(Photo by Athena Workman)

Focus on your clients and prospects. You’ve probably heard those words many times, and know you should do it, but are you actually doing it? These days, when all buyers are busy and seemingly more providers than ever are vying for their business, this client-centric focus can make the difference between winning a deal and losing it.

As C.J. Hayden says in her article, Prospects Are People, Too, “Successful selling is not a power struggle between two opposing sides; it’s a friendly conversation between peers.”

You cannot make the mistake of thinking that the perfect sales letter or phone script will guarantee you new clients, she says. Treat your prospects like humans, not robots, and focus on personal exchanges of useful and targeted information.

Matt Heinz, author of the new book Successful Selling, agrees with Hayden. In his podcast interview, How to Avoid Becoming a Commodity in a Buyer-Centric World, Heinz says, “Sales has changed significantly over the past years. No longer can firms have the same approach for every prospect.”

And if you want to differentiate yourself from the competition and avoid becoming a commodity where buyers make a decision based simply on price, take the time to analyze your prospect’s problem and explain how you can solve it for them, he says.

“Take their problem and ask them questions to identify and quantify the problem in a way they might not have been able to do themselves,” Heinz says. “Too often when they can’t do that, they find the easiest thing that they can understand, which is price. And you don’t want to have to compete on price.”

One company who has seen great success with a client-centric approach is On Your Mark. In M. Sharon Baker’s case study on the firm, Market Research Firm’s Client-Centric Approach Leads to Many Cross-Selling Opportunities, co-founder Brenda Laguarta says she knew they needed to focus on their current clients if they were going to weather the economic storm.

By focusing on existing clients and increasing their visibility, On Your Mark found new opportunities in different divisions of their current clients. And to keep the pipeline full, the team started looking and thinking ahead about new opportunities.

“We’re intensely involved in our clients’ businesses, with projects going all the time,” says partner Jeanne Corrigan. “We started to take a look at what we were doing now, what we still needed to learn, and what could help our clients based upon what we were already doing.”

Laurie Young and Bev Burgess further state that the development of new services should focus on buyers’ unique needs. Using a process they call New Service Design (NSD), “allows marketers to create a new perception of value for the core service. They can create different versions of the core service for different segments of buyers and introduce innovations, both large and small, that enhance the existing service and improve its perceived value over time,” they write in their article, How to Develop Innovative and Profitable Services.

In general, services that are high-volume, low-margin, and easily reproducible can more easily be developed using a rigorous design plan than those that are highly customized (like consultancy or other professional services). But it is possible to apply the rigorous innovation process to professional services using their NSD approach, Young and Burgess say. Doing so will enable firms to produce much more lucrative services that are distinct and different from others.

How you communicate with clients and prospects also makes a huge difference. When you communicate using jargon and “corporatese” you alienate them. How can they possibly understand how you can help them when they can’t figure out what you do,” asserts Ernest Nicastro in his article, Is Your Writing Driving Away Clients?

Consider this real-world example from a firm’s website:

“Leader Coaching leverages a proprietary coaching framework, proven over years of practical application and success, to collaborate with clients in pursuit of shared goals.”

Such writing is “flat out bad communication, and bad communication is bad for you, bad for your reader, and, if you’re communicating in a commercial way, bad for business,” Nicastro says.

Fortunately such writing can be easily fixed using a simple tool in Microsoft word—Spelling & Grammar Check. It provides four important results that can make the difference between good writing and bad writing. Businesses would be well-advised to use it before sending out or publishing anything.

Now that you know how some firms are benefiting from a client-centric focus, tell us what you’re doing—or plan to do. What results have you seen?

How can you break through the in-box clutter? (Photo by xJasonRogersx)

Everyone’s email in-box is crowded with messages from clients, prospects, colleagues, friends, marketers, newsletters, and the list goes on. With all of this in-box clutter it’s no wonder that it is becoming more difficult to get your emails opened and read.

So what can you do break through all the noise and stand out in the in-box? Here are five secrets to make sure your email is read:

1. Write a Killer Subject Line

To compete against the hundreds of other emails your clients and prospects get in a day, you have three seconds and 35 characters to grab their attention with your subject line. In my experience, a subject line can cause 5-50% more of your email subscribers to either gloss over your message and click the “delete” button or be hooked and open the message right then and there. Here are three subject line concepts to consider testing:

• Keep it short and punchy: Look at the first two or three words. Are they compelling? If not, move the attention-grabbing words to the front and cut as much of the rest as you can. For example: 9 Tips to Get Prospects to Call You Back
• Include your company or newsletter name: A plain Jane subject line that calls attention to your brand name can be extremely effective and in some cases even outperform a sexier subject line. For example: RainToday’s August Enewsletter
• Highlight several topics from the content of the newsletter: If your newsletter covers a broad range of topics, try highlighting a few of those topics in the subject line. The idea here is that you increase your odds of one of the topics catching the readers’ interest. For example: Tips for Filing Your Taxes, 6 Questions to ask Your Accountant, and much more

The key is to test a few different concepts to find what works best for you.

2. What’s in It for Me?

Do you send emails to clients and prospects only when you have a new service to announce, or a new consulting methodology, or a new vice president, or when other changes occur within your organization? If you do, my emphatic advice is: don’t do it. Instead, follow the what’s-in-it-for-me (WIIFM) rule and email prospects only when you have something interesting and relevant to them. (Save those other announcements for your internal email list.)

For example, your clients and prospects don’t really care that you have a new consulting methodology around increasing operational efficiency—unless they directly benefit from it. Instead of simply “announcing” this new methodology, create a white paper on the Seven Best Practices to Increase Operational Efficiency. Then send an email to your prospects with an offer to download this new white paper.

Not only does that approach increase your intellectual capital and thought leadership, it also gives the prospect a value-based offer they can respond to. Many more prospects will fill out a form to receive a white paper than will reply to an email with a press release about your new service.

3. Limit Yourself to One Message

If you are going to run an email campaign, why not include multiple offers in one email—a something-for-everyone approach? We see it all the time, but multiple messages can create confusion for your prospects. Focus your emails on one strong message rather than five weak messages. (Even if you have five strong messages and offers, they will dilute each other if they’re presented together.)

Remember, you have only a matter of seconds to grab your prospect’s attention. Use this time to get a strong message and offer across. A single offer stands out, is easy to digest, is easy to remember, and will generate the higher response you are looking for.

4. Simplify the HTML Code

Writing code for any newsletter and email is becoming particularly tricky these days. Not only do you have to deal with those folks who don’t “download images,” creating a pox of red Xs where any image of your email would normally appear, but you also have to deal with the many different types of email clients and various configurations that each cause your email to render differently. Lotus notes, Outlook ‘07 and ‘03, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo; Mac, PC; Windows, Windows XP; Firefox, Internet Explorer, and the rest, all make your emails appear differently on readers’ screens.

First, accept as a fact of life that it is impossible to design for every email platform out there. And then simplify your design and HTML code to give yourself the best shot of it being readable on the recipient’s screen.

And always include a link to view the email online. If all else fails and the user cannot get the email to render properly, they can still get to a viewable version of your message.

5. Design to Get the Click

Use the design and layout of your email to guide the prospect to where you want them to go (clicking a link).

It is a best practice to keep images to a minimum (unless, again, you want your prospects viewing a pox of red X’s). Only use images that will enhance your message, such as buttons, headshots, or thumbnail images—these images will help draw the eye. And be sure to hyperlink these images to your landing page.

Finally, test the placement of links. Try including links throughout the email, try putting the link near the top (viewable from the preview pane). Try only including the link at the end. Track not only the number of click-throughs, but the response rate when you put the links in different places.

Like anything you need to test to find what works for you. But by starting with these five secrets you’ll be well on your way to breaking through the clutter and engaging with your readers.

With so many tactics to choose from to generate leads, and so little time to decide (if you don’t want to lose prospects to faster-moving competitors), how can you create conversations with the most qualified buyers for your services?

You can speak at conferences or seminars. Take advantage of the many PR opportunities available. Or you can cold call, send direct mail pieces, set up affiliate or referral programs—the list goes on.

Not knowing which tactic to choose and what to expect from your lead generation efforts can be a service provider’s worst nightmare. You have to zero in on what’s going to make the biggest splash in your pool of prospects. But how do you know?

Over the course of 2010, Wellesley Hills Group has conducted research from over 800 professional services providers; they’ve told us what’s worked, what hasn’t, and how they plan to generate leads in the future.

Join us on June 15 as Mike Schultz will be sharing findings from Wellesley Hills Group’s yet to be released What’s Working in Lead Generation 2010 report.

You will learn the answers to those sticky questions such as:

• How can I fill the front end of the pipeline with qualified prospects that will buy?
• Which tactics look good, but don’t work well for lead generation?
• How does lead generation work with other marketing and business development activities?
• Which tactics will work for my firm, given the dynamics of what I sell?
• What are the keys to developing a culture that supports ongoing lead generation success?

When: June 15, 2010 at 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. (continental breakfast and networking begin at 7:30 a.m.)

Where: Newton Marriott – 2345 Commonwealth Avenue, Newton, MA 02466

All attendees will receive a complimentary executive summary to the What’s Working in Lead Generation 2010 benchmark report.

Register for Lead Generation Success for Professional Services>>>

Are you tracking down the right leads for your firm? (Photo by Borghetti)

Leads—they’re always important and good ones are often elusive. Professional services firms have a variety of strategies in their arsenal for generating them, but according to research from The Shattuck Group five are most preferred. In the podcast, Preferred Lead Generation Tactics for Professional Services, Randy Shattuck says email marketing rises to the top as the most preferred tactic, followed closely by thought leadership.

All of the techniques focus on pulling prospects and leads to you, Shattuck says. And to ensure you’re pulling the right people, you have to first identify them and target your efforts toward them. A general blanket email blast will not give you the results or the clients you want, stresses C.J. Hayden. “The universe is simply too big to market effectively to everyone in it,” she says in her article, Do You Know Who Your Clients Are?

When you choose a target market, you can get to know that market better, position yourself in the marketplace as a specialist, save money and time, and attract clients to you. When your client definition is too general, your client universe remains overly large and your efforts and message will be diffused.

Lack of focus is just one reason why salespeople fail, says Colleen Stanley in her article, Top 9 Reasons Why Salespeople Fail.

“A poor producer can work very hard. Lack of sales isn’t from lack of effort; it’s that the effort is focused on the wrong prospect, activity, and partnerships,” she says. “Top producers have clearly identified their ideal client and have built a strategy around meeting, influencing, and creating value for that specific client. They are very clear on to whom they will sell and what they will sell.”

Sales tools and client relationship management (CRM) go a long way toward helping salespeople focus their strategies. In fact, recent data from Aberdeen Group shows that firms that employ such sales tools sell significantly more. That’s because such technologies allows representatives to gather more information about their prospects and clients and gives them more ammunition to get the job done, according to Aberdeen’s report Sales Intelligence: Preparing for Smarter Selling.

Social Media Strategies

The Shattuck Group’s surveys did not name social media as one of the top five lead generation tactics, but several professional services firms are having success using it, including Shaev & Fleischman LLP. In Law Firm’s Blog Leads to More Clients and Coaching Opportunities, Gwen Moran writes about how Shaev & Fleischman gave up traditional high-priced marketing techniques and started writing a blog. That blog has evolved into a hub for bankruptcy advice and information that accounts for 70% of the firm’s business.

In addition, the social media success of the firm’s partner, Jay Fleischman, led to a new consulting practice. The great results the firm saw as the result of using social media tactics caused many other firms to ask how they, too, can succeed with it.

If Twitter is your social media channel of choice for marketing your firm or your expertise, there are a few rules you should follow, says Eric Rudolf in his article, Dos and Don’ts for Using Twitter to Grow Business. In this follow-up to his 5 Twitter Rules Firms Should Never Break, Eric Rudolf offer five more rules businesses should follow, including being cautious of what you tweet. Competitors are always watching, he warns.

You must look beyond open and click-through rates.

Many marketers base the success of their email programs on two misleading stats: open and click-through rates (CTR). I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a conversation that goes something like this.

Marketer: Our email program is great. On average we get 30% open and 20% click-through rates.

Me: That is great, but do you know how many conversions you are getting on these emails?

Marketer: Conversions? Sure we are getting a 20% CTR. So those people are interested in what we’re writing about and clicking through the email.

Me: Not how many clicks you’re getting on each email, but how many leads. How many people are downloading a white paper from your email? How many are filling out your contact form? How many are picking up the phone and calling you? Beyond driving traffic to your website, are your emails working to generate and nurture leads?

Marketer: Oh, I have no idea about any of that.

The Problem with Opens and CTRs

Opens and CTRs are a good place to start. They allow you to measure overall engagement and interest in your email.

Measuring those metrics alone, however, can be very deceiving. First of all, open rates are tough to gauge because they are measured only if someone downloads the images from your email. If image blocking is enabled (and I’ve seen that up to 50% of people have image blocking enabled), then they are not being counted in your opens. It is a best practice only to compare the open rate of a particular email to other emails you’ve sent. Comparing to the rest of the industry can be misleading.

Click-throughs can give you a bit more information on which topics are hot among your clients and prospects. Whenever looking at CTRs be sure to look at them along with the email subject line. The subject line is what grabs attention, and if you have multiple topics in your email, it is likely whichever is most closely related to the subject line will get the most clicks.

Lead Generation and Lead Nurturing are the Goals

At the end of the day, the goal of your email marketing program is to generate and nurture leads. If you are just measuring opens and click-through rates on your emails, it is tough to know if you are achieving your goals.

The measurement of your campaigns should tie back to these goals.

• # of new leads: After you send your email are you getting downloads on your website? Phone calls? Email inquiries? Do you have a mechanism to capture this activity after the email is sent? To generate more leads with your emails, set up lead capture forms for your content offerings (white papers, webinar, ebooks, etc.). Then have a follow-up strategy for those who fill out the form and download this content.
• # of qualified leads: Of the leads you generated, how many meet your qualification criteria? Are they good targets for your services? You may find that a white paper on “topic A” generates a high quantity of leads, while a white paper on “topic B” generates fewer overall leads, but those it does generate are much more qualified. If you don’t track it, you’ll never know.
• # of new clients: Can you tie your email marketing efforts directly to new clients? Taking your lead generation tracking a step further, how does your email marketing influence your ability to win new deals? Do you have different white papers and content offers for different parts of the sales cycle?
• # of comments / responses:  Did anyone email you in response to a specific, thought-provoking article? Did readers post comments? Are they sharing the content on social networking sites (Twitter, Digg, LinkedIn, etc.)? Of course it is much easier to promote this type of sharing and engagement if you make it easy for prospects to share your content by adding social sharing widgets to your site. Track the buzz your email and content generates.

In the ideal world your database would be hooked up to your email marketing program so you can easily capture client data and email behavior every time you send an email.

Most of us do not have this luxury. Regardless, after you send your next email pay attention not only to the opens and CTRs, but also the type of response the email generates and start tracking it.

An email newsletter can be a great way to stay in touch with prospects and clients. However, many of the newsletters I receive from professional services firms do little more than make we want to click the unsubscribe link. I don’t care that you hired a new vice president. Stop clogging up my inbox with “corporate announcements.”

Instead, follow these nine email newsletter tips to get the most out of your email efforts:

1. It’s about your prospects, not you. Stop including press releases about your new service launch or merger. Instead provide content that your clients and prospects care about, such as tips, articles, blog posts, or tools related to your service that can help them with their jobs and position you as an expert resource. If you are writing about this subject, you must know what you’re talking about. Save the “about us” content for internal email announcements to your company.

2. Publish regularly. A newsletter can be part of your ongoing touch plan. It keeps you top of mind with your prospects and clients. Commit to publishing on a regular basis. Monthly is a good frequency to start with.

Wellesley Hills Group's newsletter format

3. Promote sharing. Include an easy way for recipients to “forward to a friend.” Include buttons so readers can quickly share the content on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, delicious, stumbleupon, digg, etc. This will help you reach prospects you might not have been able to otherwise.

4. Hook the reader with killer headlines. The headline is the hook. If you don’t grab readers’ attention with your headlines (the subject line of the email and the headlines on the content pieces), your newsletter will end up in the trash. Don’t go with the first headline you think of. Brainstorm ideas and bounce them off people.

There are many headline writing tips and resources out there. (One of my favorites is 9 Proven Headline Formulas
That Sell Like Crazy from Copyblogger). Use them to create headlines that pop.

5. Tell them what’s in the newsletter. Include a table of contents / what’s in each issue near the top of the newsletter. This will promote scrolling and multiple clicks on the various pieces of content in the email.

6. Include a news section (this news is not what you think). This is NOT the section where you include an announcement about the vice president you hired or a new service. This is where you can build your authority by featuring articles you’ve published, upcoming conferences and events you’re speaking at, publications you’ve been quoted in, etc. This builds credibility through third-party testimony, showing how others look to you as an expert.

7. Don’t forget your contact information. I can’t tell you how many email newsletters I receive that don’t include basic contact information—email address and phone number. I’m forced to go to their website and search for it. Make it easy for prospects and clients to respond and contact you. Provide links to where you are active on social media.

8. Mix up the content with multimedia. Mix up the format of your content by adding audio, video, interactive diagrams, and PowerPoint presentations to your repertoire. This type of multimedia content is more engaging and perceived as more valuable.

9. Insert multiple links. The goal is to get people to click through to your website to read the content. Make it easy for them to do so by including multiple links throughout the newsletter. Link the headline of the content, include a short description, and include a link to read more. And if you include graphics such as photos and charts, link those to the content on your website.

Follow these nine email newsletter tips and rather than having prospects and clients clicking unsubscribe, you’ll get them clicking “contact us.”

Are you doing enough to stand out from the crowd? (Photo by talk2frank)

Over the past few years, a lot has changed with direct email. The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 laid out enforceable rules for content, sending email, and unsubscribing from lists; more lists became available for purchase; and email became the marketing tool of choice for many firms.

One thing that hasn’t changed, notes Eric Rudolf, is the quality of email. Businesses continue to make the same direct email mistakes that they were making a decade ago, he says in this week’s article, 5 Rules for an Effective Direct Email Marketing Campaign. They write bad subject lines, don’t put the important information in effective places, and bombard subscribers with too many email messages—among other things. All of those factors lead to receivers automatically deleting email, not to mention wasted time and money.

Email done well can be an effective tool for nurturing leads. You can update prospects with information about your services and send prospects articles and other resources to help them with issues they’re dealing with. But the most important things you need when nurturing leads and trying to turn prospects into clients is patience and persistence.

You must be willing to pursue the relationship; do not give up easily, says Peter Bregman in his article, The Key to Becoming a Sales Star (It May Surprise You). Prospects push back, cancel meetings, and reject proposals. The key is to stay the course and continue to reach out to them. The more you do it—just like anything in life—the better you will get.

Don’t Push

Bregman’s advice is similar to what Jill Konrath advises new sellers in her article, Sales Basics: Top 5 Tips for New Sellers, particularly her tip to slow down to speed up sales. Do not be too eager to close sales quickly, for if you try to rush things, your prospects will become more resistant. “When I learned to slow down, parcel information out over multiple meetings, and simply advance the sales process one step at a time, suddenly my sales increased,” Konrath says.

You can speed up the sales cycle slightly with effective search engine marketing, points out Mike Cooch in his podcast interview, How Search Engine Marketing Can Improve the Sales Cycle. That’s because when you do that well, you don’t have to take as much time to educate prospects about the services you offer or sometimes even what it’s like to work with you. Prospects already have that information. When you have a strong online presence that includes quality content (articles, podcasts, and video), case studies, descriptions of services, social media, and paid search engine ads, prospects are prepared to talk about the details of how you can help them, Cooch says.

In fact, those are many of the things buyers look for on a firm’s website, according to a recent RainToday survey. They want the staples, but you need to give them the extras if you want to stand out.

You can also take some of the content on your website and create booklets or downloadable PDF documents with them. Nancy Juetten, founder of Main Street Media, did that, and her booklets quickly became a hit, as she says in this week’s case study, PR Maven Turns Free Services into a Six-Figure Business. The booklets feature a collection of tips and are sold during her speaking engagements. Those who buy the booklets, she says, often engage her services.

Recognizing that people learn in different ways, Juetten also reaches out to people using various media. She created audio files and a live workshop, and she launched a blog. As a result of these efforts, Main Street Media has become a six-figure firm and brought in as much revenue in 2009 as it did in 2008, a time when many firms saw revenue drop. It clearly found a way to stand out in an ever-growing crowd.

Everyone wants to know the best practices for professional services marketing and sales—what are the best practices in cold calling, direct mail, networking, event planning, lead nurturing, etc.?

The question I’m often asked is, “What are the best email send days and times?” My typical answer, “It depends.”

Don't let your email get lost among the many your clients receive

Sure, there is research that tells you certain days and times have the highest open and click-through rates. This research is great and certainly can help you think about when to send your emails. However, just because a certain day and time in the research got the highest open and click-through rates, doesn’t mean you will have the same results.

Furthermore, once a “best practice” for email send time is established, it almost instantly becomes irrelevant. Many firms latch on to the advised time and apply it right away. Suddenly, readers are inundated with email on that particular day and time. They can’t possibly read all of the email messages and the articles included within them, so the open and click-through rates across the board drop (the reverse of what senders had hoped would happen).

To find your best send time, first think about your audience. Ask, “When are they most likely look at and respond to my email?”

Example: If your audience is primarily made up of consultants, a good send day may be a Friday, a day that is typically regarded as a poor day to send email. But if you think about this audience, Friday is when they are back in the office after traveling for the week.

The best, best practice I can give you is to begin testing to find your best practice.

Have you already conducted such tests? What were the results? Was anything contrary to what you believed?

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