The Truth About Open Rates

by Newsletter and Email Marketing Expert Linda Claire Puig

How many of your subscribers open the emails you send?

Many coaches and service professionals new to email marketing get discouraged when they look at the measurement called “open rate.” Those who’ve been at it for a while do, too.

Why is only a third of my contact list opening my emails? There must be something wrong. Is it worth all this effort if only a few people are reading what I send?

Before you throw in the towel, I want to let you in on a secret that a lot of folks don’t know:

Your open rate isn’t really your open rate.

As a measurement, the open rate is highly unreliable, imprecise and inadequate.

To show you why that is, I have to explain a little about how open rates are calculated and tracked.

The open rate is actually a ratio calculated as the number of people who opened your email divided by the total number of emails that were successfully delivered to your list.

Email marketing software automatically adds a tiny, invisible image to each email delivered. When this invisible image is called to show up (invisibly) from the server where it lives, that tracks the email as being opened.

But this number is skewed — perhaps significantly — by what are known as “image blockers.” More and more people use web mail providers (such as Gmail or Yahoo) or applications (such as Outlook) that allow users to decide whether to view their emails with the images turned on or off.

When you see things showing up in your email with all the images turned off, that’s what’s happening: you have a setting somewhere that is saying “Ask me first if I want to see images.” Your images are “disabled” until you click to “enable” them. So…

If a person elects not to view images when reading an email, it will NOT count as an open.

Likewise, the people that elect to receive text-only emails from you (if you give them the option of text or HTML), also will not register as an “open.” Some mobile devices only allow emails to be viewed in text form.

Your open rate reporting could actually be off anywhere from 11% to 35%, according to generally accepted metrics in the email marketing world. That’s quite a bit!

So while it may look like nobody is opening them, your emails may actually be doing quite well.

So should you just ignore open rates then?

No. Despite their shortcomings, open rates can still provide valuable marketing information. Tracking your open rates can help you:

1. Spot trends. For example, if you notice a significant downward trend in your open rates over time (not just occasional dips, say during summer when folks are out of town more), it may be a signal that you need to do something to re-engage your subscribers.

2. Learn your audience’s preferences. You may be able to notice what days and times of day are better for sending by comparing your open rates.

3. Test subject lines. Split your list into two or three groups, and send the same email with different subject lines to see which one generates more opens (which may indicate more interest).

Is there anything you can do to improve your open rates?

Yes, absolutely! It may not be the most accurate measurement in the world, but there are proven ways to improve your open rates.  And improvement is always good.

Of course, your list should be an opt-in (permission-based) list. If not, that’s the first place to start improving. Otherwise, look to some of these areas to improve your rates:

1. Make sure your content is relevant and valuable. Know what your audience wants, and provide it. Relevant content is read content.

2. Examine your frequency of emailing. Too much emailing can cause “list fatigue” and too little can cause the “who’s that?” syndrome.

3. Write HOT subject lines. These short phrases are often the golden key to unlocking your open rates. Make people hungry to open your emails and see what’s inside!

——————————————–

Linda is offering a free training on how to write HOT subject lines on Tuesday, February 7, and I highly suggest that you join her! She’ll be showing you how to double the profits from your list with powerful subject lines, the 7 biggest subject line mistakes sabotaging your open rates, 4 powerful tips to get a huge response every time you send an email and the #1 secret to avoid getting your emails reported as spam!

Please join her for this FREE call by clicking here.

Leave a Comment

3 Steps to Enroll New Clients Like a Pro (and how to avoid the dreaded “I changed my mind” drama)

Guest Post from Bill Barren

Helping people master the enrollment conversation and sign up new clients is one of the things I most enjoy doing. Today, I’d like to share with you 3 simple steps that can make a huge shift in the success of your one-on-one consultations.

But first, tell me if this has ever happened to you…

A potential client says “Yes” to your high-value services during your consultation, but changes their mind a few days later!

I know from experience, you go from the jubilation of getting a new client to huge disappointment.

Because that used to happen to me, I was so distraught that I set an intention to find a way to make sure this never happened anymore.

The key I discovered: Make sure to end a consultation by getting the new client started right away with your services, because this is the moment when the person is the most motivated to work with you. Once they’re engaged, they’ll keep going.

Here is my simple 3-step process for getting your client started right away, so they don’t have the temptation to bow out.

Step 1 – I schedule our appointments for the first month. Once our work together is in their calendar, it makes it more real for them.

Step 2 - I get their credit card payment information on the phone, right on the spot. Because if you wait until they send you a check or contract, it gives them lots of space to think about it and start to dither. This one can be challenging, so I’ll talk about it more in a moment.

Step 3 – I tell them I’m going to send them a welcome packet with the forms they’ll use in our coaching together, and they’ll also get a short agreement to sign and send back to me. I ask them to send everything in in the next day or two.

So, which of these 3 steps causes the biggest problem?

It’s Step 2 (getting the client’s credit card information) – this is where I see a lot of business owners go wrong.

I want to take a look at this because I don’t see a lot of people talk about it.

Many service-oriented business owners are not able to accept credit cards (or debit cards) because they’re not sure how. And I have to admit, it’s not super obvious. But if you don’t take this step, it may actually be something that’s significantly holding your business back.

For example, when I used to only take checks, it would delay my clients’ ability to make a commitment (and sometimes give them time to back out). I also kind of felt a little like my business wasn’t fully professional yet, in the eyes of my prospective clients. It also made receiving fees from clients a lot more work, for them and for me.

If you follow my 3-step process above, including making it easy for your clients to pay you, you’ll end your consultation with a professional, organized process for getting started, and clients will feel like they’re in good hands.

2 Comments

1+1=11 The Quickest Way to Build Your List and Expand Your Reach

You’ve seen this formula from us before.  Yes, we know it’s not “correct” as it pertains to mathematics.  But it is the key formula to know when it comes to coaching more clients and to extending your ripple effect.

Getting more clients begins with expanding your reach.  What tools or relationships are you using to help to expand your reach to new audiences?  Or are you simply saying the same thing over and over to your same audience?

Of course, getting new clients can successfully be done on your own.  But why work that hard?  A more effective and a more fun way to do so is through leveraging relationships as a means to get your message to more people.  Aligning with strategic partners, colleagues, and affiliates places you in front of their audience.  When you align with the right people, even if you only have a mailing list of 100, you are instantly in front of hundreds or thousands of people.  The more people you reach, the more people have the opportunity to say “yes” to what you are offering. It’s a simple law of numbers, even if the math is a bit weird.

Key #1: Knowing what relationships to leverage.  You don’t want to collaborate with just anyone. You want to make sure they are in alignment with your message, reach the same target audience as you, and are as fierce about building their business as you are about building yours.

Key #2: Identifying the right strategies for engaging the relationship. Whew, that was a mouthful.  Before you approach a colleague, business or strategic partner, you want to be clear on the strategy you’ll implement once you decide to collaborate together.

Do this with me: Wad up a piece of paper. Now, close your eyes and throw the wad of paper across the room. Did you reach your goal?  You have no idea.  And without being clear on a successful strategy to implement with your strategic partner, you’ll have no idea whether or not you hit your goal. This is a common mistake that often leads to wasting precious time, to increasing frustration and to client lists not growing.

Key #3: Make it easy and fun for your partners.  If it ain’t simple and easy, it won’t happen.  Another common mistake is to assume, or worse, hope that your colleagues will do the work for you when it comes to sharing your message with their audiences. The easier and more fun you can make it for them to pass along your information, the better the impact. You’ll see your database grow. You’ll see an increase in your revenue. You’ll have the opportunity to work with more clients.

These 3 keys begin to make sense out of the weird math of the 1+1=11 equation.  Alone, you can only do so much, reach so far and communicate with only so many people. Leveraging relationships using these 3 keys allows you to turn the power of 1 into the power of 11.  Why wouldn’t you want to have more fun building your business, spreading your message and making the impact you are meant to make?

Are you ready to learn how to leverage the power of relationships and implement the 1+1=11 model into your business? If your answer is yes, we invite you to join our Business Success Inner Circle of coaches, growing their businesses, and making a big difference and money, too!  We so believe in our business growth program, we are offering the first two months FREE! Try it, and you will soon be leveraging your own strategic partners to create more clients, and make the difference you are meant to make.

1 Comment

Top 5 Ways Newsletters Make You $$$

There are two kinds of marketing strategies: active and passive. Active strategies are things like speaking (and selling) or picking up the phone to call a prospective client.

Newsletters and other keep-in-touch strategies fall into the “passive” category. However, they are far from passive in the powerful ways that they can help you increase your income.

Here are five ways that newsletters help make you money:

Front & Center

A newsletter keeps you in front of people. Not everyone is ready to hire you on the spot. Not everyone needs your services this minute. But when they are ready, when they have a pressing need for what you offer and your newsletter shows up in their inbox or mailbox, you’ll be the one to get the call, not someone who’s dropped off their radar.

The Trusted Expert

A newsletter promotes your expertise constantly and creates trust in myriad ways. Top-level content that speaks to your audience makes them trust that you know what they’re going through AND have the capacity and skills to help them with it. Without trust, people won’t buy from you. The more people trust you, they more they will buy from you.

Promotional Support

Your newsletter is your forum. It not only educates your readers with education-based content but also informs them of opportunities to work with you to further their own goals. While I recommend that all promotions be mentioned in both “stand-alone” emails AND in your newsletter, without a newsletter, you’re missing a primary promotional vehicle.

Power in the List

Your newsletter is the focal point of education-based marketing. The list of people you send it to are people who’ve “raised a hand” at one time or another to say that they are interested in what you have to offer. This list is one of the biggest assets you’ll have in your business. Need some extra cash this month? Have a sale on your products or services. One woman I know, responding to a challenge from the leader of a seminar she was attending, created and sold a group coaching program in one evening. Her take: $15,000. She had a list she’d nurtured through the years with her newsletter.

Opportunity Magnet

The opportunities that come to you as a result of your newsletter can be unexpected and often surprising. But if your newsletter is doing its job, promoting your expertise in a given area, people will begin to associate you with that topic or topics. You may be asked to speak for a gathering or to partner with someone on a project or something else. For example, in the last three months, at least 15 different people have asked me to speak to their audience about newsletters. The same can happen for you, and with these opportunities come dollars.

So instead of asking “How do I make money with a newsletter?” try putting out a regular, consistent, high-value newsletter and see what happens for yourself!

About the Author:

Linda Claire Puig is the Founder and President of Ready2GoArticles.com and Ready2GoEzines.com, which provides coaches and personal development professionals who don’t have time to write – or don’t like to – with high-quality done-for-you newsletters and articles that help them more easily connect with their audience and grow their businesses.

She also teaches service-based solo-business owners how to attract buckets of ideal prospects, nurture those relationships through high-value newsletters and strategically use these newsletters to get more clients, fill more programs and make more money.

An award-winning writer since 1983, Linda’s articles have appeared in newspapers, magazines and newsletters throughout the world. She has produced newsletters for small businesses and professionals since 1990 and has trained thousands of individuals in “the way of the newsletter.” Linda is also an actor, she loves to travel, and all manner of dogs catch her eye.

Linda will be our guest on the March 10, 2011 Thurs @ 3 call. To learn more and register for the call, click here.

Leave a Comment

Are you a Hobbyist, or a Business Owner?

Do you even know?

Do you even realize how this one, single insight can impact the level of success you have in your business and with your coaching?

If you don’t know this answer or don’t even realize the importance of this distinction, then you may be hitting upper limits of your level of success and not even realize it. If that is the case then no matter how great your efforts, no matter how impeccable you implement the best strategies you will not be seeing the results you desire.

There are two potential levels at which you can participate in being a business owner as a coach. That of a Hobbyist. That of a Business Owner.

Hobbyists can articulate a general direction for their business. They grasp the idea of business discipline, but tend to think it’s too early to get it fully under control — or feel they don’t have time.  Hobbyists’ planning, goals, priority-setting and sense of business purpose also tend to be less focused, more difficult to understand.

Business Owners, on the other hand, can clearly define how they will make a difference in the world, and who they will serve. They know it takes a thriving, profitable business to create that difference. Far more than Hobbyists, they have practical, well-grounded faith in the discipline and the systems that build greatness in any business. Because they are clear and specific, Business Owners’ strategies, articulation, priorities, choices, goals and even words have more impact.

Are you a Hobbyist, or a Business Owner?

How The Hobbyist Will Experience The Business of Coaching:

1. Business and client support is reactive versus proactive. They figure out the answers as they go.
2. Jack of all, master of none.
3. Provide the support to their clients on a situational basis. Things are unique to each client and situation and often done differently each time. There is customization in how they support and work with their clients because the hobbyist only coaches when they want to coach.
4. Run their business manually with limited technologies and support resources.
   
5. Coach few clients and continue to dream of having a deeper impact on the world.

---

How The Business Owner Will Experience The Business of Coaching.

1. Build a strong foundation up front for their business.
2. Collaborate with great people to leverage their own time.
3. Use the right technologies, tools and resources to simplify and automate tasks that don’t produce new business directly.
4. Use effective internal systems.
5. Use their systems consistently.
6. Coach more clients, make more money, and make a far greater difference in the world.

---

Both types are great coaches. And in our five years since founding The Coaches Console, we have also learned that Hobbyists share the dream, but not the discipline. Business Owners are different; they take disciplined action to make their dreams, and many more clients’ dreams, come true. It’s vital to your success to know which approach you desire and which approach you are taking each moment. Otherwise growing your business will seem like you are pushing a boulder up a hill.

It’s understandable if, as a Business Owner, you feel overwhelmed sometimes. There’s so much to learn, such an array of new skills to master. You’d be less than human to feel otherwise! Hobbyists feel that pressure too. The difference is in how they respond. Hobbyists think they need to learn every single thing, as in everything. They never will, of course, but they beat themselves up for not knowing it all, and even for having just “average” skills.

Really, the Hobbyist’s response to pressure is a kind of perfectionism: Like all forms of that Holy Grail, it’s not reachable. Not on this planet, anyway. Still, on and on the Hobbyists go, endlessly expecting what amounts to a long list of daily miracles, then blaming themselves for endlessly falling short.

Business Owners don’t attempt the impossible. Their outlook is a lot more useful, and healthier, especially on two points:

1. They’ve learned to be comfortable with the stress that accompanies life as an entrepreneur.
2. They focus on their greatest strengths, and find systems, tools and experts (assistants) to help them with the things they don’t do as well. They don’t waste time trying to learn things they’ll never be good at. Instead, they “leverage their community,” surrounding themselves – from the outset — with experts and resources.

Every single part of the Hobbyists’ business carries the same weight. They haven’t identified specific actions that bring new clients, business growth and income. Stress and pressure drive Hobbyists back into their comfort zone, where they keep on spending all their time and energy on the same things – the activities they know how to do and/or love to do. Business Owners, on the other hand, understand that running a business means wearing many hats, and that some actions help build your income a lot more than others. They know how to choose which hat to wear, and when.

Hobbyists know they need to market. They do learn specific strategies and try them out, here and there. But they don’t do it consistently enough, and they don’t create a system to help them market and sell. Business Owners take a different view. They know marketing is the lifeblood of a healthy, vibrant practice. To them, “marketing” is a description, just a header referring to a more specific idea that they find far more important and exciting: Marketing is a conversation. It’s a way of helping others by sharing a great tool with them. And wanting to tell them!

Business Owners think differently, choosing a “One-to-Many” mindset. That means they realize that, to double their practice, serve more clients and charge higher fees, they must leverage their relationships. So they build strong networks and partner with like-minded colleagues.

So are you a hobbyist or a business owner?  The real question is: are you reaching the level of success you desire?  If you are, then exactly where you are – hobbyist or business owner, is perfect. If not, take a closer look at the distinction to identify where you are and where you want to be. Then place your attention on closing that gap. As you do you will begin to have the desired impact you wish to have on this world.

Are you ready to become the Business Owner you know you can be?  If your answer is yes, we invite you to join our Business Success Inner Circle of coaches, growing their businesses, and making a big difference and money too!  We so believe in this business growth program we are offering the first two months FREE! Try it out, you will soon know if you are a Hobbyist or a Budding Business Owner!

Leave a Comment

1+1=11 The Power of Relationships

Growing a business is mighty difficult for “Lone Rangers.” Undeterred, the “Lone Rangers” plunge in on their own, whole hog, trying to personally market, to sell and to connect with every single potential client. Sure, plenty of supposed experts teach that approach. It’s just not realistic, or even sustainable. There’s only so much of one coach to go around!

We have our own name for “Lone Rangerism.” We call it the “One-on-One” mindset. Once they start down this solitary path, they’re headed for overwork, high stress and even burnout. The thriving business they dream of, mismanaged, can look more like a nightmare.

Successful Business Owners think differently, choosing a “One-to-Many” mindset. That means they realize that, to double their practice, serve more clients and to charge higher fees, they must leverage their relationships. So they build strong networks and partner with like-minded colleagues.

Successful coaches build key relationships and collaborate with strategic partners…

Through relationship-building and marketing, more and bigger win-win-win opportunities for clients, prospects, you, the strategic partner, and even the industry, can be created. Leveraging the power of relationships gives you the results of 1+1=11.

As formulas go, it’s not terrific math. But the key to leveraging relationships is that you are able to reach more people, with the same or even less effort; saving you time and often money. Not to mention, it is more fun to collaborate with others to accomplish parallel missions and visions.

When we started Coaches Console, we knew we wanted to help hundreds and even thousands of coaches worldwide. But in the beginning there were only two of us. We knew the One-on-One mindset would use up our time, energy and money long before we had fulfilled our purpose.

So we embraced the One-to-Many, partnering with other service professionals serving our same niche market. Together, we identified actual and potential clients’ needs and goals. Together, we identified clients’ challenges and how our individual and combined expertise, products and services, respectively, could make a difference for them.

Our strategic partners involved us in a variety of creative ways. They:

• Brought us in as guest experts.
• Invited us onto a virtual radio show.
• Included articles and information about us in their newsletters, or interviewed us and wrote about us.
• Included us on the “member benefits” page of their websites.
• Introduced us to their clients.
• Bundled products and services with us, and we co-marketed them.

We even collaborated and created joint presentations, events and workshops! That particular whole truly exceeded the sum of its parts, and still does.

Leveraging relationships so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts starts with knowing your goal: to either gain exposure to more potential clients (increasing your database) and/or to gain new clients. Then ask the question “What’s in it for them (the strategic partner)?” Knowing what is important to the strategic partner will allow you to tap into your available resources and creativity to put together a beneficial relationship for the strategic partner.

Often, strategic partners are looking for exposure to new markets; they’re promoting products and services to potential clients, credibility, and even passive income. Sometimes it might be apparent as to what is important to the strategic partner and, on occasion, you simply have to ask them what they are looking for in the relationship.

Ways that we involve our strategic partners:

• Hosting them as a guest speaker on our free, bi-monthly “Thursdays @ 3: Business Success” calls
• Showcasing an article written by them in our monthly newsletter
• Spotlighting them in the “Cool Resources” section of our monthly newsletter
• Featuring them on the resources page of our website
• Bundling their products and services as “bonus offerings” in promotions we offer

We make the distinction between Hobbyists vs. Business Owners when it comes to the approach one takes to creating and running one’s business. The Hobbyist is the one that would take the “Lone Ranger” approach; the one-to-one mindset. Business Owners understand the value of relationships, allowing them to accomplish more, to reach more people and to work with more clients in the same amount of time a Hobbyist would spend marketing their own business.

Yet for the Business Owner, understanding alone is not enough. The key is that Business Owners, unlike Hobbyists, also change their mindset. A self-fulfilling prophecy takes root: They think about, and act upon, the presumption that key relationships and marketing systems will and do bring new clients.

Business Owners anticipate success. They are open and ready to receive it.

They set themselves up for success ahead of time. They invest in the right places because they know, emphasis on know, that success is inevitable when leveraging the power of relationships and operating their business under the 1+1=11 marketing model. Knowing that the power of strategic partners will lead to more prospects and more clients, the Business Owner establishes systems, processes and procedures to manage the influx of contacts, the increased level of client support, and the required follow-up necessary to mine the gold their relationship has afforded them.

Consistently, the Business Owner’s time and energy goes to the right systems, with the right partnerships, as part of the right community.

Are you ready to learn how to leverage the power of relationships, and to implement the 1+1=11 model into your business? If your answer is yes, we invite you to join our Business Success Inner Circle of Coaches, growing their businesses, and making a big difference and money, too! We so believe in this business growth program that we are offering the first two months FREE! Try it; you will soon be leveraging your own strategic partners to create more clients and to make the difference you are meant to make.

Leave a Comment

Creating Raving Fans: It All Starts With Exquisite Self Care

As a coach or service provider, there are two ways to live in this world.

The first is with you “on your list” and dare I say, at the top of your list; practicing exquisite self-care and giving of the overflow of your time, energy and spirit, to yourself and others?

The second, and most common, is when you are NOT anywhere to be found “on your list.”  Or maybe, at the very least, you’re at the bottom of a very long line of expectations, responsibilities and other people to take care of.  It is here, in this spot, that you are giving of the fumes and sputtering through life on empty.   This feels like overwhelm, hard work, and exhaustion.

I’m guessing the first option feels like “that’s too good to be true,” while the second option is closer to reality.  You’re not alone.  Most coaches love helping others so much that they forget to take care of themselves. Many actually feel guilty for taking time for themselves.

Sound familiar?

This is a result of living from what I call the “Either/Or” mindset.  Either I take care of everyone else (which means I’m not taking care of me) OR I’m taking care of me (which means I must not be taking care of everyone else like I’m supposed to).  This Either/Or mindset is based on the paradigm of sacrifice. If I win, someone else loses.  It is this Either/Or mindset that keeps you paralyzed in the rat race of your life; because as a coach, taking care of others is a core characteristic that is part of your genetic make up.

When you travel on a plane and the flight attendants are doing their safety demonstrations and they get to the part about the oxygen mask, what do they tell you to do? “Place your mask on you FIRST, before assisting the child or person next to you.” Why do they say that?  Because if you don’t place it on yourself FIRST, you won’t even be around to help the people next to you!  The same is true with your business.  Yet, you are running around helping everyone else with their oxygen masks while holding your breath, hoping you don’t die.

The “Both/And” mindset allows you to place your mask on you first AND to also take care of everyone (clients, family, etc), and everything (business activities, marketing, family obligations, community obligations, etc.) around you.  With Both/And, you create a win-win-win for everyone involved, including  you.  And that is the key, “including  yourself.”  Your top item on your to-do list becomes taking exquisite care of you so you have an overflow to give to others.  As you practice exquisite self-care, you continue to fill yourself up from the inside out, and no longer need external “fixes” to provide temporary relief.  You have an abundance to ensure your own health and well-being, as well as more than enough to contribute to your family, your business, and your passionate causes.

Are you ready to place yourself at the top of your list so you have even more to give to your clients?  If your answer is yes, we invite you to join our Business Success Inner Circle of coaches, growing their businesses, and making a big difference, and money, too!  We so believe in this business growth program, we are offering the first two months FREE! Try it out; you will soon be giving of the overflow! Click here to learn more.

Leave a Comment

The 3 Keys to Client Retention (which means less marketing)

The better you are at retaining clients the less marketing you need to do. One of the reasons that you see so much marketing from other business owners is because they may be great at getting clients but not great at keeping clients.

What is your current rate of retention? I’ve found that the new business owner is lucky if they retain a client for 90 days. This means that for every client you loose in 90 days, you have to replace that client 4 times in a year. No wonder you feel like you have to do so much marketing.

Getting off the roller coaster of client turn-over is all about managing your clients and their progress. It is about adding value in everything you do with your clients and getting them to see the ongoing benefits of continuing to pay for your services.

So how can you add value while managing your current clients so they stay with you longer?

It is easy…if you have the right SYSTEMS in place.

These systems ensure that every client is handled with care and true concern. That each client feels that you are not just there for the call or the meeting but that you are truly their ongoing partner in success. It is also about having ways to monitor their weekly and monthly progress so that they can see and feel the momentum building and the breakthroughs happening.

The systems must be simple and easy to use for both you and your clients. They must be consistent and automated.

• Consistency comforts the client.
• Automattion makes it easy for you.

The Three Key Systems to client retention

SYSTEM #1: Smart Goal setting. Have an automatic system in place for your clients to indicate where they are when they start working with you and what they want to achieve.

• As they close the gap, your clients begin to see the momentum build as well as their return on investment.
• The more progress your clients feel, the more likely they are to stay the course and continue to pay for your services.

SYSTEM #2: Follow up and follow through. You will want to have an automated way to regularly interact with your clients beyond your regular sessions.

• Perhaps a system of instant messaging, an automatic appointment reminder, an evaluation process that allows them to give you feedback on their progress and even a follow up email after your weekly call or meeting.
• These thoughtful and purposeful touches are a great way to let your clients know you are on their team and pulling for them.

SYSTEM #3: Professional and painless billing. Setting up your clients with your merchant account so that they can be billed automatically each month at the same time allows both you and the client to plan for the investment and it eliminates surprises.

• Have your client give written permission for you to charge their credit card on the first day of each month.
• Have professional bills sent at regular intervals.
• When everyone is on the same page with the investment there are no defaults and or uncomfortable questions left hanging.

If you are ready to get off the roller coaster of client retention these 3 systems can make all of the difference.

You can create your own systems or consider The Coaches Console which automates all of the systems mentioned here (and many more) to create a professional and smooth running and profitable service business. Visit the site and take a virtual tour or sign up for a free trial.

1 Comment

Why Marketing is Essential to Grow Your Business

There are a lot of things in our day that demand our time and attention. Some help move our business forward and some have us ending our day wondering what we have accomplished.

We have a tendency to let ourselves get distracted by the things that are screaming the loudest for our attention, and we also have a tendency to spend time on things we enjoy the most, regardless of whether it is a money making activity or not. And unfortunately, many times it is not.

For most of us, marketing is an essential activity for our business. We must market ourselves and our services to our target audience so they become aware of us and are interested to learn more. With today’s competitive economy, the idea of hanging out our shingle and hoping people will find us will lead to a definite doom.

Therefore, if you are truly committed to having a successful business, and your business is not yet where you want it to be, then you will need to be spending the majority of your time on marketing activities. And the majority of that time should be spent on income generating marketing activities.

There are two types of marketing activities – active and passive.

Active marketing activities give you the greatest exposure, establish connection and creditability, and get you greater results quicker.

- Speaking
- Training events like workshops and teleseminars
- Networking – at meetings, organizations and such
- Social networking with purpose
- Creating joint venture and alliance partnerships

Passive activities are activities you need to be performing in your business but aren’t as direct in generating income but very effective just the same for generating awareness, growing your list and creating interest.

- Article marketing
- Blogging
- Maintaining Your website
- Working on your brochure
- Keep in touch activities – like sending cards, notes and newsletters

If you are committed to growing a successful business, then until you have reached the level of success you desire, you will want to be working full time in your business. Therefore, if you only have 3 clients, then the rest of your work week would be spent mostly on marketing activities.

For those of you who have a job that you want to leave and are really committed to building your own business, then I encourage you to put your head down, make the short term sacrifice and squeeze as many hours out of your day as you can marketing your business.

It is only temporary and the faster you get your business grown the sooner you can leave your job.

If your business is where you want it to be and you have a steady stream of referrals and people contacting you, then you may be able to reduce your marketing activities, but you do not want to ever completely let up on the marketing pedal because clients will come and go.

In sales, it’s called the pipeline. You want to always be putting names in your pipeline, and nurturing those relationships so that you always have a steady stream of clients coming in while others leave.

If marketing is a necessity for companies like Weight Watchers and McDonalds, then marketing will most likely be a necessity for us too. Therefore, it is advantageous for us to spend our time on activities that will move our business forward – and marketing is indeed one of them.

This post was graciously submitted by:

Kim Clausen
Ready2Go Marketing Solutions, Inc.

www.Ready2GoMarketingSolutions.com

Leave a Comment

Key Number One to Successful Self-Marketing

Marketing always seems to be one of the more difficult tasks, and marketing ones self, for many, often becomes insurmountable.  This does not have to be true for you! Learning to market yourself comfortably will go a long way in your life whether you are marketing yourself for a new career, a promotion in your current place of business or to sell your business services.

Key Number ONE is: Learning to Overcome Rejection

I. Overcoming rejection, the ages old concept of rejection and how to overcome that down in the belly negative feeling that comes when you put your talents on the line and they are rejected.

What is actually being rejected?

Try this vision: What is real…At this moment I am OK. I have certain talents and abilities, hopes and dreams, needs and values. I have family and friends that care about me. I have accomplished many things in my life; be it my schooling at what ever level, my employment history and my ability to be a team player and many other learned talents along the way.  The concrete evidence of my existence thus far proves I am capable of tackling the world and what it has handed me. I am O.K.!

You take one small action of opening your email and you discover your business proposal was rejected. What happens?  The air is knocked out of you, you get that lead feeling in your gut, suddenly, the act of reading one email has changed “I am OK” into “I am not good enough”!

Look back a moment…has anything actually changed from the information above? NO, you are still all of those very capable things.  What has changed is your attitude. You have allowed yourself to take the rejection personally. All of a sudden it is about you not being good enough, when moments before you were just fine.  You have given your power away because of someone else’s action. In reality what happened is another person had a stronger set of tools for this particular situation, or perhaps there was a personal contact that was selected or the person making the decision had a bad day the day of your proposal, we will never know.

Getting Over it! We meet rejection every day, whether it is of our dreams, of a new job or a promotion or a sale we have endeavored to close. There are 3 important rules to dealing with rejection successfully: a. Don’t take it personally. b. Use it as a learning tool. c. Quickly take appropriate actions to move on to the next challenge.

The first rule of dealing with rejection is: Don’t take it personally! It is rarely about us, even though our egos seem to try to tell us it is.  Our minds are very creative and energetic and if left alone, are masters at the negative.  I call it my “Itty Bitty Pity Committee”. Replace your old committee with a sensible group of voices: which include your intuition, your heart, your intelligence, your curiosity, your passion, your spirit and your experience.

Your new “Success Committee”, will help you deal with rejection as a learning tool. Which is the second rule of dealing with rejection: Use rejection as a Learning tool. Ask questions when you receive a no.  What did not meet your needs?  What was missing so I might improve? Rarely is a person reluctant to help another improve. Then set up an appropriate action plan to carry out what you have discovered. Choose to learn from the rejection and move on to the next with a greater arsenal of tools for your future success.

The third rule of dealing with rejection: Quickly take appropriate actions to move on to the next challenge.  Take the learning and grow your knowledge base and tool kit.  Create a plan of action to move past the rejection and on to the next challenge. Think of rejection as a tool for learning and improvement and you will soon move beyond it to the realm of success.

Want to see Overcoming rejection in action? Look up the story of author J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter novels. She was rejected by the best of the best printers over 100 times! Aren’t we all glad she kept believing in herself?

Leave a Comment