10 Things Clients Hate and How to Avoid Them

Michael Zipursky | January 26, 2012 | View Comments

I just read a series of great posts on Andrew Sobel’s blog on “Things Clients Hate.” I thought you’d see value in these and so I’ll share the top 10 with you today, plus my notes on each…

  1. A generic approach – When you approach a client, send them information about your consulting services and how you can help them or give them a presentation, are you customizing it for them…or are you reusing your materials? If the latter, this may be coming off as ‘generic’ to your clients and doesn’t show them you care about THEIR business.
  2. Overselling – Being eager and determined to land more consulting clients and work hard is good. Trying to push a sale on the first meeting with a prospective client is bad. Get to know your prospect before you try to sell them.
  3. Long slide decks – Do I really need to say much about this? Keep your presentations short and to the point. Make them visual and keep them light on text. Check out any presentation by Guy Kawasaki or Seth Godin for great examples.
  4. Wanting business immediately – Similar to number 2 yet slightly different. “When you meet with a prospect, you must have a long-term perspective. You must have the attitude that if something works out in the short term, that’s great, but if not, that’s OK too.” says Sobel.
  5. Not respecting their time – This goes beyond showing up late for client meetings. This is about respecting time in general. Time is a precious commodity. Get into the meeting, say what needs to be said, focus on the goal of the meeting and get out. Don’t let things drag on.
  6. Overreaching – This is a tough one. The point is to avoid selling services to your client that you’re not great at. It opens up room for a bad result. And it can damage your reputation as a professional. The approach I recommend is to align yourself with other experts and to offer and provide (READ MORE…)

Marketing Mondays: Take Your Marketing Out of the Building

Michael Zipursky | January 23, 2012 | View Comments

I’m sure there have been some scientific studies on this topic. If there haven’t there sure should be.

I’ve talked with enough professionals to know that the biggest fear most people face in the business world is taking action.

Well, actually, let me clarify that…

When I say “taking action” I don’t mean writing an article, fixing your website, making an advertisement, writing a consulting proposal – those are all important things – but they are what I call ‘building’.

By taking action I mean picking up the phone and setting meetings with prospective customers. Getting out of your office and meeting with potential buyers. And spending money on actual marketing and advertising.

By taking action I mean picking up the phone and setting meetings with prospective customers.

Consultants and business owners will do anything they can to delay doing these things, even though they know that they need to do them.

Here’s the thing. It’s understandable that many people find doing these things uncomfortable. Most people don’t like calling (READ MORE…)

The Blitz Model to Sales Consulting: Interview with Andrea Sittig-Rolf

Michael Zipursky | January 19, 2012 | View Comments


How does someone in sales go from working as an employee to starting her own sales consulting firm and generating over $1Million in revenue?

In this interview you’ll learn from Andrea Sittig-Rolf, the president and founder of BlitzMasters.

Andrea’s clients include HP, TigerDirect.com, Office Depot and many others.

How to set the appointment and fill your pipeline with leads in just one day.

Enjoy the interview:

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(Listening time: 29 mins)
Download the interview

Just some of what you’ll hear Andrea share in this interview:

  • How she started and grew her business
  • Her approach to dealing with the challenges all business owners face
  • How to get past the gatekeeper when you’re making sales calls
  • Whether to leave a voicemail or not, plus a super powerful voicemail strategy
  • And much more .

Empowering Sales Video

Marketing Mondays: Consultants! How to Test and Track Your Advertising

Michael Zipursky | January 16, 2012 | View Comments

When I first got started in the marketing business the concept of testing and tracking your marketing and advertising was quite foreign. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of experienced people that were doing it – and they were much more skilled than I was – but most companies just had no clue.

I remember working with companies doing hundreds of millions of dollars in sales and they were plastering ads everywhere – except the ads had no distinct call to action and most definitely didn’t have any tracking mechanism in place.

If the company was running 10 ads and the one in the Wall Street Journal was working, but the other 9 weren’t…they had no idea…and would just keep running all 10.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out they could have been making so much more money by tracking which ad was working and which others weren’t.

It doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out they could have been making so much more money by tracking which ad was working and which others weren’t.

Luckily, these days testing and tracking has become much more commonplace. These kinds of mechanisms are often built into your online marketing.

But what about in offline marketing….

(READ MORE…)

Why Schools Are Broken and Reading Sucks: How to Really Learn

Michael Zipursky | January 12, 2012 | View Comments

My friend and first rate consultant, Aarni Heiskanen owner of AE Partners, recently shared some research he found on the Harvard Business Review website regarding learning and retaining the information we consume.

One look at this diagram and you quickly get the sense that our school system and most people’s approach to learning is backwards…at least at first glance (keep reading I’ll explain later….)

The Learning Pyramid

The Sad State of Schooling

When you attend school, whether high school or university, you spend most of your time in lectures. According to this research, of all the hours, days, weeks, months and years you put into learning the information delivered in those lectures…you only will retain 5% of it.

Are Books Any Better?

Next on the list is reading. This one hurts. I read a lot and am a big believer in the power of reading and the affect it can have on your success.

But the research shows that reading isn’t much better than lectures. Out of all the reading you do, you’ll only be able to retain 10% of the information!

Shocking? Not really. When you think (READ MORE…)

Find Your (Company’s) Next Competitive Edge: Book Review

Michael Zipursky | January 11, 2012 | View Comments

Find Your Next is a book about business processes. Yet not processes in the way we’ve come to know them.

In the field of business, what works for one company won’t necessarily work for another. Even if you’re armed with a well thought out business plan, success is far from guaranteed.

While that might sound depressing, Find Your Next, a book written by Andrea Kates, creator of the Business Genome Approach and consultant to many a fine company, gives us all hope.

Kates’ book provides a blueprint for mapping out our ideas and hunches, from just that, through to executing them with success.

There are 4 steps in this process:

(READ MORE…)

Marketing Mondays: The Value Bait

Michael Zipursky | January 9, 2012 | View Comments

Sam told me a story the other day about one of his students that lives right on the waterfront.

To catch crab and prawns they go to their dock each day, find some mussels that have attached themselves to the rocks and dock.

They don’t eat the mussels…they crush them up, put them into a sock and then put that into their crab or prawn trap.

The crabs and prawns love it. And each time they do it they pull in a bounty of seafood.

That story made me think of a similar situation in marketing that is just as effective.

I’ve come to call it the Value Bait (Jay Abraham may have coined that term?).

The Value Bait is when you offer your clients or prospective clients something of huge value.

Maybe it’s a $500 1 on 1 consultation for only $99.

Let’s say that consultation costs you $250 in lost time (time you could spend with another client). You’d be crazy to offer that deal then, wouldn’t you?

Not exactly… (READ MORE…)

Giving Your Business a Marketing Makeover: Book Review

Michael Zipursky | January 5, 2012 | View Comments

I recently received a package in the mail with a review copy of Gil Effron‘s new book “How to Give Your Business an Extreme Marketing Makeover.”

The picture on the front cover has a painter on it. If I’d missed the word “marketing” I’d have thought they made a mistake sending me a review copy and wanted an interior design specialist to review the book.

The photo aside this is a great book and provides a much needed marketing wake up call to business owners.

Gil writes in a conversational and easy to understand style. Great job there as far too many writers take marketing and sales books to the highly technical side – scary for most people.

The book starts off by sharing with you several warning signs that your marketing is in trouble: (READ MORE…)

Marketing Mondays: Consulting By-Products and Selling More to Your Clients

Michael Zipursky | January 2, 2012 | View Comments

Good morning Marketing Monday peoples! Welcome back.

In the creation and delivery of most products and services by-products are produced.

The majority of business owners and consultants pay little attention to these. They ignore them or don’t even know they exist.

The majority of business owners and consultants pay little attention to these. They ignore them or don’t even know they exist.

Identifying your consulting by-products and marketing them can bring a whole new stream of revenue for you and your business.

Take the consultant that gives presentations and seminars on a regular basis. She decides to compile all her notes and teachings and creates a webinar that she charges for. That’s a by-product. Taking that and creating videos or a book out of it would be another by-product. New income streams.

The web designer is busy creating websites for his clients. He finds himself creating many websites for lawyers. Rather than continuing on business as usual, he decides to launch a service of website templates designed specifically for law firms. It’s a targeted and popular offering. It generates new revenue.

What by-products are you overlooking?

 

Best Hosting Companies for Your Consulting Website

Michael Zipursky | December 29, 2011 | View Comments

Every consultant should have a website or blog. But no consultant should have to deal with the headaches that can come with hosting your website with the wrong company.

A common question we get from consultants is “where should I register my website name and how can I host my website?”

There are hundreds of companies that offer domain name registration (the name of your website, eg. www.consulting-business.com is ours) and hosting services (imagine renting a piece of property up in cyberspace where your website resides).

And while there are many companies offering these services there aren’t as many that do a really good job of it. When choosing a hosting company there are a few things you should consider:

And while there are many companies offering these services there aren’t as many that do a really good job of it.

What to Look For

Reliability – there’s no point having a website or blog if it experiences too much down time and no one can reach it.

Customer Service – this one is huge. I’ve been involved in website building projects for over a decade in one form or another yet I still (READ MORE…)