Here's an easy, proven model I have used to dramatically increase my consulting revenues every year I have been in business. It’s a simple way to compare what you’re actually earning with what you want to earn… and allows you to plan to reach these financial goals. I like to use it every year at the end of December, sort of as a year-end review of my progress. But you can implement this quarterly, monthly or anytime! Here’s what to d divide a page into three columns. The first column lists the different products and services you offer: your streams of revenue (e.g., consulting, public seminars, book royalties). The second column lists the amount of income each activity generated for the year. In the third column, put the dollar amount you would like to earn from that activity during the coming year. Now, on a separate sheet of paper, list your income by client, showing the total amount of money each company has paid you. Ask yourself: What more can you do for those clients who spend the most money with you? Can you get them to spend more? Write down any ideas, but be careful not to stretch your real capabilities, as you will then stretch your credibility. How much time do you spend obtaining each check? I don't mean collection; I mean how much time do you actually spend doing client work, and what is the return. What takes the most time and brings less money? For these less lucrative clients/activities, what can you do to expedite the process and maintain the income? If there's no way to conduct these activities more profitably and efficiently, would it be worth more to you to do other things that pay more and take less time? Or are these things that really must be done, and be done by you? Now think about what you can do to move other clients and prospects higher in your income chain? Think about potential new clients and add those to the list. Write down what you might have to do to secure these deals. Now, go back over your list of clients and determine an estimated new dollar total for each one. Base your number on the notes you just took and make a realistic determination of what you can make and need to make from them to reach your new income goal. When you’re finished, you have your total dollar target, your dollar target per client and how you’re going to make it all happen. Review this monthly and chart your progress. When you get a new client, add them to the list. Never stop thinking about improving and expanding your services. In our experience, a subject test line provides the quickest return for the least effort. We have personally seen A/B splits where one subject line out pulled another by more than 50% as measured in click-throughs. So pay attention to what’s in your subject line—drive home a message that catches attention and stands out. If you want to get deep about it, I believe that isolation is the core obstacle to self-promotion. We stop making contact, avoid people we don't feel like talking to, and then wonder why the phone isn't ringing. To turn that trend on its ear, go out of your way to get into conversations with anyone and everyone you can -- in person, on the phone or via email. Cross the street, cross the room, cross the train, and talk to someone. All it takes to start a conversation is a question, any question. Find out what they're working on and tell them what you're working on. If you are more comfortable on email than in person, initiate dialogues by thanking people when you don't have to, or by acknowledging receipt of a message that doesn't necessarily ask for a response. Most important, follow up absolutely on every single lead that comes your way, every person whose card you get, everyone who expresses even, the slightest interest in, your work or says they know someone who.... don't worry about response. Just keep planting seeds and initiating conversations. Because anything, absolutely anything can come out of a simple conversation: ideas, alliances, connections, referrals, new clients, and new opportunities. After an initial conversation with a prospect, whether you called them or they called you, don't wait to start your follow up. Right away, build on the momentum of your freshness in their mind by sending an email message in which you: 1. Thank them for their interest, for taking the time to speak with you, for visiting your web site or anything else they went out of their way to do. 2. Express what you understand to be the challenge they face. Use as many of the words they used as you can. This shows them that you listened. 3. Refer to an experience or project in your background that supports your claim that you are the right resource to help them. Position yourself as the expert they need. 4. Provide a link to your web site and, in particular, a cast study or article that is most relevant to what you know about their challenges. Your only enemy here is time! If too much time passes before you follow up, sometimes even a day or two, the conversation may slip into the recesses of their mind, or blur with that of others like you, and therefore won't make as strong of an impact. For more about this and other self marketing issues, visit Ilise’s website at, http://www.artofselfpromotion.com/dws.info.html Periodically, the editors of Consulting Tips will make recommendations on books or other resources that we believe would be of interest to our members. This month, we’re recommending High-Impact Consulting: How Consultants and Clients Can Work Together to Achieve Extraordinary Results by Robert H. Schaffer. The author provides examples for attracting, designing and carrying out successful consulting projects. He uses examples from his own work consulting with companies such as Motorola, Northern Telecom, The World Bank and others. Many firms pose “case study” questions when interviewing prospective consultants. For example, they might say, “Our client makes ring laser gyro-based inertial measurement units for fly-by-wire aircraft. They’ve been losing share recently and they want us to figure out why. What do you think?” Many a consultant might start sweating bullets about now. But according to Kennedy Information’s job-seeker tips, posted on the Consulting Central website, this is a trick question. You’re not supposed to guess the answer; you’re supposed to prove your thinking skills. For example, when asked a question like that they say the interviewer is really looking to see if you can think logically. If you can effectively analyze all of the information you’re given and ask the right questions… questions like “Who are the client’s competitors and which ones are gaining market share from us?”; “Is the client losing share to all customers or just to some customers?”; “Are the customers choosing other gyros because they’re lower in cost or because they work better?” A consultant in any field must be able to analyze data, calmly, quickly and effectively. Space ads are the advertisements you see in newspapers and magazines. For professional copywriters, space ads are great because they are limited in scope and still demand high fees (and sometimes royalties). For the entrepreneur or marketer, space ads are attractive because they provide a way to quickly sell a lot of product. Imagine a full-page space ad in your favorite magazine. Its outside dimensions are about 8 1/4 by 10 3/4 (the dimensions of a trimmed magazine). Inside this rectangle, imagine three blocks of vertical space. Inside these spaces, you are going to accomplish three separate missions. Mission #1: In the first space, comprising the upper third of your page, you are going to catch your prospect's eye and say something to convince him to read your offer. This work is typically done with a headline, which includes any supporting copy above or below it. Great space-ad gurus claim that you should spend as much time on the headline as you do on anything else, and I agree with them. The difference between one headline and another can be big. Very big. Recently, I personally witnessed a test in which the differential was 700%! I have seen dozens and dozens of tests in which the stronger head outperformed its rival by 200% or 300%. So, with space ads (perhaps more than any other form of advertising), devoting time and care to the head definitely pays off. 6 Steps To Writing A Great Headline That Will Hook Your Prospect 1. Figure out all the ways your prospect can benefit from your product/service. Mission #2: The middle third of the page is where you make your case. The classic way to do this is to present your prospect with a problem in the first paragraph. If you are selling a “roach motel,” for example, you talk about how horrible roaches can be. If you are selling a course in negotiating, you talk about how much money (and self-respect) you can lose when someone outtalks you. Make the presentation as vivid as possible. You want your prospect to visualize the problem so all his anxieties, his fears, and his doubts will come to the surface. In the next paragraph, you introduce the solution, which happens to be your product. And in the paragraphs that follow, you prove that your product is, in fact, the solution, by making claims and offering evidence of them. You include statistical data, anecdotal evidence, personal testimonials, expert endorsements – everything you possibly can. Your job in this middle section is to convince your prospect that what you have is what he needs. Mission #3: The final third of the page is devoted to closing the sale. This includes your closing copy and your order device, each taking up about half of this section (which means that a properly sized order box should take up about a sixth of your page space). Closing the sale is not easy, but if you have proven your claims, you can do it. You need to establish a perceived value (for your product/service) that is higher than the price you are commissioned to charge. If you do a good job of that, asking your prospect to pull out his checkbook should be relatively effortless. And Now For An Example Let me give you a way to remember this easily. I call it the Rule of Threes. A space ad has three parts. Each part has a different job. In the first part, you MAKE YOUR PROMISE. In the second part, you MAKE YOUR CLAIMS (relative to the promise) and you PROVE THEM. In the third part, you PUSH THE SALE until it’s closed. Promise. Prove. Push. Do these three things, and your space ad will work. Now Let’s Look At How This Is Done. I have an ad in front of me right now. It was placed in one of the airline magazines. The headline reads, “How to Build the Sharpest Sales Team You’ve Ever Had!” Above the head are four photos with captions – presumably the experts behind this message. Underneath the main head in smaller type are these words: “Try your first two issues of Master Salesmanship Absolutely FREE – and see for yourself.” Okay. Not bad. It makes a promise. The first paragraph begins with the subhead “Selling Is a Tough, Competitive Profession.” What salesperson, sales manager, or business owner would disagree with that? Certainly not any who are going to get hooked by the headline. The body of the copy claims that great salespeople know secrets that can be taught – and provides some evidence to support those claims with facts and figures and by listing major corporations that have used the product. The last paragraph begins, “No Risk Offer – Send No Money” and goes on to persuade the prospect that by acting now he will ensure himself a risk-free good price with no hassles or obligations if he decides the product isn’t for him. Summing Up . . . This is not the greatest ad ever written. But it has been in the magazines for over a year, which means it must be paying for itself. It works not because the product is great but because the offer is easy (get two issues free and pay later) and because the copywriter didn’t do anything terribly wrong. Although uninspired, he was smart enough to follow a proven formula. You can use this 3-part formula to help you analyze a space ad someone writes for you – and you can use it to write solid (though perhaps uninspired) copy for yourself or anyone else. 3 EXTRA SECRETS 1. First, test them. As I told you before, the difference between one head and another can be the difference between stopping a campaign in its tracks and rolling out big and making that good, fast money. The American Consultant's League
Consulting Tips Newsletter
Ideas, strategies, and tips, far growing your consulting business
You are getting this newsletter because you are a member of the American Consultants League.
If you would prefer not to receive future issues, contact support@earlytorise.com
“Be creative, and above all do not hesitate to question common wisdom.”
—Dr. Enrico Polastro, Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Consultant
In this issue you’ll learn a simple and proven strategy to increase your consulting profits for the coming year… discover what’s working in e-mail marketing to promote your services (and what’s not.) Plus, find a simple way to connect with new clients and spread the word about your consulting business. Then… put your brain to the test: answer an interview question posed to prospective consultants—and see how you’d fare!
HOW TO DRAMATICALLY INCREASE THE PROFITABILITY OF
YOUR CONSULTING PRACTICEMARKETING TIP: WHAT TO TEST IN E-MAIL MARKETING
According to a recent article in The Marketing Report the top 5 things to test in e-mail marketing are:
1. The landing page
2 The subject line
3. HTML vs. text
4. Personalization with name vs. non-personalized
5. Long vs. short copy
As for HTML vs. Text, HTML can out pull text by 20% or even more. But in some cases, there is no lift in response. We've never seen HTML depress response, though we would guess that it is possible.
HOW TO GET CONNECTED WITH POTENTIAL CLIENTS
By Ilise Benun, AWAI Board Member
2. Pick one or two of the most important benefits – the ones you think will sell your product/service best.
3. Write at least two-dozen heads for each of the benefits you have chosen.
4. Make sure at least some of your benefits begin with “How to…”
5. Select (by showing the heads to prototypical prospects) your three strongest heads.
6. Test them all.
The coupon reads, “Yes! Please send my first two biweekly issues of Master Salesmanship.”
When it comes time to buy your own space ads . . . to buy and place them . . . do this.
Send us your comments and suggestions t American Consultants League, c/o Early to Rise
2. The next secret is to start out with black and white. Studies show that color ads seldom outperform the B&Ws. In addition, color ads can be a lot more expensive.
3. The third secret is to never, ever pay rack rate. Making space ads work for you means buying them cheap. Find a discount broker that will get you remnant space. Try to pay between 50% and 70% of the published ad rates.
www.earlytorise.com or email us at: support@earlytorise.com
Consulting Tips Newsletter
245 NE 4th Ave Ste 102
Delray Beach, Fl 33483
Ph: 866-344-7201/ FAX: 561-278-5929
Editor: Denise Ford | Contributing Editors: Mark Amtower,
Ilise Benun, Bob Bly, Tony Narinesingh, Ruth Stevens, Valerie Young