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Ninja business coach Matt Burkinshaw of Synergy Business Coaching joined me on a teleconference call to share his breakthrough business development strategies with our tribe. Those in attendance walked away with proven ideas they could immediately put to use in their business. If you couldn’t join the call live, the seminar audio transcript is below for online listening or to download to your iPod.

Herbert Spencer said, “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action…” Put this knowledge to immediate use.  I dare you…

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Finding success in attracting new customers to your business is much like approaching a multiple choice exam.  We are not born with the right answers but we can certainly rule out the wrong ones.  During this months Q & A conference call my guest Donna Maria Coles Johnson founder of Indie Business Media and I addressed challenges faced by many in our tribe as they struggle to build systems that can deliver a predictable stream of customers and clients. Consider these your Ten Leadership Lessons in business growth and development for the month. 

On the call we cover:

• The one proven way to make social media work for your business
• 3 guaranteed ways to overcome buyer resistance on your website
• The myth about using Twitter and Facebook for business
• How to build influence and authority that leads to new business
• The secret to building website traffic
• How to use virtual assistants to free up time to do all of this marketing stuff

Listen to the call

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Boy I would be a rich man if I had a dime for every client I shared a knock out Shaolin Kung Fu-style body blow marketing tactic with who then responded with, “but I just don’t have time to do that.” If this sounds like you then read on.

I have to confess that I have been one of the biggest offenders here and while I am still a work in progress, I have managed to return at least 20 hours per week back to my calendar.  I am so close to this topic that I decided to dedicate a series to covering simple yet powerful ways to save time … time that can be reinvested back into your Shaolin marketing system to get that phone a ringin’.

Email is Guess What?  … Mail

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Do you stand at your mailbox every day and wait for the mail truck to arrive, then immediately respond to every piece of mail that falls out? If you answered yes then I am really worried about you.  Seriously, chances are you would say no to this question and let’s be honest; none of the people sending you mail is going to die because you didn’t respond in 5 minutes to their note.  In fact, your tribesmen who still send analogue mail expect a delay.

Well, your digital contacts can be taught to expect a reasonable delay in email response too and by training this expectation, you can reclaim hours back to your calendar each day. The average person emails upwards of 50 messages each day and receives about 120. Even at 1 minute per message that’s 3 hours worth of nonsense. Managing all these communications as they come in is time consuming and diverts attention away from critical tasks.

Managing the Flood

One option for managing this flood is adopting an e-mail checking schedule. For example, read your messages and respond to them no more than two times per day.  Use your email software’s vacation auto response message to let contact’s know that you only check mail twice daily and for “emergency only” needs to call directly.  I use a Google voice number that routes to my cell phone, so if I see Google Voice in the caller ID I know it is a client emergency. Oh, by all means turn off that annoying Blackberry, iPhone email ringtone.

Bottom line adopting this system might not cut the amount of email you receive but it will prevent the email from diverting your attention during the day so you can remain focused on getting more business or watching Star Wars, whichever activity floats your boat. I opt for the former.

How Do You Tame the Beast?

Intuitively, professional marketers know that media coverage or public relations is at the heart and soul of a good lead generation plan. These powerful information channels can convince hundreds of people that you are doing a good job and that you are the professional they need.
 
The time-honored approach to public relations (a fancy way of saying old) has one huge downside – it can be very difficult to get reputable journalists to cover you. Don’t start feeling dispirited – you have an alternative and one that is off the radar of most PR firms. In today’s world, traditional media are subjected to pressure and serious competition from the community of citizen journalist bloggers.

Today’s bloggers rival the influence once wielded by old school news sources and with some good Jujitsu you can turn their weight to your advantage.

Better PR = Blog Involvement?

Blogs can do as good job as conventional media in terms of lifting your company’s profile. In fact, blog PR can be more efficient, since you will be delivering your message straight to a highly targeted audience that is already interested in what you have to say.

This sounds good in theory but what are the practical opportunities connected to blog PR? You can win a spot to write as a guest blogger and showcase your expertise. A blogger may also be interested in publishing reviews of your products or services. These opportunities seem quite ordinary but the truth is that they can lead to some serious awareness building, not to mention Google-friendly links back to your site.

The advantage of working with bloggers is that they may be much easier to approach and more willing to play nice.

Blog communities will provide you with additional PR and marketing opportunities that traditional media lack. Because blogs are updated frequently with keyword rich text content that Google loves, a blog post can both increase your credibility and improve the positioning of your website in search engine results. In addition good bloggers are connected to networks of linked blogger communities that can carry your message at click-speed across the web.

Vitamins for Making Friends – Getting to Know Bloggers

You will have to familiarize yourself with your target blogger’s writing style and areas of interest before you establish a contact and make your pitch. Perform a simple search to discover blogs that discuss topics that compliment your expertise. Subscribe to their RSS feed and regularly browse their pages and explore the content. Is it what you are looking for?

Prepare a list of popular and well-written blogs that provide complimentary content. A time saving tip is to have your Virtual Assistant (VA), compile this list for you.

What comes next? You will have to make your presence known. Get involved. Submit comments to the blog posts that you enjoy reading. Your comments should be engaging, intelligent and add value to the conversation. Being a valuable member of the community is the best way to get yourself noticed.

Once bloggers know who you are, you can try contacting them. Send an email expressing your interest in the blog. You can also suggest story ideas, offer relevant video content, breaking news leads, even promote them in your social networks. In short…help them out.

Blog coverage is an industrial strength opportunity that many PR firms tied to the good ole’ days don’t know or are uncomfortable pushing. You are smarter than that; so don’t let those stuck in the past bias you. Blogs are interactive, targeted and popular. Neglecting this chance would be a missed opportunity indeed.

Share Your Blogger Networking Experiences

Would-be clients are usually skeptical when browsing the websites of companies to hire and to be successful you have to put some heart and soul into influencing opinons. Sounds easy and simple enough; yet, building trust in the client-company relationship takes time and serious effort.

Trust lies at the foundation of attracting customers online and getting them to inquire. What businesses do people trust? Some believe news reports. Others rely on recommendations. Knowing how to use these sources to your advantage will help you win influence with cagey clients.

Favorable Media Coverage

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I cringe at making this statement but its true, people trust the media. They rely on newspaper reports, television coverage and websites to get reliable information and make decisions. Some media have managed to build their reputation as authorities in their spheres.

Getting your company, products or services mentioned in media articles and broadcasts will alter the manner in which potential clients perceive you. A single feature or a report will make your company seem special.

Establishing contact with the media is a doable task as long as you provide them with useful and newsworthy information, journalists are more likely to mention and sometimes cover your company. Think for a minute about all of stories you have read where some expert is cited.  Why can’t the next mention be you?

Create a list of all the media outlets that cover your specialty and that your target customers are interested in. Check their website staff listings to find out which journalists covering the niche you are operating in. Send these journalists press releases with compelling subject lines and story angles that marry what you do to hot topics in the news. For example, June through August are prime wedding months so a financial planner might pitch a story about saving money on honeymoon expenses. Do you get where I am going with this?

Remember to keep press releases more informational than promotional. Journalists don’t care about your business and all you need is the mention; so being informative will increase your chance of success.

Everyone Trusts a Friend

When looking for a service, many people are likely to seek recommendations from their friends, relatives, business associates and others like themselves. First-hand experience is often the best form of promotion.

How can you get clients to recommend you? Certainly by doing an exceptional job but these “accidental” referrals are only the tip of the iceberg. To really blow the doors off, you must employ a systematic approach to getting referrals.

Testimonials strategically added to your web page’s copy are another form of referral marketing that is always on and singing your praises 24/7.  Even if we don’t know the person, we tend to trust the opinions of those like us.

Professional Recognition

Professional awards serve as a form of social proof that your business is uniquely special. People trust the experts in a given field. If these experts decide you are a reliable professional, potential clients will be more willing to give your services a try.

Add fuel to this fire by making mention of any award or a distinction received. Striving for professional recognition is another way to make prospective clients trust you. After all, you have received the recognition of the principal experts in your field. You must have done something right to deserve it.

The Power of Social Media

Social media have become a determining factor in today’s society. A company that is influential in active social networks will be easier to find, recognize and certainly be more trustworthy.

What does it take to build trust in the ecosystem of a social network? Build influence through active participation and the provision of useful content, for starters. Further, you need to be willing to interact with people, to answer their questions and to promote them above yourself.  The old saying is true, “you will get what you want if you just help enough other people get what they want.”

Learn the culture on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and other popular social networks. Each one has its advantages and will give you the chance to appeal to a certain group of people. Which networks you choose will depend on your goals and available time.

Trust is central to all personal and professional connections. If there are six degrees of separation between any two people, the same holds true for credibility between you and your next customer.

Follow this guide and you will quickly learn how to borrow the trust of those your prospective customers follow and win them over. Make sure that all of these credibility indicators are presented on your website and in your marketing materials. Showing that you are reliable and trustworthy is the single best way to make your business the only choice for customers you are looking to reach.

How do you build trust? We are listening…

Giving away high value, free content is at the core of a successful prospect attraction strategy and hosting introductory seminars as a component will send the performance of your strategy into the stratosphere.  Consider an intro seminar to be a bite sized chunk of your full service offering that you use to build awareness, grow your mailing list, in short to engage a group of prospects in a longer term communication to establish yourself as the go-to resource.

Anatomy of an intro seminar

If you offer accounting services your intro seminar might consist of an hour long discussion of proven ways to survive an audit, a problem people with a sizable enough net worth (your target) are more likely to face and information they would find truly valuable. Once you settle on a good intro topic, its time to promote and host your seminar.

The nuts and bolts…

There are a number of ways to do this but the methods I recommend are using either a teleconference service (Free Conference Pro or Free Conference) or a web conference service like DimDim or Goto Meeting. With these services you can host free or low cost meetings from 20 to literally hundreds of seats. Even with a topic and virtual location nailed you still need an audience to make this work, right?

This is where I say “told ya so” to the people who looked at me cross eyed when I told them a year ago to do everything possible to build a strong mailing list and develop relationships with market influencers through social media.  The relationship building process is not simple but investment in building your web networks pays dividends when you need support promoting your event.

About ten days out start sending free seminar announcements to your mailing list.  At the same time enlist your influential partners on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to announce your event to their respective followings. If you are new to online networking and don’t yet have a list, consider a joint venture arrangement with someone who has a good sized list.  In return for tapping your JV partner’s list and promotional support you could offer a % of any deal closed or some other value proposition. Trust me this is not the time to think cheap. A good JV partner with a connection to a strong following is worth their weight in gold. Any money you fork over will be a lot less expensive an more effective than a full page ad in any major media publication.

Bonus prize!

All of the free seminar tools I mentioned offer call recording capability that will almost instantly render an mp3 file of your seminar.  Look at this mp3 file as a gold nugget offering you a free information product that you can use as an incentive to grow your mailing list, a credibility building giveaway for new prospects or a tool for your referral alliance partners to give to their clients and promote your business in the process.

The intro seminar is a little-known, yet incredible tool that is Tylenol for your “I need more customers” pain.  Okay, lets get it started!

It is survivors law that if you are in business you need customers to buy but how you go about making this happen is the difference between a business that soars or sinks. Anyone who knows me understands that I live by the rule “you get what you give” and until you have made a meaningful investment in helping your prospects, you haven’t won the right to introduce your products or services. Thanks Mr. Rogers for the lesson.

The other day I started following someone on Twitter who from his status updates (Tweets) seemed like an interesting enough person; that is until he started sending me pitches for a service he recently launched.  That’s right not even a hello or how are you doing?

The strategy of help…

Up front if you live to serve, to help; you will be rich in relationships, trust, authority and not to mention restful sleep knowing that you are not viewed as the newest con-man on the scene. From a monetary standpoint the strategy is equally effective as reciprocity kicks in and those you helped really work hard to return the favor by offering referrals, service trades, helpful resources and purchases.

On your website…

Replace a few of those “buy now”, “order this immediately” and related pitches with free information that can help your customers and clients. A free ebook, educational article or tips sheet will serve as the necessary handshake giving you the right to make the ask.

The next time you get frustrated after receiving a bad report from your accountant, find a charity and donate your services. Its the cure for what ails you and your business.

Who is the last person you helped?

30 minutes ago I appeared on a teleseminar with Internet PR phenomenon, Joan Stewart where I covered 9 Clever Ways to Use Video to Become a Publicity Darling in your Industry or Community and let me tell you I am even more psyched about the opportunity to use video to get the media to cover you.  The speed of Joan’s questions, audience queries and the general energy of the seminar did not allow time for me to share some “horse’s mouth” input I received from a local print publisher on this subject, so I will share the Q and A here.  

The reality is that print publications are trying hard to determine how to remain relevant in world where people are flipping through less paper in their media consumption and web video is the publisher’s tool of choice.  Gerald Johnson, Publisher of the Charlotte Post Newspaper weighs in with his opinions.

Q:  Would your publication feature web video content produced by local citizens if it was of acceptable quality (video and audio) and directly spoke to the interests of your consumers?

Gerald:  Yes. We look at it as being paramount to “letters to the editor”. It is a great way to expand your audience and your community reach.

Q:  What should business owners consider to successfully pitch video stories to the Charlotte Post?

Gerald:  It is important to:

1. Have knowledge about the current demographics of the publication.
2. Know who we are targeting to expand our current reach.
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3. Get an understanding of our corporate and editorial culture.
4. Pitch us on how your video stories fit who we are and where we going (1, 2, & 3)

Have you ever wondered what sales materials successful business owners and sales professionals take with them on sales calls?  As a multimedia professional, my sales kit includes some pretty unique and I must admit, cool items; so I thought to share the contents with you.

From the image above you can see that a branded pocket folder binds the majority of my kit.  Inside the binder I have a sales letter that briefly introduces the company.  Also in the kit are several sales one-sheet documents; one that recaps our awards and lists our more prominent press mentions. The second one-sheet is a tips document outlining several creative uses for whatever service I happen to be discussing that day (self managed websites, promotional videos, seminar videos, etc.).  The final kitted item is a business card sized CD-ROM containing a company promotional video and brochure copy detailing our mix of multimedia services.  As long as CD-ROMs have been around this little one always manages to produce a “wow” from prospects.

My final sales tool consists of an iPOD device containing a mix of promotional and client videos.  I have actually replaced the iPOD by featuring the same videos on my BlackBerry 8830 smartphone.  This little baby gets my prospects very excited, especially the phone; as most people never thought to use such a common device as a sales tool. 

Well, I have shown you my lucky charms.  What’s in your wallet?  Share with us your most commonly used sales tools, as well as thoughts on what works and what doesn’t (click to comment).

I was recently invited to speak to members of the National Sales Network on the subject of generating leads and referrals through effective networking.  I focused on the point that networking is first and foremost an exercise in relationship building.  Once a mutually beneficial relationship is established you must empower your networking partners with information about your company and easy to manage tools that will assist your allies in telling your story. 

Speaking of tools all of you BNI pros, entrepreneurs and sales professionals remember this. Your Blackberry, iPhone, windows mobile device or smartphones is one of the best networking tools on the planet. A phone equipped with your company’s promotional video can lead to explosive networking success.  Below are several ways you can use your cell phone to increase your networking effectiveness.

1. Show off your video at networking events:  Watch the eyes widen and the heads around you turn when event attendees see and hear your company’s story on your phone.
2. Web downloads
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   :  Allow your networking partners to download your company video for use on their cell phones and smart phones.  This will turn your networking partners into walking commercials for you and unleash an army of evangelists to sing your praises.

3. Invite fellow partners to networking events:  Imagine the impact of having 2-4 people at a networking event showing your video to event attendees.  Your message will be in front of exponentially more prospects than you could meet on your own and you are sure to be remembered.
4. Video testimonials:  Even if you are a sales representative for a firm, you can establish credibility by adding video testimonials to your phone that speak to the worth of the company’s products and to your personal merit.

The bottom line is your referral partners are only as effective as their ability to tell your story.  Today’s cell phone technology can enable your networking partners to become an indispensable extension of your sales force. I am sure our readers would love to read your networking success stories (click here to submit yours)