All Posts by Chris

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How to Generate Phone Calls with Emails

Sarah prides herself on not being pushy.  She firmly believes, from her own experience, that people are put off by the overt sales pitch.  She certainly refuses to read advertising copy.  And she is sure her market is similar.

Her problem is no-one responds to her emails.  She shares good content and when she meets people on her list – they tell her they enjoy reading her emails.  But no-one ever replies or comments – let alone expresses interest in her business. 

The Call to Action

Sarah needs calls to action.  To respond people need several things.  They need to know

To put it bluntly, you need to tell people exactly what you want them to do.  This does not have to be “Buy my stuff!”  For example: “What do you think?  Hit reply and let me know …”  

This way you start conversations and so deepen relationships with the people who reply.  It also gets them into the habit of responding to you.

You may think you don’t need to tell people how to respond to an email.  It may need clarifying if the email arrives via an email service such as MailChimp but mostly the aim is to encourage a response.

There are many ways to respond and responses have different meanings in different contexts.  Replying to an email is private, whilst commenting on a post is public.  There may be more than one possibility.

For example, you could encourage readers to call you. 

Emergency Calls

The easiest is the emergency call.  If you are a plumber or electrician – you have little problem encouraging people to use the phone.  The challenge is how to get them to call you and not a competitor. 

Even if their call is not an emergency, it is something people generally find straightforward.  They need work doing and call to ask for a quote.  This is standard practice and both of you know the script.

Why Would They Call You?

But for many businesses, receiving phone calls is not so easy.  The problem is, if you offer a one-off singular service, a call implies interest in you.  Your competitors are not able to offer a comparable quote. 

If they call you they are likely to already be in or close to a buying state.  It is worth asking what steps they would pass through to be motivated enough to call you.  If someone makes the call, what is the immediate thing that prompted them to do so? 

What stages do they pass through to arrive at the point where they call you?

Should You Call Them?

Yes!  However, there are a few things you need. 

First and most obvious is their phone number.  Email marketing can help.  If you have a sign up form on your website, include their phone number.  If they leave it, presumably they are happy to hear from you.  You could include it as optional or required.  The big advantage of making it a requirement is it shows they are willing to play ball.  If someone is put off by a request for a phone number, the chances are they are not a serious prospect.

You need a plan.  What is the objective of the call?  It is possible to sell over the phone or an alternative might be to arrange a one-to-one meeting.  There is no limit to what you can sell over the phone but it is worth considering your options.

If you have something like a place on a workshop, a call to people you expect to sign up might be a reminder and does not really require a face-to-face meeting.  If you are selling long-term coaching a face-to-face meeting may be more appropriate.  A lot depends on what you want from the meeting and your level of experience or confidence. 

Email marketing helps you move to a point where a telephone call is the obvious next step.  You do this through online conversations. 

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Getting Your Business Purpose Clear

When I first became self-employed, I had no business purpose.  It has taken me several years to find one.  So, why did I become self-employed?  I was attracted by the lifestyle and no longer wanted to work for someone. Could I use my days the way I chose? 

I needed a business purpose because I’d never be happy simply living from day to day without purpose.  What would get me out of bed in the morning and help me build new contacts? 

I knew I could live off savings but I needed income and so found I had another aim for my business.  As I worked on this aim, there was more to it than setting a financial target. 

Three Aims

From my own experience, I saw three aims together define my business.  For some the aim of their business is to make money.  But money is never the reason a business exists.  A business that defines its aims solely in financial terms lacks credibility.  There is financial sense in defining three aims that together define your purpose. 

“Profit is no more the purpose of business than breathing is the purpose of life.”

John Kay, a contemporary economist

This helps us identify two business aims:

Business Purpose

This answers the question: “Why are you in business?”  This is an immense topic and it is covered in Simon Sinek’s classic work “Start with Why”.

Once you are clear about why you are in business, you can discern what is relevant.  If you define your business by what you do, what you do constrains your activities.  If you make computers, you can’t make mobile phones.  If you aim to help people communicate, it helps you open new ways to meet that why – now you can make computers and mobile phones!

Your business is easier to understand and more attractive to your target market.  Indeed, you have no hope of attaining your financial target without your business purpose.  People need to know, like and trust your business if they are to buy from you.  

It doesn’t matter whether you see your business purpose as more or less important than your financial purpose, you need both!

Financial Purpose

This is not solely about setting a target, so long as you understand it may take several attempts over several years to get there.

The other part of your financial purpose is how do you plan to get there?  For example, a business during its early stages usually needs to maximise sales, while a business further down the road may need to maximise profit. How you understand your financial activity makes a massive difference.  You approach sales and profit in different ways. 

Remember John Kay.  Finance is essential to your business but it is not the reason your business exists. 

Lifestyle Purpose

A third dimension, often overlooked, is still important.  What do you want from your business?  This might include provision for yourself and your family, freedom, health …

This purpose influences the other two.  Here are a few reasons:

Some of the demands life makes are massive.  Caring for children or others takes time.  If your business has to work around these commitments, it will be different to what it otherwise would be. 

Some people continue in full-time or part-time work as they develop their own business.  At what stage do they let go of their safety net?

Clarity

Businesses are prone to failure where they lack clarity about one or more of these three. The point where the three purposes overlap is where you need to be.  For example, if you have unavoidable childcare commitments, then you have less time to spend on your business.  Therefore you need activities, compliant with your business purpose, which maximise income for least effort.  This may mean compromising your business purpose or accepting lower financial returns.

Sometimes there are other options.  Deciding what to do in changing circumstances is best when guided by your three aims.  The decisions you make can be guided by these aims but you are also subject to something else. 

Your worldview determines the decisions you make and if you are not aware of its important role, it can be another reason for failure.

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Email Marketing through Professional Content

Sarah understands that to be credible as a business person, she needs a marketing strategy.  She needs to build a list to market her business online and she has made a start.  Today she was to write her first marketing email.  This is how she demonstrates her professionalism.

Now she encounters another problem.  She has so much to say, where should she start?  Should she tell her readers about her business and how much she charges?  But her list was mainly family and friends – sending them an advert seemed a bit pushy – she’d never hear the last of it!  So, should she tell them about nutrition so they would understand more – but it seems an awful lot to put in one email …

Exclusive Content

The first thing Sarah needs to consider is the difference between the people on her list and those who drop in through social media.  People on her list have expressed interest in her business.  They may be more or less committed – the least committed are likely to unsubscribe – so she can assume they have some interest in her business.

How can she reward them for being subscribers, persuade them to stay subscribed and eventually to buy her services?

Sarah meets some of these goals by being interesting, mysterious, humourous or suspenseful.  Any of these encourages the reader to open her emails and read them.  But this is not enough.

The key is something sometimes called FOMO – “fear of missing out”.  If Sarah’s email content is exclusive, her subscribers will believe it is worthwhile being on her list.  They open and at least scan all her emails. 

How much should she give away?  Some business people worry if they give away too much, there will be no incentive to buy.  Understand a couple of things about information online:

1. Any information you share is likely to be present online in hundreds of places.  It is unlikely you will come up with something unique.  Even if you do, it will be copied and adapted by hundreds of other people.  You take time to find out about what you write about and combine it in various ways.  By all means hold back material for your coaching, but don’t worry if it leaks out because …
2. Coaching is not an information dump.  The coach helps their client understand, make choices, practice, try new things.  Working out the best solution for them is always a unique problem.  They need help to think things through and find a solution that works for them. 

Bringing Two Strands Together

Your email series covers ground midway between elementary material you share on social media and complex struggles with reality many people engage in as business people and are the real purpose of coaching.

There are many ways to organise this material.  How a particular business works out their content strategy is a topic suitable for coaching.  However, we can illustrate the type of thing a successful content strategy could use. 

Genius is often found in combining two topics.  Find the right two topics that resonate together, producing new and valuable insights. 

I’m a marketing coach who specialises in one small part of marketing.  I do this because deep expertise in one area enhances practice in many others.  My specialism is business storytelling.  Without a business narrative, everything else is immensely difficult.   Going deeper into storytelling, brings meaning to other aspects of marketing and indeed business as a whole.

It soon became obvious to me that storytelling alone was not enough.  I needed another strand.  Strategy is something I have specialised in for decades.  Many business people are great tacticians with poor strategic skills.   

Strategy is why storytelling appeals to me.  Good stories are well plotted and plotting is similar to strategy.   Plotting is how we organise the raw content of a story to make sense of its direction, purpose and audience.  Strategy is what makes sense of a marketing campaign.

Your Signature Content and How to Deliver it!

Many people think of signature content as a one-off story, distinctive to your business.  Some business owners have a signature story.  But not everyone.  Everyone must however have signature content.

So, what is it?  Think of a piece of content you have produced.  You show you prepared it by appending your signature.  But what if someone reading your content thought it must be by you before they reach the end and see your signature? 

The content itself contains your signature style.  Only you could have written that article.  Now you can say, if you want more, if you want to see the insights I have from years of work, mountains of reading, hours of reflection, then join my list.

Of course it’s not as simple as that!  The point of creating a list is to build relationships with those who are on it.  Building such relationships is a long-term project but equally it can be faster.  Using the phone is a valuable marketing tool, alongside your email list. 

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Understanding Context and Failure

Saul Alinsky was a community activist in the United States.  He invented Citizens’ Organising and after he died in the 70s, the Industrial Areas Foundation led the way.  Organising has been immensely successful in the context of the US.  President Obama was an organiser before he became President.

Attempts have been made to introduce Organising to the UK.  Not with a great deal of success.  One of the earliest UK Organisations was COGB – Citizens Organised for a Greater Bristol.  I saw one of their events in 1992, when I took an organising course.  The event was impressive.  (I failed the course because I didn’t get angry enough!) 

Impact was the Organisation in Sheffield.  It no longer exists.  Why?  I don’t know the details but I know what I experienced of Impact.  Funding is important for Organisations and it must come from their members (other organisations – in the States, often churches).  Impact applied for grants and this put it in the wrong relationship with potential members and allies.  It was perceived as competing for funding and to achieve its outputs it tended to strongarm the groups it was supposed to support.  Presumably the reason it applied for grants was because most organisations, themselves dependent on grants, could not justify its high fees.

Organising hasn’t worked in the UK because it is a completely different context to the US. 

Divergent Solutions

Context is one key reason proven approaches don’t work.  Time and again, I heard about some new initiative in a neighbourhood similar to the one where I worked.  I persuaded people it was worth a try and we found it didn’t work.  Often some apparently insignificant issue proved all important.

We tend to think of solutions as convergent and the analogy might be engineering.  Think of something that always works, eg a car engine.  A well-maintained engine works reliably and predictably.  It may be possible to modify the engine and improve performance.  If this is a positive change, it is not too difficult to persuade everyone that it’s worth adopting the modification.  Solutions for engineering problems are usually convergent.  Given two solutions, it is not difficult to agree which is the best.

Divergent solutions are where answers proliferate.  Unlike convergent solutions, where potential solutions can be eliminated, divergent solutions produce more and more options.  Most human systems are divergent.  There are at least as many solutions as there are people involved.  These are qualitative systems, described by stories – they cannot be described by statistics.  When there are effectively an infinity of possible solutions, the only way to manage is to make choices.

Trial and error is the main option here.  But can we guide the choices we make?

Soft Systems Analysis

Soft systems analysis helps us think about divergent problems.  It is too complex to describe the full method here but I can help you appreciate something of its power.

What tends to happen with any divergent problem is we lose sight of what we are looking at!  The situation is so complex we can’t tell apples from oranges.  Indeed we might not see the oranges at all because there are so many apples, all vying for attention.

When we take a soft system seriously there are many problems and many solutions.  Before we do anything, we need to agree on the problem.

One useful idea is the distinction between actors and clients.  An actor is someone who has a part to play in the system.  There are likely to be many actors and all have their own roles and objectives.

A client is an actor who wants to change the system.  Each client has their own perspective on the system.  So, what difference does it make, which actor you choose as a client?  (These may be real-life clients and you are helping them with their analysis; or you can choose several actors and compare the difference it makes when they are clients.) 

Let’s say you consider three actors as clients.  Each perceives the system in their unique way.  So, now you see the system from three distinct viewpoints.  This helps you see new problems and new possibilities. 

The context changes when you change client.  The system is unchanged except you view the system from the perspective of  each client. 

Why do most initiatives go wrong?  The reasons can be subtle.  There’s nothing visible but opposition to your solution grows, it seems out of nowhere.  You need to be able to read the system and soft systems helps you do that.

Each client has a purpose.  You can help a real life client achieve their purpose using soft systems.  You can view a system from the viewpoints of several clients using soft systems.  Either way you need to understand purpose.  And lack of clarity about purpose is another reason for failure.

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Email Marketing Enhances Credibility through Automation

Sarah said goodbye to her client, sat down and sighed.  The session had gone really well.  Her client was delighted with the service she received.  Just like the other two.  It felt great to deliver a really professional service.  So, why was it so hard to gain credibility in the wider business world?

Sarah needed just three clients per month to break even and cover her bills.  It couldn’t be that difficult, could it?  She had invested several thousands of pounds in training over several years.  Now she was a skilled nutritionist and making a massive difference for her – so few – clients.  What was she doing wrong?

Credibility and professionalism go hand in hand.  It is hard to imagine a professional who lacks credibility or credibility without professionalism.  So, what is the difference?

I’m using professionalism in the old-fashioned sense of particular expertise.  Usually this includes knowledge and experience.  The medical doctor knows the theory but also how various conditions present in a variety of patients. 

Certainly, if the professional lacks knowledge or experience, they lack credibility.  For many professions though, credibility includes capacity to deliver.  Can the professional marshal the resources they need to the required degree?  It is possible to have professional ability and lack capacity to deliver as a business. 

This post covers credibility as a business, the issues all businesses must address, irrespective of their profession.  The next addresses how to communicate professional content online.

The Sales Funnel

This subheading implies a single thing called a sales funnel.  The concept is a funnel you might use in the kitchen, to fill narrow necked bottles.  It has a wide end and a narrow end and so channels fluids or powders into the bottle. For the cook, the funnel saves time and spills (loss of valuable resources).  Can the same be true of your sales funnel?

The analogy breaks down because the sales funnel does not save spills! Nowhere near the numbers who enter the wide end emerge from the narrow end as customers! Reality is more like the image at the top of this post!

If you are in business and can describe your sales funnel, you have a marketing strategy.  It serves several functions; it can be tweaked, reviewed and measured.  If you do not have a marketing strategy, you do not have a business. 

Your credibility as a business depends upon a marketing strategy that looks out for customers at whatever stage of your sales funnel they are at.  When potential customers experience your sales funnel, you must reassure them they are in safe hands, they can trust you to deliver on your promises. The details depend upon the nature of your business.  This is why I say there is no single sales funnel that applies to all businesses.

Social Media Alone Cannot Work

By and large, social media functions at the wide end of your sales funnel.  Use it to pique interest and build an initial following.  Social media may fulfil other functions, for example private Facebook groups help build community between paying customers.

Your aim is to move people from social media to your email list and website.  There are several reasons for this and I shall cover them in later posts.  Overall, moving prospects from social media to your own site gives you more control over their experience.

Your email list is the glue that holds together your sales funnel, including the social media elements within it.

Automating Your Sales Funnel

Your email list enables you to automate your sales funnel and increase your business capacity.  Once you have a name on your list, someone has expressed interest in your business and you can show them more material of interest, exclusive to people on your list. 

You increase your business capacity.  Automation saves time. 

You deliver regular information into their inbox.  Whatever social media platforms your prospects favour, they are likely to check their email several times a day.  You need to capture and hold attention.  Imagine if they see your email and trust you enough to at least open it and scan the content, based on past experience.

High quality content is essential.  Use it to win credibility by drawing upon your professional expertise. 

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Why Does Business Development Matter?

When I started my own business, I had no idea what I was going to do.  I knew I had no idea; what attracted me was lifestyle.  I wanted freedom to live my life as I chose.  I was at the earliest stage of business development.

So, I started as a website designer.  It’s been a journey, working out what I do – what I offer that people value. 

As I grew in understanding of website design, I worked out websites are always about marketing something, if not a business, a cause.  As I read about marketing I found much of it familiar from my time in community development.  We didn’t call it marketing.  When you have no funds and little influence, you need to communicate your message and respond to objections.

The next phase was to position myself amongst others who sell marketing.  Any viable business encounters competition.  I chose storytelling in marketing as a key area based on my experience in community development and my observations about how marketing is itself marketed.

It has been a long journey and a journey every business owner takes.

Why do most things fail?  The most likely reason is covered in this post.  It is important to understand the stage of business development you are at.  Not every technical fix works for businesses at every stage of development. 

A common problem is using methods that work for businesses at later stages.  It is also possible to be stuck with a method that worked when your business was at an earlier stage.

Five Stages of Business Development

Let’s review five stages of business development.  Five is not a magic number.  Five offers a helpful rule of thumb.  It is always possible to go deeper if you need to.

Stage 1: Dreaming

At this stage, you work out your business purpose.  Why are you in business?  Use trial and error.  Try things until you find something that works.

This stage can be swift or slow (years slow).  Sometimes it takes a while to work out not just your strengths but what you can meet from your market’s needs.

You can make money at this stage and indeed you must be in business.  How else can you test an idea to see whether it is viable?

Once you turn over a few thousand a year, you are ready to move to stage 2.

Stage 2: Marketing and Selling

At this stage you work out how to market and sell products and services.  If you cannot sell over a cup of coffee, you cannot sell online.  You need to know, through conversations with potential customers, what sells; work out how to get them to sit down with you over coffee.

Move to stage 3 when you feel under pressure to meet the demands of your customers.  By then you may be turning over a few tens of thousands.

Stage 3: Capacity Building

This is the stage most successful businesses reach.  Some pass through this stage with an eye to stages 4 and 5.  Others are content at stage 2 but wish to perhaps find more time by becoming more efficient.  This is not the place to go into detail but the main ways to build capacity are:

Many use all four and so likely turnover is intermediate tens of thousands, up to the UK VAT threshold, perhaps. 

Stage 4: Mass Market

This is where you move out of your niche and build a mass market.  Whilst you must remain faithful to your business purpose (success is a frequent reason businesses lose their way) now you sell something with mass appeal.  You offer any flavour so long as it is vanilla.

This stage does not appeal to everyone. 

Stage 5: Guru Status

Now you sell more than one line to a mass market.  You are recognised by other businesses as the leader in the market. 

Reasons for Failure

Stage of business development is a frequent reason for failure because there are many ways of losing track of where you are.  Here are a few.

First, you leapfrog to a later stage.  This is a frequent issue for people starting out.  They are new to the marketplace and watch what others do.  Everyone’s going to a workshop about Facebook marketing and so you tag along.  It’ll work if you have something to sell and Facebook is right for your market.  If you don’t, maybe you are getting into Facebook too early. 

Another common problem is early success.  You can leapfrog stages 1 and 2 and go directly to 3.  This might happen where someone stumbles on something easy to sell.  They set up a business and it does well, requires loads of staff and shows great growth.  But what happens when demand falls? Now you have the responsibility of employing staff but no clear business purpose and no idea how to market or sell anything else. 

It is also possible to forget stages 1 and 2, if you are contemplating a move to stage 4.  The temptation at this stage is to compromise on quality.  Does compromise further your business purpose? 

Finding Solutions

My purpose in this series of posts is to identify likely reasons for failure.  It is not to suggest solutions.  Why? Every business is different.  What works for one business is a disaster for another. 

What can you do?  It helps to begin with two questions:

1. How well do you know your own business?
2. Do you know the stage of development your business is at? Whatever the reason for failure, it is coloured by the stage of business development. 

Coaching

Get a coach or non-directive consultant.  A good coach not only boosts your brain power (two heads are better than one!) but sees your business from a different perspective.  It is easy to get locked into one way of seeing things.  Tell yourself a story and the story enchants you.  Sometimes the perspective you take has obvious flaws; obvious when they are pointed out! 

A coach helps you find the perspective to move your work on.  For this reason, the coach need not be an expert in the business you occupy.  You need to be nudged, you don’t need someone to do the work for you!

Technical Solutions

Technical solutions are great so long as you choose the right ones.  For example, Facebook marketing might be the solution you seek.  It’s a proven method.  Go to a workshop on this topic and you find other business owners there too.  They’re there because it is a good, proven method.

Spend no more time on Facebook marketing than you need to eliminate it from your enquiries.  Putting time, money and energy into the wrong solution destroys your business.  If Facebook marketing destroys your business, it is not the fault of Facebook marketing.

Most likely, it is not appropriate to your stage of business development.  There may be other reasons it does not work.  But consider whether what you are trying to do right now is best helped by marketing through Facebook.

Conclusion

Stage of business development is an important element in the context of failure.  But businesses fail for other reasons and it is important to understand how context influences the solutions we bring to our business.

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How Email Marketing Builds Your Reputation

Early on, Sarah was concerned about her branding and asked a graphic designer to produce a logo for her emails, website and stationery. He did a brilliant job for a few hundred pounds. But now Sarah’s business has moved on and she has a dilemma. She has a distinctive and attractice logo that has mislead several prospects. Even though it is lovely she fears it could damage her reputation.

Branding is about reputation.  No amount of graphic brilliance improves your brand if your reputation is poor.  So, let’s begin by considering what branding is and is not.

What is Branding?

Most of us don’t drive a horse and cart these days.  Even so we see the impossibility of putting the cart before the horse and expecting the horse to push it along.  Would you really spend a few hundred pounds on your logo before you launched your business?  Really?

Your priority, during early business development, is to create a great product or service, to learn how to market it and sell it.  No logo will help you. A logo is a distraction – putting the graphics cart before the marketing and sales horse. 

It is possible a good logo makes your business recognisable and memorable.  But, especially in the early days of your business, is it worth investing time and money in symbolism that might have limited application?

Quality of graphics does not make a good brand.  When your positive reputation is associated with your branding graphics, they acquire value.  

So, choose a business name.  Choose a font.  Put together a logo using your font and business name.  You can do this in half an hour.

This way you:

Many successful businesses use text logos.  Their logo evolves over time but remains essentially text.  Take a look at the logos on these sites:

These successful businesses have simple logos.  We admire them (if we do) because they are successful. 

What is Reputation?

How do you build your business reputation?  Reputation is positive when you get two things right. 

First, show you deliver on your promises.  If you promise a workshop on a particular day, show up and deliver that workshop.  If you are a coach and promise to help your client develop a skill, they must develop that skill.

So far, so good.  The key is accountability. For freelancers this can be difficult.  In employment, you meet requirements set by your employer.  As a freelance, you deliver to your own schedule.  The temptation is not to make your objectives public.  If you do, you have to meet them and you can turn that to your advantage.

Setting tasks publicly and meeting them demonstrates credibility.  An email marketing strategy sets public commitments and automates them. You show you plan your work and have capacity to deliver on your promises. 

The second thing you must get right is your teaching.  The content you promise and produce through your emails, shows you understand and deliver on your subject area.  That’s what I am doing as I write this blog post.  People on my list receive notice of it, while those who access it through some other route sign up if they find the post helpful.

Credibility alone is not enough.  Deliver worthwhile material – material your customers and followers value and this demonstrates professionalism.

Your Email Marketing Strategy

A sound email marketing strategy supports both professionalism and credibility.  The next two posts take each in turn and shows how.  Taken together professionalism and credibility enhance your reputation and add value to your brand.

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Failure: Why Most Things Don’t Work

I was a community development worker for over 30 years and when I started in 1980, I was totally unsuited to the role.  I had been a research scientist, I was deeply introverted and terrified of relating to people.  I was also terrified of failure.

What I had to offer though was problem-solving.  When faced by a crisis, I stayed with it and took up the challenge.  Often I was surrounded by activist people who asked me for an interpretation of what was happening.  “What are our options?” 

I found I am highly perceptive but weaker at judgement.  When I trusted others with my insights, things were more likely to go well.  It took me a long time to learn not to take charge but to build trust in my insights.

Fear of Failure

Why was I so afraid of failure?  Partly it was being employed.  I wanted to please my employers and keep my job – or receive good references.  Therefore success was essential.  My defensiveness meant I took ages to understand one simple fact:

Most Things Don’t Work!

Once I understood this I became more confident.  I understood my strengths and managed the expectations others had of me.  I stopped trying to take command and focussed on finding and supporting leaders.  This didn’t always work (of course) but I was no longer stressed by failure – now it was part of the job.  I learned how to manage expectations – that community development is more about building relationships than it is about managing projects.

Now I am self-employed I find the same insights apply equally to business.

How Failure Works

The path to success is through repeated failure.  Look closely at anyone’s story of business success and you find long periods of failure.  Typically these are at the beginning of a successful business.  Frequently, an initial success is followed by a long period of not very much happening. 

No-one experiences success without failure.  The confidence of successful people comes from their overcoming of failure and not their ultimate success.  Success is a small island at the far side of a wilderness of failure.  You might never find the island or perhaps not recognise it when you do!

There are people who are born lucky, who inherit wealth and can afford expensive failure.  They are not “annealed by suffering” and often display zero emotional intelligence.  Is this success or a monumental failure?  We all know what happens when they get their hands on the levers of power. 

I’ve written about these immortals before.  Don’t think they are only billionaires with social media accounts.  I’ve met them leading community groups and churches.  Why immortals?  They believe they are indispensable.  It is as if they will never die (until they do). 

Those who experience failure learn grit, determination and humility.  Now they are ready of success. 

A Taxonomy of Failure

This sequence of blog posts explores what goes wrong.  So far I have 15 sources of failure.  Surely there are more?  Here is my list – I’ll update them as we go.  If you know of others, leave a comment and perhaps I’ll add them to the list!  Maybe I’ll ask you to write a guest post!  I’ll add links to each post as I publish them.

1. Stage of business development
2. Context
3. Clear about business purpose – three aims.
4. Your Worldview
5. Not Knowing: Why?
6. Conflict
7. Lack of persistence
8. Poor Positioning
9. Pitiful Pricing
10. Lack of Confidence
11. My Market is Everyone
12. Technical solutions
13. Too theoretical
14. Quality or Quantity?
15. Financial Mismanagement 

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Three Essentials for Your Email Marketing Strategy

What do you need in place to support a successful business online? The Venn diagram shows three areas of expertise you need to build a productive email marketing strategy.

Allow me to introduce you to Sarah. Her business is going reasonably well but she needs to take it to a higher level. She longs for more customers because she knows those who use her services really benefit. Sarah has made a start developing her email marketing strategy. Each post in this sequence explores one of the issues Sarah faces.

This post describes three essentials for email marketing. This sequence of blog posts focuses on the third: media channels. Other sequences in this blog cover the other two essentials. Even when you have a clear vision for your business and know how to market and sell your products and services, the practicialities of getting your message out there can present a significant barrier.

Remember: for success you need all three working together, something all business owners find challenging.

1.      Your Business Why?

You cannot communicate effectively if you do not know and understand your business.  Here are 5 elements you need to know well:

2.      Your Business Narrative

The stories and teaching you use to explain your business why?  Stories and teaching depend upon your:

3.      Media Channels

Most businesses use several channels, online and in-person.  Your strategy needs to look something like this:

Imagine a wheel where your website (Hub 1) and email list (Hub 2) are the hub and everything else is the spokes.

All your media channels (Spokes 1) should point towards your website.  You use these to market your business to new prospects.  Aim to engage with them to the extent they wish to find out more.  Great content in social media, points them to your website, where they find out more.  Once they visit your site, invite them to join your email list.

Use email to directly offer new ideas and training.  Encourage prospects to visit your website when you add more material, eg blog posts.  This should be genuine valuable material, unobtainable elsewhere.  

Use emails and your website to sell products and services too. 

This is a basic overview.  Your aim is to find an approach where these three essentials overlap to best support your business.

In future posts I shall explore this approach to marketing in more depth. Each post explores one of the 21 reasons email marketing is essential in more depth.

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21 Reasons Email Marketing is Essential

When you tell your business story, you need a medium to tell it.  Traditional media include public speaking, drama and books.  What can you use online?  The truth is you must design an email marketing strategy.  Email is a flexible approach and the only way to build a secure online business.

Many protest they can build a business around social media.  The overriding reason why this is not best practice is email marketing is the only approach where you have complete control of customer information.

Bear in mind, email marketing strategies take time to implement.  Make a start today and start to see results.  But it takes time to design and build a system that works and requires minimal tweaking.  The 21 advantages I list below, assume an email marketing system that works!

In future posts, I shall add information about the 21 advantages.  Remember, every business is different.  There is no single strategy that meets the needs of all businesses.  Above all you need clarity about your business narrative; what is the story you need to tell?

Branding

Branding has little to do with graphic design.  Your brand is your reputation; what people say about you in your absence.  Visual and verbal representations of your business become captivating when people associate your brand with them.  If your reputation is poor, the best graphic design in the world will seem negative.

Build Brand (1)

When prospects enter your sales funnel, they stay there if they find quality content.  They may also tell their friends.  Emails that contain or point to quality content are always welcome, build your reputation and so your brand.

Build Credibility (2)

The same content builds credibility because it shows you deliver.  You invite prospects to journey deeper into your world.  They pay for access to exclusive content and services.  This depends upon the trust you build.

Look Professional (3)

The madcap chaotic world of social media is not always the best place to conduct business.  Nothing beats a thought-through sales funnel.  A funnel you own and control and adapt to changing circumstances.

Relationships

Imagine a funnel.  The wide end is its front end and corresponds to fresh prospects, interested people who have not yet made a purchase.  Once someone makes a purchase, they enter the back-end, where you continue to deliver quality content and great offers.  The whole is about building relationships with prospects and customers.  This may be difficult, especially if you have a global market but it is not impossible.

Generate Calls (4)

Someone reads your email and takes interest in your services.  It may be natural for them to make a call.  How natural, depends on your business.  Emergency services are more likely to receive calls than coaches or consultants.  However, prospects are always more likely to call if they see a number and you encourage them to use it.

What would happen if you called everyone who joins your list?  This is a great way to build relationships.  However, it depends upon them giving you their number.  Why would they do that?  For overseas contacts you need Skype addresses or a similar service.  How would you get this information?

Start Conversations (5)

It is easy to reply to an email.  Encourage recipients to do so.  Once you receive a reply, can you move the conversation onto the phone and/or a 1-to-1?

You can support communication between customers too.  Be clear about the purpose of conversations and be certain they’ll actually happen before you make any promises.

Strengthen Relationships (6)

Let’s say you move prospects from social media to your sales funnel.  With social media, they communicate with everyone else taking interest or just hanging around.  They stay on social media when they enter your sales funnel, of course.

But consider the change.  In your funnel, it’s just you and them.  It is an opportunity to strengthen relationships.  Your aim is to move them to where they see the point of buying time with you.

Improve Communication (7)

Always reply, even if they like a post on Facebook.  Ask a question.  They may answer it.  Always try to deepen the conversation and probe for common ground.

Sales

Email marketing is a common and effective version of the sales funnel.  Emails combined with just about any other media are a great way to build relationships and increase sales.

Increase Web Traffic (8)

Use email to direct followers to your website, when you add something new.  You need two calls to action.  The first is the subject line to your email – does it invite, or better compel, the recipient to open the email?  Then you need a call to action to click the link to your website.

Once they are on the website there will be at least one further call to action, for example to sign up for or buy something.  You can see why clarity and compelling content is essential at every stage.

Generate Leads (9)

This is one big advantage of email over social media.  Emails can be forwarded to other interested people.  First, you need great content and then you need to ask!  Many people know others equally or even more interested in your offer.  Or perhaps maybe interested – no need to be picky!

Promote Products and Services (10)

Some people think email is dead!  If it is, how come social media depends upon it?  You see emails every day drawing attention to posts, tweets and the like.  You receive email reminders of events you have signed up for or notices of new products and services.  Many companies send emails, perhaps on a daily basis, that remind you they’re still there.

Boost Sales (11)

You can go further.  If you have a major product launch, use sequences of emails to raise awareness.  You don’t need a massive list to do this.  Use the promotion to grow your list.

Customer Relations Management (12)

Keeping track of your customers and what they have purchased or expressed interest in is another big advantage of email marketing.  There are effective ways to manage huge numbers of customers on the market but start with low-cost (or free) services and grow your business over time.

Build Capacity (13)

Email marketing automates online sales.  Develop a robust and effective system to extend your reach.  Email marketing is scalable.  However, other factors limit reach, such as staffing.

Technical

Like any method, email marketing introduces new technical issues.  However, it also resolves some tough issues.  Here are a couple.

Business Security (14)

Corporations own social media and they can (1) change the rules and (2) impose restrictions, if they think you’ve broken the rules.  Therefore, be ready for anything that threatens your business.  Keeping a list of customers and followers outside social media really helps.  Social media feed into your list.

Compliance (GDPR) (15)

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is largely taken care of through your email service provider.  Measures such as double opt-in, unsubscribe links and showing your business address helps you comply with standards automatically.  Remember though, you need to do more on your website to be compliant.

Design

In their early stages, new businesses seek early adopters and find adaptive solutions to the problems they encounter.  Hence design of marketing is crucial during early years.

Some businesses go on to mass markets and so the design challenge moves from “how do we do this?” to “how do we remain true to our original business purpose?”

Marketing Strategy Design (16)

Email marketing has many advantages for the beginner.  It is inexpensive, scalable and imposes a systematic approach from the start.  It is highly flexible, not an alternative to social media but uses it strategically.

Design Products and Services (17)

Many online and offline products and services are highly compatible with email marketing.  Your email marketing strategy influences decisions you make when designing products and services.

Use email lists to test drive ideas or test products in beta.  It’s great to build something new, confident there is a market for it.

Transformation

Most important of all, email marketing is how you communicate your business why.

Explains Your Business Why (18)

Help followers and customers understand why you’re in business.  When they understand your why, they are more likely to buy from you.  Use emails to take them further into understanding your business than you can on social media.

Help them understand how to help you achieve something they want to see happen.

Generate Anticipation (19)

People hooked by your Why, want to know what happens next.  People excited about your business are keen not to miss out.

Educate Your Followers (20)

Take your followers to new levels of understanding using teaching via email.  Also use email to point to new material on your website or blog posts.

Saves Time (21)

This is under the heading of transformation because a robust email marketing strategy transforms your life.  It’s your choice. Use the time you save to build capacity or pursue other interests or commitments.  You should find the latter happens as your business develops.

And Finally

I hope I have persuaded you email marketing is worth considering as the basis for your marketing design.  Even if you read the headings only, you see there are several powerful arguments in its favour.

Remember though, email marketing is not a technical fix.  You need to design a system that works for your business.  It’s not only the technical aspects that matter.  You must get to grips with content.  This is why I offer coaching, so I can help you figure out what works for your business.  Visit new pages on my website about my coaching offer.

In the New Year I shall offer a workshop where you can find out more about email marketing, the various options for setting up your own strategy and how to set about producing content.  Sign up below if you would like to receive notice of the workshop and other events designed to help you tell your story.

Also, in the New Year I shall produce a series of blog posts about each of these 21 reasons to use email marketing.  You shall receive notice of my blog posts, as they appear, if you sign up below.