Stop Scaring Off Potential Clients with Sales Based Marketing!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It appears that coaches & consultants who use sales-based marketing as their primary marketing strategy are doomed to failure before they begin.

Just about every coach is using a marketing methodology  that is sales-based.  It is easy to understand why this is so when you consider that most traditional marketing methods are sales-based.  At every turn we make, all of us are impacted by sales-based marketing such as newspapers, billboards, TV, magazines and radio.

Coaches are more than likely to learn about traditional sales-based marketing methods when they do their research on marketing methodologies.  These would include print ads in the yellow pages, magazines, newspapers and journals as well as direct telephone calls, direct mail letters, radio, fliers, etc.

When coaches employ a sales-based marketing method, they are up against some powerful forces.

  • Most coaches would rather not deliver a ‘sales pitch’ as they would feel uncomfortable doing this.  They would feel as though they were out of their element if they have to talk about themselves and endorse their product’s quality. This generally means that they don’t close a sale. And this in turn comes across to their prospects as a lack of confidence in themselves, and can be perceived as a lack of knowledge or confidence in their product or service.
  • Sales marketing is quite expensive and it narrows your net margin on your product or service.  You will understand that the more you spend to get a client, the less net profit you will be making at the end.
  • When it comes to different sales approaches, you will find that people are usually very skeptical and defensive.  This will exponentially increase the barrier of making a sale.  If you are going to employ a sales based marketing methodology, you will find that most of your prospects will have already closed their minds off to learning about your services due to their natural tendency to put up a defense against sales-based marketing.
  • When you use a sales-based marketing approach, you cannot build up trust or rapport with your clients.  In order for a prospect to buy from you, there must be an element of trust between you and your client.  Your client needs to trust that you will be able to deliver on your promises, and that they will gain a positive return on their investment.  This level of trust is quite hard to build when you use a sales-based marketing approach.

 
  • You will be unable to build a reciprocal obligation on the client to investigate your offer or purchase from you.  It is a natural human tendency to reciprocate in kind what has been given to you.  When you use the sales-based marketing method, you will not be able to build reciprocal obligation.
  • The only clients you will end up attracting are price sensitive shoppers and ‘tire kickers’ who will take up much of your time and will result in extremely low conversion.
  • It is very difficult to maintain contact with your prospects for the amount of time you will need in order to build up trust and rapport; before a prospect will buy from you, it will take between 4 to 6 contacts.

Instead of using a sales-based approach, you should use education-based marketing.  This is simply the process whereby you are able to attract and convert highly qualified clients by giving them what they want – valuable information and the advice they need to solve their problems – and take away what they do not want – a sales pitch.

Education-based marketing is usually undertaken by delivering credibility marketing techniques such as information based teleclasses, networking, free educational give-aways (assessments, e-courses, reports, tools and a content and information rich website)

You will find that education-based marketing is diametrically opposed to sales-based marketing.  Here are several points to ponder:

  • You will give your clients what they really want – highly valuable information.  You subtract what they do not want – a sales pitch.
  • You will maintain your dignity and will feel good about yourself because you never make an effort to sell.
  • Your brand recognition and respect will go off the charts!  Education-based marketing is the ultimate brand builder.  When you position yourself as the ‘expert’ or ‘specialist’ by being a problem solver through your educational products, your niche will confront you with the most pressing issues.  You become the only logical choice in your market.
  • You will be able to establish yourself as a credible authority as your clients will depend upon you as a reliable source of valuable advice and information.  When you happen to give a sales pitch, you are often breaking rapport with your client because he or she may be skeptical – no one wishes to be “sold”.  When you educate, rapport is being built.  If you happen to build a website in your niche you will want to teach your prospect something first.  In this manner, your client will feel that you have done your homework.

 
  • Your marketing costs will significantly decrease – and can get paid to market yourself.  This will vastly compound the net worth of every prospect that you attract.  You will be able to earn double the net profit with only half of the clients.
  • You will not have to seek out new prospects – they will be knocking on your door to have their problems solved.
  • You will be able to maintain mutually beneficial contact with your clients through the sales process.  This will happen because they will not feel pressured by a sales pitch and they will value your information and advice.
  • You can reach out to your clients early during the first stages of their decision making process..  Remember that there are lots of prospects on the Internet that are hungry for information.  You are going to have to decide on what information you are going to feed to your prospects.
  • You will attract ‘moderately interested’ clients who may be a bit wary to call you, but they will not be too timid to request your information.
  • Because of the high level of trust and rapport that was built early on, you will be perceived as an advisor and not as a salesperson, making added-value sales dramatically easier.
  • Your referrals will dramatically increase from your prospects as they feel loyal to you due to a relationship that is built on trust and reciprocal obligation and your effort to help them even if they do not hire you!  Your referrals will come much sooner in your relationship.
  • You will gain a compounded advantage because your information will be passed freely between clients within your niche.
  • You will gain a competitive edge because not that many of your competitors are using education-based marketing.
  • You will achieve a highly leveraged advantage because you will be able to put forward your marketing even when you are not present.
  • Valuable time is saved as you are often delivering your message directly to most highly qualified target audience.

Hopefully you can now see that education-based marketing is in exact opposition to sales-based marketing.  It can make an extraordinary difference to your business and you will even enjoy ‘doing’ business. The bottom line is this: if you want your sales to go through the roof, then you are going to have to use education-based marketing.

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