Why Find a Niche

The logic of niching down your business or content does make sense. When you are starting out, you need to get traction. You need an audience. In an ocean of information, you will never be found by your audience or customers, if you are too generic. Finding a niche, means that you target a specific set of people with a specific problem or an specific audience who are looking for specific information. The key word is ‘specific’.

For instance, if your industry is weight loss, your competition will be too great. You will not be noticed. However, if you target 50-year-old males, who want to lose ten pounds, without going to the gym, this will narrow down your target audience. The key part of this is that those people who fit these criteria, will more easily find you.

Niching down is therefore sound advice and here are some of the ways I’ve discovered, to think about my potential niche.

Your niche should be a blend of:

• What you are passionate about?
• What will be financially viable?
• Where do your skills lie?

Your Passion as a Niche

What is your passion and what are you interested in? The premise here is that, as with any new business, it takes a lot of time and energy to get it off the ground. There will be times when nothing seems to happen and you want to give up. It is at these moments that your passion will carry you through because you will feel like you are just doing it because you love it, not for the results.

Money

Counter to the passion argument is, what will be the most commercially viable niche? Follow the money.

I would say that focussing on just the money will result in you becoming disillusioned. You are more likely to follow through if you are enthusiastic about what you are doing. Yes, sure, the venture needs to be financially viable, or it is just a hobby. The focus on just money shouldn’t however be to the detriment of what you are passionate about. That said, there is wisdom in saying don’t just follow your passion. Your venture should be something that has a balance of something you are at least interested in and is commercially viable.

Skills

What if you can’t find something you are passionate about, or what if what you are passionate about, isn’t commercially viable? In that case you should consider what your skills are. What are you good at? Any business relies on providing value to the customer or they will not pay for your services. In the realm of content creation, the consumer needs to receive value, either as entertainment or useful information. You don’t need to be the best, or the most expert in your field, but you should be confident in your abilities and knowledge to provide value to your customers or audience.
Usually, your passion in the subject will grow as you become more skilled and knowledgeable.

Can’t find a niche?

What if you just can’t find a niche? Then invent your own niche. Be unique and it will resonate with someone.

Be authentic

Most of all be authentic. This means being real and true to who you are as a person. Fakery comes across. We can all tell when someone is trying to be someone they are not. In the same way, you will not resonate with your audience if you are not being you.

A word about AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for longer than you think. Think about predictive text on your mobile phones. Content creation by AI is in its infancy and I believe you can tell. This will change in the future, but people want to deal with people they know, like and trust. I don’t believe this will ever change. Humans can intuitively tell when something is authentic or not. It does come with experience but we all have this faculty.
I would resist using AI to create content, firstly because I like writing. Why would I outsource something I love to do, to someone or something else.? Secondly, though, I also believe my audience would be able to tell.

People are crying out for authenticity

In an age were content is, sadly, mass produced by AI, people are craving authenticity. Our politicians bend with the wind, to get your vote. I just wish some of them would stay true to their principles, even if I disagree with them. At least they would get my respect.

Just start now – see where you get to

If you are struggling with finding a niche, I would say the best advice I can give you is start anyway. Start finding your own voice. The worst thing you can do is wait to find the perfect niche. Your niche will develop as you develop. People will be attracted to your authentic message.
Then if you are consistent and persistent, you will look back and discover you have created your own unique niche.

If you are an aspiring blogger, then you might be interested in my post on how to write a weekly blog post. In this post I show you my weekly routine to get regular posts out, on time.

The post Be Your Own Niche appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

1. Goals

I’m a great believer in goals but these are not the same as targets. Sales professionals are given targets to reach, but these can be de-motivating. If you fall behind your annual sales plan early in the year it can be incredibly hard to get yourself motivated. Conversely, if you smash your targets with months to spare, the temptation can be to ease off later in the year. This can have a knock-on effect the year after.
Getting-better goals are more motivating, rather than targets. Here you breakdown each aspect of selling and aim to improve them one by one. This seems to work, in that you are competing against yourself, to get better every day.

2. Agile Selling Learning Model

The biggest challenge for me, when I changed roles, was the amount of learning I had to cram in, in a short space of time. Konrath gives us a simple model to use in Agile Selling.

a. Chunking

First you map out everything you need to learn and then chunk similar things together. You can then chunk down into smaller chunks.

b. Sequence

You can’t learn everything all at once. This will fry your brain. Instead decide on the first skill or piece of information you need to learn and concentrate on that. Only when you have mastered that, should you go on to the next skill.

c. Connect

Are there any other things you already know, that you can link to the skill you need to learn? This can often give you a head start.

d. Dump

Get what you learn out of your head and onto paper. Therefore, practice dumping this information. Mind maps are a great tool to use here.

e. Practice

With any new skill, practice makes perfect. Doing something once or twice, will mean you never habituate the skill. The author recommends role playing and recording yourself on video. Do not fear this feedback, as it is priceless.

f. Prioritise

I agree with Jill Konrath, in that multitasking is a myth. Therefore, you should prioritise what you are doing and do the most important one-thing first.

3. Situational Credibility

The aim of all this learning is to reach situational credibility in 30 days. This means that within 30 days you should be able to sit in front of a customer and have a good productive conversation. The 30-day deep dive is long enough for you to get this situational credibility. It is also short enough for it to fit into your induction period, in your new job.

4. Dictionary

One of the biggest helps for me in my learning was setting up my own dictionary. As you learn unfamiliar terms and jargon, make a note of it to look up later. Once you have the definition, write this down in a dedicated notebook. I still use my dictionary all these years later as more new buzzwords and acronyms come into fashion. I now use an excel spreadsheet for this, so I can rearrange it alphabetically.

5. Fill out buyer’s matrix.

Konrath gives us some a lot of homework to do in Agile Selling, but it is well worth the effort. One of the tasks is to set up a Buyers’ Matrix. Here you list out each type of customer you have, for instance my list would be:

• Business owner, Owner, MD, CEO
• Factory Manager, Operations Manager/ Director, General Manager
• Engineering Manager/Director
• Project Manager

For each position, fill out their key roles, objectives and challenges. An example for a CEO is below:

1. Role/responsibility – oversee all company functions, maintain and improve profits, increase sales.
2. Business objectives – get new business, increase and maintain business, ensure profitability.
3. Strategic initiatives – sales drives, cost cutting, new product development, branding.
4. Internal challenges – labour costs,
5. External challenges – loss of business, unable to supply business.
6. Primary interfaces – Parent company directors/ managers, shareholders, owners, other business owners
7. Status quo – current profitability and sales are fine, don’t rock the boat.
8. How to overcome Status Quo: costs are rising, labour costs, labour market
9. Change drivers – sudden new business, loss of business, increased costs, pricing.
10. Change inhibitors – ongoing contracts, parent company group deal, other investments required, uncertain forecast.

6. Status quo

Looking back on my sales career, my biggest competitor is the customer not doing anything. Jill Konrath calls this the Status Quo i.e. the customer would rather do nothing. There are assorted reasons for this, for instance fear of making mistakes or the time required to make the change. However, we can still compete against this. Therefore, what are the weaknesses or gaps, for them to remain with the status quo? How can we exploit this?

7. Value Proposition

The author advises us to reverse engineer the business case, to arrive at our Value Proposition. This chapter was quite lightweight and Konrath points us to her website to download a Value Proposition Toolkit.

8. Customer Stories

During your first 30 days, start collecting customer stories. What are the stories of how your company got customers? How did you help them? You can ask other salespeople in the organisation or even interview the customers. You can then weave this into your own sales and marketing narrative.

9. Map out the buyer’s journey.

Mapping out the buyer’s journey is a useful exercise in sales and marketing. It can help you to craft the message you are putting out and to whom. Broadly speaking there are four stages to the buyer’s journey, but each industry and customer will have its own sub-stages:

a. Allow access.

The first step in the sales journey is the customer allowing you access to them. Here you need to be noticed by the customer and offer them a valid reason for starting a conversation.

b. Initiate change

The customer allows you access to them and you are now face to face. Your task now is to guide the customer to initiate change, i.e. to realise they might have a problem worth solving.

c. Select resources.

As the buyer now realises he needs to change something, he will now start to think about how he can change. I.e. to select resources. This is the research stage and hopefully you will be involved in it. Otherwise, the customer has already done their research and you are part of a quote gathering exercise.

d. Expand relationships.

You have been successful in gaining some business with this new customer. The next stage is expanding the relationship. This will be traditional account management and will involve selling more of your offering and dealing with the fulfilment side.

10. Create cheat sheets for everything.

I’m in agreement with the author here. Cheat sheets or checklists can help you to remember to do what you should do and they are a plan you can follow. For example, the book includes a cheat sheet for meeting preparation. (See below). I’ve written more about my checklists in the post Checklists and Daily Lists.

11. What are the trigger events?

For the customer to realise they have a problem or initiate a change, there is usually a trigger event. To help you optimise your time, you can identify what these trigger events are and then target these as a priority. Trigger events could be anything from New Legislation or a new CEO overseeing the customer’s business. If you do your homework, you can find these events and get ahead of the game.

12. Gobbledygook test

How will you know if you have situational credibility and are ready to sit in front of a customer? You should be able to pass the gobbledygook test and be able to answers these four questions, off pat.

• What does your company do?
• What are your primary products and services?
• Why should I consider changing to you?
• Have you worked with any other companies like us? Name them.

13. Agile Selling skills

Your professional development should include developing your sales skills, but where do you start. The author tells us to start where you are. I.e. it’s pointless mastering closing skills if you have no prospects.

a. Prospecting

If you have just joined the company and are responsible for generating your own leads, then prospecting should be your first skill to master. These skills include phone use, email and networking etc. I’ve written more about this in my post My Prospecting Process, in which I go through my methods for getting in front of customers.

b. Opportunity creation

Once you have mastered prospecting or you are already provided with leads, then the next logical skill to practise is opportunity creation. Some sub-skills in this area include questioning, listening and needs analysis.

c. Winning business

Winning business will be the next skill to practise. This is a huge topic ranging from presenting the business case, through objection handling to negotiation. When choosing a subskill to work on, it is best to analyse what you are doing now and whether there are areas on which you can improve.

d. Account management

Account management is a whole different skill set. Once you have the business, this area is about keeping and developing that business. How are your customer service skills? Have you networked within the customer organisation to meet all the stakeholders?

14. Personal bests

Sales is a numbers game we are often told, but Konrath tells us to not focus on the number of calls we are making. Instead change your goals to, for instance, connection ratio. This means the percentage of calls that result in a conversation.
Once you’ve improved your connection ratio, to acceptable levels, you can then look at improving your initial meeting conversion ratio. I.e. the percentage of visits that result in a quote.
Again, once the meeting conversion rate is satisfactory, look to improve the closing ratio, otherwise known as the percentage of quotes that result in a sale. The corollary to this could be to look at the percentage of quotes, that are lost to no-decision and improve this.
When you are looking at ways to improve, or to highlight things that might be holding you back, find the root cause of the problem. For instance, your issue might be a lack of presenting the business case rather than closing skills.

15. Meeting preparation

One of the bad habits that seasoned sales professionals can sometimes slip into is trying to ‘wing it’ i.e. not preparing adequately for a meeting. As you become more experienced and your knowledge increases, this can be when danger can strike. You think that you can just turn up to an initial meeting and go with the flow.
In Agile Selling there is a Meeting Plan that you can use to ensure that you have at least done the minimum amount of preparation, before the meeting. Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself before the meeting:

a. Outcome

At the end of the meeting, what will the next step for me be?
What will the prospect be expecting?

b. Opening

How will you open the meeting? E.g. Make intros, confirm times and review agenda.

c. Set the stage.

Share your value proposition, success stories, ideas or insights. Establish yourself as a credible source. What will you say?

d. Transition

How will you move the conversation into questions?

e. Focus on Business

Lead the conversation about the reason for the meeting. List ten questions you want to discuss, in a logical sequence.

f. Support materials

What will you need to take? Presentations, handouts, case studies.

g. Personnel

Who will to be present, both from your company and the customer’s.

h. Advance

How will you bring the meeting to a close, in a timely manner. Summarise your understanding, discuss open issues, and suggest the next steps.

16. Debrief meetings.

After the meeting, whilst it is still fresh in your mind, you should be having a debrief. I use a model called the Personal Improvement Grid (PIG). You can read up more about the PIG on my post Skills and Mastery. In this post I explain how I improved my cold calling skills.

17. The Agile Selling 90 days Plan

There is a lot of work to go through when you start your new post at a new company. Aside from getting yourself up to speed or having situational credibility in 30 days, the author gives us a useful 90-day plan. You can of course adapt this to your own situation.

18. Time management

Here are four useful areas to improve in your time management, which I took away from Agile Selling.

a. Prioritise daily.

At the start of each day, or the evening before, list what you are going to doing, with the most important item first. With me, I make sure I prioritise getting at least twenty customer contacts per day. I will do this first.

b. Chunk time

Try to group like tasks together, for example if you have a raft of phone calls to make, then block off a few hours to get through them all in one chunk of time.

c. Set deadlines.

We are beset with deadlines issued by customers, bosses etc, which means that these tasks are focussed on first. But what about the tasks we give ourselves, those things that could move our own performance and development forward. Give these deadlines too, so you make sure they are done.

d. Email scheduled.

Scheduling my email time was a big gain for me. Set yourself 4 or 5 times per day, when you will check your email messages and don’t deviate from it. If you have spaced these times throughout the day, you will not miss anything. For example, I now only check email at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 4pm and one last check at 7pm.

Summary

Reading Agile Selling by Jill Konrath and applying the recommendations, got me out of a potentially sticky situation when I changed from Account Management to Business Development in Capital Equipment sales.
If you are about to start a new role in sales or if you are floundering with the mountain of things that need to be done, then I can heartily recommend getting yourself a copy.

The post Agile Selling by Jill Konrath – my takeaways appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

What does lead content vehicle mean?

The lead content vehicle is simply the one you start with, which all your other content flows from. It should be the one you are most comfortable with, which usually means the one you are most adept at. This means you will be most likely to persevere with your efforts, especially at the start before you get any followers.
It should also be the one vehicle that you create yourself. This is important because your personality will come across as more authentic.

Why blogging is my chosen lead content vehicle.

Blogging is my chosen lead content vehicle because I am most comfortable with writing. It is the skill I am most proficient at; my only grade A at O-level was English Language. Although I have authored several books, the shorter format of blogs means I can explore and create around many different ideas. I can also turnover more articles in a shorter space of time, allowing me to react quicker to trends. For longer form content, I will continue to draft books. This long form content will be led by what my audience wants to read about. I will get to know about this from my audience interactions and Google Analytics.

What to do afterwards

Once you have your lead vehicle established, you can start to branch out into other vehicles. This means that you are creating daily content and you have at least some traffic/audience. I would recommend repurposing your lead content, rather than creating fresh content.
The purpose of adding additional content vehicles should be to find more traffic to send to your lead content vehicle. As you add more vehicles, this will act like the spokes of a wheel, all pointing to the hub content.

Outsourcing

As you get more successful, you can outsource some of the functions on your lead content creation system, such as editing. Remember, though, that the creation should be done by you.
You can also outsource some or all of the repurposing. For instance, you can get videos transcribed into written pieces for blogs. You can also hire a social media executive to look after those tweets and blog posts etc.

The post What’s My Lead Content Vehicle appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Repurposing content is an efficient way to increase your reach and potential audience. Its efficient because, instead of creating new pieces of content for each platform you use, you take then one lead piece of content and repurpose this into multiple platforms. Here’s how I am attempting to do this. 

How I repurpose content 

My lead content type is writing. It is what is natural for me, I’ve always written and it was what I excelled at, at school. I’m not a natural presenter, although I have worked at this during my career in sales. I’m laid back as well, as you will see from my YouTube channel. 

My first step is the concept. I first get an idea of what to write about. At this stage I don’t know how long the piece will be. I will produce an outline using a mind map and then transform this into a linear outline, with section headings and subheadings.  

I will then start writing in free form around this outline. At the end of this process, I will then decide what the format will be. If the piece is over 10,000 words, it will become a book. Anything below this and it will be a series of blog posts or single posts. 

This is an honest approach and gives the reader more value. If the piece is not long enough to be a book, why bother padding it out? Just give the reader the essentials. 

Books

Once I’ve decided that the piece will be a book, I then go through a different process as to that which I go through for blogs.  

First the book needs a title and subtitle. I will produce about ten titles and then whittle this down to the best one. Next, I then find a great cover. I now use Fiverr for this. You can get a professionally looking cover for a few quid. I’m not a graphic designer, so I’m not serving myself by toiling over this chore. 

My editing process is different for books compared to blogs. I will edit each chapter as it is done and then if changes are made, they are re-edited at the end. I will also make sure that each chapter flows into the next. 

Blog posts 

Books can be split down into blog series. Each blog post should already flow to the next, but it is also important to make sure that each blog post can stand alone as a separate message. The reader can then decide whether to explore the rest of the series. 

Single blog posts are easier to manage. There is one message in the text, that I need to keep in mind. The single blog post, whether standalone or part of a series, then becomes the basis of my repurposing. 

YouTube 

The single blog post, if around 700 words, is an ideal length to be repurposed into a short video of around 5 minutes. I will record myself reading out the blog post on my phone and then use Camtasia to edit this video. Camtasia also allows you to add incidental background music, annotations and splice in other video and photos.  

I go through a multi-step editing process to get these videos out. 

What I plan to do 

I’m aware that there is much more I can do around repurposing, for instance I am planning to breakdown these shortform videos into even shorter forms that can be uploaded to twitter/X or Facebook. Camtasia will allow me to do just that.  

With the text itself, this can also be repurposed. I am planning to set up a Facebook page and dedicated twitter/X account, so that individual blogs can be split into shorter soundbites and pieces. Other platforms that I use such as LinkedIn are also opportunities for me to expand my reach. 

The one thing I am clear on, however, is that I will concentrate on maximising one platform at a time before I add a new one. There is too much to learn, to start trying to do everything at once. That is why I am concentrating on building up this blog first. 

The post Repurposing Content  appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Before you start to market your hypnotherpy business, decide whether your first consultation will be a Free Session or whether you will Charge. It is a common practice for the first session to be a free consultation, although not always. I will leave this up to your discretion there are pros and cons to charging and giving for free.

Rapport

The first stage in your initial consultation will always be to establish rapport, without exception. This is where you discuss pleasantries, if the client is willing. If the client wishes to dive straight into the issue, then fine. You can still establish rapport, using your listening skills, matching and mirroring.

When allowing the client to speak, always remember the Five Minute Golden Rule. This is where you allow them to vent off their feelings without interruption. You do not judge, but you can maybe ask for clarification.

Subjective Interpretation

When allowing the client to describe their unwanted behaviours or results beware of their subjective interpretation. For instance, they may complain that they were passed over for promotion at work because they are clearly not well thought of. This is a subjective interpretation of an event. Do not buy into this. Stay objective.

Is it real? People exaggerate and lie, so again do not buy into it.
Commonly, what a client presents to you is not what needs addressing. The client’s subconscious mind knows what needs addressing. However, the client will consciously dress this up as something else. It is not for you to try to find out what this issue is. Acknowledge it but move on. Your therapy will allow the client to go inside and get their subconscious to heal itself.

Ask them if the have they seen other therapists about this issue. If you’re the fifth person they have seen, then there is obviously something else that needs addressing.
Above all, don’t buy into their subjective interpretation.

What about your subjective Interpretation? You should obviously leave your own baggage at the door. You mind map will be different from the clients. Stay objective and neutral.

Resources

Once the client has vented their feelings, you can then begin to question them further. Your aim here is to access resources you can later use in their therapy. Find them and feed them back into the therapy. Ask about their work, hobbies, and interests and note these. Establish further rapport by establishing common ground. Perhaps you or someone you know closely has the same interests. If you can’t find any, then lie. Remember the purpose here is to help the client get better, so a little white lie is fine.

Harvest Positive Emotions

Allow time to shift their headspace from negative to positive. You can do this be exploring what they say and steering it to something positive. Harvest as many of these positive resources as possible. Ask what was good about the situation? Jump on anything positive they say and expand on it.

Subjective Unit of Discomfort

Check their SUD (Subjective Unit of Discomfort
Here you can ask them on a scale of 0-10 (10 being bad), what is the emotional or physical pain.
Then ask them what level of discomfort would they be happy to live with. For instance, they may say they’re currently at a level 9 but would be happy to live with a level 3. You will use this in later sessions to check on their progress.

Secondary Gains

Always beware of secondary gains when involved in therapy. These can be an obstacle, for example, a smoker actually wants to stay slim or someone with a bad back doesn’t want to mow the lawn. Now these could be at a subconscious level. During your therapy, you may need to take account of these. You could put in some suggestions to the effect that you will easily maintain your slim physique when you are a non-smoker.

Use Clean Language

Use clean language, I don’t mean don’t swear, but use language which is unambiguous and doesn’t have negative undertones.
Talk about unwanted behaviours, thoughts and effects, not problems. Your client may present themselves with a problem, but from then on, you will refer to it as an unwanted effect. You can also go one better than this by then flipping it to its positive. So for example, a client may present to you asking to stop her fingernail biting habit. You could start by asking her why she wants to stop. She may say she is getting married later that year and wants long fingernails, to decorate. That is what you will then focus on – the outcome itself.

There are no problems only unwanted behaviours, thoughts or feelings.

Cut out the word try. Let’s say you ask me to go to your party. Perhaps I might say I’ll try to get there. You know I’ll likely not arrive. So don’t ask you client to try to do something. Give them suggestions, directives and orders if you have to.

This also works for you. Don’t say you are trying to do something. Instead, say “My aim is …”, or “My goal is…”, or “I am in the process of…”.

The proper use of language has a profound effect on how you perceive the world. As a therapist, you are in a privileged position of being able to affect people’s lives for the better, just by how you speak.

Questions

I keep six honest serving men they taught me all I knew, there names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who. Rudyard Kipling.

My very first Sales Manager taught me this and he suggested to me that the most critical skill I could learn in Selling and Life was Questioning and Listening.
Practice the open questions using the honest serving men from above. They will affect the clients mind by making them go inside to search for the answer. This in itself is hypnotic in nature. You can then begin to access their subconscious better than asking closed and leading questions.

To illustrate this, the question “Is your fear of spiders serious?” is such a lousy question on so many levels. A better question is “How do you feel when I mention the word spider?” continue to ask open questions to get a full understanding. “When does this occur exactly”. “Who are you with?”.

We are not necessarily asking these questions because of the answers. We are asking these to access eye cues and the client’s suggestibility. Ask as many questions as possible.

Sell the benefits of them changing

In a way, therapy is very similar to the sales process. You ask questions, you listen, then you sell the benefits of them changing. The client already wants to change, that’s why they came to you in the first instance. Part of you your job as the therapist is to reinforce the benefits that they will get from changing. This is done in the therapy sessions as well as the consultation. You therefore provide a benefit, then the therapy, then another benefit.

You can uncover some of the benefits that are unique to them by finding out what outcome they want. A great question to ask is, if I could click my fingers and you were instantly better or cured, then how would you know? What would you feel, see and hear?

Listen attentively to the answers. Feed them back into the therapy. You may uncover some powerful emotional benefits here. For instance, they may tell you they want to lose weight to be in great shape for their wedding.

If you uncover these benefits properly, signing them up for the paid therapy should therefore be a formality.

If you would like a free copy of my first consultation template contact me and let me know.

The post Your initial therapy consultation session appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Marketing of your coaching or therapy business needs to be consistent. It is not something you do once or twice. It should be a regular part of your working day. In this short post I give you an overview on how to market your coaching or therapy businss at the very start. See my series on selling.

Off-line marketing

Be Remarkable

This means people will remark on you. Have you thought of how much you will charge? Plan to charge as high as you can. You will then attract the type of client who is serious about personal change and development.

A few don’ts

Don’t do leaflet drops or newspaper ads or shop windows, unless you want to attract the type of client who responds to those types of marketing.

Where to market yourself

Be where the people are going to be looking for your services. So who are your ideal clients going to be and where do they congregate? Make it your mission to get into these places. Remember, it’s always easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission.

Freebees

Giving away freebees can be a good way to gain some client testimonials in the very beginning. However, do have a plan to start charging as soon as you can. From then on, only give free sessions as a volunteer, rather than as a marketing exercise.

Finally, whatever offline marketing you choose do it professionally and stay consistent.

On line marketing

Websites

Choose a URL, which is easy to remember and type.

Website terminology is similar to the old printing press terms. For instance, you will have a first fold. This is the top of your home page, which is visible in a browser without needed to scroll down. This acts like the top of a page of a broadsheet newspaper folded over.

You only get seconds to make an impact to someone visiting your site. So cut to the chase and put in a Call to Action – like “Click here to start today”.  Start to collect a list of email addresses, which you can send marketing emails. You could give away something free in exchange for a visitor to give you their details.

Always have an about me page. It is essential that people visiting your site know that you are a real caring person. Put a good quality picture of you here.

Also on your About Me page you can list the benefits that clients will get if they work with you. Less is more here. Maybe you will want to specialise in one or two areas.

Don’t bother putting all your qualifications here, just one or two relevant ones. Remember people are only interested in what they will get.

Use emotional words in your copy. This makes you a real person and people like to deal with other people.

Pay per click – Google AdWords

Google AdWords can be a great way to generate traffic to your website in the beginning. Here you pay google every time someone clicks a link in an advert, to go to your site. You can determine where these adverts go and, for instance, they can be on the search page on the right-hand side or on other people’s sites that have opted for Google AdSense.

However, there are a few words of warning. Your website needs to have a professional appearance and optimised around a good Call to Action, otherwise people will be enticed to your site and once they get there, they will just bounce right off.

Secondly when you need to be very careful to budget for what price you are willing to pay and how many clicks per day, otherwise it can get very expensive.

Facebook ads

In a similar way to google AdWords, you can pay for Facebook ads that will show up in people’s newsfeeds. Facebook ads are better than google AdWords, in a sense, because you can really target your desired market. You can target by geography, interests, gender, age etc. the list is almost endless.

Offline Marketing

Networking Events

One the first things new business entrepreneurs do is get their business cards printed. Don’t let this be the first job you do as people rarely follow up on business card swaps. The way to stand out from the crowd, especially at networking events is to swap business cards, but you do the follow-up. Assume the other person won’t follow up.

Cold Calling

Good old fashioned selling – getting on the phone and making things happen is the most effective way to get your business off the ground. It may be useful in the beginning to target companies for your coaching and therapy business. There are advantages to this. Firstly, you can charge more, but also once you have a corporate client you can use them as a great testimonial.

The post How to market your coaching or therapy business appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

In this post, I go through Pat Flynn’s points on how to set up a sustainable online profitable business.

There are firstly two things that all businesses must fulfil in order to find prospective customers and to convert them into buying customers. Those two essentials are:

1. The business must provide value or a service that people want or need.
2. Secondly you must find a group of people and find out what is causing them pain.

Here are Pat’s four business models that you can adopt, which I will go into detail about.

1. Arbitrage
2. Share a message.
3. No ideas/no business/no audience
4. Static website/niche site

1. Arbitrage

Arbitrage is buying low and selling high, simple as that. It is not strictly passive because you have to actively look for buying opportunities and then ensure when you sell, it is at a profit. Although it isn’t passive, it is a good start for the budding online entrepreneur.

Here are a few examples of arbitrage.

Location arbitrage

Location arbitrage is when the prices of a certain product are higher in some locations compared with others. For instance there might be a physical shop which sells goods at a discount near to you. You could buy these goods bulk and then sell them online at amazon or eBay, to people in areas where the prices are higher. They get a discount and you can get some profits.

Time arbitrage

This is when the price of something varies over time. It is as simple as buying when the price is low and selling when it is high. Here you capitalise on the fact that some people will buy when the price is high, just because they need the products now.

Knowledge arbitrage

Here you buy products, which you are knowledgeable about from somewhere where there is no information given by the seller. For instance it could be from a seller on eBay who has listed the item with a basic description and poor quality photos.

You would then re-list that product at a higher price with a detailed description which would help prospective buyers to make a decision.

2. Share a Message

Then next of Pat’s models is where you share a message and become an authority figure on a certain topic. The objective is to build a tribe of loyal followers, who are interested in your topic. You create a brand that the tribe can relate to. Usually this is done around your own website/blog. You would then collect their email details, so you can message your tribe with more in-depth information. This builds trust in the mind of the customer. Occasionally you will also then market your products, services and consultation to your tribe.

This model takes a lot of time and is an ongoing process. You can speed the process up by piggybacking on to other blogs and platforms. Your objective here is to get them back to your site.

The key with this model is patience and consistency. The rewards will come after a time and will be longer lived.

This methodology would be that espoused in 1,000 True Fans .

3. No ideas/no business/no audience

This model intrigued me. How could you possibly start a business with no ideas, no previous business and no audience? Pat explains this model thus:

First you call a small local business up or meet up with them at a networking event. You ask them this question: What do you do that you hate in your business, or that you need help with? When they give you the answer, ask them why this is a problem. Then ask if they would be willing to pay to solve this problem. How much?

When you have the answer, you simply go away and develop an app, product or information product to help them.  Once you have developed the product, you have a proven market already.

4. Static Website or Niche Site

The saying goes that the Riches are in the Niches (which doesn’t rhyme when I say it). This is different to your authority site, where you build up a tribe of loyal followers. A static or Niche website has a finite amount of information in it, to allow the reader to reach a certain goal. And that’s it, nothing more. This site will be have a define focus on one problem.

The logic here is that it is easier to specialise than to generalise.

Here are a couple of methods to choose your niche site:

a) Pick a Market

Pick a market you are interested in or have some affinity for. Have a look on Amazon.com and look up this category of products. For example Photography. Then pick a subcategory. Then keep defining the sub categories to smaller and small categories as per your preferences. Keep dividing down until you get to a specific need, that you could be an expert in.

So a photography category might niche down to Studio lighting for photographers on a budget. Cars might go down to mini-vans for families with more than two children. Pets could go down to breeding Betta Fish.

This method starts with your interests and works down to a need.

b) Keyword Search

This method is the opposite of the niching down method. It is the use of keyword research. Here you use a keyword research tool. (There are many of these such as Google’s Keyword Research Tool). You research the search terms that people are typing into Google. You are looking for The Longer Long Tail . These are very specific terms or phrases that people will search Google for. The more specific the search term is, the more the searcher is willing to spend money on it. For instance the search term TV is so monstrously broad that it is next to useless. However your long tail search might come up with Samsung TV. Now this is better, but still very broad. So next you put Samsung TV into the Research Tool. Then it might come up with Samsung HD Smart TV. This is getting very specific. Finally you are lead to Samsung UE55K5500 55-inch 1080p Full HD Smart TV. This is so specific that it can only have been searched for by someone with their credit card in hand, ready to buy.

Now, what if you created a small niche website reviewing the Samsung UE55K5500 55-inch 1080p Full HD Smart TV, with an affiliate link to a site selling it? You would get very targeted traffic to your website. Your website would be small, very focussed and probably short lived. It could however be very profitable.

The post 5 STeps to Set Up a Sustainable Online Profitable Business appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Do you want to start blogging, but are not sure if you can and should? This post is for you. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, but I never knew how. When you think about that last sentence, it might seem strange. It’s like saying I’ve always wanted to be a jogger but don’t know how. You just do it.

So if you want to be a writer: just write. Then you’ll be a writer.
There are two useful beliefs for you to adopt as you start on your blogging career:

1. You can be an authority before you get the results. You don’t need results now to be able to write. Say you want to write about being a successful entrepreneur; you don’t need to be one, you can share your journey.
2. You can do it part-time, because  you don’t need to drop everything to become a blogger. In one hour per day, you should easily be able to write a decent sized blog post per day.

The steps to being a blogger

1. Have a vision

Having goals is not enough. Who do you want to become? How do you want to be known? Instead of focussing on how much money you will make, concentrate on what you will contribute.

See yourself in a better situation than you are in now, without justifying where you are now. If you tell it like it is, you will stay where you are.

Change your language:  “I don’t understand” “It’s easy for him” or “I don’t have the money/time/skills …”. These are all examples of disempowering language and they don’t serve you. Change what you say to yourself.

2. Immerse yourself in your chosen field or market place.

You could get coached or go to training courses or seminars. Devour all the books you can on your subject. It goes without saying that you should follow other blogs and contribute.

3. Create Content with authority

The fastest way to become an authority is to teach. You can teach in many ways such as a writing your blog or posting videos. The added benefit of teaching is that you also learn and gain insight. Invest in your own education and share your learning with others. Blogging really is the best and simplest way to do this.

If you imagine that the various social platforms you use, such as Facebook, twitter and YouTube are spokes, these will generate the traffic to your blog. Your blog will become the hub of your business, especially if you self-host your blog. You will have full control over the platform, whereas you have no control over Facebook etc.

4. Build and Serve your audience

Go where you are celebrated, not tolerated. There are always more content consumers (learners) than there are content providers (teachers), so it should always be easy to find a small niche audience that love what you do. Write for them, not the masses.

Learn to generate leads for your business daily and serving these leads with solutions to their problems. Engage with your target audience.

5. Monetise

Finally, you can monetise your blog. This should always be your final consideration after you have built your audience, served them and engaged with them.

How can you provide more value, in more detail, in a way which people might pay you for it?

The post Blogging To be an authority appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Here’s a very quick post to share with you what I believe it takes to become a professional salesperson.

The Sales Career

A good salesperson who knows what he wants will reap the rewards of becoming financially stable and satisfied with his career. Selling is a career. And you can be very good in it. Learn the skills, follow the steps, and enjoy successfully closing sales deals day after day after day.
Always learn the true essence of selling by heart. Selling is not all about deceiving or manipulating people. It involves talking to customers, becoming friends with them, winning their trust, and selling them your product. In short you are helping people.

A Good Sales Person

You do not have to be loud-mouthed and over-ambitious to succeed as a salesperson. Instead, you have to be a person of fine character and grace. Maintain your poise as well as those of your products. Once you and your products have attained that certain level of respect, you are very likely to make sales, sometimes even without trying.

Think of a good salesperson that you know of. It could be your boss or somebody in the marketing field you admire the most. It could even be somebody from the local store from whom you find yourself buying most often. Observe them. What do you think are the things that they are doing right, which makes you admire them totally? Do you think they are honest? Are they good in explaining? How do they talk about their product? How effective are their sales pitches on you?

Get a Mentor

You will learn a lot from a mentor. What my book teaches you is the basics, the theories, and the secrets of becoming a professional salesperson. Observing a good salesperson in action will show you more clearly how successful selling is really done.

Right now, you should have realised that being a salesperson might not happen overnight; or it might, depending on your determination and skill. It takes practice and patience. If you follow everything this report teaches, you can become a professional salesperson in the shortest time possible.
If you combine all these with regular practice and determination, you will not just become a professional salesperson very soon, but you might even be heading your own group of salespeople to train and manage. So keep in mind that the opportunities won’t end for you if you love your craft.

The Bike Seller

Let me finally finish with this story about an excellent salesperson:
A young person from London moves to Manchester and is looking for a job in a big department store. The manager asks whether he has some sales experience. He said that he was a salesperson in London before he moved. The manager asked him to report the next day. He will be hired depending upon his sales for the day.

The following day, the young person managed to get only one sale. The manager was dissatisfied with his turnout. So he said, “Our sales people here average 25 sales in a day. If you can only sell one item, I can’t take you in.”
But the person said, “It was a £100,000 purchase though.”

The manager was surprised and asked, “Really? What did you sell him?”
“Well, I sold him some mountain bike shorts. Then I sold him a helmet. But I learned that he didn’t have a mountain bike yet so I showed him one of ours. He bought one. He chose the biggest and heaviest model and he realised that it wouldn’t fit in his car’s boot. Also  he said he doesn’t know how to ride it yet so he couldn’t cycle home. So I showed him one of our transit vans and sold that to him too. I told him he could take the bicycle home with it.”

“You mean to tell me you successfully sold a bike to somebody who doesn’t know how to ride one? And you even managed to make him buy a van just to take it home? Why is he looking for biking shorts anyway if he doesn’t know how to ride a bike?” asked the manager, bewildered.
“Well actually, he was just buying a pair of roller skates for his kid. But I told him I might as well join him in his hobby. And since he said he’s too old to skate, I suggested he might as well ride a bike. So I sold all of those items to him.”

I wish you well.

I wish you well in your sales career. Now, get your gear going and start earning your first million. If you would like more information on how you can achieve your selling goals, please contact me.
It’s a Done Deal – How to Build Your Sales Career.
© Michael A. Holden 2018.
Email: [email protected]

The post The Professional Salesperson appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.

Here are some attitudes for success to adopt, but first go back to your why. What is your ultimate pain? What are the five worse case scenarios. Are these whys painful enough? Then turn these into positives. What are the ultimate why’s, the positive reasons. Use both these worse case scenarios and positive whys. Develop both a push and a pull. This is your motivation and will ensure your success. Remember pain can push until desire starts to pull you.

The attitudes for success to adopt

Tell me you have no money and I’ll respect you.
Tell me you don’t like the product and I’ll respectfully argue with you. Ie let me tell you some more.
Tell me you don’t like me or my company and I’ll educate you. Ie let me tell you about…
But don’t tell me you will think about it – I won’t respect this.

The art of deflecting objections

Ninety percent of objections are just stalls. Which means as a salesperson, you haven’t done your job yet.
Remember – I can’t close everyone. The goal is to close everyone who is closable and then take those people and turn them into customers for life.

The rules for creating customers for life

Never duck a phone call. Give them the bad news and be honest. Apologise regardless if it wasn’t your fault.
Send the customer to the competition if you can’t help them. You will then become the go-to person for advice. You may lose some unsuitable business but you will gain much more suitable business in the end.
Remember your customer’s family. Find out about them after you have closed them, in a non-cheesy way. Learn basic facts like birthdays, kid’s names, interests.

Use gifts appropriately, for big-ticket sales. For example a $50 signed football for a $60M deal makes sense.
Write effective thank you notes. Use language properly. For example “I really loved the xyz it looks great on the mantelpiece. Its gorgeous, my family think it’s awesome.”

Be a person

Even though you might be selling B2B, you are selling to a human being after-all. So be one yourself.

Motivation strategy

Here is an excerpt from Jordan’s motivation speech he gave his Wall Street stockbrokers every morning to motivate them:
“Every time I walked through the door or pick up the phone, I say a silent prayer and use these scripts. All my past falls away. I become as powerful as the most successful CEOs in the world. This phone is the great equaliser. Say the words in the right tone and the right structure. It doesn’t matter where I’m from. I can become great and wildly successful, with this little phone.

ACT AS IF.
Act as if you are wealthy and rich already. Then you will become wealthy.
Act as if you have all the confidence in the world. Then the people will have confidence in you.
Act as if you have all the answers and the answers will come to you.”
Act as it – Use the physiology of success – Then the emotions will come.

The post Some Attitudes for Success appeared first on Mike Holden Sales.