Blitz Ezine #259 March 7, 2006

How to find time for marketing

The Blitz-Promotions News Letter
Issue no. 259, March 7, 2006

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Blitz Comments
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I can't believe that it is March already. Hopefully the articles in this issue will give you some food for thought.

We offer daily promotion items in our blog, which you can find at the following link -

http://smallbizpromo.blogspot.com

Our next issue will be on April 4th.

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In this Issue
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- Getting more clients
- Finding Time

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Food for thought
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"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten." -

Bill Gates

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WHY DON'T YOU HAVE TEN TIMES AS MANY CLIENTS? YOU COULD!
by Charlie Cook
www.marketingforsuccess.com
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You know that hundreds, if not thousands, of people want and
need your products and services. You're spending good m0ney on
advertising and mailings and you have a great looking website
up, but you're still not getting all the clients you want or
could handle. Why aren't more people responding to your
marketing?

The most likely reason is your small business marketing
materials aren't answering the q.uestions your prospects are
asking about your goods and services.

Imagine you wanted a new car and walked into by a dealer's
showroom. You spot the sleek looking model you’re interested in
and go over to take a look. It's at this moment that a salesman
walks up to you and introduces himself.

You start asking him q.uestions about what makes this car worth
so much, what it's good for, what features are included,
guarantees, etc. Then you ask him if you can take the car for a
test drive. n0w imagine that the salesman responded to each
q.uestion with a shrug and said, 'You'll just have to buy it to
find out if it is what you want.'

If the salesperson couldn't or wouldn't answer your q.uestions,
you'd most likely walk out and head for a car dealer where they
could give you detailed answers to all your q.uestions.

You don't want your prospects to walk away and possible turn to
one of your competitors do you? Of course not, but if your
marketing isn't answering your prospects' q.uestions you're
going to continue to see most prospects walk away from your
marketing materials and look to make their purchase elsewhere.

My small business clients generally report that once they meet
with a prospect, they can close 20 to 50% of s.ales.
The problem is getting prospects to contact you or selling
services and products without a s.ales conversation at all,
through the Internet or direct mail. Your marketing has to be as
good as you are face-to-face. Is it?

Bob and Dennis from Kansas called with just this small business
problem. Once they meet with a prospect and present their
information, their closing rate is almost 50%. The problem was
that despite getting ten thousand visitors to their web site in
the last couple of months, only a handful of these had contacted
them. You can't close more s.ales without qualified leads.

When you're face-to-face with a prospect, you know how to get a
conversation going and to answer all the q.uestions they have
about your products and services. Prospects reading a s.ales
letter or your web site or listening to an ad also need their
q.uestions answered. No answers, no s.ales.

Once I explained to Bob and Dennis how to focus their web site
marketing and use it to answer their prospects'
q.uestions, and they made the necessary changes to their site,
they saw their leads and s.ales surge.

So what are the questions your small business prospects would
ask if you were meeting with them? What do they want to know in
order to be convinced you can help them?
What are the questions your marketing needs to answer?
What information should your marketing materials give prospects
in order to make a sale?

Whether you're marketing a product or a service, your prospects
want to know:

- Who is it for?
- What's the primary problem it solves?
- How will I be better off with it?
- Will it really do what you’re telling me it will?
- What specifically will it do to solve my problem or answer my concern?
- Is this information for real?
- Is it the newest or latest model?
- Who else has bought it? What did they think of it?
- Why should I trust you?
- Is yours the best company to get this item from?
- Is it a fair value?
- I really want it, but how can I justify spending the m0ney?
- Do I really need it n0w?
- Why should I make this purchase today, or this week?
- How can I make sure I'm not making a mistake?
- Okay, I’m ready to get it, but tell me again why I should want it?
- If I buy it, how complicated will it be to use? What kind of help will I get?
- How long will I have to wait to get it?
- Yes, I made the purchase, tell me again why it was worth all the m0ney I spent?
- I own it, n0w how can I get the most of out it?

Want ten times as many clients? Start by giving your prospects
ten times as many reasons to contact you and buy from you and
you'll see your s.ales soar.

If your small business marketing isn't generating all the
clients you can handle, it's not giving prospects the
information they need to make a decision to contact you or buy.

You can keep using the same small business marketing strategy,
the same marketing materials and the same marketing copy and get
the same results — or you could discover how to give your
prospects the information they want and see your s.ales
skyrocket.
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2006 © In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.
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The author, Charlie Cook, helps, small business owners and web
marketing professionals attract more clients and be more
successful. Sign up to receive the Free Small Business Marketing
Ideas eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your
business' at http://www.marketingforsuccess.com

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How to Find Time For Marketing

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A big challenge for every small business owner is the need to
'find time' for marketing.

I can relate. None of us are full time marketers. We're all
providing services to clients. And when you're serving clients
too, it's hard to fit in sales calls and marketing activity.
It's hard to maintain momentum.

One thing is for sure, whatever shape our business is in right
now, we all have the same 365 days in 2006.

Will you use that time to create a structure that supports you
and brings in clients automatically, or will you still be
complaining about 'lack of time' when 2007 rolls around?

Despite being one of the most disorganised people on the planet,
and someone who was earning all my income from selling my time
just 18 months ago, I have managed to create an 'autopilot'
marketing machine, generate passive streams of income, and I now
earn more than I ever have, whilst working less hours. I truly
believe that you can do the same, so in this article I want to
share with you a few ideas that may help if you've been having
trouble 'finding time'.

1. If you don't enjoy it, you'll never 'find the time'

If the idea of marketing and selling your services leaves you
with a yucky feeling in the pit of your stomach, then let me
assure you, you'll never 'find time'. As long as you feel like
this, there will always be a more attractive activity pulling
your attention. Even if your fairy godmother gifted you with two
whole weeks, you'd still find ways to avoid marketing and
selling. It's called 'Creative Avoidance'.
Is your problem is really a 'lack of time' or are you creatively
avoiding marketing and selling?

2. If your business isn't structured properly, you'll never find
the time

If meeting your revenue goals is dependent upon you working with
clients 4-5 days a week, then it's going to be really hard to
find time for marketing. You may need to take a closer look at
your pricing structures and put together a business plan that
includes time for marketing, administration, rest, and time to
reinvest in yourself. E-Myth author Michael Gerber calls this
working 'on' the business, not just 'in' the business. My own
experience was that I had to simultaneously increase my prices
whilst slashing overheads to create a situation where I did have
time to work on my business.

If you're working flat out just to keep afloat, then you
definitely need to take a closer look at what you are charging.

3. If your only way of generating income is by selling your time,
then you'll never 'find the time for marketing.'

Somehow you need to break this catch 22, and the way to do that
is by 'productising' your services. Sharing your expertise
through a book, an audio package.

I know, I know! You're too busy working with clients to have the
time to create products. The good news is, there is a way to
create revenue producing products that does not have to take
hours of your time.

The first product I ever created was simply a recording of a day
long seminar that I ran. That product brought in £7,000
additional profit over the next 12 months, with no extra work on
my part. Be creative. Is it possible to package material and
information that you already have in a way that creates value
for your clients and customers? A little bit of effort right now
could be repaying you over and over for the next twelve months.

4. If you aren't clear on what the next action is, you'll never
'find the time for marketing'.

Think about an area of your marketing that you're struggling to
find time for. I'm willing to bet that you're thinking of it as
a project as opposed to a single action: 'Sorting out my website',
'rewriting my sales letter', 'building my opt-in list'. These
are projects, the success of which depends on a series of actions
plus knowledge. It's hard to move projects along when you think
of them in this way. It's your thinking that needs to change,
not time!

I learned this technique from time management guru David Allen.
He says 'often the simplest things are stuck because we haven't
made a final decision yet about the next action.' What can
happen is we think about the project and some part of us thinks,
'I don't have all the pieces between here and there'. We know
something is missing, but we're not sure what it is exactly, so
we quit. Or rather we don't quit, but we leave the project stuck
on our psychological radar, for us to feel a little bit worse
about every time we think of it.

Take an area of your marketing where you feel a bit stuck and
ask yourself 'What's the next action?' So 'I need to sort out my
website' may become 'I need to create a website which attracts
visitors and converts them into customers' which may become 'I
need to find 3 role models of successful business producing
websites in my industry' may become 'I need to spend 30 minutes
online researching websites'. It's much easier to find 30
minutes to take the next action than it is to find time to 'sort
out your website'.

In summary, you deserve to have a successful business and I
promise you that whatever myths you've been fed, you can create
that business without struggle, sacrifice or hours of extra
work. If 'finding time' has been a problem for you, maybe it's
your thinking that needs to change rather than your 'time
management.'

(c) Bernadette Doyle, 2006. Reprint rights granted to all
venues so long as the article and by-line are reprinted intact
and all links made live.

Bernadette Doyle is dedicated to helping self-employed and small
businesses become Client Magnets. Get her FREE report "7
Secrets of Becoming A Client Magnet and Attracting All the
Clients You Want" by visiting http://www.clientmagnets.com

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Links you can use -
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First Aid Guide from the Mayo Clinic - some good stuff.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/FirstAidIndex/FirstAidIndex

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Fun and Games
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Some April Fools Jokes -

http://www.kidzworld.com/site/p1939.htm

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Ads
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Useful links to our site
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Ezine Archives links to all our past issues (well most of them) in one place.

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Next Issues
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Our next issue will be April 4th 2006



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Final Thoughts
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We hope you take some time to go outside and smell the roses.

Tim and Lisa Hamblin
Tisa Enterprises
PO Box 221
Hazard KY 41702
http://www.blitzpromotions.com
http://www.crochetnmore.com
http://www.webpageplanner.com
http://www.ineedlinks.com