November 2013 - Small Business Coach, Women Business Coaching - Client Attraction

number-social-media-postsHow do you know how many posts are optimal to gain a good level of interaction on your Facebook business page? This takes some trial and error to figure out.

The Life Span of a Social Media Post is short
For a long time, I recommended posting often and taking a more prolific approach to your Facebook business page. I encouraged more activity than the typical one or two posts per day. The reason is the brief lifespan of a social media post is very, very short. In other words, the likelihood that your fans will see the post is lower than you think – like 1% or 2%. And then, the chance for comments or engagement is often only another 1%. That’s why it seems the more you post, the more people will see your posts and engage with them.

So, if you continue to post more and more, it seems like it can work to your advantage. But it still needs to be done in moderation. You have to build up to a higher level and know that you might not maintain the highest level.

When to Put Up More Social Media Posts
For example, when we were at the Mindset Retreat, we posted loads of stuff on the fan page. We may have put up 12 – 15 social media posts per day because there was so much activity going on at the event. Attendees were giving us quotes, we posted information about the programs and shared a lot of photos. This surge of activity built up our fan page and we added several hundred fans with a huge engagement base based on all those posts. But that’s not our norm right? It’s more the exception than what we do on an everyday basis. You can’t maintain that level or you risk overwhelming people and they may start to ignore you.

Typical Number of Facebook Posts
On a normal day, a couple of posts that add value or content and are compelling will get people involved. That’s a good amount to start with. But you have to experiment. If 1-2 posts get the engagement you want, that’s great. You can build up to 2-3 per day. But I wouldn’t advise jumping to 10-15 posts per day or to keep it there all the time. That’s just not sustainable and your audience might feel like they can’t get to every single post and get turned off or overwhelmed.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Have you experimented with the number of posts you put up per day? Is one or two enough to get you noticed and get the engagement you want? Try mixing it up with 1-2 posts on most days, 3-4 others and then an occasional spike in posts for a special event. Pay attention to determine if you see are any noticeable differences. It does take time to figure out what works best for you and your followers.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction  System® gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

list-building-keywordsAre you working on list building in a competitive area of business? If so, selecting keywords to highlight in articles, videos, or web content can be challenging. The right keywords help improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). To say it simply, they’re the words someone in your ideal market will type into a search engine when looking for your product or service. So how do you ensure you appear prominently in the results?

You can easily use keyword tools to find out what results certain keywords are producing for your business competitors. A tool like Google Adwords’ Keywords Tool lets you search for words and phrases relevant to your market and find out which are most “competitive,” or gain the most attention for businesses like your own.

It’s very likely that when you type words into a keyword tool, you will see a lot of businesses like yours using these words to boost their own SEO. It’s not always obvious which keywords you should focus your energy on to get ahead of the competition. Here’s how I recommend making that choice.

Identify a subset. Take a step back to think about what words you want to be known for. How can you refine your search and be more specific? For example, if you are a virtual assistant, think of that as the overall umbrella and then consider all the things you offer under that. Get into your specialties as a virtual assistant for:

  • Customer service
  • Online marketing
  • Social media
  • Web design
  • Email marketing, etc.

You want to figure out the sub-keyword phrases that relate to virtual assistants.

  • What do you have a specialty in?
  • What do you want to be known for?
  • What do you have a keen interest in?

Once you decide on the focus, then start to develop content. Whether it be your blog post, video or free teleclasses, center your keywords on this subset. Writing content around this subset gives you a higher likelihood of getting your results picked up when people search for that particular sub-phrase.

These are the steps we took when we started branching out from Client Attraction to list building. I searched for the term “list building” and the competition was through the roof. There were tons and tons of marketing firms and established bloggers that had been generating content for those keywords over a significant period of time. I knew it would be difficult to compete and land above them in search results, so that’s when I decided to break it down into sub-categories.

This is a smart way to address the big elephant in the room, so to speak. Focus on the less competitive level first and begin attracting traffic with that targeted approach. As we did this, we started to get traction for our bigger keywords too. The result? We were ultimately ranked higher for our umbrella keyword, which was list building!

It can be difficult to get visibility for the most competitive umbrella keyword phrases if you are just starting out. But if you focus your energy on the more refined subset of keywords that apply to your business and develop content around that, you’ll be off to a great start.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
What keywords are you trying to get know for? If the area is very competitive, take time out to give thought to the more narrow areas you specialize in. Then you can start to build traffic for the refined keyword phrase and ultimately, get traction for those higher level keywords you really want.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction  System® gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

BlogPost11222013Sending an email newsletter on a consistent and frequent basis is an essential part of the overall Client Attraction marketing strategy. By sharing high-value content and relevant information, you build on the relationship with your email subscribers. Ultimately over time – once they know, like and trust you even more – they will become interested in working with you as a client or become a buyer of your products or services.

I get questions all the time from students and clients about when to send an email newsletter. Many people don’t know what time or day is best. How often is too often? How often is not often enough?

Your consistency and reliability is the most important factor in the timing of your email newsletter. (Click here to tweet this.)

In this week’s video strategy, I explain how to make sure your timing is just right. Watch below to discover the most important entrepreneur marketing strategies when it comes to email marketing timing and frequency.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Take a look at your open rates at different times, on different days and in the context of frequency. Do some analysis. Are more people opening your emails on Thursday afternoons or Saturday mornings? Figure out what time best suits your audience and plan your email newsletter around that. Until then, Happy Client Attraction!

New Image 9Join Fabienne with her guest Sally Anderson for an inspiring conversation on how to play big – in your business and your life. Enjoy!

Sally Anderson is the leading expert in Sustainable Transformation – Emotionally: Cognitively: Physically & Spiritually. Sally is at the forefront of sustainable human and organizational transformation. A cutting edge Leadership Coach, Leadership Advance Facilitator, Inspirational Keynote Speaker, Seminar Leader, Master Coach Trainer, Author. Sally has inspired thousands of people from feeling disempowered in their personal and professional lives to experiencing outstanding sustainable results.

Sally is passionate about the advancement of human performance and is pioneering new ways of being in human consciousness through providing her revolutionary education via Keynote Speaking, Leadership Coaching/Advances, Leadership Development Programs Corporate & Public Retreats & Coach Certification.

Sally Anderson has 20 years of corporate experience. At the time of 9/11 Sally was the program director responsible for a major change initiative in a Fortune 500 company and commuting between the US and Europe. The terrorist attack gave Sally pause to examine her priorities and purpose, and how best she could make a difference. As a result she returned to New Zealand to channel her passion for human advancement, her hard-won wisdom and her valuable life experiences into the development of a curriculum that would sustainably transform the lives of others.

Relentless and utterly uncomprising in her drive to have others to live into and achieve their greatest potential, Sally is a ‘vigilante for peace’, fearlessly addressing what so often goes unspoken due to convention, fear or inhibition.

Her unique personal perspectives, traumatic history and eventual mastery as a transformational coach provides a rare combination of talents. This laid the foundation for a vocation to help others achieve a similar transcendence. As a result Sally has a sound knowledge base for her philosophy and teachings and their application in the personal and professional realm.

Her determination to regain her life from the most dehumanising experience imaginable, to dedicating her life to helping others has shaped her personal development and destiny to become one of the most pre-eminent speakers and transformation coaches we have seen.

Sally’s first book ‘Freefall—Living Life Beyond The Edge’, was published by New York Book Publisher Morgan James in 2011 and is available via Amazon. Sally’s second book, ‘The Co-creative Age’, co-authored by Roger Te Tai, will be published late 2014 in New York.

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giving-mindsetWhen you are ready to have the sales conversation with people and make sales calls, check your mindset before you even pick up the phone. What I have found works best is to come from your heart and a place of “giving” rather than about hoping to get something from the person on the other end of the line.

Sometimes clients tell me they have trouble closing the sale which often comes with nervousness and fear of rejection. That’s when I want to know what the intention behind the call was. Usually the person is coming from a place of fear – she NEEDS to make a sale and that means she WANTS something from the person. This sets up a lower vibration from the start of the call, even before anyone answers the phone.

There are only two emotions and vibrations in the world 1) Fear and 2) Love. One is about taking and the second is about giving. Yes, there are shades of gray between the two, but it comes down to just these two according to spiritual principles.

So, when having the sales conversation, if you are in a place of “I’ve got to get a new client, I’ve got to make more money,” that’s a lower vibration. When you start anything with a lower vibration, your results will be a lower vibration. On the other hand, when you start with the intention of giving, of loving and of being of service, you show up with a very high vibration.

The call is received in a totally different way. You are more confident and not coming from that place of “What if they don’t buy?” You are just coming from the heart right? Because you are vibrating at a higher frequency, you will be attracting higher frequency results.

See, it always has to be about the person you are speaking to and not about yourself. If you look at all the principles of Client Attraction that I teach, everything you do has to be about the client first. Once people recognize the value of having the results and solutions to their problems, they will say, “Yes, that’s what I want.”

Then you can follow up with, “I have a valuable resource for you. Would you like me to tell you about it?” But, if you lead with yourself, the walls go up because that is the energy of taking as opposed to giving. The sales conversation is successful when we don’t make it about ourselves.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Before you pick up the phone to have any sales conversation, set your intention. Think about coming from a place of giving and learning how you can help. You will find you make better connections and close more sales by coming from this place of giving.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction  System® gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

BlogPost111513This week, it’s all about living life like you mean it! You already know that I’m all about implementation and doing whatever it takes in life and business. But in this week’s strategy, I’d like to focus on a topic I wrote about in my book, Embrace Your Magnificence. As an entrepreneur, this is an important concept for you to take in and one that is often not given the attention it deserves.

I was raised in France, where the pleasures of the senses are celebrated. I feel that as entrepreneurs, we are often too focused on accumulation rather than appreciation and lingering. Somehow, the culture of entrepreneurship has made us feel guilty if we don’t work into the night after putting the kids to bed. If this sounds familiar to you, it is depleting you.

Too many people live to work instead of working to live and live fully. (Click here to tweet this.)

For the record, I believe in working hard and doing whatever it takes to accomplish something. But if you can’t enjoy the fruits of your labor, what’s the point of all the hard work? You must take time to enjoy and celebrate your accomplishments. You must take time to be still and have pleasure in your life. Otherwise, you become a robot…

So today, I’m inviting you to enjoy every moment and live life in every moment. I believe that living well is transformative, and it doesn’t have to cost any money. Watch my video strategy below for living life to the fullest and await the change in your energy and your life.

Your Client Attraction Assignment

My assignment for you this week is to create some standards and boundaries in your life about how you want to live it. If you were a billionaire entrepreneur (a balanced one, that is) and could create your ideal life, how would you enjoy your days? What would you do with your weekends? How would you spend your time? Who would you spend it with?

Make this list right now, without any reservations. For example, if you find yourself working into the night, constantly checking your e-mail and doing work on weekends, then create a new standard: decide that you will shut down the computer by six thirty each night and that weekends are a work-free zone. This can be difficult at first, especially when you’ve been trained that nothing is more important than getting items checked off your to-do list. But nothing is more important, because if you don’t do this for yourself, you won’t have the energy to give to everything else you enjoy.

This is just one of the many best practices we dive deep into with the students of The Client Attraction Business School, the premier training school for growth-minded entrepreneurs looking to quickly attract more clients and make more money. If you’re interested in finding out more, visit www.ClientAttractionBusinessSchool.com for more details. To speak to an enrollment coach, click here.

affiliate-income-integrityAffiliate programs are great for bringing in additional income. For example, if you hold a joint venture teleclass and your partner promotes one of her programs at the end of the call, you often agree to getting a cut of sales. This is a commission for helping your partner reach a new audience – yours! Affiliate programs like this usually range in compensation from 25 – 50% for a product, but less for a service.

I have found that while most people feel comfortable with this arrangement, sometimes a question of integrity crops up. A few clients have expressed feeling uncomfortable and that it impinges on their sense of honesty.

Once a client told me about a product she had created in conjunction with another company. While she was very excited about the product and believed in it, she felt funny recommending it to her clients because she was going to receive a percentage of sales.

I recommended that she simply be upfront about it and say, “I get a tiny portion of sales, but here’s how I work. I would never recommend it if I didn’t believe in it. In fact, I use it. Just so you know I get a small thank you gift for introducing this to you.”

This is how you can stay in integrity about getting a cut if you don’t feel totally comfortable with the idea. Sometimes people feel funny about getting a “kickback”, but that term feels more like an underhanded arrangement. Shift how you think about it to be more like a “thank you” for introducing people to this great product that they could really benefit from having.

I love the definition of integrity as living life by doing the right thing even when no one is watching. Another way of saying this is living your life as if somebody was pointing a video camera at you all the time. There is nothing wrong with benefitting from affiliate programs if the person making the purchase has a genuine advantage from having the product or service. If you honestly believe in it, you are aligned with the greater good and stay in that higher vibration of serving.

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Have you been putting off working with joint venture partners because you don’t feel comfortable with the affiliate program piece of the equation? Try thinking about the income from this perspective – you are being of service by introducing them to the product or service. That works with your integrity right? So you are coming from the heart. And you also get compensated. See if that feels better and allows you to move forward with potential partnerships where everybody wins.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction  System® gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

creating-proprietary-systemAre you looking to attract clients by creating your proprietary system? This is the foundation of your business and tells the story of how you solved a problem for yourself. Once you have the system, that’s how you share your method so others can learn how to do it too.

If you are like me, you learned what you know from a series of people and mentors. You read a lot and take courses. All this knowledge then gets internalized and combined with your personal experience to make up your unique process. This is what allows you to speak authentically about your situation, what you encountered, how you handled it and what worked for you.

Your proprietary system is based on this simple, step-by-step idea:
1. I had this problem
2. I was at place A and trying to get to place B
3. I tried all these different things to get to B
4. When I look back, these seven steps got me from A to B – that’s what I’m sharing with you in this system

Here’s one thing you don’t want to do– have parts of your system that are recognizable as anyone else’s work. I’ll admit when I was starting out, I did “borrow” material from others. One time, one of my own clients called me on it – I was so embarrassed and turned beet red! From that point on, I rewrote everything to make it fully mine so that would never happen again.

Clients ask me about modifying or taking pieces of other systems. That’s the last thing you want to do because you are here to express your own uniqueness. When you don’t, you won’t have the stories to support your process which is what makes it real for the people you work with. Clients are attracted by what you have gone through and what has worked for people you have successfully helped.

In terms of modeling someone else’s product, obviously you may have similar basic structure elements like a table of contents, homework assignments and additional resources. But whatever you create to attract clients, your originality is essential for your proprietary system’s success. It all works so much better and is so much easier to teach, sell and offer to your client’s when it’s derived from your own personal life story. “This is what I did. This solved the exact same problem that you have.”

Your Client Attraction Assignment
Take a look at your proprietary system with fresh eyes. You want to determine if there are things that need rewriting to be more authentic and in your own words. If there is something you feel you absolutely have to share, then give credit to the originator and if it’s possible for you to check with that person to get his or her permission to share–then that’s even better. In my Client Attraction System, there are a couple of places where I do this. This is a way to stand on the shoulders of people who have come before you, by giving them proper credit.

Now, if you’re just starting out and trying to fill your practice in the FIRST place, then follow a step-by-step system that feels easy and authentic to you. The Client Attraction  System® gives you the most important things to do to set up simple, solid systems, so that you consistently fill your pipeline and continually get new clients. It’s all step-by-step, not a big mishmash of things. So, you do step one of the system, and when you’re done with that, you move on to step two, and so on. All the tools, scripts, templates, and examples are handed to you on a silver platter. Easy. You can get it at TheClientAttractionSystem.com.

Something we are always teaching our students of The Client Attraction Business School is how to create an email newsletter, or “ezine,” to send out to an email subscriber list. Whenever I speak or teach on the topic of email list building or email marketing, people ask, “Derek, how do I put my ezine together? What should I include and where do I begin? How often should I send out my newsletter and which format is best?”

Sending a consistent email newsletter to your subscribers builds trust and value over time. You’re conditioning your readers to consume and appreciate the value of your content (and ultimately get to know, like and trust you).

Your email newsletter should be focused on building a connection between you and your readers. (Click here to tweet this.)

Your ezine is your go-to, stay-in-touch online marketing vehicle. It keeps you on your list’s radar screen. It helps build a connection and deepens the relationship between you and your readers.

There are three very important factors to consider when planning your ezine:

  1. Content
  2. Frequency and timing
  3. Format and layout

In today’s video strategy, I cover: Content. Find out the essential components of an effective and memorable ezine by tuning in below.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/cUDdqj9l3Q0[/youtube]

Your Client Attraction Assignment

Conduct an ezine audit, specifically around your content. Looking at your own ezine, what areas are missing or lacking in some way? How can you improve on your content? Share below… I’d love to hear about it! And remember—if you need guidance, don’t hesitate to look at our Client Attraction ezine.

Next time I will share key strategies on timing and frequency for email marketing. Until then, Happy Client Attraction!

I’m thrilled to introduce you to one of our standout students of The Client Attraction Business School™, Donna Cravotta of Social Sage PR.  Please welcome Donna as a guest contributor to the Client Attraction blog. As always, we’d love to hear your feedback. Please post your comments and questions below. ~ Fabienne. Connect with Donna on Facebook here.

Public Relations (PR) is one of the best ways to get in front of scores of your ideal clients and other media outlets for FREE. It’s a win-win! Media outlets get your valuable content to share with their audience and you get the benefit of exposure to an audience they’ve already gathered for you – on a solid online platform. And in some cases, Google values the content on these media outlets higher than traditional sites, so any related social media posts or links back to your site are fantastic for increasing your search engine rankings.

10063716_sEntrepreneurs can easily incorporate PR as part of their Client Attraction marketing pie. (Click here to tweet this.)

Get started right away with my four simple steps to ensure you don’t miss out on valuable media opportunities, to increase your visibility and attract more ideal clients.

1. Sign-up for HARO, Radio Guest List and Pitch Rate. These are all free services that will send you daily emails with listings of media opportunities posted by journalists. I have landed valuable media using these resources not only for myself, but also for my clients – and as a result have had success in getting media exposure and free publicity…you can too!

2. Create your media kit.  This is a compilation of everything the media might want to know about you – in one central place. Your media kit can be posted directly on your website – or in a document uploaded to your website. I suggest not sending the media kit as an attachment in an email – but instead direct them online to view all the different components. Here’s what you should include:

  • Biography
  • Company Bio
  • Description of products, services or book
  • Prior media
  • Images, headshots (downloadable)
  • Links to videos
  • List of 5-10 sample Q&A for media
  • Testimonials
  • Press releases
  • Speaking topics
  • Speaker One Sheet
  • Book excerpt and Book Fact Sheet (for author media kits)

If you don’t have everything on this list, it’s OK. Just include what you have for now and add on as you go. Keep materials brief, easy to read, and not overly busy so they can be printed easily. Content is more important than design.

3. Write a brief email pitch. If you are responding to a media request through one of the sites listed above, the subject line should reference the request. Focus on how you can help their audience. Take the time to do some background research on the media professional you are contacting. Early in the email, mention a recent article you enjoyed by the journalist. Or, if the inquiry is for a radio or TV show, include something that would indicate that you’ve actually watched or listened to the radio or TV show. This is important, as it will capture their attention. Read and reread the media request, giving them exactly what they requested and honor deadlines. Follow the media professional or the outlet on social media and engage with them further – by sharing their work and commenting on their blog posts. They love this.

4. Use social media. When you do receive a media opportunity, be sure to share it online, across all of your social media platforms. Add it to your media kit for future reference. Be sure to thank the media professional – not only in an email but also a tagged mention on social media so they are sure to see it.

These four steps will help you get started to receive new media opportunities and publicity which helps you get noticed – and get clients!

WEB_0572-3362Donna Cravotta, CEO of Social Sage PR and creator of The Total Social PR System™ is fiercely committed to guiding entrepreneurs in gaining visibility and fostering engagement online through the creative use of Social Media and Public Relations.

With over twenty years of experience in the corporate world and seven years guiding her amazing clients to achieve remarkable success, Donna’s mission and commitment is to provide all of the elements necessary to successfully amplify your unique voice and share your purpose in the online media arena.

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