Image courtesy of jean-louis zimmermann via Flikr

When you are in a service business and you are selling your knowledge, talent and creativity a big hurdle you have to overcome is skepticism. How does the prospect know that what you have to offer is really relevant to them and their situation? We’ve all heard it, “My business is different…” (but we know it’s not, right?) How do they know that you can help them. Unfortunately, you aren’t the most credible source of reassurance for them – since you stand to gain financially, they assume you will tell them all about how credible and reliable you are. It’s much more powerful to demonstrate your expertise than it is to talk about your expertise. This is why case studies, testimonials and articles are such powerful tools for service firms. These are situations where you aren’t directly selling, but you can help people to understand who you are, and what you are all about. They are opportunities for your prospect to get to know you before you even meet them. If they find you relevant to the challenges that they are facing; if you are credible in the advice and solutions you offer, they will believe that you can help them.

Seven years ago I started writing an email newsletter about leading and growing your business. When I first started out I had a backlog of ideas I wanted to write about, but as time went on I had to work harder to find material. Until I realized, any time I’m having conversation I’m having with a client or prospect for the second or third time, is a topic that I could write about. These are the things that my clients are dealing with now, so other business owners who are in the same situation might like to hear those things too! You can’t get more topical or relevant than that!

Since then my newsletter has been one of my best sources of leads. Nearly every lead or referral that comes from the newsletter says the same thing, “I swear you are writing about my business.” I don’t have to listen to all the reasons that their business is different, they know I can help them and we can just get started.

If you are doing a good job of writing material that is relevant to your audience it should also attract a search audience. When you solve one person’s problem there are likely thousands of others out there with that same problem. Writing a case study or and article describing your advice or solution should attract many more who are searching for that same solution. These are leads that are coming to you that you haven’t done much to attract, and they are coming knowing what you do and how you do it; they are pre-qualified to be looking for what you do! The only thing that’s left to decide is price. That’s a pretty good lead.

Once you’ve been writing articles or blog posts for a while, you can start to reuse that same content. Take 4-5 popular blog posts and turn them into a speech or presentation. Create a short video with some of the highlights from a popular post and upload it to YouTube. Or gather a larger number of articles together to form the basis of a book. This kind of content, that’s relevant to your target audience, reveals that you know their challenges and opportunities and presents your opinion, your angle on the potential solution has got to be the most powerful form of marketing for any service business.

If you want to hear more about this topic, I’m part of a panel discussion on June 10th where Andy Crestodina and Kevin Masi and I are going to each talk about our takes on how this kind of content strategy can build your business. To find out more, or to register visit: contentstrategy.eventbrite.com I look forward to seeing you there.

First, a word about my audience. I’m typically speaking to an audience of 20 – 50 business leaders.  Small enough that I can hold a highly interactive discussion, which most business leaders enjoy.  If I was talking to 5000 people or even 500 people I would change a few things, but here’s what I do for this audience.

I speak from an outline, never from a word-for-word narrative. My talks can take many side roads depending on where the audience interaction is taking me, so it’s important that I don’t depend on a memorized script. I typically have an idea of what I want to say before I start writing and I try to work those main points down into three to four major points.  In working toward those key points I try to think about what questions the audience might be asking. So for example in my compensation talk I advocate setting your salary target in the mid-point of the market range for your position. Inevitably the question in the audience’s head is, “How do I get great talent if I’m paying at the mid-point?” so my next point will need to address that issue.

I’m typically delivering a business know-how kind of talk, where I am delivering some practical and useful information. As a result it’s important that I am taking a stand, that I have a point of view. It makes the talk more interesting if my point of view is different or at odds with the commonly held view in the room.  In the talk on “Managing People You Can’t See” we pointed out that most people work from home because they feel that they get more done, but when our team members work from home we assume they aren’t being productive. On the flip side when people are at work in the office we assume they are working, but the average office worker wastes 1.7 hours per day! This shook up the assumptions of the crowd. These kind of arresting discussions help the audience to realize they might not actually know it all, and creates more engagement in the discussion.

So as I work my way through the material I want to present, I try to arrange it so that I start with an idea or exercise that opens up a pretty wide gap for my audience, then each point I deliver should help to close some of that gap, but also create new questions that I can continue to answer in the next point.  This process keeps the audience focused, and if done right they will provide the transitions for me to move from one point to the next by asking the question that I am prepared to answer.

Once I have the outline I will talk it through out loud just as I would before the audience to try to get an idea of how long each section is taking me.  I don’t write things out on my flip chart while I rehearse (more on that later) but I also know that I will tend to talk faster during the real thing so it kind of balances out.  As I talk through it I find places where the idea looked good on the page, but doesn’t sound good out loud, or places where I need to add an illustration or handout.  I’ll make those edits to my outline and then talk it through again.  I repeat this until I’m comfortable with the words and the length of the material.

Lastly, I never use any kind of presentation software. That’s right, no PowerPoint. I usually just use a flip chart to record questions and ideas that the audience might give me or to draw a chart to illustrate my point. In part this is about the size of my audience, if I was speaking to an auditorium the flip chart is less practical.  But the flip chart leaves me free to really customize my presentation to the audience for I’m speaking to, it creates a more intimate experience with the audience and showcases my expertise (which is the whole reason I’m there).  It means that if I’m running out of time and I skip a point or two, no one knows but me. If I need to show a complex visual I can draw it on the chart during a break before I start, but by and large I’m just using the flip chart to record the audiences thoughts and questions, and to outline the key points of my talk.

This is my process, I would be interested to hear yours…

What is your business best at? What type of prospect could walk into your business and you would be 100% confident that you could help them? Each of those could lead you to your target market. One great tool that can act as a guide is this simple Venn diagram with three domains:

• Work that you love to do
• Work that you are great at
• Work that pays well

The intersection of these three circles is your ideal engagement.

Once we’ve identified a target market, we need to define their buying criteria. Unfortunately, prospects can’t usually provide this data in response to direct questions. Imagine asking a middle-aged guy to describe his ideal hair-cutting experience … would he have even imagined a place like Sports Clips? As we said in Part 2 the best ideas come from observing clients and prospects as they work with a service provider. While you are observing them, ask yourself:

• What bothers you about this?
• What is great for you about this?
• How can we make this experience more customized to your concerns and motivations?

Fortunately, you are probably working with many of your target clients right now, so you can conduct this research by listening to your own clients and observing them as they buy other services or products.

What if some of your clients are not be your target clients? Maybe you are attracting too many small clients, or clients with problems that you aren’t excellent at solving. This is a more difficult challenge! Once you identify what you’re doing that’s attracting these less desirable clients, you can stop doing it. Many times, what is attracting the less desirable clients may even repel the more ideal clients.

This doesn’t mean you a have to turn business away from these less ideal clients. But as you seek new ones, act in the way you believe will attract the more ideal client.

Lastly, align your processes to that ideal market. Having identified some unique customer needs, make an effort to consistently and regularly communicate that insight and how you are different to the marketplace. Don’t be afraid to say, “Where other firms like us do things this way, we do them this other way.” Be different.

If you are successful in honing in on path to your target market, it can pay big dividends for your business. As the percentage of your prospects that fit that ideal profile go up, you will be closing more business – more profitable business, that is. You will have more confidence going into meetings with prospects, knowing that your expertise can help them. Ultimately, your sales process will become more efficient so you are spending less time selling and more time leading your business. Now that’s a target worth aiming for!

Since we know that people are most interested in products and services that are customized just for them, how do we find out what changes we should make to our particular product or service offering to make it most appealing to our target audience?

Every purchase decision that any of us makes is a blend of a variety of factors. None of us is as rational as we want to be in this process. The truth is that we make emotional connections with products and services then we consider everything from price and quality, to the environment, what the buying process is like, even whether we like the salesperson to justify that choice.

However, when we are selling, the buyer doesn’t give us as much feedback about those qualitative measures (like how they like the buying process, or how the suit you are wearing makes them feel more at ease), as they will about the “hard” measures of price and quality. The buyer wants us to believe that those are the only factors. Yet, every day your clients choose to do business with people who didn’t bring them the lowest cost bid or the highest quality product.

So if they won’t tell us about those factors how do we figure them out?

First, asking someone to tell you a story about something they did do will give much better data than if you ask them about what they might do. So if you ask questions like, “How did you make the decision to… “ you will get much better data than if you ask, “How would you…”

Second, it’s very powerful to be able to observe your prospect. How are they acting, what makes them lean forward and engage? What makes them scowl? If you can build good rapport with a prospect or client ask them right then, “I just noticed you reacted to that question, what was going through your head?”

Lastly, don’t be afraid to try some stuff to see what works. I like to do this at a trade show or networking event, where I can get a lot of data quickly. Try changing your introduction to make it more provocative, or evocative and see what happens. If people’s eyes are lighting up, or they are asking, “How do you do that?” you have hit the jackpot.

If you want to find a market where you can sell premium price offerings without beating your head against a wall of competitors, then you need to narrow your focus. Find a market niche in which the quirks and differences that your company has are exactly what they want.

Walk into a Chuck E Cheese’s on a Friday night and you won’t see any sign of the twenty-something Hooters crowd. Everything about Chuck E. Cheese’s is designed to repel that group, but it attracts another group: children. Yet, neither the kids nor their parents will tell you they love the pizza or the prices.

Sport Clips is flourishing in this economy by creating a hair-cutting experience where, “It’s good to be a guy.” The “manly” environment created by this national franchise includes sports memorabilia and big screen TVs. Sports Clips was named top hair care franchise in 2009, and it got there without mentioning price or the experience of their stylists.

How can these businesses thrive when they don’t offer the best product or the lowest prices? They have identified a target market and customized their business to attract patrons that fit within that target – even if it means alienating or repelling other potential clients.

How have you customized your business to make it more desirable to your ideal clients? Is there a way that you have made it unattractive to the prospects that you get calls from who aren’t your ideal? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll be giving you my thoughts in part two and part three later this week.