Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’. The featured article by Daniel Levis is titled “How to Grow Your Marketing Consulting Practice in Troubled Times”. [Article]


Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’.

The featured article:

How to Grow Your Marketing Consulting Practice in Troubled Times

by Daniel Levis

Dear Web Business-Builder,

When credit flows like water, and people can’t spend their money fast enough, it gives rise to weak businesses who survive in spite of themselves.

Shoddy service … non-existent follow-up … and a complete disregard for the value of customer relationships abounds.

Over the past several years I’ve spent easily $100,000 on various home renovation and maintenance services with about a dozen different local businesses. Yet, I can count the number of times I’ve received any follow-up communication on my baby finger.

No attempt to build any kind of long term relationship and sustained awareness was made. No effort to sell me anything else, or obtain a testimonial or referral was expended. No friendly follow-up survey to find out how they could better serve was done. Nada!

By and large, the service that went along with the large-ticket purchases that made up this sum was border-line acceptable … as far as the lower ticket items, pathetic …

Ask a question or make a complaint and I can almost count on making the same one several times. When I do get some attention, more often than not it’s rude and unhelpful.

And so … frequently I find myself rummaging through the Yellow Pages or online to repurchase one-off items or services because I can’t remember who I bought them from previously … or because I DO remember, and the memory is bad.

These businesses, and thousands like them, all fail miserably when it comes to appreciating and leveraging their most important business asset – their past customers. Yet, every year they spend boatloads on marketing to attract new ones.

And now, with credit all but dried-up and people starting to once again appreciate the value of a dollar, they’re in trouble, scrambling for ways to revive sales.

As a freelance copywriter or marketing consultant, here are three ways you can help them …

Reframe Service as Selling: Great marketing will make a bad business go broke faster than anything else. Statistics show that a disgruntled customer tells 20 times more people than a satisfied one. Effective marketing simply compounds the problem.

By the same token, great customer service is a potent sales weapon. So help your clients to reframe their perception of service, as selling.

Help them to understand that every employee who touches a customer is in sales, and responsible for making that person’s experience one they would like to repeat.

Let me tell you a curious little story …

I usually grab myself a cup of Java at one of the coffee shops located along my route to the office. There are three actually …

One is conveniently located on the right-hand side of the road … one on the left … and a third in a strip mall parking lot.

When I began this routine, I found myself predictably pulling into the coffee shop on the right because it was the easiest thing to do. But a week or so later I found myself avoiding it, and going to the extra trouble of making a left into the second coffee shop.

Each morning I would engage in a split-second decision to go slightly out of my way to get my coffee. It was just kind of an automatic impulse.

Until I thought, “This is strange, why am I doing this?” Did the coffee shop on the left have better coffee? Was it a cleaner, brighter environment? Was the line shorter … the coffee cheaper?

None of these things were true …

What strange pull did the coffee shop on the left have that made me inconvenience myself? And then it hit me … as I recalled what happened on those first few mornings when I pulled to the right.

She was an attractive young lady, but, as I stood in line to buy my coffee, I can remember thinking to myself, “how glum and sour she looks.”

As I approached, I offered her a warm smile and said, “Hi, how are you this morning?” My surprise attack managed to pry the corners of her mouth skyward just enough to create a forced, fake looking smile. And she said, “Could be worse.”

A similar exchange occurred each morning, until without realizing why, I was taking my business elsewhere.

Every day this same unconscious decision-making is happening all over the place. Whether a business is online or offline doesn’t matter. Either the customer feels important and appreciated, or not.

Technically speaking, there was no practical flaw in the service I got at the coffee shop that lost my business, but lose it they did.

Formalized training programs that allow business owners to reframe service as selling are the only way to solve this problem.

When consumers feel significant and valued, not only do they come back, they’re much more likely to embrace attractive up-sell and cross-sell offers. The attitude of front-line staff is everything.

Implement Follow-up Systems: While I’ve met many business owners who neglect to stay in constant contact with their past customers, I’ve yet to see a business that couldn’t derive massive benefit from doing so.

The excuses for such woeful neglect are many …

– It costs too much

– Customers don’t want to be bothered until they have a pressing need

– It’s too time consuming

– When they’re ready to buy they’ll look us up in the Yellow Pages or online

Are any of these valid reasons for leaving repeat sales and referrals to chance?
In the age of e-mail communications, blogging etc. it costs incredibly little to stay in touch with past customers and build long-term relationships.

Any company that is not staying in touch at least monthly with past customers is virtually asking those customers to look elsewhere the next time they shop. Each month left ignored, their value diminishes.

When follow-up communications is relevant, helpful, and interesting, it’s not seen as an intrusion. It is welcomed. It creates goodwill and establishes a conduit for increased sales and profits, regardless of how often a particular item is purchased.

If your clients don’t have anything else to sell after an initial sale, help them to cut a deal with someone who does. Those customers are far too valuable to leave rotting on the vine.

Most businesses don’t have the copywriting skill or resources to orchestrate the quality and quantity of communication required to truly maximize the lifetime value of their customers.

They need your help to create follow-up communications that foster ongoing relationships. They need consumption pieces that help their customers to get maximum value from initial purchases. They need newsletters and other content to keep customers engaged and aware.

And above all, these businesses need strategic advice and a comprehensive plan that focuses them on leveraging the massive profit opportunities that are sitting right under their noses, untapped and unutilized.

Parade Compelling Offers: Here’s the part us copywriters love – selling stuff.

But unless a business has reframed service as selling, and begun communicating regularly with its clientele, it hasn’t really earned the right to approach that clientele aggressively with fresh new offers. Without the first two pieces of the puzzle in place, results are likely to be lackluster.

Sending an endless stream of sales pitches to a customer base that’s been ignored and mistreated may be even less productive than sending them to a cold list. And that’s such a shame when you think about it.

As a freelancer, you can walk away from such clients, or you can expand your role beyond merely writing promotions, helping them to address the bigger picture.

You can help your clients with strategic planning that refocuses the business on building customer value instead of squandering it.

You can put together sales-focused staff training that teaches all customer-facing employees how to enhance the buying experience, including up-selling and cross-selling scripts plus more.
You can implement a customer communications plan and begin writing newsletters and other informative materials that bring added value to your client’s customers, thereby priming them to become ultra-responsive to your offers.

And you can dramatically increase your fees by doing these things, while farming much of the work out to others.

If you’re looking for ways to expand your freelancing business, look no further than this kind of big picture consulting, especially in tough times.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis

Editor, The Web Marketing Advisor

THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.SellingtoHumanNature.com.

He is also one of the leading Web conversion experts operating online today, and originator of the 5R System (TM), a strategic process for engineering enhanced Internet profits. For a free overview of Daniel’s system, click here.

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Clayton Makepeace for granting permission to reprint this article.

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