Marketing for Coaches
Marketing can be easy…. and maybe even fun if you keep these things in mind.
If you ask most service professionals their most dreaded task, you’ll probably hear marketing. Every coach, consultant or other service professional can attest that marketing ranks second only to public speaking as a dreaded activity.
First, let’s engage in an attitude adjustment about marketing.
If you’re like most, you began offering your services to others because you recognized a gift or talent that you possessed. If you have clients, then you have products or services that solve problems. Accountants and bookkeepers solve accounting problems while consultants and coaches solve a myriad of different problems. The key is, you’re offering solutions to problems business people have. Ideally, these are problems that business people are willing to write checks in order to see resolution.
With this perspective, you can see that marketing is merely the act of getting the word out about the solutions you offer.
Suddenly, your direct mail campaign will take on a different twist. Instead of "selling" you’re "solving". Instead of pushing, you’re offering solutions.
When you view your marketing as merely the act of getting the word out about the solutions you offer to everyday business problems, suddenly the world is your oyster. Those grains of sand irritating other business owners are you golden opportunity to shine. It’s your opportunity to solve a problem, win a client and save the world all in a simple, elegant act of using your skills, talents and abilities.
Now, with your new rose colored marketing glasses, you can see the different avenues available to you to "get the word out". For some independent service professionals, just removing the stigma of "selling" from the equation is enough. For others, recognizing that what they’re really doing is spreading the word about the solutions they offer is all it takes to open the floodgate of ideas.
One client is working on developing a television show for a local cable network with another service professional. When these two professionals realized how well their services "dovetailed", they approached a local television studio with an idea for a show. Because of their unique "offering solutions" mind set, the station jumped on the idea and their show is now ready to begin production.
Another client began offering teleseminars addressing the core problems being faced by clients on a daily basis. By offering these free teleseminars, she offers practical solutions callers can take and implement immediately. Instead of using these teleseminars as "selling" vehicles, she uses them as "problem solving" vehicles. It’s worked like a charm. Participants love her low key approach and her client load is now so heavy, she’s had to hire an assistant 4 days a week just to handle the workload.
Remember, marketing is merely the act of spreading the word about the solutions you offer to potential client problems.
FIVE SIMPLE STEPS TO CREATING A TRAFFIC MAGNET WEB SITE
The first essential key to creating Online Marketing Success is to CREATE A TRAFFIC MAGNET!
You’ve got a web site, but it’s not doing well. You know you need traffic, and you’ve tried everthing and nothing works. You’ve joined web rings and found they aren’t much help. You’ve tried paying $39.95 to have your site submitted to the top 1500 search engines, but all that got you was a ton of spam and not many visitors to your site.
Six steps on how to create a web site that works, or at least one that can be found by the search engines.
TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Search Engine: Search engines sift through the millions of web sites on the web and sort them into categories so that when you type in your search criteria, the search engine can return a list of sites that reasonably matches your query. The basis of the search engine model is software which can quickly and efficiently determine how to index your site. An example of a search engine is Google.
Directory: A directory is a lot like a search engine, except directories use real live humans to create the database. Inclusion into these usually requires a fee. Because of the growth of the internet, many directories are also including results from search engines. An example of a directory is Yahoo.
Search Engine Spiders: These are the programs which the various search engines use to "crawl" the world wide web, looking for web sites to index.
Step one: Where your site lives
If your web site is living in a sub folder, you’re starting the game with one strike against you. How do you know if your web site is living in a "sub folder"? Look at the REAL address of your web site. If there’s a slash in it, such as http://www.yourisp.com/your site, then your web site is located in a sub folder.
You can "point" your domain name at a sub folder on a server. This way, instead of the http://www.yourisp.com/your site address, you have a neat and tidy www.yourname.com.
Keep in mind that the URL forward can actually hurt you when it comes to the search engines. While the search engine spiders will penalize you for your site living in a sub folder, URL forwards make it impossible for the search engine spiders to index your site at all.
Best strategy: Purchase a virtual hosting account so your domain name points to the root folder. This strategy also allows you to have your e-mail address set up to be the same as your domain name.
Best Alternative: When you submit your web site to the search engines, use your "real" address and not your forward. Yes, the search engines will be able to "see" that it’s located in a sub folder, but at least the spiders will have access to the content.
Step Two: Your Web Site’s Navigation Structure
Your opening page should include links to every page within your site. These links should not be in the form of javascript "rollovers". The search engine spider is not set up to read the javascript roll overs, so linking your pages in this manner means the search engines will never get any deeper than your opening page. Using javascript rollovers is like locking the doors to all the other pages on your site.
How do you know if your site uses javascript rollovers? When you move your mouse over one of your navigation links, if the image changes in any way, then it’s probably a javascript rollover.
Best Strategy: Have your designer create your site without using javascript rollover images.
Best Alternative: Have your designer place a "site map" at the bottom of every page of your site. This site map includes links to each and every page inside the web site in text. You’ve probably seen this technique on larger sites such as Petsmart.com.
Step Three: Opening page content
The search engines crawl the web and when they come upon a web site, they begin reading…. not your web page as you see it, but your web page in it’s actual form…code. To see your web site’s code, look to the toolbar at the top of your browser. Click on View > Source in Microsoft Internet Explorer or View > Page Source if you’re using Netscape. A new window will open with what looks like a bunch of mumbo jumbo. This is what the search engine spiders "see" when they index your site.
If your opening page content is a flash movie, then what the search engine spider sees is "flm.swf". While your visitors are greated with a specatular show, the search engine spider only sees a few characters and moves on. While spiders don’t think, it’s almost as if they say to themselves, "Well, there’s nothing here for anyone to see and I’ve got millions of sites to index. Time to move on."
If your opening page is a giant image, again the search engine spider only sees "giantimage.jpg", and again assumes since there is no content, there isn’t any point of indexing the site.
The ideal opening page content is lots and lots of text. At least 100 words describing what your web site is all about. If your web site is about dogs, then make sure you talk about DOGS on your opening page.
Many search engines include in their algorithm a measurement called "keyword density". As the spider indexes your content, it makes a calculation as to how many times "key words" are used in your document. So, for example, if your web site is about "dogs", then the spider will count how many times you use the word dog in your opening page content. Ideal keyword percentages range from 5-8%. Don’t focus on including "the right" keywords until you’re done writing your copy. If you’d like to "target" specific frequently searched for keywords, click here.
Don’t try to artificially inflate the key words or the word count, for the search engines will penalize you. Long ago, a paragraph which included the word "dog" repeated 50 times would win the search engine wars. Another "trick" was to include text that was the same color as the background so the repeated word wouldn’t appear to visitors, but would appear to the search engine spiders. Today, such moves may get you blacklisted which means you will NEVER be included in their listings under that IP and domain name.
Best Strategy: Write naturally, focusing on what your visitor wants to know when they reach your web site. You’ll find you naturally include prime "keywords" in your content.
Best Alternative: Hire a content writer with experience writing for the web.
Step Four: Meta Tags
You may have heard that meta tags are the key to getting your web site listed with the search engines. Yet, we have purposely addressed them here as #4.
There is only one tag that will make or break you with the search engines and it’s the title tag. You must title each page. Be sure to title it to help the search engine spider or human editor to know what the focus of your page is. For example, if you are writing a page on how to improve your rankings with the search engines, then a good page title would be "How to improve your rankings with the search engines."
The only other meta tag that you should worry about is description tag. This is what the search engine will list when it returns your page for a requested search. Frequently, when a description tag is not found, the search engine will list the first 15 words on your site.
If someone tries to tell you that you need to include the keyword meta tag, run for the hills. The keyword meta tag was dropped from Alta Vista’s algorithm in 9-2002. They were the last major search engine to use it, and their dropping of it declared it legally dead. The death of the keyword meta tag also means death to pages using Frames, flash openings and images.
Best Strategy: Pay careful attention to page titles. WYSIWYG editors usually don’t provide an easy way to include page titles.
Step Five: Recruiting page links
Many search engines determine how "good" your web site is by analyzing how many similar sites link to yours.
When this fact got out, hundreds upon hundreds of "link farms" sprouted up all over the internet. Pages upon pages of link after link were born in an effort to inflate the number of page links any one page had.
One thing to remember about search engine technology is the search engine’s job is to return pages that contain the information for which you’re searching. When webmasters try to "cheat", whether it’s including text that can’t be seen or by linking to 100 link farms, the search engine programmers usually figure out what’s going on pretty quickly and move to eliminate such "cheats" from the system.
While having others link to you is still essential for getting a high ranking with the search engines, the links must be QUALITY links. A quality link is one that you could actually expect to see some traffic as a result of the link.
Most quality links include non-hyperlinked text surrounding the link. The link is included in a paragraph or includes a description, and isn’t just a lone link surrounded by other links.
Of course, once your site has been up for a while, if you’ve invested time and effort into creating quality content, you’ll find that other sites link to your quality content without you even having to ask!
Best Strategy: Focus on your content. Great content not only provides lots of search engine fodder, it also increases the chances that another site will want to link to you.
That’s it! Five simple steps to making sure your site can be indexed by the search engines.
Want an easy short cut around these six steps? Launch an Acumen Web Services blog instead.
Acumen Web Services blog makes creating a traffic magnet EASY and ELIMINATES the web developer middle man!
Have you Googled yourself lately?
Carol Solomon on her "Tech Tips for Coaches" blog writes:
The other day, while I was on the phone with Lynne Berrett, she *googled* her name . . . that is, she typed her name into the Google search box.
What a surprise when her Easy Coaching Website came up #1. And because she and some of the other folks in my Website Workgroup were linking to each other on their blogs, Shaun Kieran’s site came up too.
Why is that surprising?
Lynne has 2 other blogs that have been up longer, but it was her Easy Coaching Website that came up first. Awesome!
So it’s fun and easy to do — Google your name and/or the name of your website and see if you are showing up in the search engines.
If you like what you see, great!
If not, see what you can do to get better results.
Your goal is to be on the first page — that’s how the game is played.
If you’re a coach, your most important product is YOU! Your time, your services, your expertise are the tools of your trade. So it’s very likely that when someone wants to hire YOU to work YOUR magic, their first search is going to be on your name.
The problem is, what if your web site or blog doesn’t show up in that search? Then what? What does that do to your credibility as an "acclaimed expert" in your field?
Coming up on the first page of Google is ESSENTIAL for any coaching professional. Carol Solomon’s people are learning that lesson…. you should too!
Using Blogs as Marketing Tools
If you’re a coaching professional, then marketing your practice is a top priority. Many coaches are seeking an easy AND effective way to attract clients and build their business. Blogs are a great way for coaching professionals to communicate effectively with potential clients.
Carol Solomon is a marketing STAR! Not only does Carol do a GREAT job of marketing her own coaching practice, but she also teaches other coaches to do so. In her "Tech Tips for Coaches" blog, Carol writes:
I get asked pretty often about the difference between a blog and a traditional website. Should I have a blog or a website or both? Blogs have made it easy to have a blog that looks like a traditional website, with it’s own pages and "blog" section . . . it can be hard to tell the difference.
Of course, a blog IS a website. And your visitors won’t care which "platform" you use. So the difference is in the functionality.
There are 3 BIG advantages of using a blog and scrapping traditional websites. OK, OK, you don’t have to scrap it — you can let it sit there and look pretty if you want. But DO add a blog if you want people to find you.
Many, many coaches have been following Carol’s advice and scrapping their traditional web sites for blogs.
One of those coaching professionals is Kathy Jordan. Kathy’s blog, "Achieve Your Goal Weight" is a shining example of a coach who is using her blog to communicate with potential clients effectively and easily.
Another coaching professional who is taking the blog route is Chris Coward. Chris does an excellent job of connecting her every day activities to her mission as a coach. Meanwhile, Melissa McCutcheon is making connections with women who are in transition with her blog "Make Change Great".
Judy Smith is using her blog to launch her divorce coaching practice. Her blog includes heart felt posts which connect with readers. In just a few short months, Judy’s blog is already getting traffic from the search engines.
And speaking of search engines, Sara Healy was thrilled to see her new blog ranked #1 in the search for her name only three short months after launch!
Many coaching professionals are disappointed to discover that their traditional web site doesn’t "deliver" on that front. A poorly designed web site can lock out the search engines and prevent potential clients who are looking for you from finding you. If you’re a coaching professional with a web site, do a Google search on your name and see what comes up. If your name isn’t on the front page, then maybe it’s time for you to sign up for your own blog.
A self hosted blog is truly the most powerful marketing tool a coach can add to his/her marketing arsenal. Check out Acumen Web Services where you can get your own self hosted Word Press blog for less than you’d pay for a traditional 10 page HTML web site.
Trades and Potential Partnerships
Many coaches and consultants, especially those in "start up" mode are often very open to trading their services in order to obtain necessary services. It’s not unusual for start ups to try to conserve cash by trading for logo design services, branding, marketing, web development and other necessary start up expenses.
The key to a successful trade is simple: don’t enter into a trade relationship with someone with whom you wouldn’t be willing to write a check for their services.
As a beginning web developer, many of my web sites were done on trade. In those days, we both won. I needed sites in my portfolio and these clients needed a web presence for their virtual practice.
However, as my practice and skill level progressed, I began to realize that the trades were becoming more and more lopsided. My clients, most of whom were newly minted coaches, were testing their trade skills upon me while I had nearly perfected my trade skills. My portfolio was fat, so it was time to begin saying no to these trade for service agreements.
Soon after I began saying no to trade for service agreements, another type of trade began presenting itself for my practice: the percentage of profits model. The concept was similar to the trade for service agreements of old, with a new twist. I was to be working for a “deferred” cash payment, one which would continue to flow after the work was done.
I was lured several times by the swan song of the partnership ploy. Inevitably, a need for cash would arise and suddenly the partnership would crumble as the would-be entrepreneurs ran for cover.
As I look back to the trade and partnership days, I realize that I allowed that phase to continue much too long in my practice. If I had it to do over again, I would set in advance the number of trade for service agreements I would perform. Those non-cash clients, for the most part, were the most demanding. It’s amazing how unimportant certain aspects of web design and development become when changes are being billed instead of done for free.
Yes, that is how I view those trade agreements in hindsight: they were projects done for free. The value I received was far less than I gave and in the end, those sites don’t even appear in my portfolio anymore. I have since adopted a cause and provide pro-bono web services for this worthy non-profit.
My advice to coaching professionals is simple:
a) set a limit to the number of trades you’ll participate in to build your practice.
b) don’t trade for service with a professional to whom you wouldn’t write a check. Just because a web developer, accountant or even hair stylist will agree to a trade doesn’t mean you should enter into a trade with him/her.
c) Never do pro-bono work for a for-profit company.
d) part of the trade agreement should be a testimonial or letter of recommendation. After all, your goal should be to pad your portfolio of clients.
e) If a coaching client is treating your relationship disrespectfully, then terminate it quickly and professionally. Missed appointments, ignoring assignments and a laid back attitude doesn’t do either of you any good.
Trades and partnerships can be a wonderful way to boost your experience, however they can also drain you of energy you need to promote your business to paying clients. Also realize that referrals from trade agreements usually are the worst kind. Clients tend to recommend other clients like themselves. Do you really want to build your practice on start ups that can’t afford to pay your fees?
View trade agreements for what they are, a way to build your testimonials which will act as a sales tool to help you land clients who are not only willing but able to pay your fees.
The beauty of templates
Your web site says a lot about your business. It’s the literal face of your business to anyone who visits. A sharp, clean, professional web presence is an asset.
If you’ve already mastered the basics of Microsoft Front Page or any of the other WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML editors, then you probably know that the actual programming of a web page is but a small part of the creative process.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that your current site doesn’t look "crisp" and "professional". The reason is probably the images. High quality images are the result of two things:
- Professional photography and/or
- Professional image software.
Professionally shot and prepared photographs are what set apart professionally developed web sites. The same is true for other graphics on the page.
Unfortunately for most web site owners, licensing professional photographs is something strange and can prove to be expensive. Combine that with the cost of professional image software (needed to work with such images and to create other graphics such as arrows and logos) such as Adobe Photoshop (retail price: US $649.00) and suddenly hiring a professional web developer begins to look like the cost effective way to develop a professional looking web site.
There is an alternative. The best way around purchasing (and learning to use) professional image software is by using web site templates.
Web Site templates enable you to create a professional web presence at the fraction of the cost of software, let alone hiring a design professional. Templates can be used with Microsoft Front Page, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Flash or any WYSIWYG HTML editor.
The major advantages of using a web site template are time and money. You get a high quality design for just $40-$70, a fraction of what you’d pay a professional developer. Since it can take a week or two (sometimes longer) for a good graphic artist to produce a web page template, you’re also saving time…. which is a non-renewable resource.
Click here to get professional quality web site templates which will save you time and money on your next site. redesign.
Keys to creating a search engine friendly web site for your coaching practice
There’s a war going on. It’s a bloody fight occurring every day. It’s the fight for top positioning within each search engine for a specific keyword or keyword phrase.
In an attempt to win this battle, some companies will hire SEO specialists, while others will purchase software designed to “cheat” and get a site a top ranking … until the ploy is discovered. Then, the site faces blacklisting by the search engine.
Unless your company’s name is Jenna Jameson, Pamela Anderson or some other frequently searched upon term, search engine users won’t find you. Studies have shown that 75% or more users will be typing in search queries not for a specific business name, but instead for what that business does. If your site’s focus is upon your company’s name instead of what your company DOES, you will miss out, because the search engines will provide the users with sites that focus on what the searcher is looking to find.
Your company name does have a place on your website, most notably in the "About Us" section of your site. The “About Us” page provides a place for the small number of people who actually type in your company’s name into a search query to go.
Now, for the cold hard reality. Your newly created website will take YEARS to get a great “natural” (meaning non-paid) placement. Take a look at Google’s stock price. Now, catch your breath and realize that it’s in Google’s best interest for you to PAY for their service. If you could develop a web site that naturally rose quickly to the top of Google’s results, would you pay for Google Adsense? Do a search on Google and you’ll see that the top natural results are old school. Most of these listings are from the late 20th Century.
So, as you chase the every elusive top ranking with Google on your chosen keywords, realize that it’s a battle you probably can’t win without paying to play.
Now, if you’re targeting a keyword that isn’t providing any revenue for Google, you may find you rise quickly to the top of those rankings without much effort. In any event, there are some basics to creating a search engine friendly site.
1) Skip the Flash Intro.
When the search engine robots index your site, they don’t see what you see. They see the code behind the site. So while your flash intro is saying, “helping realtors achieve success in the information age” what the search engines see is this:
2) Skip the rollovers as well.
Again, rollovers are code so what you see is not what the spiders see. Spiders can’t follow javascript code. If you insist on image rollovers, at least provide straight HTML links somewhere on the page so the spiders can get in and index.
By the way, be sure to use a simple javascript code for your email address. This technique keeps the spambots from harvesting your email and will reduce the spam in your inbox exponentially!
3) Focus on the a set of keywords for each page.
For example, the About Us page should be all about your company. You’ll naturally list your company name often in this page, as well as the full name of each principle.
Other pages need to be named what the page is about. For example, if you’re a nutritional coach who specializes in working with tri-athletes, then the page on your website that is targeting the nutritional needs of the triathlete should be named nutritional_needs_of_the_triathlete.html. That page, of course, should be all about meeting the nutritional needs of the triathlete.
4) Finally, submit your site to the search engines. Remember, it will take weeks if not months for your site to be indexed. If possible, get other sites to link to yours. A great way to do that is to start an affiliate marketing program. Money is a great incentive for linking. Just realize that you’ll need to feature your own URL in the links. (Signing up for a commission junction affiliate program won’t help your seo.)
Do it Yourself Web Site Building Tools
If you have a web site that isn’t performing, chances are it needs updating. Stale content is the number one KILLER of web site results! If you haven’t built your first business web site, then it’s time to launch your internet presence the smart way.
The most successful coaches quickly find they need more than one web site for their business. Many set up several different sites, each targeting a specific market. Successful coaches know that the more targeted your message, the better your chance at success. That’s why the successful coaches and even top marketing gurus maintain literally DOZENS of sites for their own marketing business. Each site is targeted specifically to a tightly defined market.
For example, one marketing guru has one site targeting coaches and consultants and also maintains another web site targeting software developers. Both markets have very similar needs that he can effectively address however to create a compelling message for each market, he maintains two very similar web sites. One speaks directly to coaches, while the other speaks directly to software developers.
If you’re like most coaches, you’ll want to target several specific markets.
That means you need a simple, yet high-tech business website that you can easily afford and can be instantly customized at a moment’s notice.
It has to be affordable….
It has to be effective….
It has to be EASY!
The Acumen Web Services Easy Web allows you to eliminate the web designer middle man and launch a blog which will act as a powerful marketing tool for your coaching practice.
This web site was established by a professional web developer. You may be wondering why a PROFESSIONAL web developer would recommend a do-it-yourself resource…..
After developing literally hundreds of web sites for new and established business owners, I’ve seen that most new and small businesses just don’t have the budget to devote to web site maintenance. One essential key to web site success is continuing to add current content to your site, not to mention creating specifically targeted web sites for each of your target markets. The Easy Website Builder allows you to do both quickly and easily.
If you’re like most small business owners, you just don’t have the time to devote to learning a software package, even one as simple to use as Microsoft Front Page.
As I stated earlier, the key to a successful web site is keeping it’s carefully targeted web site content current. Nothing says, "I’m serious about earning your business" than current and up to date articles and other content rich features. Absolutely nothing drives away visitors faster than outdated information. (Think about how long you stay at a web site featuring last month’s dates…. let alone dates from last year or earlier.)
The Acumen Web Services Easy Web allows you to launch a self hosted blog and to update it just as easily. Because there’s no programming required, it’s the fastest most efficient way to update your site as well as to build it.
I personally became a fan of blogging when I launched a blog to promote my book: Beyond Niche Marketing. While I already had a web site developed to promote the blog (Find My Niche), my coach encouraged me to launch a blog. My response: "Blogs are for people who DON’T know how to create search engine friendly HTML web sites. "
I couldn’t have been more incorrect. Within a year, my blog was getting 5X the traffic of my traditional HTML web site. By the way, I promoted the HTML web site through multiple article submissions…. and the blog STILL beats it month in and month out!
Any more, when someone comes to me with an underperforming web site, I recommend that they leave the web site alone and launch a blog. Your blog can act as a fishing line cast into the ocean while your original web site can act as the boat. When potential clients/customers read your blog and "take the bait", you’ve got your original web site ready and waiting to reel them in!
Acumen Web Services blogs include the Google Sitemap XML generator plus other killer plug ins already installed. It’s easy, it’s fast and most importantly, it WORKS!
What Is Online Marketing?
The term "online marketing" has been thrown around by information gurus for years. It’s been used as the key reviving sagging sales. It’s been used as the lazy person’s way to instant wealth. For the purposes of this article, and this website, the term online marketing shall be defined as follows with the help of Wordsmyth.net: all of the activities involved in transferring goods from a producer to consumers using the internet.
Despite what you may have read or want to believe, online marketing is really no different than OFFLINE marketing. What you need is a marketing STRATEGY, not marketing TACTICS.
A marketing strategy involves defining your target market and devising ways to reach that market with your message. A marketing tactic is painting your URL on the roof of your truck so office workers can read it from high rises in the city.
The hard facts are, creating and implementing a marketing strategy takes time. It’s a process of daily, weekly and monthly steps taken to reach a goal. On the other hand, marketing tactics are quick and easy to implement. Usually when offered up, marketing tactics are the quick and easy way to market a product or service. In a society where instant gratification takes too long, which do you think people prefer to pursue?
In marketing, whether online or offline, there are no magic formulas. However, those who make a commitment to implementing a marketing strategy will create a solid foundation upon which you may then choose to use various online marketing tactics to reach your goal.
As you embark on creating your marketing strategy, remember that the world is a big place. You can’t speak to everyone, so instead of trying to communicate with everyone about your product or service, try communicating with individuals. When you create your message, speak directly to someone. In other words, don’t think about a group of people, think about an individual as you write or speak about your product or service.
Think of your marketing as a series of interactions. Treat every interaction just like if you were meeting this individual face to face. Chances are you wouldn’t consider accosting strangers on the street and without so much as an introduction, launch into a hastily delivered, high pressure pitch for your product or service. The same is true in your marketing message.
Since the title of this article is “online marketing”, then it’s time to focus on the “online” part of your marketing strategy.
Your online marketing strategy begins with a web site.
There are as many different types of web sites as there are people in the world. Most web sites function as merely a virtual brochure, listing the scope of services and the location of the business. A virtual brochure is a great first step, but there is so much more your web presence can do for your business.
Most coaching professionals NEED their website to function as MORE than a virtual brochure. Most coaching professionals need their web site to be a congregation point.
See, coaching is an example of a major sale. Neil Rackham, the author of Spin Selling defines the major sale as having the following characteristics:
- There is more than one decision maker
- There is significant financial/emotional investment on the part of the buyer
- The purchase warrants significant time and research into alternatives
- There is the potential of a long-term relationship between you and your customer
- The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high
In the major sale, the stakes are higher for the consumer. As a result, the buyer in the major sale transaction needs LOTS of information before making a commitment to purchase. Lot of information that can and should be delivered via your website.
That’s why a self hosted BLOG is the most powerful tool in your marketing arsenal.
A self hosted blog can ROCKET to the top of the search engine listings by including an automatic Google Sitemap generator. That same blog can help you post literally hundreds of articles to the web and to syndicate them using RSS.
All that content, not only does well with the search engines, but also does very well with clients. Frequent blog posts give potential clients a way to "sample" your wares and allows potential clients to get to know you before making contact… a CRITICAL element in the major sale.
Launching a self hosted blog doesn’t HAVE to be intimidating. Acumen Web Services has made it easy for you to launch your own self hosted blog without learning anything about programming!
Why Traditional Marketing Methods won’t work to promote your Coaching Practice:
I’ve spent the better part of the last decade working with coaching professionals. They’ve come to me because they hoped that a web site would be the “magic bullet” in promoting their coaching practice.
In the last few years, it’s become painfully evident that the difference between successful coaches and coaches who are “barely making it” lies not in the level of expertise at coaching, but rather
Neil Rackham’s book Spin Selling covers the difference between Major Sales and Minor Sales in great detail. Whether your business is making Minor or Major Sales will determine how you structure your marketing and advertising strategy.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the techniques which work so well at moving gallons of milk off of a store’s shelves don’t work as well when applied to say, purchasing mutual funds or buying a home, yet Rackham appears to be breaking new ground in the area of applying these principles to sales thanks to the extensive research compiled by the Huthwaite Institute.
While Rackham’s research and reports on the subject are framed to help an outside sales person perform his/her job more effectively, we will use his observations to help your marketing/advertising message work as yet another productive member of your sales force.
To determine which type of sale your business offers, consider the following:
According to Rackham, your business is making Minor Sales if:
- There is a single decision-maker
- The buyer’s financial or emotional investment is low or insignificant
- The purchase does not warrant the time/energy necessary to research alternatives
- There is little interaction between you and the customer
- The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are inconsequential or insignificant.
On the other hand, your business is making Major Sales if:
- There is more than one decision-maker
- The buyer’s financial and/or emotional investment is significant
- The purchase warrants significant time and research into alternatives
- There is the potential for a long-term relationship between you and/or your business and the customer
- The consequences of making a purchasing mistake are high
In general, Minor Sales have a buying cycle that is short and are often driven by “desires.” On the other hand, Major Sales tend to involve more time and research on the part of the consumer. While desires drive Minor Sales, goals usually drive Major Sales. Purchasing shampoo is a Minor Sale. Purchasing real estate is a Major Sale.
However, it’s important to note that Major Sales aren’t always expensive. Price is but one of the qualifying criteria for the type of sale. Choosing a babysitter, while not a major expense, certainly qualifies as a Major Sale in the minds of the concerned parents.
Once you’ve identified the type of sale your business makes, let’s look at how the type of sale affects the structure of your advertising message.
Just as in the Minor Sale, your advertising message for the Major Sale has to make a great impression on potential customers in ten seconds or less. You must be able to anticipate the conversation going on inside your potential customer’s mind so you can join in the conversation and you must stay focused on the needs of the customer. In almost every other way, the advertising message for a Major Sale is very different.
Most of the information you’ll get regarding marketing does not take the characteristics of the Major Sale into consideration. While the Minor Sale customer usually buys at the first store that carries the product, the Major Sale customer puts a lot of time and research into the buying decision. The Major Sale customer may visit dozens of different web sites over a period of weeks, or even months, before making a purchase.
By nature, the buyer in a Major Sale requires a lot of information; therefore, the advertising message for the Major Sale needs to provide as much information as possible. Don’t worry about “information overload.” If someone isn’t interested in your product or service then s/he isn’t going to bother to read or listen to your advertising message anyway. In the Major Sale, too much “information” isn’t going to “scare away” an interested potential customer.
When you’re making a Minor Sale, you’re just trying to get people into your store; however, when you’re involved in a Major Sale, the approach is different.
While every business can benefit from a web site, a web presence is especially useful in helping to provide the information necessary to make the Major Sale. The company web site can easily convey the large amount of information necessary to begin gaining the customer’s trust, which is essential to the Major Sale.
To learn more about creating marketing messages for the Major Sale, pick up a copy of the book, Beyond the Niche.
