Why would one person earn 10 times more than someone of the same age in the same profession?

I’ve spoken with service providers in the same town, serving the same marketplace and yet one person is out performing the other by over 1,000% in financial terms.  They work the same number of hours, so why would one of them be earning so much more than the other?

To have more, we must first become more

Although we are all equal as human beings, in the marketplace, we each have a market value.  This market value is determined by the amount of value we bring to the marketplace.  The greater the value, the higher we are rewarded.  The solution to earning more, is to become more.

This is why it’s so important NOT to follow the crowd and emulate what you see your competitors doing.  The more you comply to what’s seen as your industry average, the more average your market value will be and thus your results.  The more generic advice you take, the more you will develop a generic business.  That’s why people like me exist!

The industry average is substandard

Those who achieve at the highest levels in any industry, do so because they have cultivated their value accordingly.  They see the industry average as substandard.  You know what?  They are right!  The only people who actively seek out an average kind of service, are those who are focused on price.  These people have no understanding of value – so they buy services based on the lowest prices.

Naturally, the providers in every industry who offer an average service, are attractive to these fee-sensitive or cost conscious people.  They complain about people being fee sensitive, yet they do nothing to attract business from the higher end of their marketplace.

They leave the cream, to those providers who have increased their market value.  It’s insane!

Become more

Take every opportunity to increase your skills, especially those skills that boost your market value.  If you work in a highly competitive industry, like most of us, look for ways to add unique value to your services.  By continuously investing in yourself, you will become a more valued provider and will attract enquiries and leads from people who are focused on value, rather than fees.

What are you doing right now, to increase your market value and attract the right kind of clients?

Related posts:

1. How to have zero competition for YOUR business!
2. Boost your sales and profits: Getting your prices right!

As a marketing coach, I get asked that question all the time.  In order to answer it for you, we need to split the kind of expert or specialist advice you can offer, into one of the two following categories:

General advice – Which is designed to address common questions or challenges.  For example; “Are mail shots as effective as they used to be?”

Specific advice – Which is designed to address someone’s particular situation.  For example; “I have a 3 partner law firm and need to attract more local, commercial clients.  What should we invest our marketing budget on?”

Giving general advice away for free

This is what I do, here on the blog.  In my case, I write about general areas of marketing and business development, which I hope will be of value and interest to as many small to medium-sized business owners as possible.  Giving general advice in this way, is known as content marketing.  This gives  prospective clients a chance to see my approach to marketing and to get to know me a little.  It also helps me reach more people with my work, as many of the people who find something they find really useful here, share it with their friends and social networks.  It works for my readers and it works for me.

However, before you decide to become a distributor of free information, you need to factor in the cost of writing and delivering it to your marketplace.  I spend a huge amount of my time on this blog and have paid out on things like server hire, programmers and designers.  The information on sites like this is only free for the reader, not the provider; so consider the time and financial costs before you proceed – BUT DO PROCEED!

I highly recommend offering general advice for free, as a content marketing tool.  This blog and it’s Twitter account, has generated the majority of my fee income over the past 12 months and massively increased my name awareness within my target market.

Giving specific advice away for free

This is a lot trickier, because of the enormous amount of risk attached.  So, although giving specific advice to people on their unique problems can be a way to generate new clients, you need to be cautious before adopting it as a business development option.

Let’s look at it from a time management perspective.  You only have so many hours in a day and it can be enormously time consuming to plough through all the details of someone’s problems, in order to give them the answers and instruction they need.

For example: In a quarter of the time it takes me to give free, specific advice to just 1 person, I can write a blog post, which will be seen by thousands of people that day!

Also, let us not forget those freebie hunters out there, who will never spend a penny on your professional help and simply leech free information from you, posing as a prospective client.

The bottom line

If you run a busy enterprise and you value your time, the best way to market your services via free advice, is to focus on helping as many people as possible; as I do here.  Yes, if someone contacts you with a specific problem and you believe that by showing them a little of what you can do, that they will pay you to provide the help they need – do it!

However, we can’t expect the marketplace to place a monetary value on our expertise or time, if we don’t!

What have your experience been, either of offering the kind of global help I provide here or on people looking for freebies from you?  Share your experiences with your fellow readers and myself, with a comment.

Photo: Ell Brown

Related posts:

1. What is FREE advice costing you?
2. Time wasters: How to spot them and avoid them!
3. Content marketing: What is it and how does it work?

There’s a big difference between learning something and learning something of value.  When I speak with people about my services, I often say;

“Some coaches teach so others can learn – That’s not me!
Some coaches teach so others can accomplish – That IS me!”

This is because not all information is the same.  I meet with businesspeople all the time, who tell me how much they enjoyed a certain book or how interesting they found a seminar or workshop they attended – BUT that they still have the same problems or challenges.  They were educated, but with the wrong information for their unique situation.

What are your specific marketing challenges?

I’m guessing that every person reading that question, will have similar answers.  They may want to:

• Make more sales.
• Make the same number of sales, but make those sales higher quality.
• Boost their profits.
• Find new markets for their products / services.
  
• All the above

Here’s where the challenge begins for most small businesses.  You see, although they generally want to achieve one or more of the above outcomes, their situations are unique.  For example, they have differing skills, time resources, finances and unique likes and dislikes.  So, if they apply a ‘general’ marketing idea that they pick up from a; book, seminar, website or newsletter, it’s usually pretty ineffective.

Another month / year’s worth of business progress is lost. (Ouch!)

When I put a marketing strategy together for one of my clients, I always match what they want to achieve, with their unique resources.  For those of you intent on going it alone with your marketing, I strongly suggest you try and do the same.

Here’s just a handful of things you need to ask yourself, before you use marketing ideas you find in a book, seminar, website etc:

• Does it fit in with your time resources?  Do you have the time available to start it off and to see it through to the end?

• Does it fit in with your finances?  Can you afford to implement it correctly in the short, medium and long-term?

• Will it provide the results you need quickly enough?  When do you need to see a bankable return (MONEY) from it?  Do you believe it will get you where you need to be in time?

• Is it consistent with your personality and your reputation?  If you put (whatever) marketing in place, will it be consistent with your commercial image?

• Can you clearly see the direct benefit it will bring?  Is it going to generate; readers, follows, retweets, Facebook friends OR is it going to generate the bankable results you need?

• How might it impact your relationship with your existing clients and customers?  For instance, if you are thinking of offering a super deal for new clients, how might this make your existing clients feel – knowing they are getting a worse deal?
  

• Is the end result likely to generate the profile of client or customer you want?  Are you sure that doing (whatever) marketing, is going to deliver the type of new business you want?
  

The point of this post is to highlight that your unique situation will only improve, when you start using strategies that compliment it correctly.

Whatever do you, don’t waste another year doing the wrong things really well!

What do you think?

Related posts:

1. 3 ways to quickly improve your results
2. Right message, wrong person!
3. All you need is a laptop and a phone line

If you want to lower your costs, increase your sales and boost your profits, you need to get the most from online marketing.  This post focuses on 2 forms of FREE online marketing, which you can use to achieve amazing results for your business; Blogging and Newsletters!

Online marketing is changing

Not that many years ago, online marketing reached a relatively small, fairly select group of people.  These were either technology enthusiasts, businesses run by technology enthusiasts or multinationals.  Because only certain groups of consumers and businesses used the Internet regularly, online marketing was of limited use to the average small business.

Of course today, that’s all changed! Almost everyone in a ‘developed’ country now has Internet access at home, work or both. This means it’s now possible for you to use online marketing to generate either sales or leads, for just about any kind of product or service.  It also means it has never been quicker, easier or less expensive to market your business!

Free online marketing

Right now, armed with nothing more than an Internet connection and a blog, you can generate leads or sales for your business for free.  Moreover, these can be highly targeted leads and highly profitable sales too.

Practising what you preach

I have not used any form of paid marketing for my business for years.

That’s right – 100% of my non-referred business comes from either my newsletter, my website or this blog!

All I have to do is make sure I give away as much valuable marketing information as possible, to as many small businesses as possible.  Then, when these small businesses want someone to help them market their products or services, they give me a call.  When they want their blog or website transformed into a goldmine, they already know my work and that I get results – so they get in touch!

Fast results?

Oh yes – You can see results in seconds! For example, once you build a list of newsletter subscribers or a group of regular blog readers, you can start generating either sales or leads, less than a minute after you send a message or post something to your blog!

Of course, most people with newsletters or blogs have very few readers. Just as with everything else, you need to do the right things, in the correct way, if you want to achieve the desired results.  That’s why it’s important that you spend a little time doing some research, before you start!

Blog marketing

There are lots of online networking sites and ‘social media’ tools you can use, to build up a targeted network of prospective clients or valuable contacts.  In fact, the number of websites offering these facilities is so vast, that it has become a problem in itself.

In my experience, the foundation of your free online marketing should be a blog.

A simple blog, if used correctly, can help you develop a massive community and allow you to showcase your talents to your prospective clients / customers.  It can help you find out about the needs of your marketplace and also develop a special relationship with thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of prospects.

Getting a blog

You can get yourself a free blog right now, from wordpress.com or blogger.com, and be blogging in minutes.  Each blog platform has pro’s and con’s.  I use a paid-for version of wordpress for this blog – you can see the benefits of a paid wordpress blog here.

However, before you invest your time starting a blog, make sure you get some advice from someone with a successful blog.  I recommend you take a look at Chris Brogan’s blog, which covers business blogging (and also other forms of social media.)  It’s a great resource and well worth a read.

Blog marketing is a massive subject and I can only scratch the surface in this post, but there’s going to be a LOT more information to come – So subscribe to my RSS feed, using the button on the top right of the page and make sure you don’t miss a thing!

Newsletters

By far, my biggest ‘network’ is the readership of my marketing newsletter.  The newsletter has been going for almost three years and has thousands of valued readers, spanning over 100 countries around the world.  Each newsletter is sent just a couple of times a month and contains an original marketing article (like this one).

I use the same principle to grow my newsletter, as I use to grow this blog.

I provide high value content, so people share it with their contacts. These contacts then subscribe and they share it with their contacts…

Which businesses can benefit from Newsletters & Blogs?

Any business, in any industry can benefit from a Newsletter and / or a blog.  That’s because the same process outlined above is universal.  Just make sure your blog or newsletter content is designed exclusively for YOUR target market.

In other words, if your business offers web design – write about great web design ideas, tips and tricks.  If your business offers insurance, write about how people can lower their premiums or get better cover or share some funny insurance stories.  If you are a coach or consultant, blog about your subject and give great tips and ideas to your readers. Most newsletters are little more than advertisements and because of this, people do not forward them on and they fail to grow.

Make sure you pump as much valuable information as possible into everything you write.  This showcases your talents, positions you as an expert and shows the real value of your products or your services.  It also makes choosing you as a provider almost risk-free to your readers.

Conclusion

I know people in just about every industry, who get the vast majority of their leads or sales through free online marketing.  I also get emails from people every day; who are wondering how to generate the leads or sales their business needs in order to survive.

If you want to know more, take a look at the free resources mentioned above and also check out the guides and articles in this blog.  You might also want to look that this, it’s all about how to build a successful newsletter.

If you have found this post useful or you have anything to add, please leave a comment and share your feedback with everyone!

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I have an interesting marketing question for you;
“if someone invented mailshots or ‘marketing letters’ today, would you or your business actually use them?”

Just imagine the sales pitch for a mailshot

“I’m Bob from the Post Office and I want to tell you all about this new invention – mailshots! You know how you can use email to get your marketing messages onto the desk of thousands of people, in minutes, for free? Well, mailshots are unreliable, take days to deliver, are expensive and massively labour intensive!”.

Mailshots are extremely expensive

My newsletter is written on my computer and then I press the send button – that’s it! The only real costs attached are the time it takes to write it, plus the cost of the emailing software; which was £200. To send that same newsletter out to my newsletter subscribers via a mailshot (at maximum bulk mailing discount) would cost me at least £4,000,000 or $8,000,000 a year!

Email marketing

I strongly suggest YOU consider using email to deliver YOUR marketing messages, rather than letters or ‘printed media’. In fact, I list email marketing as one of my essential “Top 10 Marketing Tips!”

You see, even if we forget the environmental impact of using all that paper and then sending it via road, rail and air – the time and money you will save is enormous.

Moreover, because email marketing is so effective, it has the power, when used correctly, to transform your sales results super-fast!

Email marketing & mailshots ‘head to head’

I know two small recruitment companies; one uses email marketing exclusively and the other uses mailshots. The company using mailshots can only send one mailing, to 1000 people each month – because of the cost attached to preparing and sending each mailshot is so great.

The company using email marketing sends a marketing mailing to their list of 5,000 people.  So, they reach five times the number of potential clients!  Also, they mail their list twice a month, because there’s no additional cost!  By mailing that list every fourteen days, the list stays up-to-date too; further increasing its value!  This means they reach five times as many people, twice as often AND it costs close to nothing!

Build your own email marketing database

The recruitment company using email marketing ONLY contact people who actually WANT to be contacted with information on their services.  How can they be so sure?  Because EVERYONE that they email has subscribed to them via a ‘sign-up box’ on their website – this is important.  It means that 100% of the people they email to have a confirmed interest in their business.

It also means their email marketing list didn’t cost them anything!  I recommend you always build your own email marketing list, you can read more about email marketing in my Top 10 Marketing Tips article.

If you own or run a small or medium sized business and you want to reach more people, faster and for a fraction of the cost – give email marketing a go!

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Whenever times are hard and the economy heads south, people (and businesses) have to think a lot harder before they spend their money.  This is something we have seen time and time again during past recessions.

However, the ‘credit crunch’ has given us a MUCH BIGGER problem, because our potential clients not only have less money than before – they are finding it hard or impossible to access credit too!  As a direct result, generating sales or winning business is set to become increasingly harder, with potential clients understandably extremely cautious about spending their money.  Perhaps more cautious than ever before!

One thing we know with total certainty, is that the marketplace for YOUR services is about to become more and more competitive.

This means your marketing has never been more important!

You must be able to get the attention of your prospective clients and then totally convince them that you offer the best possible option for them.  Any business today, whose marketing is ‘average’, is going to find the coming two years (some say three) increasingly painful. The only solution is to improve the way they sell and market their services.

Why is marketing so much more important now?

During a normal or strong economy, people don’t have to think too hard about making a purchase and are measurably less choosy.  As a result, until recently, even poorly marketed companies were able to generate a level of sales; just by ‘being there’ or contacting prospects at the right time.

However, during a bad economic climate, people think far harder before they buy anything!  As a result, we are seeing people and businesses now shopping around for the best offer before they spend a penny.  Thus, they end up buying from the best marketed businesses, because these are the businesses who know how to grab their attention and make their offer sound the most attractive or compelling!

Today, good timing and hard work is no longer enough. You must learn how to out-market your competitors if you want to survive – let alone thrive!

Marketing provides an answer – Thankfully!

Amid the doom and gloom, there’s always a ray of light.  You see, as well as receiving a massive number of emails from readers who are really struggling right now – I have also received a small number of emails from readers who are experiencing their best year EVER!

When you understand why some businesses are doing so well right now, you will have an opportunity to do the same!  But first, you need to know what ‘the average’ business does when faced with an economic slump.  This is really important.

Most businesses do nothing

The ‘average’ business today will continue to sell and market their services as if nothing was happening!  Sure, they will moan about the economy and their lack of trade; but they will just keep on doing the same ineffective marketing they always did.

They pin their hopes on things ‘just getting better’ before they run out of money!

In essence, they will stay inside their comfort zone and refuse to move, as if they were a 60 foot oak tree!

But some businesses take action!

Some businesses realise that there is a real opportunity here!  They know that when times are tough, prospective clients always look for value – and making your services look more valuable is all about GREAT marketing.  So, they decide to get serious about their marketing and thus they reap the rewards!  The rewards are far greater than you might imagine!

Marketing lessons from recessions

We know that during past economic recessions, the businesses that improved their marketing and marketed their services the most successfully, managed to gain a disproportionately large share of their marketplace!

Also, when the economy improved, they were in the perfect position to continue growing at a super-accelerated rate!  If you choose, you can turn the credit crunch into a springboard for your business!  You can grow at the same time as your competitors shrink.  You can use the coming months to transform the future of your business and your life – but only if you take action and do the right things in the right way!

So – what next?

First of all – STOP!

If your business is currently finding it a struggle to generate the volume and quality of sales it needs – Stop whatever marketing you are doing immediately!

Because…

If you keep using the same kind of marketing, you will keep getting the same results.  Your sales, profits and turnover will not ‘just get better!’  In fact, as the credit crunch continues, your sales, turnover and profits will drop unless you improve things.

Five steps to beat the credit crunch

Step one

OK – as I mentioned above, the first step is to stop all marketing activities that are not making you money!  No matter how ‘comfortable’ you are with whatever you are doing, if it’s not working STOP doing it.  Either find a way to leverage better results from it or discontinue it completely.

Here are two guides on how to use leverage in your marketing:

Guide One
Guide Two

Step two

Start getting tons of business through your website! It’s a fact; a fully-optimised website is both the most effective and the least expensive way to generate sales, leads and enquiries! Your website can (and should) generate leads and enquiries for you all day every day.

I know people in just about every industry who now get the vast majority of their leads and enquiries via their website.

You can reduce your annual marketing costs by 90% and increase your sales by 100’s% (or more) at the same time!  Almost all of all MY marketing is now done online.  However, before you start enjoying all those leads and enquiries from red-hot prospective clients, your website needs to tick two important boxes:

• Firstly, it needs to look professional and have all the functions you need in order to collect enquiries, collect email addresses and make sales etc.  If you want to know why some businesses get leads from their websites on an hourly basis (or better), whilst most websites generate almost nothing, you need the second and most important element…
  .
• Secondly, your website MUST MUST MUST be Search Engine Optimised!   The reason most small and medium sized business websites fail, is because no one can find them!  So, you will need to get an SEO expert to make your site the one that people find when looking for whatever type of services you offer!

This is the most important step, yet hardly any small business websites are professionally optimised.  Interestingly, 100% of all large company websites are optimised.

Getting a website optimised, is like picking up a shop, that’s located down an old dusty road with no passing trade – and placing it BANG in the centre of Oxford Street or 5th Avenue!

Step three

Read the sales and marketing posts and articles here on the blog.  Everything is written by me, based on what’s proven to work.  I put the blog together because most small and medium-sized businesses rely heavily on free marketing advice – and as a marketing professional, the marketing advice I found online was often pretty awful.  I found that much of it was either shockingly poor , or very out of date. Look at this.

Step four

Download and listen to this FREE audio program.  It will tell you how to get regular referrals, recommendations & leads.

Step five

There are some superb ideas waiting for you right now at TheIdeasBlog.com.  It has often been said that you are never more than one good idea away from achieving a massive breakthrough – so take a look!

The credit crunch is really hurting a lot of businesses right now.  If you have found this credit crunch marketing report useful, please forward it to as many people as possible!

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