… to Prosper in 2010

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Dear Client, I LOVE YOU. Plain and simple, huh?

How can I KNOW that?

This CRITICALLY IMPORTANT business distinction actually came to me as a response to a simple question.

A few months back, on day two of a Big Ticket Blueprint Training Weekend, Lissa Bolles asked me the following question – “So Kevin what do YOU do when someone completely knocks off your training and offers it as their own?”

This was no theoretical question. One of my other students had forwarded me emails that showed that essentially someone was indeed ‘modeling’ my trainings, promising similar outcomes, etc.

My response to that question completely ‘in the moment’ put a shocked hush on the room that day and changed my vision of my business forever.

“I’ll never have competition in this space because there’s NOBODY who can love their clients and this calling like I do!”, I responded.

Imagine – LOVE as a business asset!

I realized on that AWESOME day that I LOVED my work, I LOVED my clients, I LOVED my business. If you’re reading this, I LOVE and truly want the best for you!!!

It is simply AMAZING…

When you step into the work into which you were TRULY placed on this planet to serve, a LOVE for what you do overtakes you and drives you completely from FLOW!

Of COURSE you’re passionate about obtaining clients, but it’s not about how YOU will be impacted – but about how THEIR lives will change.

You want ALL of the clients that are an ideal fit and never feel tempted any more to ‘stretch’ your criteria to pursue clients outside your target because you know that there is MORE than enough business INSIDE your area of TRUE expertise!

When I’ve attempted to get CUTE – or SMART, to follow trends or ‘best practices’ without running them through the filter of ‘Does this marketing / service demonstrate the LOVE I have for my clients / future clients?’, I have worked aimlessly with no real success.

When I’ve served from FLOW and worked my rear off but from a place of LOVE and SERVICE, I’ve seen transformations that transcended my wildest dreams and imaginations. Many of you have seen the testimonials of that. The results that have happened as a result of some clients working with me has been nothing but amazing. Sometimes almost miraculous.

And it is ALL attributed to SERVING in a place of FLOW from SOURCE and LOVING the market you’re in enough to be silent and find your place.

“The place you will FIND to serve from is much larger that any place you can SEEK to serve from!”

Imagine the POWER that YOU have to step into that place of power and to serve from the amazing place of REALLY LOVING your marketplace!

I PROMISE YOU – that if you commit to serving from this space – you’ll be FAR more powerful than if you served from your research, your skill alone.

St. John once wrote “There is no fear in love, but perfect Love drives away fear”

Imagine the power and the fearlessness you can have and command when you commit to coming from a place of truly LOVING your market, your clients!

Let this day be a ‘dressing-room’ of sorts to try this on!

As always – this post is NOT complete without your comments. So – comment away and add your energy to the mix. Also, I challenge you to promote this anywhere you feel that the market can be encouraged, to be awakened and called out to this powerful place of service.

The contribution YOU make to the universe demands you play a bigger game. This post has just described the uniform for that game!

Let’s DO IT!

Kevin

One of the most important questions I ask myself and my students is about their own Moment of Conception!

DO WHAT?

OK, calm down, calm down!

I’m talking about the MOMENT in time that you KNEW you were committed to making the dream you’re now pursuing into a REALITY!

I had a client recently who wanted to revisit his commitment to his business. (Polite words for throw his hands in the air and give up…)

So I asked him – “Frank (darn I wish I could use his real name and shock him into action now!), WHEN was the MOMENT you knew that you were COMMITTED to making this venture a success?”

Silence!

“There WAS a moment, wasn’t there?”

Silence

“Are you COMMITTED to seeing this dream through to reality?”

I guess not!

Duuuuuudes (and of course you gals too) – without access to THE moment in time where you KNEW you were going to be a HUGE success – your MOMENT of CONCEPTION – then there is NO BEGINNING OF LIFE to refer to, nothing to confirm that your dream LIVES!

And when times get tough (AND THEY WILL) and you are tested as to your ability to persevere in the face of adversity (yep, that’ll come 7.3 days later), you need that MOMENT to stand on to affirm your right to lead your clients and to remember that SPACE from which you are BIRTHED as the INDISPUTED EXPERT IN YOUR FIELD.

If that Moment you KNEW your business was going to ROCK is TOTALLY present for you, I welcome you to share it in the comments. (Of course feel free to comment on whatever else that comes up for you here too!)

If you don’t have that MOMENT screaming into your conscience, “REMEMBER ME, REMEMBER ME” – Don’t worry!

Soon I’m gonna have a call that exists SPECIFICALLY to create that unique understanding for you that brings YOU to the place that YOU KNOW that your calling is being DEMANDED by the Universe and that she is ready to reward you HANDSOMELY for sharing it with ABANDON!!

You WILL create your MOMENT of CONCEPTION of the Grandest Business you’ve EVER IMAGINED as a result of your participation in that call! And what you Conceive in THAT MOMENT will be birthed shortly into the most AMAZING UNSTOPPABLE business you’ll ever imagine!

Until then, I welcome your thoughts and feedback in the comments – Keep ‘em coming!

Today, I’m on a well needed focus break on the Big Island of Hawaii. In the last week, I’ve swam with the dolphins, rode horses over the mountains to the coast, snorkled reef after reef and just emptied my mind of all the ‘busy-ness’ that builds up as we all run our businesses.

I’ve also thought of YOU. Quite a bit, I might add.

I don’t take the responsibility of the tens of thousands of you who read my posts, comment, send me messages and feedback lightly. I realize how important your mission AND the need to monetize your mission is to you!

I’m in the midst of writing my first Manifesto about Monetizing your Mission. This post is both your ‘sneak peak’ at the process and your opportunity to have input into the Manifesto.

It addresses the two limiting extremes that I’ve observed that inhibits people from reaching a maximum level of fulfillment and profit within their work. I am going to release it in just the next few days, but I’ve been SO inspired by the process that I wanted to write to you today to prepare you for it!

You see, I’ve noticed that too many people either fall to the extreme of pursuing “Missionless Marketing” (that is finding something they don’t even care passionately about and promoting it because they can). And while I have no objection to that philosophy, where is the fulfillment beyond the financial one? I can’t be completely involved in a business where I am not passionate about the transformation it provides in my market…

Many of my readers share the same core desire – to create HUGE transformation in their world.

However, many times we can react to the OTHER extreme. Idolizing our mission so much that we become martyrs. Defending a profitless business as our plight for serving such a noble cause.

IT”S NOT RIGHT!

There is NO DEFENSE for your service operating without an exchange in value.

In fact – the profit you earn is a DIRECT reflection to the amount of value that you create in the world. Hence – no profit, no measurable value (Sorry!)

Someone’s financial investment in your service is their acknowledgement of the impact that it will make on their lives. It’s also a reflection of the spiritual and emotional passion that they ascribe toward your service. If ‘the market is not willing to invest in your service’ to a degree that serves you, unfortunately that means that you are not serving your market in a way that is apparently valuable!

In my upcoming Manifesto, I will be addressing this topic MUCH more deeply and also spelling out in GREAT detail how to change this issue in your Mission-Based business literally overnight!

I’ve watched hundreds of people raise their prices – change the flow of clients toward their service – and begin having MUCH MORE fun serving their Mission by applying the principles I will be sharing here.

What I want from YOU today is – to comment on this Blog Entry and share with me how YOUR business (and your market could be impacted if you operated with MAXIMUM communication of your value to your Market! Also let me know any issues YOU face and I’ll work hard to cover them in my upcoming Manifesto. I want this to revolutionize the way Service Providers communicate value to their markets!

First of all – thanks to GOD that I’ve never been seriously injured, watched my friends die or faced any of the horrors that some of my military brothers and sisters have seen. And on this Memorial Day weekend – I thank ALL of you who have volunteered your freedom to choose your path in order to serve so that we could ALL as a Nation retain our freedom to choose our paths!

Also, I challenge ALL of you to EXERCISE the Freedom that our politicians argue for, that our courts rule for, and that our law enforcement officers and military personnel fight for. Establish your dreams and TAKE ACTION to make them real!

Annnnnd – the life of Kevin Nations “before he was a marketer” – here’s a really cool video I found that captures the essence of my life a few years back. Enjoy! I know it brought back TONS of cool memories for me…

Tired of Competing on Price? Try charging the Highest Prices in your Field – THEN EARN THEM! Here’s how…

Too many service providers try to grow their business by continuously focusing on price – in fact FOCUSED on convincing the market that they are indeed the Low Price Leader…

LEADER?

How in the world can someone claim to be the LOW PRICE LEADER. Doesn’t the very fact that they claim to be the lowest price in the market mean that they have researched the market and RESPONDED? And isn’t responsive positioning in the marketplace a textbook trait of a FOLLOWER rather than a LEADER?

By definition, leaders LEAD.

And that means finding that pricing that will allow you to provide the absolute BEST level of support within your market and educating the marketplace as to why it is in their best interests to retain you at a clear premium.

What are some of the immediate advantages to pricing your services at a premium. Doesn’t the market really want to be served at the lowest possible cost? NOT AT ALL! What they want is to be continuously educated as to WHY they are paying the premium and the specific benefit that they receive for choosing to pay additional fees for your service.

Actually, a lot of the defense for higher prices is in the actions the client will take rather than the difference in your service. Let’s examine a number of defenses you can use to establish yourself as the TRUE Market Leader in Pricing – the company with the wherewithal to LEAD with your price and watch the competition scramble to find their place in the leftover space….

This can best be defined as follows..

The Three “C’s” of Raising your Fees.

The first is COMMITMENT. People are much more committed to applying and doing what’s necessary to achieve a result if they’ve invested significantly. So you’re always going to get a much better result if your clients invest at the top end of the pricing scale.

Second, COMMUNICATION. One of the most demanding requirements of any business, and a true value of their clients’ satisfaction levels is the money that they’ve invested in Communication. If you perfect the art of the post-sale followup you will have raving fans, no matter what they paid. If your follow up after the sale isn’t consistent with their buying experience, your satisfaction level will suffer. Charge fees that allow you to invest the BEST in follow up systems.

Finally, CONTINUITY. Who wants to invest and begin a program that isn’t available for as long as you want to be a part of it? Or one who isn’t able to consistently innovate and remain at the cutting edge. You OWE it to your clients to continue to offer products that allow them to grow along with you…

If you plan to be in business for the long haul (and you’d BETTER be or you’ll be devoured by hungrier competition), you owe it to yourself to raise your fees to the highest level possible! Then EARN those fees. Build your fees based on the cost of your clients NOT doing business with you, not from the efforts you put into the process. The net difference in those two numbers is your Value Leverage.

If you’re ready to begin charging 200% – 1,000% more than your currently billing AND having more satisfied clients, implement the above strategies and watch your profits grow accordingly.

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Now, if you’d like to MAKE this happen in your own business instead of just reading about it, I’ve created a complimentary Strategy Session to help you see the GAP that you can close and how to close it as soon as possible without overcommitting your time… You can book your very own personal Strategy Session by REGISTERING HERE…

I looked into the door of my daughter’s room last week. Just after she goes back to her mom’s from the weekend, I enjoy just looking at the space she’s occupied and trying to recreate what she enjoyed most over the weekend. On the floor was a jigsaw puzzle – half finished. And propped against the wall was the box top to the puzzle. With the picture of what the finished product would look like.

So why does a 12 year old know to look at a picture of the finished puzzle before she starts putting things together while adults who are building entire businesses take a completely reactive approach and try to patch their business together decision by decision, purchase by purchase, campaign by campaign?

Doesn’t make sense, does it?

Do you have a Step by Step plan for how you are going to build your business this year? Do you have the ability to test at every stage of your marketing and sales process exactly what’s going right and what you need to be working on?

Without a ‘picture of the puzzle’ laid out in front of you, your profit pursuit can be completely reactive – constantly looking for the next pretty ‘piece of the puzzle’. Unfortunately, that piece of the puzzle doesn’t fit into what you’re doing and you start trying to make your finished product look like it fits the piece you’ve just acquired.

One of the reasons that people have such a quick return on investment with my consulting and events is that we don’t focus on any particular piece of the marketing puzzle as the answer to the entire plan.

Profitability is about more than Webinars, Squeeze Pages, Audio on Your Site and any other puzzle piece that is sold. All of these are powerful components to a marketing plan. But to buy one of these pieces and try to build a business around it is like trying to buy a puzzle piece and hope that the rest of the puzzle manifests.

So – how do you focus on the end goal (Profitability) and determine what needs to be done. Well, a successful sales and marketing plan advances four overall strategies to achieve the end result.

Lead Collection – You need to have a common place to collect leads (Squeeze Page and/or 24 Hour Recorded Message). Also, you need a marketing plan specifically to sell the ‘Initial Offer’ or ‘Free Offer’ that occurs on that page. This is your primary customer facing offer.

Lead Seduction – Once someone responds to your ‘Free’ offer, you need a strategy and system (mailing, autoresponders) to increase the level of Desire, Passion, and Focus toward obtaining the Desired Outcome. You want this to be all they think about

Lead Selection- Among your growing list, Demand WILL exceed supply, but who do you invest your time with? The Lead Selection ‘TRIGGERS’ determine who is MOST Qualified and who Values your outcome the most so that your Conversion time can be the most effective possible.

Lead Conversion – One on one ‘PAIN Diagnosis’ where you find out individually what it is costing your Prospect to do without your services and then offer the Solution

Lead Attraction – Once you know what your profitability is and you plug the MASSIVE holes that inevitably exist if you’ve never paid attention to the collection, qualification and conversion process – THEN you send Traffic to your Site.

Many people who fill out their ‘Biggest Sales Challenge’ when they register on my various websites are looking for the shiny puzzle piece of More Leads. But without the other pieces to complete it, they just run leads through a sieve without any chance at massive profits. And then they are looking for more leads again because without any way to profit from them, more leads just aren’t enough.But when you map out the entire process above and put the actions that you do into that step-by-step plan, your profitability puzzle becomes a little easier to put together. It makes sense to throw out some pieces you’ve been holding on to. And others fit into place when you see how they should be applied.Let’s Review the Steps…

First is Creating a POWERFUL OFFER!

* What do your Clients give up by not working with you?
* Base your Offer on their Outcome, not your Input.

Then, Each Step Sells ONLY the Next Step

* Lead Collection System Sells… Giving Name and Email
* Lead Seduction System Sells… Reading More – Intensifies Desire, Passion and Focus.
* Lead Selection System Sells… Identifying Interest for More Intimate Information… Investing at the Next Level
* Lead Conversion System Sells… FINAL SALE

Put Lead Attraction System in Place…

Grow the Business Predictably by Raising the EFFICIENCY of the Lead Conversion System and the VOLUME of the Lead Attraction System.

You cannot improve what you cannot measure. Just like you must have a Road Map for your overall sales success, each sales call must have its own little road map. We’ll call them scripts.

Your sales script is only there so that you can measure and improve what you do. The World’s Most Powerful Sales Script for you will be one that is completely natural. Begin with one developed completely from your subconscious.

Tape record several sales calls over the next few weeks and have the them transcribed. If you dont have anyone to do the transcription, use an online service. I recommend www.idictate.com for short transcription. For longer projects of 30 minutes or more, you may want to bid it out on elance. Now read through your transcribed sales presentation.

First, congratulate yourself on the sale! You are already working from a successful script. This one has been used to generate a sale. Now, how can you make it more effective? Now complete the following debrief of your sales script.
• Identify your areas of strength.
• Identify your areas of weakness.
• In each area of weakness, identify what caused that weakness. Some possibilities are fear of losing the sale, lack of hard data to support the sale, lack of research about your prospect’s real needs.
• Look for trends where you made your strongest points, asked your most powerful questions, or placed the customer completely at ease.

You may have been doing these things subconsciously, but imagine how powerful you could be if you could reinforce your best behavior and completely eliminate your limiting behavior. You see – the reasons that some people fail to appreciate scripts as they think of them as word for word recitals that are not genuine and come across as strained.

Re-write your scripts in the areas where you have been naturally struggling. Refine them until you make them a natural response. Now – record them and listen to them as you drive from call to call. You’ll soon have the World’s Most Powerful Sales Presentation and your sales will skyrocket!

I was in Philadelphia recently with my son Geoff and we went to dinner with Tom Beal (VP – Ops for Mike Filsaime). Tom told us a GREAT story about a sales manager who had a salesman looking for more leads.The sales manager told the rep to come back the next day because he had gotten a very special set of leads. The rep got the leads and that day- he closed 90% of them into sales.

This went on for a couple of weeks and the fourth time he came back to the sales manager and said – I need even MORE of those leads. His manager handed him the phone book and said – “Today you get them yourself. Here’s where I’ve been getting them.”

The sales rep – thinking that the leads were special – had applied a different SYSTEM to closing the ‘valuable’ leads and as such had enjoyed a high closing ratio. Want to know what happened when he found the leads were randomly generated? Would you believe that his closing ratio returned to his normal 25%?

On my websites, I ask people their biggest sales challenge and ‘MORE LEADS’ beats the next closest competitor out by a more than two-to-one margin. I even sell a tremendous package on how to get more leads. I call it The Ultimate Prospecting System.

But without a SYSTEM to manage your Prospects into Profits, acquiring more leads means that you’ve just wasted your opportunity to sell to all those leads that you’ve acquired and not acted on.

One of Robert Cialdini’s Laws of Psychological Persuasion was the Law of Consistency and Commitment. People tend to continue in the manner in which they relate to someone. It’s the same law that makes it hard to start a romantic relationship with a long-term friend. You just don’t see them that way.

So – more importantly than acquiring leads is to make sure that from the beginning – your prospects “see you that way” – that is, that they see you as someone that they aspire to do business with. Someone that they aspire to benefit from your service.

Without that, you’re building up a large list of people who like your free information but don’t take you or your offers seriously. And that is a COSTLY mistake. You would have been better off to wait until you had a system to convert them.

Do you?

The Client Acquisition System of the New Economy works in Four Steps to bring every qualified client to the point where they do business with you – while weeding out those who are not qualified and ensuring that you spend your quality time with serious candidates for your service.

First – it puts into place a Lead Collection System. Somewhere to automatically manage the flow of leads and the communications that need to be delivered in order to expose their need for your service.

Secondly – you have a Lead Seduction and Selection Process in place where people are educated to their need for your service and are qualified by their responses to ‘trigger’ offers.

Third – You have a POWERFUL Lead Conversion System that brings their need to the top of their awareness and allows them to realize the value of NOT moving forward with you – which motivates IMMEDIATE Client Conversion.

Finally – after all of these are in place (In other words, after you know what to do with your leads once you get them) – you institute your Lead Attraction System. Because you now convert Leads at a measurable return on investment per lead, you’ll be able to invest SIGNIFICANTLY more to acquire leads and as such continue to raise your ROI.

This four-step process will cure any sales slump. Because it deals with personal human interaction, it is the fastest way possible to generate immediate cash and it also has elements to protect your list from over-exposure to your offer since all of your marketing simply drives to the Lead Conversion Process (or Strategy Session).

This is without doubt the de facto System for Client Acquisition in this New Economy. And those who apply it consistently will profit beyond their ability to imagine.

The fine art of professional selling is a production. You can do it poorly, or you can do it with excellence. A great deal of selling depends on your sensory interaction with your prospective client.

But – to a great deal – within the first two minutes of any meeting, your prospect has already formed a bias. Either he wants to be working with you to reach a common goal, or he’s simply getting as much information as he can to share with your competitor for a better deal. You can be prepared to wow your prospects when you pay close attention to how your prospect ‘senses’ that he should do business with you.

Think of every sensory interaction that your prospect has with you from the first meeting until the first time they buy from you. Each of those interactions will build the prospect’s vision of you.

What are some of the sensory (See, Hear, Smell, Feel?) experiences your prospect has that reflect who you are before he says ‘Yes’? You may not be conscious of these interactions, but your prospect is. DO NOT leave any of these interactions to chance.

• Your in-person ‘introductory commercial’. If you are networking or being introduced to someone, this is the first chance they have to make an impression of you. Don’t blow it by ‘winging’ this. Develop a scripted two-sentence commercial for your business and be able to deliver it with ease.
• Your outbound voice mail messages. You can bet that you will get placed into more voice mail boxes than you will get people live. Again, don’t let this opportunity to shine embarrass you because you’re not prepared. You called them – how could you not know what you are going to say?
• Your inbound voice mail messages. Change your voice mail message daily, if possible. Set expectations for when you’ll be unavailable during the day and when you’ll be returning calls. Suggest an alternate number for an emergency if you are not immediately available.
• Your car. Yes – from time to time, clients walk you to your car – meet you in the lot when they are arriving at the same time as you. Throw away the hamburger wrappers and the pop cans off the floorboards. Can this win accounts for you? It can lose them! Do it today.
• Your business cards. Have plenty of them. Know where they are. Carry them in such a way as to guarantee that they won’t be dog-eared when you present them. This is a production. Don’t hand someone your business card, present them with it! Be excellent on purpose.
• Your in-person voice. Pace your client. Don’t talk too fast (He won’t trust you) or too slow (He’ll think you are talking down to him). For both sexes, the lower you make your voice naturally, the more respect you command.
• Your handshake. Match to slightly lead your client in firmness when you shake hands. Don’t make them call 911 because you are trying to exude confidence.

• Your clothes. Dress a little above the expectation of your clients that you call on. Show them that you respect them by what you wear. The best outfit to wear is one that draws no attention to itself. You’re going to dress differently to visit a Fortune 50 CFO than you will to visit the manager of a Landscape Company.

• Your Accessories and grooming. For men, your shoes, watch and grooming should be impeccable. For women, nails, shoes, and accessories are always on display.

• Your smell. Very light scents are the key here. Don’t overpower, but be impeccably fresh. Whatever you do – don’t miss out on the chance to make a first impression by offering anything less than perfect breath. A moment or two with a mint in the car will help you avoid having your client so distracted that she can’t focus on your presentation.

When you master the above, you will establish trust much more quickly and help your client come to a decision for your service with less internal conflict. They are all easy to excel in. If you’re not careful, they are also easy to overlook. Make a personal checklist to start your work day and one before each call. Ensure that you make the best impression possible and watch your sales respond.