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For decades professional services firms have known about the power of running seminars and events to showcase their services. It can help to boost their profile, demonstrate their expert knowledge of their subject area and build relationships with both existing and prospective clients. You could also tap into this as a way of growing your business and boosting sales.

You could be forgiven for thinking, “That wouldn’t work for my business.” After all, it can seem like a big investment to organise the event, pay for the room and make sure you get the chance to mingle with everyone.

If your customers are dispersed around the country or even internationally, you might wonder whether they would be willing to travel to hear someone from your company speak at a seminar.

Running a tele-seminar or a webinar delivered via the internet could be the solution for you.

A tele-seminar is simply a seminar delivered by conference call. The speaker hosts the event and delegates dial in and enter a PIN code to access the call. Delegates can phone in from their office, home or wherever they are, so it can be much more convenient for them. The downside is that you lose the face to face contact and the ability to show people what you’re talking about. One way around this is to host the seminar as a webinar where the seminar is hosted on the internet and you can show presentations to your delegates. Another is to prepare seminar handouts which are emailed to delegates before the seminar so that they can work through it making the event quite interactive.

Tele-seminars and webinars offer you the chance to educate your customers and prospects about what you do, establish yourself as the expert in your field and promote your goods and services to a much wider audience than if you were to book individual sales meetings with them.

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Small business coach Hannah McNamara from SME Academy (http://www.smeacademy.co.uk) in London talks about ways that you can increase sales amongst your existing customers and clients.

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Transcript

They say that it costs something like 10 times as much to sell to a new customer than to sell more to an existing customer. So why are so many people only focusing on new leads? Shouldn’t we be turning our attention to the best prospects of all – our customers?

When it comes to customers, when do you think is the right time to sell to them? When they’ve already got their wallets out! I’m serious. When they’re already in the frame of mind where they’re happy to buy from you, that’s the point at which you ask them to buy something else.

In the same way that when you buy a book from Amazon they’ll suggest some other books you might be interested in, you can suggest extra products and services to your customers.

In negotiations, this technique is referred to as ‘nibbling’. As soon as you’ve got their agreement on one thing, get their agreement on something else and then see how far you can go.

Of course this assumes that you’ve got something else to sell to your customers and when you do make them an offer, it does need to be relevant to what they’ve bought.

It happens in retail all the time, for example you buy a pair of shoes and the assistant will ask if you will need some polish or in-soles. You buy a new washing machine and you’re asked if you’d like to buy an extended warranty. There are some products and services which are clearly back-end products, in order words you’d only sell them once someone has bought something else from you, such as an extended warranty or a support contract or an advanced version of what you sell. This said, I do see some businesses trying to sell back-end products at the front end and it doesn’t always make sense.

So, think about the products and services you sell. Which are the front end products and which are the back-end products? Which items are usually bought together? Is there a pattern to how people buy from you?

Once you understand this, it becomes much easier to up-sell to your customers. Not just in person, but when you’re planning your marketing activities. Your website can suggest extra products when someone is in your shopping cart or say to them, I noticed you bought X – product Y goes very well with it, shall we add it to your order?

Ultimately, up-selling is the most profitable way to do business because the costs involved in marketing to existing customers decreases at the same time as their responsiveness goes up.

For more video tips and articles go to: www.smeacademy.co.uk

[END TRANSCRIPTION – 00:02:29]

Hannah McNamara from SME Academy (http://www.smeacademy.co.uk) talks about ways that you can network your way into corporate contracts.

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Transcript

If you have attended a few networking events you might have noticed that they are mainly populated by independent coaches, consultants and small business owners. This is perfect if that’s the market you are hoping to promote your services to, but what if you want to build your network of contacts in the corporate world?

Let’s face it – most of the people you want to connect with are employees of a larger organisation. This is the case whether you are looking for senior executives, training managers or any other member of staff.

Employees think differently from self-employed people and business owners when it comes to networking. They have a job to do and probably don’t have enough time to do it, so networking is not high on their priority list unless they are thinking about making a career move.

These people have a corporate marketing department working hard to build the profile of the organisation, so unless they are working in the Sales or Business Development functions, they won’t be networking for leads in the same way that you might be.

They spend most days fielding incoming calls and sorting through sales letter and promotional emails from people and organisations trying to promote their businesses, so they’re not likely to think, “I could do with meeting some prospective suppliers – I’ll go to this networking event.”

So if they’re not approaching networking in the same way as you, how do you get in front of these people?

Most people working in large organisations don’t go to ‘networking events’ unless they are looking for a job. Networking happens at industry conferences, seminars and training courses. People are introduced to one another at awards dinners, press launches and social events.

If you are looking to network your way into larger organisations adjust your strategy. Start to think like them. Position yourself so that you are invited to the same events that they attend.

Work your existing contacts and ask for specific introductions to a particular person in an organisation – websites like LinkedIn are useful for finding out who knows who. Be clear about what you want them to say when they make the introduction. Seek out the people you know who work with larger organisations and get to know them. Find out more about what they do and see if you can help them first, before asking whether they might be willing to consider you when they are looking for what your company does.

Above all, understand that it can take time even when you’ve been introduced to the right person. You do need to network in a slightly different way and have a longer-term strategy in mind, but if you start with the end in mind and are clear about what you are setting out to achieve you’ll have a much greater level of success.

For more video tips and articles go to: www.smeacademy.co.uk

[END TRANSCRIPTION – 00:02:52]

Hannah McNamara from SME Academy (http://www.smeacademy.co.uk) explains how to take the time and effort out of small business marketing by automating and systemising marketing activities. This includes the use of autoresponders, YouTube and other techniques.

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Transcript

Most people I speak to admit that they can have a fairly inconsistent approach to marketing. It gets done when they have time or when sales are down and this creates a feast or famine situation – you’re either doing well or you’re scratching around for business.

So what can you do if you’re a small business without a dedicated Marketing team?

Well, the answer is to systemise your marketing and even your sales process. This isn’t as complicated as you might think. I’m guessing that you have certain sales and marketing activities which aren’t really unique. For example someone visits your website and is interested in getting more information so they send an email to the address on your ‘contact us’ page. Either you or one of your staff has to reply to the email attaching a brochure and then remember to follow up with them to find out whether they are likely to buy from you. If they do decide to buy then you’ll have to process the sale and if they don’t decide to buy on this occasion someone has to remember to contact them again at a later date.

This could all be automated.

The bottom line is that if you do any marketing activity more than once you can probably automate or part-automate it.

Many marketing software packages enable you to do any of the following:

• Capture people’s contact details and add them to your opt-in database
• Automatically send an email to them with the information that they have requested
• Follow up with them to see whether they have any questions
• Email them with your latest offers
• Send out a sequence of emails at set intervals telling them more about what you offer
• Suggest and up-sell additional items when customers are using your shopping cart
• Automatically unsubscribe and subscribe people
• Schedule seasonal Marketing messages weeks or months in advance
• And many, many more

We use a package called 1shoppingcart to automate our own marketing activities and it’s so much more cost effective than trying to do all of these activities manually. It gives us more time to spend with our clients.

If yours is a people-focused business and your customers and clients like to see who they’re dealing with, you could record a video to share your sales presentations or to share tips with them. YouTube is filled with informercials and demonstrations from lots and lots of businesses.

Automating your marketing can take some time planning, but it really is worth it if you can put in the time to do it now.

For more video tips and articles go to: www.smeacademy.co.uk

[END TRANSCRIPTION – 00:02:33]

Hannah McNamara from SME Academy explains 7 ways to improve sales in your business. Includes various sales techniques and marketing methods suitable for small, medium and large businesses.

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Transcript

‘7 Ways to easily improve sales – without really trying’

I’ve yet to meet someone in business who didn’t want to improve sales, so here are a few ways that you can do it fairly easily:

1. Up-sell
“Do you want fries with that?” is a classic up-sell. You catch people when they have already made the commitment to buy from you and suggest an additional item to your customer. Now this isn’t just a technique for product-based businesses because service businesses can suggest support contracts or training on an on-going basis to support the purchase.

2. Build a Database
Every day you have contact in some shape or form with customers, clients and prospects. The more you know about them, the easier it is to find ways to provide more to them and as a result increase sales.

3. Get permission to follow-up with people
If you spend all your marketing efforts on getting new leads and expect to sell to people the first time you contact them, you’ll quickly exhaust your contact list and your staff. Instead find ways to capture people’s details – ethically – and follow up with them.

4. Plan ahead
It’s easy to get caught up in the day to day running of the business, but take a moment to look a few weeks, months or even years ahead to try and anticipate what people will want from you and even more importantly who is buying. You may have a seasonal business and you need to take this into account and plan for when you’ll have stock in or be thinking about different offers you might be running.

5. Have a PMA – Positive Mental Attitude
Attitude can make a big difference in business. If you expect the market to be tough, well, you’ll find evidence that it’s tough out there – you’ll find evidence which supports your theory. If you know that there are people out there who are buying, you’ll do whatever it takes to find them. This applies to everyone in your business – not just your sales people.

6. Reward your rainmakers
Every organisation has people who work week in week out to deliver the goods in terms of bringing in the business. Make sure you they feel appreciated and recognised for their work, and this doesn’t just mean rewarding them financially – a sincere “well done” goes a long way.

7. Ask for the business
Stop skirting around the issue. Ask people to place an order with you and more often than not they will! Give them a reason to buy now. I’m not talking about dropping the price to close the deal, what I mean here is give them a logical reason that they should buy now for example – prices are going up next month, we have limited stock available, order now and you’ll get it by Easter, Christmas or whatever the seasonal offer is.

Of course there are many, many more ways in which you can improve your sales, but these are some of the ones that will give you almost instant results.

For more video tips and articles go to: www.smeacademy.co.uk

[END TRANSCRIPTION – 00:03:16]

That’s the phrase used by most internet marketing gurus when it comes to creating add*itional income for your coaching practice. I’ve yet to meet a coach who doesn’t agree that having additional products to sell would be beneficial to their practice – even if they haven’t got a plan for doing it.

After all, it is common practice for service businesses to offer an up-sell in addition to the services provided. For example:

In the consumer market:

• Hairdressing salons encourage us to buy their preferred brand of hair products
• Dentists recommend the toothbrushes and mouthwashes in stock at reception
• Gyms promote their own-branded backpacks, water bottles and towels

In the business market:

• IT consultancies offer support contacts so that they are on-call to help you with any queries or issues
• Website designers will often include a hosting package with your site so they have had a residual income after the initial work is done
• Sales trainers supply books, manuals and CDs to help their delegates continue to learn by referring back to their materials again and again after the course

Given that almost every other type of service business knows about the need to ‘productize’ why do so few coaches do it? I think it’s because coaching is, to a certain extent, reactive. In most of the service businesses listed above, the service provider is doing something for the customer that they can’t do themselves – cutting their hair, filling their teeth, designing a website or training their staff. With coaching we believe that the coachee is the one doing the work, coming up with the ideas and ultimately generating the results. All true.

What does this mean for creating products for your coaching practice?

While we usually do react to the topics our clients bring to sessions and go with the flow of conversation rather than guiding them down a particular path, there are certain things that you go through with more than one client. You might have developed your own coaching tools, exercises and homework for them to complete. You might find yourself using particular stories and metaphors repeatedly. You might have written articles offering tips or suggestions on how to set goals, uncover values and limiting beliefs or how to come up with positive affirmations.

Rather than only using these in one-to-one sessions, how about putting them together into a product for your clients? Your clients pay for this information already, so there is a pretty good chance that people will be willing to pay for the same information delivered in a different form – as a product.

What could You turn into a product right now?

About the Author:
Hannah McNamara is Chartered Marketer, popular speaker, book author and qualified Coach with over 15 years experience in Sales & Marketing. She now runs workshops, seminars and programmes showing owners and directors of established businesses exactly how to find hidden opportunities and grow their organisation. Hannah is a director of SME Academy.

If you liked this article, you’ll love the free e-book ‘10 Ways to Sabotage Your Own Business: Are you making these mistakes?’ You can download it now from ebook.smeacademy.co.uk