Find clients & grow your business.

WHAT DO YOU SOLVE?

This is one of the most difficult questions to answer so be prepared to spend a few hours if not days on this. Note that I didn’t ask “what do you do” but “what you solve”. When you advertise what you solve you have a much better chance of attracting people and businesses that have a pain they need you to solve. By sharing what you solve instead of what you do you are effectively reducing one more hurdle in getting potential customers to contact you.

Note that this isn’t easy. I am asking you to put yourself in a narrow box in a world where we want to be as generalists as possible. But generalism doesn’t sell as much as being niche. You can always diversify later but for now, I want you to focus on a niche, win clients and build a sustainable business. Once your revenue is sorted you can focus on the next niche.

Not sure what I mean? Let’s start...

WHY WHAT YOU SOLVE MATTERS

Imagine you tell people that you are a website developer. That might be accurate but it makes you just one more person who develops websites. The potential clients must then start questioning you about your expertise, track record, area of specialization, etc. Given most clients are lazy by stating what you do you are effectively reducing the chances that potential clients will engage with you.

What if instead of saying that you are a website developer you said something like “I help small shops generate more sales online”. Do you see the difference? You are now telling anyone of the millions of shop owners that you can help them where it matters most. You are also effectively communicating your track record (small shops so you are sending the signal you understand the needs and constraints of small shop owners). Who doesn’t react to the idea of having an opportunity to generate more sales?

Here are a few other examples:

1. “I am an interior decorator” vs “I help hotels finetune their interiors to create a more powerful guest first impression”

2. “I am an accountant” vs “I help doctors and medical professionals save on their taxes and reduce their admin burden for a fraction of the cost if they would do it themselves”.

3. “I am a lawyer” vs “I help startups with creating world-class contracts that will protect them against a world of sharks”

4. “I sell food” vs “I help people wanting to lose weight to eat healthily”

Ready? Now try it yourself. Remember to keep it really simple and short. It will take time. And keep in mind that it will make you uncomfortable - you’ll feel somewhat limited in the pigeonholing exercise. We are moving you from “anyone is my client” to focusing on a very specific niche. As uncomfortable as this is it is absolutely crucial in that it clarifies who your clients are and makes your forthcoming exercises that much easier and more focused.

Start by taking a pen and paper and creating various versions. Imagine you were really limited in space (think 260 characters or so - the length of a Twitter bio circa). Write down ideas, however rough and not quite right. Just play around. Take your time on this as it is an important part of many of the exercises later in the course. If you are like me and many others by the end of the exercise you will have a few (possibly because you have multiple interests). Test your favorite one against others (perhaps on Facebook or LinkedIn) to get other people's views. Remember you are not looking for popularity but rather for "the hook" that makes people say "Ah. I get now what you do. I'll keep it in mind when I need it" (vs the fancy description that makes you sound important but doesn't generate leads).

OUTCOME...

... this exercise is a nice catchy line that helps people understand when to call you. Keep it handy as you will need this going forward. I said it before but worth repeating: take your time with this. It plays a core component of how you are going to market yourself and generate leads.

NOTE!

Do ask for help. Sometimes it is difficult to see what we solve clearly because we are so deeply involved. Feel free to email me at yz@yzp.ch and I will gladly help you (in the subject line please put "ATM course: need help with the "what I solve").

CREATING YOUR CASE STUDIES

A case study - in your circumstances - is essentially creating a little story about the work you have done (in the case where you have already worked on sales or projects for clients) or the work you will do (in the case of startups with no clients yet). People are not very good at understanding what you sell when you package it as a list of services or offerings. Much more powerful is sharing short to medium stories of you in action - mini case studies.

A case study can be as detailed and rigorous as you wish, but in my research and findings, you can keep it relatively easy and straightforward.

Ready? Let's get started... We are going to create between 3 to 5 case studies (if you have more even better, just try not to repeat case studies too much). The aim of this isn't to write long sentences but rather to get the message across so as to try and err on the side of brevity.

You will need paper and pen (or open your laptop/tablet if easier for you) and do the following:

Think of 3 to 5 examples of when you worked on client problems (or problems you can solve in the case of startups who don't have clients). If you have more by all means go for it but keep it to max 7 examples.

Next, write down for each example:

1. What was the problem? Here describe in one sentence the problem the client was having. Be relatively specific.

2. Who was the client? You don't need to share a name (but always nice to do so, just get permission from the client) but include the size of the client, location, sector, and some info that gives an idea of who the client is.

3. What did you do? Here describe in 2 to 3 sentences what actions you took to tackle the client's problem.

4. What was the impact on your solution for the client? Here describe in bullet point format (I'd say max 5 points but you can decide) what your solution did for the client (e.g 35% less stock loss, 25% less time wasted, 10% cost reduction of... etc).

5. Business Metrics. In this I want you to try and convert fluffiness to numbers. E.g. If you cost the client X amount of money but you saved them 10% time, calculate what the time savings mean in money and then calculate the rate of return on the project for the client (google "Internal rate of return" and use that formulae). Also, include other metrics such as how long it took, how much or little disruption it caused to the client, etc).

6. Include a picture of you working with the client or at least a picture of the client's premises to give a sense to readers that the client is real.

Do the above 6 points for each example of when you solved a client's problem (or potential client's problems if you are a startup).

Then create for each of these a document (in Microsoft word, google docs, or anything else) with the following template:

Headline: "(Industry or sector of client) CASE STUDY"

Add each section as per points 1 to 6 above.

Save each document in the storage folder you created earlier on in the chapter.

Well done! This should have taken you a bit of time but once done you now have some great marketing material which I will show you how to use later in the course (remember in this chapter we are building all the lead generation material which we will start deploying later in chapter 3).

WHO ARE YOUR CUSTOMERS?

This is a trick question. To most business people the answer is "whoever buys my products or services". Yet this answer will mean that your lead generation efforts which we are going to do in chapter 3 will be weak because you don't know who you are and want to talk to.

So let's start with this... On a nice clean sheet of paper please write in 4 columns:

Column 1. Who are the users of your services or products

Column 2. Who are the buyers of your services or products (often they differ... eg HR departments buying a solution that employees use or Toy companies selling toys to mothers or fathers whose their children will then use). Be specific in this exercise. Don't just say "people working in a bank but rather tell me the title of the person in the bank's department that makes the purchasing decision (or at least influences the decision). If you are like most business people you will have between 5 and 30 potential clients. It doesn't matter how many you have: what is important is that you have a very specific list of people you want to target/speak to.

Column 3. How long does it take to sell on average for people who you never met and how long does it take to sell on average for people who know you already (roughly). If you have many different cases write them down. Just be careful of being too optimistic. This is just for you so be as truthful as you can even if you will feel a bit down when you see the length of time it takes.

Column 4. Cost of sales. Here write down - an estimate - of what it costs you to sell each product or service. Include time spent researching, meeting for coffee, traveling time, etc. This will be horrendously rough but I want you to start realizing the cost of your time.

Save this information in a document and call it "My customers profile" and save it on the storage space you created. Let a day pass and read it tomorrow and write down at the bottom of the document anything that screams out at you... observations, ideas, realizations, etc).

Well done! This was a difficult one.

Ready to move on to the next session?

YOUR REPUTATION MATTERS

This is going to be a fun section so you can let your hair down so to speak (if you have hair... I am bold :-) )...

What we are going to do is find 50 to 100 pictures of you in work environments (e.g. you attending a class, you speaking, you working on a construction site, you talk to a business person, you working at your desk, you working on your product, you delivering your service... etc).

The first step... go to your storage folder and create a sub-folder called "Work Pictures".

The second step... find the pics and load them in this folder.

That's it!

...Struggling to find pics because you have too many all over the place? Here are a couple of tricks.

• Check Facebook for photos of you. Often you'll find some gems. Download the pics you like and fit the professional impression you want to make.

• Use something like Google Photos (I use it - it is free). Upload all your pics or let it search your phone/tablet/laptop. The nice thing about google photos is that it creates a private and online backup of your pics. Then it automatically recognizes faces (give it a few hours to do its magic once uploaded). That way you can easily scroll through hundreds of pics of you and the ones you like that fit into a "work" impression you can add automatically to a new folder on google photos and then download them all to your storage folder.

TESTIMONIALS: A RIDICULOUSLY POWERFUL TOOL

One of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs and professionals struggle with is creating trust. You may think of this as fluffy marketing stuff but without trust, very few products and services are sold. You wouldn't buy a car if you thought the car company that manufactured your company was untrustworthy or buy a software product from a company whose leadership is accused of fraud and theft of client data.

The good news? Trust is really easy to create.

Let's get started! Get your coffee/teacup, a nice blank piece of paper (or open a blank document on your laptop/phone/tablet), and roll up your sleeves.

Step 1 - write down the names of people you know (and who know you) well. Ideally, people that trust you, trust your professionalism, and would vouch for you. Can be ex-colleagues, former bosses/employees, people you worked with on projects, co-founders, family, and friends. Perfect would be clients and ex-clients even from previous companies.

Step 2 - contact them using the following text (feel free to adapt it):

"Dear ____

I would like to ask you a favour. For my website, I would like to put some character and professional references and I wanted to ask if you would be willing to write one sentence about me as I value you enormously."

Step 3 - save all the feedback in a new document and save it in your storage folder with the title "Testimonials"

Done.

Well done. Next chapter we are going to use this. For now, we just put all the material together... Like loading the lead generation gun that we will fire later.

Whatever your view is of Jordan Belfort's morals (The Wolf of Wall Street starring Leonardo Di Caprio... remember?) his acute observations of how people make decisions allowed him to make an absolute fortune (luckily he was caught) on the back of his observations into human nature. Whilst I don't condone his behaviour I also come from the school of thought that suggests not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

So let's look at one of the central approaches he came up with.

He calls it the straight-line method and simplistically put if you draw a line, one the one end you have people who say "no" to your product/services. On the other end of the line, you have those who say "yes" to your product and services. His approach is to forget those who say a "no" and focus literally on everyone else right after a firm no and that your job as a salesperson is to move these prospects along the line towards a yes.

The book is a great read and I highly recommend it but the point that I want you to take away here is that you don't - with rare circumstances - contact someone and persuade them to buy. Think of all your efforts as moving them away from an "I don't know you / No" to an "I trust you / I believe you / I like the solution / Yes".

And how do we do this? This is what we are going to tackle in this chapter in practical detail. But at the core all the steps you are about to take fall in the "trust", "fit" and "visibility (being top of mind)" buckets. And of course, making it easy for a prospect to buy.

Ready to start? Let's do it.