More Clients Podcast: Recent Episodes
Ian Brodie
Today's podcast is a great follow-on from my recent article on the first steps to becoming an Authority where I highlighted that the first step is to understand your ideal clients and what they care about. In the podcast, I talk to copywriter Chris Laub about the steps he follows when he's researching a market. And in particular how he does 1-1 interviews to build deep insight into potential clients. In the podcast Chris shows you when research works well and when it doesn't, what sort of questions to ask to get beneath the surface and find real insights, and […]
Brent Adamson of the CEB is back :) You may remember my podcast with Brent from a few weeks ago where we looked at his research into the “Challenger Customer” and its implications for selling high-value products and services. You might also remember that we touched on the concept of “Commercial Insight”. It's perhaps the most effective method for individuals and firms to both differentiate themselves vs competitors and motivate their potential clients to take action. So I got Brent back for a second interview to dive into more details on Commercial Insight. In the interview we talk about: What […]
If you market and sell your services to other businesses then the chances are you use Linkedin. Probably a lot. If you know how to use it, it can be a really effective system for finding contacts and referrers to begin a high-value relationship with. And someone visiting your profile can be the first step towards them making contact. But the whole Linkedin interface is about to change… Only 22% of Linkedin users are active once a month or more frequently. Contrast that with 66% of Facebook's 1.79 Billion users who are active daily and you can see that Linkedin […]
If creating online courses is on your agenda for 2017, this podcast is a must-listen for you. In it, I discuss the current huge opportunity in online education with Danny Iny, founder of Mirasee and author of “Teach and Grow Rich” which is about to be published in its second (expanded) edition. We cover: Why there's such a big opportunity right now in online education as it becomes more mainstream. How to transition from delivering live services to online courses, and what to focus your courses on. The impact of sites like Masterclass.com with celebrity trainers like Aaron Sorkin, Dustin […]
This is a special podcast. Partially because my guest, Brent Adamson of the CEB, is such an expert and entertaining speaker. But perhaps more because the topic is so critical. As I mentioned in Why Being An Expert Won't Get You Clients, we're in an era where it's becoming tougher and tougher to sell premium solutions to our clients. Time and time again a service we know will bring huge benefits is turned down in favour of a cheaper option, or the client just doesn't move ahead and do anything. It's not just because of the way we're marketing and […]
It pains me to say this, but email marketing is not the only answer :) OK, all joking aside, what is vital for any business is to build a platform: a way of regularly communicating and keeping top of mind with your ideal clients. Email marketing is a particularly powerful way of doing that. But it's not the only way. In this podcast Stefan Drew explains how he built a successful platform for his consultancy in the education sector without using email marketing. You'll see that the same principles that normally apply to email marketing can also be applied to […]
I‘ve got a fantastic podcast episode for you today. In the podcast I interview Mike Kerrison about how he built his hugely successful consulting business After launching 3 multi-million dollar technology firms, Mike left the corporate world to join the ranks of solo consultants. In the last 15 years of running his consulting business he's facilitated over 200 strategic planning sessions for Fortune 500 companies to small entrepreneurial growth firms. His programs have reached over 400,000 people and he has graduated over 10,000 sales and management professionals from his Breakaway Schools But like most new consultants, he had to start […]
This is the second of my two part interview with motivation expert James Sale. In this episode James talks about the 9 fundamental motivations that drive behaviour, and how by understanding those we can get better results from our marketing and sales. We cover how to identify the major motivating factors for people you're talking to, how to reflect that when you're selling to them, and how to adapt your marketing to appeal to the major motivation factors of your ideal clients. You can listen to yesterday's podcast where I interview James about his transition from running a 1-1 business […]
Today's podcast is the first of a two part interview with motivation expert James Sale. In this episode James talks about how he made the shift in his business from 1-1 work directly with clients to creating products and licensing his methodology to other consultants and trainers who now carry out the client work for him. He talks about the need to professionalise your products when focusing on corporates, and how to make the critical mental switch from doing client work you love to creating products and managing others. If you're considering moving to a more leveraged business model, James […]
Today's podcast is the first in a new mini-series I'm doing on creating effective membership programs. Over the next few episodes I'll be sharing my best tips, experience and ideas on creating profitable membership sites and programs. And I'll also be interviewing a veriety of experts on membership site strategy, how to build them, and how to run them. My special guest on this very first episode is Robbie Kellman Baxter. Robbie is the author of the Amazon #1 Hot New Release The Membership Economy: Find Your Superusers, Master the Forever Transaction and Build Recurring Revenue. She created the popular […]
My guest on today's podcast is Dorie Clark. Dorie is the author of Reinventing You and Stand Out. She's a former presidential campaign spokeswoman, she teaches at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, and she's a consultant and speaker for clients such as Google, Morgan Stanley, and the World Bank. One of the marketing approaches Dorie has used extensively is to get her articles published in major publications like Harvard Business Review, Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine. This has helped grow her reputation and authority, introduce her to a bunch of influential people, and get a lot of valuable traffic back to her website. […]
Today's podcast is all about how to harness the power of stories to attract and win clients. My guest is Lisa Bloom, the founder of Story Coach. On the podcast Lisa explains why stories can be so powerful in our marketing, how to find stories to use for your business, and how to craft those stories for blog posts, articles or any purpose you want to put them to. Lisa works with organizations developing Transformational Story Leaders, creative yet resilient cultures, and leading powerful change processes with the power of storytelling. She works with entrepreneurs and business owners that are […]
Dov Gordon was a man on a mission. He knew the value and power of Masterminds from his work running them for groups of CEOs. But for his own business he wanted something more. In a traditional mastermind business leaders and entrepreneurs meet to help each other out with advice, challenge, motivation and guidance. Members share their goals, their challenges, their opportunities. And they get input from the bright business minds around them to challenge their thinking, give them new ideas and perspectives, share their experiences of similar situations. Masterminds often share best practices and emerging trends too so that […]
In this podcast I cover a new topic for me: growing a business beyond yourself. My guest is Mitch Russo, someone who's built a bunch of businesses in his time: from founding Timeslips which grew to be the world's largest time tracking software company, to being the COO of Sage in the US, to being president of Business Breakthroughs International, a company he founded with long-time friend Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins. These days he works with coaches to help them scale their coaching business. But the lessons he shares are equally applicable to any professional service business. In the […]
In this podcast I interview Clive Mallard, The Independent's Consultant who over the last year or so has transitioned his business from being primarily based on live consulting to one focused on his core online product which teaches advanced consulting skills to independents. As with all my podcast interviews, this isn't one of those overnight success stories that can never be reproduced by the rest of us. It's a story of hard work over a significant period of time to build a sutainable business. In the podcast Clive shares the details of how he came up with the idea for […]
There's no doubting the power of email marketing in general: but does it work if you sell to corporates? Do senior executives really read email newsletters? Well, here's someone who's got email marketing to work very effectively in the corporate market: Adrian Willmott. Adrian runs Arcus Consulting who specialise in transforming finance functions in major corporations into value-adding business partners. His clients are CFOs and finance directors in some of the largest UK companies. You don't really get much more corporate than that. But Adrian's emails are very different in style and content to the ones a finance director might […]
Using a Lead Magnet: a Free Report or Checklist or Template or Video to attract potential clients and then following up with email marketing is a proven strategy that quite simply works. Its obvious use is for “education” businesses. People who sell consulting, coaching, training or other services where your potential clients want to know how to do what you're an expert in. So your lead magnet and emails to them can share tips and strategies in that area that help them, educate them and demonstrate your credibility. However with other services businesses it's trickier to get a Lead Magnet […]
There's no doubt that being the author of a successful book can be a huge boost to your credibility and ability to win clients. But rather obviously, writing a book and getting it to bestseller status all on your own is a far from trivial task. Many people start a book and never finish. And of those that do, few manage to get it to sell well and even fewer manage to use the book to win a decent strea of new clients. In this podcast interview, “Marketing Magician” Stefan Drew shares the details of how he pulled together a […]
One of the big trends on the web right now is the increasing importance of imagery on your website. That could range from your profile photograph on your home page, to images you use to make your blog posts easier to read. Joining me to talk about this on the latest episode of the More Clients Podcast is photography marketing expert Nigel Merrick. In the podcast Nigel shares his experiences on how to best use images on your site including the use of profile photos, infographics and “tipographics”, and supporting blog posts with relevant images. Nigel even goes a bit […]
I‘m sure it won't have escaped your attention that more and more businesses are moving to subscription models. Whether that's Microsoft and Adobe switching form selling software as one-off purchases to leasing access to their products through Office 365 and Creative Cloud. Or whether it's HP's “Instant Ink” subscription service, the Dollar Shave Club or the myriad of membership programs apeparing in almost every niche. Subscription businesses are hot property right now. When John Warrillow wrote the bestselling book “Built to Sell”, one of the critical factors he found that significantly increased the value of a business was whether it […]
Have you ever had one of those awful emails out of the blue, usually from a company offering SEO or website services, where they just pitch at you and don't seem to have paid the slightest attention to your website or business? That's bad cold emailing at work. No better than spamming. On the other hand have you had a very targeted, charming email from someone you don't know where the writer has done their homework and opens up a useful conversation with you that leads to something mutually beneficial? That's good cold emailing. I've had much more of the […]
When it comes to websites and online marketing, analytics is probably the last great unexplored frontier. Most people have a fair idea about their website and they know they should be using email marketing and doing stuff on social media. But when it comes to analytics, few people get much further than glancing at basic Google Analytics data every now and then. The truth is though that there's a wealth of information available about what your website visitors and potential clients are doing on your site. And if you use it right, you can get tremendous insights from that information […]
If you're selling your services to corporates or even mid-sized companies, chances are you'll bump into procurement. You may need to submit proposals, take part in formal tender processes, get onto the approved supplier list, or just have them OK your letter of engagement. And you've probably discovered that sometimes working with client's procurement teams isn't easy. Sometimes it feels like their only goal is to drive down your price. Or keep small suppliers like you out of the equation. In this podcast I interview procurement expert Stephen Ashcroft. Steve's worked with procurement teams in 33 of the UK's largest […]
I‘m not a professional salesperson. Chances are, you're not a professional salesperson. Yet if we're consultants, lawyers, accountants, coaches or business owners of any type then the reality is that we have to sell if we want to grow our business. In this podcast, leading sales trainer and someone who made the leap from salesperson to board level executive, Jonathan Farrington talks about what it takes for a non-salesperson to succeed at sales. Over the years Jonathan has both bought from and trained professionals of every flavour, and I can't think of anyone better to share their views on how […]
In this episode of the More Clients Podcast Michael McLaughlin reveals why most content marketing falls flat and how to get your content to stand out in a crowded marketplace. Have you ever been told you ought to write a regular blog, produce articles, do presentations, share your content widely? It seems to be the accepted wisdom these days that regularly churning out content is the way to attract clients and position yourself as an expert in your field. Except: it doesn't work. At least not if you do it the way most people do. You've probably noticed this. Most […]
This episode of the More Clients Podcast is an interview with Eric Quanstrom, Chief Marketing Officer of Social CRM vendor Nimble. Before jumping straight in to the podcast I want to explain a little bit about Social CRM and how we can use it to help us win clients. CRM or Customer/Client Relationship Management systems have been around for quite a while. They allow you to store client and prospect profiles, log any communications you have with them, plan activities with them and (on some systems) to plan and track specific sales opportunities. What Social CRM systems do is add […]
I‘m sure like everyone you've noticed a change in how our clients buy our services. Clients do a ton more research online before contacting us. And often their opening gambit is to ask about price. We could grumble about these “idiot buyers”. Or we could educate ourselves as to how and why buyers are changing and adapt our marketing to fit. My suggestion is we do the latter ;) In this podcast I interview Internet Psychologist Graham Jones who shares some of the latest research and experience on how buyers are using the web to find potential suppliers and how […]
Entrepreneur and professional speaker S Anthony Iannarino is one of the few people who is actually winning clients day in, day out using Linkedin. In this episode of the More Clients Podcast Anthony shares with us the strategies he uses daily to attract and win his dream clients (and how he fits social media into his hectic schedule) I‘ve published a lot of material here on the More Clients blog about using Linkedin to win clients. I've covered creating a client focused profile and using Linekdin as a source of referrals. But one topic I've not really covered that you'll […]
Author of “Principled Selling”, David Tovey talks about some of the key principles and strategies you can use in face to face marketing and selling to win more clients without having to “sell your soul”. David Tovey is a director of the Principled Group and author of the recently published Principled Selling: How to Win More Business Without Selling Your Soul. For most of us consultants, coaches, lawyers, engineers, accountants; sales is not something we enjoy. And one of the reasons for that is that we assume it's all about manipulation and persuasion. In this podcast interview, David shows us […]
Author of “Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success”, Colleen Stanley shares with us why emotional intelligence is so important when it comes to winning clients and shows us how to build our own emotional intelligence and use it to build our businesses. Colleen Stanley is the CEO of Sales Leadership and author of the recently published Emotional Intelligence for Sales Success. Whether you're a consultant, a lawyer, an accountant, architect, coach or anyone in business – one of the critical roles you have is to meet with potential clients and talk to them about working together. We often hate the word, […]
Marketing consultant Steve Gordon reveals some of the surprising ways he's using email marketing to grow his consulting business Steve Gordon is a marketing consultant for service business who's grown his number of leads and clients dramatically over the past few years by doing email marketing rather differently to most everyone else. In this podcast interview, Steve reveals why he emails his subscribers daily (yep, that's right, daily) and why it works for him. We talk about how to write effective emails that build credibility without “giving everything away”, the right length and format for emails, and how to sell […]
Co-lead of McKinsey's Sales Growth practice and co-author of the book Sales Growth, Jon Vander Ark reveals what industry leaders are doing to transform their sales practices. The recently published book from McKinsey and Company, Sales Growth is based on their extensive research with successful sales leaders on what's working today to drive sales growth. In this podcast interview, co-author of the book Jon Vander Ark shares his perspective on the main lessons from the book – and what businesses can do to put those lessons into practice. We cover tips on “digging for gold” in your client base, integrating […]
Author and expert on Trust in Business, Charlie Green, reveals the best ways for professionals to build trust to turn potential clients into paying clients. Charles H Green needs no introduction (but I'll give him one anyway). As author of Trust Based Selling, and co-author of the absolute classic, The Trusted Advisor and the recently published follow-up The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook, Charlie's built a name as THE expert when it comes to trust in business relationships. I caught up with him on skype recently to ask him about how professionals can build trust in their relationships. In particular, in their […]