I used to be like that …years ago…but NOT anymore. I used my suffering to drive myself to find a PERMANENT SOLUTION…which is what I now share below.
Too Many “Qualified” Experts Lack Reliable Sales & Marketing Expertise
Over the past 10 years of my life as an entrepreneur, especially while I was still based in Lagos-Nigeria, I had several encounters with individuals claiming to be “graduates” in some professional field or vocation, from popular “schools”.
My interactions with them however repeatedly revealed one major gap in their skills set: a lack of business marketing/project management skills or know-how.
By this I mean they had paper evidence to show they possessed technical skills (I had no way of verifying their competence levels though).
But discussions with them, and observation of some at work, showed an often severe shortage of crucial self/project management, as well as business marketing/selling skills.
And this often prevented them making enough money to profit from using their skills to serve clients.
Here’s Why This Problem Keeps Occurring…
I’ve given this a lot of thought, in order to understand why it continues to happen.
My conclusion is that people fail to take personal action to help themselves.
You see, while I was afflicted with the same limitation, I helped myself by reading books by experts who were successful in selling and marketing themselves to clients.
I studied the works of seasoned experts like Burt Dubin (renowned expert in business marketing and professional public speaking), Jeffery Meyer (then the owner of http://www.succeedinginbusiness.com) and Brent Sinclair (of http://www.sitepoint.com).
The 3 of them regularly shared their experience based insights on finding and winning clients, as well as doing business profitably with such clients…
I subscribed to their newsletters and reaped timeless sales and marketing wisdom from reading their powerful write ups.
Every now and then I would sit back and think of how to adapt those ideas to suit my local situation in Nigeria at the time.
It goes without saying that I did not get it right overnight. No one ever does.
But over time I was able to develop an adaptation that worked for me in my market, in dealing with my preferred target audience.
And I have gone from sales and marketing strength to strength since then.
Indeed today, my proficiency in using my unique strategies makes it possible for me to get paid handsomely 100% up front 99% of the time I get hired.
What’s more, the clients who pay me in this manner never begrudge me for making them do so.
Indeed, I continue to get lots of THANK YOU emails, phone text messages as well as phone calls!
If YOU Are a Competent Expert, & You Struggle to Achieve Similar Results, It’s VERY LIKELY NOT Your Fault!
You see, it all goes back to how we were taught in “school” at all levels.
Teachers and lecturers simply teach us the theory, but they often forget to factor in the real world we are headed into, to help us better prepare!
For instance, I often read and hear about certain organizations offering training to enthusiastic learners on “Web design, software development etc” – which happen to be fields in which I offer niche solutions.
What I have however discovered is that most of these training events never include teaching the attendees :
(a) How to find potential customers.
(b) How to sell successfully to such potential customers.
(c) How to negotiate to win profitable jobs with the right customer types.
(d) How to plan and implement projects won to ensure completion to client satisfaction.
(e) How to use completed projects and satisfied clients to win jobs from new clients – and repeat business from existing customers.
No matter how expert you are in DOING what you do, a lack of proficiency in the above 5 areas can prove to be a fatal handicap to your PROFIT making success!
This is why I want to share my own experience based insights to help experts looking for answers to solve that problem for themselves.
Here’s what I recommend you do…
A. Identify Your Ideal Customer:
You need to first and foremost develop ways and means of identifying people in the market place who fit the target audience profile for your product or service.
These would be people who feel a compelling need for the solutions you offer, to the extent that they will gladly seek you out, and engage you in serious discussion about hiring you to do if for them.
The key to your long term profitable success will be developing a reliable system for identifying where such people can be reached in large numbers with your offers.
You will do even better if you can setup a system to make MORE of such people find – and come to – you on their own, over time.
This latter strategy is what I use to win profitable clients regularly, They come to me via phone, email, Facebook etc. I do NOT go chasing them.
If you want to read a 3 part article that explains how I make the foregoing happen, fill/submit this form to request it, and I’ll sent the links to you.
B. Decide How To Reach Him/Her:
Many times, it is better to spend time THINKING and PLANNING before you jump on to the streets and start DOING.
No matter how much money you have at your disposal, doing this will help you get better results, than if you did not do it.
Indeed, my well over one decade of experience has taught me that when you have “enough” money, it can sometimes make you less prepared to STOP and THINK about the most effective way to reach your target customer.
You tend to get “itchy pockets/fingers” – ever so willing to spend and then “wait to see what happens”.
I urge you to save your money for those more crucial situations when you will need it. In fact, it would be smarter for you to think and act like someone who does not have enough money!
How does such a person behave?
Well, s/he is more likely to stop and think before spending available funds, until s/he is sure it will yield reasonable returns/benefits that will move the business forward.
A lot of people think if they throw money at their business marketing, it will eventually yield the results they want.
That often turns out to be a costly mistake. And most do not recover from it.
In other words, quite rarely does that “shooting in the dark” method work.
A better approach, based on tested and proven methods, is to explore/experiment using a variety of ways to reach your intended customers, and objectively measuring which gives you the best results.
Over time, you can build on what you learn from doing so, to win more customers – at less cost.
Following years of painful struggles and hardship, when cash shortages tormented me, my philosophy has been to aim to spend as close to ZERO naira (or dollar) as possible to win every new customer.
That strategy has enabled me stay profitable without feeling pressed to raise my prices even when others less cost-conscious had to!
You may have to develop and test your own ideas, till you find something that works for you in the same way.
C. Present (& Negotiate) Your Offering:
For some people, the prospective customers eventually start coming as they market and/or advertise.
But, due to this inadequacy I mentioned (i.e. not knowing how to be profitable), instead of making good profits, that’s when such experts struggle the most!
This happens because they typically have difficulty being assertive with clients. As a result, they are unable to make offers to prospective clients on their own terms.
So they end up being arm-twisted by clients to accept to do jobs way beyond the scope agreed, working longer than they quoted for, and getting paid less than they negotiated.
In fact, negotiation (i.e. lack of smart negotiating skills) is one major area of weakness for a lot of the experts I refer to here.
They let clients “fool” them with “I want everything and more that you can do, but I don’t have enough money to pay you profitably, so please help me” propositions.
By so doing, they keep taking on jobs without getting paid enough to do them. Sometimes they end up finishing without getting paid a bulk of their fees. I HAVE see this happen several times!
And this is why such experts go from job to job barely able to make ends meet.
My advice: Always tell prospects/clients what you can do for them using simple English, not technical jargon.
Most times they will be non-techies. It is important that you help them SEE the end you aim to deliver to them in their minds’ eyes.
For instance, in discussing a web design/marketing project, you can say something like this:
“Would you not like to have potential customers discover your website on their own, without YOU having to give them your website address by yourself?”
Once they buy into your “offer”, they will ask how much – most serious prospects will ask this question at some point, before your discussion ends.
You should respond by telling them your price and giving reasons for your fee if they ask – making sure to add that a reduction in price below a certain point will mean delivery of LESS product/service.
To be able to work in this manner, you must have spent good quality time THINKING of how to cost your products/services(including your time), so that your explanations will be convincing.
NB: Some clients will tell you to do work for them at a loss, so that you can then use them to win new clients that would give you a profitable project to do.
Do NOT accept to work that way.
I say this from personal experience: If the client truly values your expertise, s/he will have no difficulty letting you make a profit in serving him/her.
D. Do Your Job – And DO IT WELL:
If/when you eventually get hired, one would hope (for your sake) that you have the competence to deliver to standard that satisfies the client.
If you do not have the competence, one would hope (again for your sake!) that you actually have one or more resource persons you can call on to HELP you get the work done on time, and to the desired standard.
Success at this point would result in a happy customer, and a completed job you can “refer to or show off” to win over more customers (like I periodically do)
Failure here could make you look very bad!
Final Words: If you are NOT making money PROFITABLY from serving EACH clients as an expert in your field, it’s likely because you have not properly developed the business side of your operations – mentioned above.
But take heart. Correcting this problem will NOT be anything close to rocket science. And it certainly will not require you to go attend an MBA class.
You just need to develop the right methods, and processes for dealing with your prospects, and your clients.
I developed mine by learning from (hard, painful) experience, and also by studying what others have written about their own experiences, and achievements.
You can do the same.
PS: If you’re looking for reliable guidance, Burt Dubin – who I earlier mentioned learning a lot from on this subject – offers proven guidance to marketing and selling yourself PROFITABLY to clients as an expert-who-speaks.
Visit his website – www.speakingsuccess.com – to read his timeless articles on business marketing and expert-public-speaking.
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Have a great week :-))
