit, which you can buy in packages to meet your business’ lead generation needs.

Finding New Leads By now, most of us are familiar with recommendation algorithms. If you’ve bought anything from Amazon recently, you’ve seen the famous “Recommendations” section. It’s built to sell you more by suggesting things you’re more likely to want anyways.

Artificial intelligence can use the same recommendation engines in lead generation. Except rather than getting you to spend more money, these recommendation engines are trying to help you earn more money. They do that by finding you more leads like the ones you already have.

Recommendation algorithms work on the principle of similarity. When Amazon wants to recommend you buy something, they’ll go find other things

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people like you have already purchased.

In lead generation, the algorithms leverage the characteristics of the prospect. Other prospects with similar characteristics may also be good leads.

A software company called Siftrock is using AI to find leads from people you have already communicated with via email. Their software will connect to your email system and look for patterns that may indicate someone is a lead.

The algorithm checks for automatic replies and contact changes. These messages can indicate that a person has moved to a new role and may be a good prospect because of the change.

For example, you may have received an automated message indicating that your contact is no longer at the company.

Siftrock can note that and help you find their replacement - or even the new position of your original lead.

It also looks for language patterns that indicate interest. For example, you may have received an email that said, “call me next month and let’s set up an appointment.” Maybe you missed that in all your stacked up inboxes. Siftrock can flag those messages for you and put those leads back in your CRM.

Exceed.ai uses not just chatbots but automated email responses as well.

This technology allows the prospect to respond on their own timetable picking up where the sales rep would leave off or miss out completely.

The algorithm is coded to respond to common questions, provide access to product resources, and ask for additional information from the prospect to see if they’re ready to be handed off. In addition, the algorithm learns which strategies were effective in not just booking a sales call, but in booking one that was qualified.

Human-like conversations will be a huge area of development and improvement over the next several years. As AI gets better at having contextual conversations - focusing on those areas less efficient for humans - we’ll see a move away from classic software interfaces like fields and checkboxes.

Qualifying Leads The technology company exceed. ai is leveraging artificial intelligence to better qualify leads through online conversation. The concept of chatbots has been around for awhile, and some are better than others, of course. In the case of exceed.ai, the goal is to qualify the lead and pass it along to the right next step.

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Emily Weir:

Interviewing Your Lawyer C

hoosing the right lawyer for your matter can be an overwhelming process. Not only must you be mindful that you get the right advice, but also the lawyer must be right for you and your ongoing needs. Undertaking a search of lawyers in your area will provide you with a detailed list of people that can assist with your matter‌but will they be the right fit?

The first contact with the lawyer should be to set up an initial consult and this consultation is your first chance to interview your prospective lawyer and hopefully to get some preliminary guidance. Some lawyers charge for their initial consultation, so you should always check before you attend the 32

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lawyer’s office, the cost of their initial consultation.

Before attending the initial consultation, you must prepare all of the relevant documents and questions that you need to ask the lawyer during the initial consultation. This will ensure that you get the most out of the initial consolation. Some initial questions you might ask include: 1. What type of fee arrangement does the lawyer require? Can you negotiate the fees? Are any fees fixed?

2. Has the lawyer handled any similar cases? How many similar cases?

When was the last time the lawyer handled a similar matter to yours?

3. How long has the lawyer been practising? Does the lawyer specialise in the area of law?

4. Can the lawyer provide any references from other clients?

5. How will the lawyer contact you and what charges apply?

6. What further information does the lawyer need with respect to your case?

7. What is the total cost, or range estimate for the matter? What happens if the cost estimate exceeds the quote?

8. Who can you make complaints to should you not be happy?

9. What are the possible outcomes of the matter? How much time will the matter take?

10. Does the lawyer have the capacity to take on the matter?

11. Will the lawyer be completing the work or will the file be allocated to a junior lawyer?

2. What are the risks of failure in the case?

3. What is your protentional liability if the other side wins? How much legal fees and costs will you incur?

4. What are the chances of settling the matter before it goes to court?

Are there other alternatives to court? What are the costs of each alternative?

5. How long will it take the matter is resolved?

It may be the case you find the perfect lawyer the first time you meet, however, do not be afraid to interview multiple lawyers to get the perfect fit for you.

Just remember, just because law firms offer free consultation it does not mean that they are the best firm for you or that they will be the cheapest firm.

Lastly, do not be embarrassed to ask questions regarding your matter, the law firm or the lawyer. Ask as many questions necessary to assist you in evaluating the lawyer’s background and experience, what he or she can offer and what the matter might cost you.

The more information you can gather at the commencement of a matter, the better the result you will receive.

12. How can you best get in contact with your lawyer?

IF THE MATTER CONCERNS LITIGATION 1. What are the prospects of success?

Ask the lawyer to be frank and honest!!

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LEADS ON LINKEDIN SHORT TERM SIZZLE OR LONG TERM SUCCESS

By Sue Ellson

M

y first website, NewcomersNetwork.com went online in February 2001, but it would be another two years before the first online business network would start up.

LinkedIn began in December 2003 and I also joined ecademy, Ryze, openBC and a few others. Since those early years, I have seen a lot of sizzle and a lot of success in the online world and unlike so many new business enterprises, I am still running nearly 20 years later.

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I have also seen a lot of bad behaviour, poor quality content and foolish business strategies.

However, I do like attracting aligned gigs and sales and I like to be able to do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, across the globe, without spending any money on advertising or annoying people in the process. Qualified leads for free is best for me!

I don’t want to convince a cold lead to become a paying client.

So what is the secret to my success on LinkedIn?

I just want the paying client to book a service or buy my products!

First and foremost, my motto is to be ‘friendly and professional.’ Not ‘funny and personal.’ You won’t see me in a video with cats, dogs, kids or in a car, in fact you probably won’t see me in a video more than 12 times a year because video can get real boring, real quick.

Here in Australia, we don’t like braggers, boasters or spammers. We don’t like hearing from people we don’t want to hear from, especially if they have approached us in some sort of automated, impersonal or intrusive way.

We don’t mind helping people out or maybe even providing some information (because we are a friendly lot). But overstep the mark and we are likely to remember it and banish you from any future advances.

As a former banker, I believe in ensuring that everything I do has some form of return on investment. As a social entrepreneur, that doesn’t always lead to the purchase of this year’s latest Ferrari, but it does mean that what I do has a positive and productive impact, both now and in the future and that I attract my income from ethical and aligned sources.

Secondly, I do the work that I know I need to do. Like fill in my LinkedIn Profile in full and update it when I change or I have something new to add or share. If I could encourage every LinkedIn Member to do this effectively, we would all be so much better off.

Following up is also extremely important.

Thirdly, I engage with other people’s good quality content in my newsfeed and behave like the ‘nice aunty’ online.

Why wouldn’t I want to support their endeavours and acknowledge their contribution? If you are male, you can be a ‘nice uncle.’

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There is talk that the ideal ‘Engagement Ratio’ is 12 engagements to one post. I don’t follow this strictly but I do engage with content on a regular basis and for as long as I can, I will respond to all personal @mention tags and comments on my posts and articles.

Fourthly, I create and share good quality content in the form of posts from me, one of my company profiles or in one of my groups so that people know that I am ‘still alive.’ If that content gets some early engagement, it is more likely to go further and wider throughout LinkedIn. I classify this as ‘dynamic’ content because it is current now but it doesn’t last.

I also create good quality evergreen articles that provide ‘lifetime’ content.

Where possible, these include ‘evergreen’ concepts related to my expertise that will stand the test of time. These articles are search engine optimised for various keywords and always include a call to action at the end and several of these articles appear number one on page one of Google Search Results.

My final standard procedure is to try and connect with everyone I meet in person or online on LinkedIn. My ultimate goal is to build my network and maintain visibility and relevance over time. By publishing on a regular basis, I automatically ‘maintain’ my relationship without having to personally contact people and I can be ‘found’ in search results because I am often just one connection away from someone who is looking for my products or services. My ‘quality’ can be verified by my Recommendations, my Skills and Endorsements and the consistency of my involvement on the platform over time.

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What sort of leads do you want?

As a person directly hired for my expertise, I make it both easy to contact me but also easy to clarify that I can help people with what they are looking for (which is why I include a link to the Services page on my website), I want to pre-qualify my leads and only be contacted by future paying clients.

There are generally three types of possible clients: 1) The ones that will never pay for your goods or services (but they still want to check you out and they may refer you to someone they know) 2) The ones that want you to help them achieve their goals (but don’t want to pay for a ‘done for you service’) 3) The ones that want a done for you service (and they may or may not provide you with all of the information you need) Ultimately, you need to work out whether your lead generation strategy is aligned with the outcomes you want!

What is the point of attracting a lot of people to your LinkedIn profile and handling lots of informational queries that do not lead to sales?

What is the point of spending time answering questions for people who cannot afford your services? Try answering these routine questions in your content and save yourself the hassle!

Your content needs to filter your leads so that the only people who contact you are pre-qualified future clients.

amazing your music school is for its inclusive, welcoming and practicebased learning opportunities will potentially harm your search results if these words are used in your most strategic locations. Talking about piano tutors, teachers, lessons, classes, age groups, piano teaching methods etc is likely to be much more helpful in the ‘priority’ locations on LinkedIn. Use the descriptive secondary keywords in other sections.

Once you understand the exact type of clients you want, it is then time to attract them to your LinkedIn Profile (Personal or Company). Keep in mind that if you offer a service, there is a good chance that most of your clients are likely to be 10 years older or younger than you.

Lead Attraction Strategies On your personal LinkedIn profile, there are specific fields that need to be completed with your keywords to ensure that you appear in search results (both on LinkedIn and on Google).

You need to brainstorm the primary and secondary keywords that your future clients would use to find you.

For example, you may run a Music School and offer Piano Lessons.

Most piano students would probably be looking for a ‘piano lesson’ or a ‘piano teacher’ rather than a ‘music school.’ Using words that focus on how

So where are the priority locations?

Number one is your headline, directly underneath your name, then your current job title and then your previous job titles. However, there are lots of other places where you can put both primary and secondary keywords throughout your LinkedIn Profile – Experience, Education, About Summary, Skills and Endorsements etc.

If you have ‘votes’ for your Skills and Endorsements from other people with the same skills, that gives you a bit of extra power – but so does having written Recommendations (both given and received) with those keywords included. If those Recommendations feature keywords or people with the same keywords in their LinkedIn Profile, again, you will be creating ongoing value and boost your reputation and your number of search appearances.

On your company LinkedIn profile you need to have a description that again, includes your keywords, but you also need to post items on the company profile on a regular basis so that when people are completing their ‘due diligence,’ they can see that you have been active online and are alive and kicking. You don’t need to LEADSMAGA ZINE .COM. AU

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wrack your brain trying to work out how to make your posts go viral on every occasion, you just need to be consistent with the quality and regularity of your posting (and hope that you can optimise your posts over time and generate some engagement when you increase your number of followers and people who engage soon after publication).

Some LinkedIn ‘experts’ encourage you to create a LinkedIn Pod for distributing your post link and then encouraging people in the pod to engage with your post as soon as possible after publication (and likewise, for you to engage with their posts). If this is a company-wide practice, you can be quite sure that the level of engagement with this approach is likely to wax and wane over time.

Personally, I don’t like to fabricate results. The LinkedIn algorithms are particularly good at detecting false positives and bad behaviour and the last thing I want to suggest is something that could be detected and create unintended consequences – like a deleted LinkedIn profile – without warning! Unless the people in the pod are all absolutely devoted to your area of expertise, there appears to be no significant benefit if a person who likes subject x regularly engages with content on topics a, b, c, d, e and f! Your future clients and network connections will also become very confused.

Some people seem to think that @ mentioning multiple people in a post will not only give them a notification but also a mutual ‘obligation’ to engage. Unless there is a genuine reason for that person to be notified of the post, do not @ mention them! Cheap shots create bad vibes!

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sueellson.com

Lead Generation Ideas

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G

enerating lead ideas can be a costly exercise. If you’re generating leads that are hard to nurture and convert, then they can cost your business a lot.

It’s more than simply looking for a way to generate more leads; these leads need to be good enough that they will generate your business greater profits, quickly and effortlessly, or you’re just spending a couple thousand on a cold call list.

REALLY UNDERSTAND YOUR CUSTOMERS. When you connect with the right person at the right time, everything seems to just fit. It’s always important to connect with your leads to figure out where they’re at in the buying process. When it comes time to make a purchase, your consumers aren’t going to buy from just anyone. How did you hear about us? What are you looking for in a new

“QUALITY LEADS CONTINUE TO GENERATE PROFITS FOR THE LIFETIME OF THAT CUSTOMER AND, THAT CUSTOMER WILL HELP YOU GENERATE MORE QUALITY LEADS BY RECOMMENDING YOUR BUSINESS. ” Quality leads continue to generate profits for the lifetime of that customer and, that customer will help you generate more quality leads by recommending your business.

The whole lead generation process is tough -- especially when you only rely on traditional methods. Sending cold emails and scraping together lists can be incredibly demoralizing because, let’s face it -- most of those people don’t really want to talk to you.

What if you could still reach your lead generation goals using methods that actually add value for your prospects?

These ideas provide valuable information to customers that help them instead of pushing them to buy from your brand.

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vendor or agency? What attracted you to our brand? How can we best help you make this decision? Who else is part of this decision-making process?

These questions can help you to understand the best way to approach your customers.

PLUGGING UP YOUR LEAKY FUNNEL Your sales funnel is the form of content you use to guide a person down a pathway toward your business. It looks something like this: Awareness > Consideration > Decision-Making > Review.

Your primary focus needs to be that space between Awareness and Consideration. This crucial middle of the funnel is where a lot of funnels fail.

Design an effective funnel. Here’s an example of a content marketing funnel.

Someone visits your social media profile and engage with your posts. The profile guides them to the website where you offer them something in exchange for their contact information. Once you have this information, you learn more about this person. Segment this lead so that you can send them personalised content, personalised messages and target products, which is much more relevant to the person than your general content. Increased relevance translates to higher conversion rates. Funnels don’t have to be complicated.

Tracking Funnel Effectiveness. It’s so easy to set up funnels to track in your account to see how people interact with your content. Track the effectiveness of your lead generation ideas with Google Analytics and other paid software. The content, which converts the most visitors to actual leads, creates more of it.

Fix your leaks. Once you have the data, it’s time to look for leaks. By setting up Google Analytics funnels, you’ll know how many people clicked from search, social media, email, etc, what percentage of visitors watched the video and what percentage of viewers submitted contact information. Pinpoint LEADSMAGA ZINE .COM. AU

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the leak by determining which step is under-performing. Are you getting clicks from the search results? If not, work on your SEO, including what shows up in the search. Are people watching your video all the way through? It may be too long, poorly produced or not engaging enough. Are people not signing up for the download? The content offering may not be something people want. You may be asking for too much information up front. You may be attracting the wrong audience.

Nurture Tepid Leads into Hot Qualified Leads. 86% of professionals prefer to receive communications from a brand. However, when a person offers their email address, they don’t instantly become a highly qualified lead, they’ve just shown some interest in your brand. Nurture that interest through segmentation and automation.

Segmentation is the act of categorising leads in some way to generate more relevant content for each segment.

Automation allows you to quickly respond to opportunities you plan for.

You can set up triggers that will instantly send a certain message to make a sale, remind a person of their interest, provide information or quickly solve a problem.

Every interaction you have with this lead becomes a wealth of information.

Put systems in place to collect this data.

Aggregate this data. Analyze it. Then take what you’ve learned. Create more meaningful experiences for this lead.

Collect data through helpful and/or fun quizzes, surveys, analytics tools, a sales team, customer support team, sales & marketing staff and tools.

Learn goals, challenges, industry, job role, location, demographics, interests,

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education, individual buying behaviour.

Figure out which of these segmentation categories will be most meaningful to your business and customers?

USE SOCIAL MEDIA When done right, social media is one of the best lead generation ideas out there.

When teamed up with other methods like segmented-email marketing, you can cost-effectively convert that lead into revenues. If people are interacting with your brand and you’re not interacting back, they think you don’t care. They leave.

Thank your top interactors each week with a mention. Always respond to comments. Most of the time, responding within a week is okay. If the comment is negative or asking a question, then an immediate response may be needed.

Think of commenters as warm leads.

They’re showing more interest in your brand than those who are just sharing and liking. Nurture this lead. Ignore it and it will evaporate fast.

Using a social media conversion funnel. Post enticing headlines that lure people back to your website to view content. Once there, offer them content, a free trial or something else of value in exchange for an email.

Run targeted contests. Run contests on your social media profiles. Make sure the prize is something uniquely valuable to your target audience to avoid attracting people who aren’t likely to become customers. Lead followers back to your website to sign up by providing contact information. The leads you can generate through a contest will far exceed the cost for the prize. Lead generation ideas like this can pay you back many times over.

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Sue McKeen:

Top 10

Tips For Staying In Business

1. Be customer focused Your customer keeps you in business and puts you out of business too. If you listen to them, you can improve your products or services. If you ignore them they fire you and go to your competitors. Reach out to your customers. Ask them questions. Ask what they like or dislike. Welcome negative feedback. Don’t be defensive about it. Negative feedback gives you a chance to improve.

2. Set goals, budgets & KPI’s Many businesses fail because people treat them like hobbies. From day one treat your business as a business.

Treat yourself as an employee. Set measurable goals and hold yourself accountable. If you only plan to work

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in your business a couple of hours a week, you can’t expect great results.

Owning your own business requires focus and commitment. There are no shortcuts.

3. Find a good accountant Look for an accountant who is business oriented and who wants to get involved in your business and not just looking for ways for you not to pay tax. Bottom line is – if you’re paying tax, then you’re making money.

Sure, any good accountant will try to minimize the tax that you are paying but it shouldn’t be their main objective.

4. Be open to change We’ve all seen the examples of Kodak not embracing digital photos and Video stores ignoring Netflix and other online

movie providers. These were highly successful businesses who ignored new technology to their detriment. Highly successful businesses are open to change and trying new things. It not only improves the business, it makes it much more interesting.

suffered a two year disablement period and subsequent death, I know first hand the effect this can have on a business. Thankfully, we had adequate insurances in place which meant that I didn’t need to fund the purchase of his share of the business.

5. Don’t focus on growth for growth’s sake

Make sure you have adequate insurance, particularly key person, that will help keep the business going. You should also have a file with important information on the operation of the business if your spouse isn’t involved in the day to day running of it and needs to arrange for its sale.

I’ve seen too many businesses focus on revenue while profitability is going out the door. Don’t grow for growth’s sake.

Any increase in revenue needs to result in more profit otherwise that energy could be better spent elsewhere.

6. Plan for the unexpected

If you operate a company, you should have a Corporate Power of Attorney in place so that your spouse or trusted person can act on your behalf. A personal Enduring of Attorney won’t apply in the company.

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7. Review expenses regularly

9. Poor financial management

Busy business owners can often not be aware of where their money is being spent. It’s a good idea to sit down with your accountant or bookkeeper and take a good look at individual expenses to make sure you’re not paying for something that you are not using or that is not of benefit to the business

If your business extends credit or holds inventory then effective management of those assets is crucial. One of the questions I get asked most from business client when I tell them the business made a profit is “but where is it, it’s not in the bank?” It’s most likely sitting in debtors (accounts receivable) and stock.

8. Lack of capital In theory, you should have access to the equivalent of at least 3 months operating expenses but for many small businesses this would not be the case, that’s why a lot of businesses operate week by week. Work out how much you need to operate the business on a weekly basis, then you know the amount of revenue you need to cover the expenditure. Having access to additional funds, like an overdraft is a good way to help with short term cash flow requirements, however try to avoid high interest rate lenders like Prospa or OnDeck as this will just be a band-aid for a much bigger problem.

You should have a system in place where debtors are chased on a weekly basis and not when you are short of cash.

10. Manage your cash well Entrepreneurs that fail often confuse cash flow with profit. The two are not synonymous. It is possible for you to go bankrupt with record cash flowing into your business. To succeed in business you don’t just need cash flow, you need positive cash flow. This happens when the outflow of cash is more than your incoming cash.

pgaa.com.au

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Sales Sucks!

By Christine Schlonski

S

ales sucks! Have you ever had that thought when you were going to call a potential client or when you were preparing yourself for a sales conversation? I am quite sure you have felt this way, at some stage; I know I have.

Why is that? We all have experienced the “bad” salesperson at some point in our lives or we know a story of someone who has. We bought a product or service that did not deliver, and the salesperson took our money and ran.

Your heart said: “Enough of this struggle to reach out to strangers and sell them on my services and products. Why can’t people just come and buy? Why do I have to have these conversations?”

Also, the media is doing a great job in portraying super slick salespeople who are hugely successful but ruthless or unethical. If you are in sales you probably know “the classics”. You have watched movies like the “The Wolf of Wall Street”, “Boiler Room” or “Glengarry Glen Ross”.

In these moments, your fear of selling is creeping in and gets the better of you.

This fear is keeping you from having all the success in the world with your business or your sales job.

The good news? You are not alone. In fact, most people are fearful of selling.

Most entrepreneurs who are starting out are not aware that they now need to learn how to sell. They completely underestimate the time they need to figure out the sales game. They associate sales with being pushy, sleazy, manipulative or salesy.

In these movies, men achieve amazing financial success by unethical selling, by manipulating the buyer and by doing anything to get the sale and leave the buyer in a state of despair after they have run off with their money.

So when we go out into the world with our products and services as the “good person” we do not want to be like these characters, sleazy, salesy, pushy, unethical, manipulative... We are afraid LEADSMAGA ZINE .COM. AU

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that in order to have sales success we need to become the cold-hearted, slick person who does anything to make the other person say yes.

Most people want to make the world a better place, do something good and make some money in the process.

However, people have a weak salesmindset. This mindset and belief system is in the way when opportunities for making a sale present themselves. It is in the way to ask for the sale with confidence and to build a thriving business.

That being said, what can you do to embrace sales conversations and to turn them into fun conversations? And how can you make sure you ask for the sale or you make the invitation so people can buy from you? Spoiler alert: If you do not tell people you have something for sale they will not know it and therefore can’t buy no matter how much they need what you have.

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First, please understand that you do need a product or service that you believe in. This will give you a solid foundation for your belief system and the unconscious mind because you know your offer is good and will perform for the right buyer.

Second, please know that someone not buying what you have to offer does not have anything to do with you as a person. Therefore, do not take it personally.

Rephrase the no into “A no means not now.” It is that simple. It might not be the right product or service at the right time.

Often our human need for being liked, loved, and accepted will play a trick on us in sales conversations when we receive no for an answer. A great resource about dealing with No is the book Go for No! Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There, by Richard

Fenton and Andrea Waltz. Andrea was also a guest on podcast Heart Sells!

She shares more wisdom, ideas and tips of dealing with no in episodes 021 and 022. Have a listen if you want to go deeper on this topic and if a no always feels challenging to you.

In addition, here are three simple tips to set you up for success in any sales situation:

1. Expect that the perfect customer

says yes. Don’t start a conversation with the fear that they will not buy. The right people will buy at the right time. Your job is to make an offer. Your job is to invite them to work with you. So listen deeply and when you know for sure you can help, make an offer or invitation to work with you.

2. Make a list of all the people who

have said yes to your product or service before. Or if you are just starting out write down all the people who have agreed to something you recommended or ask for. After you are done with your list, ask yourself why did they say yes?

Was it because you were so passionate and enthusiastic when you told them about the opportunity? Was it because you solved a huge problem they had or because you helped them get rid of their pain.

Whenever you feel like sales sucks, read your list, let the joy of having helped people before wash over you and understand that you have the moral obligation to serve and therefore you need to make an offer.

3. To feel solid about your offer, think

about what kind of resources, time, sweat, money went into your product creation. Go deep. It is not that you slammed together a coaching package, a course, or any other product in a day even if it feels like you just had the idea and created the package, in reality, you had to become the person you are today to be able to come up with your product.

Next time when you feel like sales sucks, think about the relationship you are creating. You are not selling.

You are connecting to another human being and if the potential client loves to connect with you and you see their need, invite them to work with you. Put a price tag on your offer. It is not up to you to decide if they want to move forward and buy. That is their responsibility but yours is to make the invitation.

The more people you support, the more they will support you in terms of revenue, testimonials, friendship, referrals.

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Lael Sturm:

Find, Land And Keep Your Ideal Clients

I

f you have been running your business for any time at all, you know the difference between a good client and a bad client. Good clients will enrich your life, get you excited about doing the work and drive you to be your best.

Bad clients can drain your energy and suck up your time. You might even find yourself thinking about them during your time off, when you should be relaxing and enjoying the fruits of your labour.

You may ask yourself if the juice is worth the squeeze. How much is your happiness worth? Identifying, winning and keeping those great clients and weeding out the worst clients is the key to success, happiness and growth. Do you have a system to figure out who’s who or are you working with anyone that walks in the door?

Take some time to really think about what your ideal client looks like, sounds like and feels like.

Remember, this is a two way street; you may not be ideal for every prospective client. Some prospects are going to

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meet you in person or speak to you on the phone, hear what you have to offer and say “no”. That’s okay, you don’t need to win every deal, only your ideal clients.

You are going to need a map in order to find and identify your ideal clients. Either make your own map or use our Ideal Client Workbook (link below for you to download a free copy). This simple, straightforward questionnaire helps us identify our ideal clients, which we do on a macro, big picture level for the whole firm so we get a broad picture, then we go through it again on a product by product basis and look at it on a very granular level. (To read more specifically about this process go to leadsmagazine. com.au and read the entire article.)

A word of warning: business is constantly changing. You need to refine your ideal client profile on a regular basis. My team reviews “ideal” quarterly.

Next, start thinking about how to attract those clients. We advise clients to use content (blog posts, social media, newsletters, video, case studies, free downloads, etc) to set themselves apart from the competition and publically

establish an area of expertise. Ideal clients will respond to that content by engaging with you.

shared by 100% of the people that might engage you in business. Do not be afraid to be a little bit controversial.

They probably have a specific profile that makes them more likely to be found in one place than another. Do whatever it takes to get yourself in front of them on their chosen platform. You do not need to spread yourself too thin. Pick one or two channels and do them really, really well.

You should know what you want to achieve so you can look back after a month or six months or a year and say, “Did we accomplish this?”

Prospects use this content to make decisions about who they work with.

The more present you are on the platforms they trust, the more likely you will be to zero in on them and attract them to you. You always want to be authentic. Remember, in trying to attract an ideal client, you do not want to be attracting the client through inauthenticity. (For more on perfecting your platform, go to leadsmagazine.com. au and read the entire article.)

Be authentic in everything you do. This is really just a good policy to live by, but what we’re talking about is in the context of business, in the context of content creation and marketing, be authentic.

Also, always add value. Again, this is a good rule for life. This is something that we use internally to inform how we communicate both with clients and with each other in the framework of meetings and even casual conversation.

Ask yourself, ‘Is this conversation adding value?’.

Finally, don’t worry about controversy.

You might think that this is contradictory to adding value or being authentic, but there is room in business for controversy. You have an opinion about the things that you are an expert in and that opinion is not shared by 100% of the practitioners in your space, it’s not

If not, why not? How can we do better next time? Do we need to change what success looks like or do we need to change our strategy in getting to success? Define success so you can evaluate whether you have been successful or not.

This next step might seem counterintuitive but it is essential if you want to make room for those ideal clients you want to work with: Fire your bad clients. So I am challenging you: Right now, before you do anything else, write down the name of one client that you will fire today and go do it.

Download The Ideal Client Worksheet here: https://www.lpss.co/LeadsMag and check out the Ideal Client webinar where we take a deeper dive into the techniques and tools we use.

To read the entire article, visit leadsmagazine.com.au

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