2. A planned
and tested route from contact to sign-on will guarantee much
more results
The second
vital necessity in any prospecting system is that it GOES
SOMEWHERE.
With this I
mean that there must be a well-planned ROUTE on which the prospecting
activity embarks those potential clients it produces.
If you just
start getting prospects with only a vague idea on what to DO
with them... well, it's not going to work out very well, is it?
And you're
sure to quit your prospecting if what you DO with those potential
clients produces NO RESULTS soon enough, aren't you?
The traditional
marketing strategy is to do a presentation of your firm and services
to potential clients found. Only... that's not really effective,
is it?
Again, the
same "culprit" emerges: The traditional marketing strategy
of Accounting services stipulates doing a presentation in which
you propound the virtue of your firm and excellence of the service.
Only... it
doesn't work that way.
Instead, it
creates exactly the OPPOSITE effect to what you want. Don't be
fooled by the conservative crust of the prospect - he will sit
there politely and hear you out.
But he won't
be interested - and simply because of the traditional approach.
Ask yourself:
How do YOU experience one of those presentations where someone,
in an obvious attempt to get your money - wants you to believe
how perfect his company and service are?
It may well
BE almost-perfect. He may well BE the best there is.
But the fact
that HE is the one ASSERTING HIS OWN PERFECTION is nothing
short of outlandish, isn't it?
It is that
aspect of it - that HE is the source of this self-asserting
splendour of what you get in exchange for your money - that makes
it simply unbelievable.
For the first,
when MONEY is involved, there's always the issue of vested interest.
By this day and age, everyone understands perfectly well WHY
he would want you to believe exactly what he tells you. It is
in HIS interest that you believe - which makes it not-necessarily
in YOUR interest to just accept it all at face value.
For the second,
the traditional marketing presentation flies in the face of what
people consider GOOD MANNERS. Asserting one's own importance
and excellence does not comply with what we consider acceptable
behaviour.
Turn the flow
around - and it WILL work!
The traditional
marketing presentation of Accounting services doesn't produce
results simply because it is YOU telling him those laudable things
about your firm.
It destroys
believability and in its stead, you introduce doubt in his mind.
In other words,
he will doubt what you say because it would be so clearly in
YOUR interests that he believed. So, your best points go wasted
- he will immediately suspect the very benefits he SHOULD believe
in order to sign on!
The answer
is to TURN AROUND the roles.
You don't talk
about yourself but about HIM. And you NEVER use superlatives
about your firm or service - but you get HIM to choose what is
important, what is valuable, what the benefits could be... and
HE forms those favourable facts about you in his own mind as
opinions.
That's the
Modern Accountancy Marketing presentation!
There's a detailed article on presentation elsewhere on this
site that explains the difference between traditional and modern
presentation of Accounting services, so I won't go on with this
here. But suffice it to say you need something else than the
traditional presentation to get those potential clients signing
onto your services.
The vital importance
of first contact
The first contact
is crucial in laying the groundwork for your chances with each
potential client. Obviously, it doesn't END there - the end goal
is not to get prospects but real clients signed onto
your services.
If fact, you
need a whole SET of well-planned steps that you take the prospects
through in order to ensure RESULTS in form of new clients. If
the prospecting system that you're contemplating doesn't HAVE
those steps or if the steps aren't tested... it's not likely
to bring you the results you expect.
So, check out
that the prospecting system you choose has TAKES those potential
clients somewhere and is planned out before you even start prospecting.
As you will later see in this article, there are lots of things
you need to go through with each prospect to ENSURE a high sign-on
ratio. It is quite doable - but only if you know exactly what
the steps are and how to do each of them.
Miracles do happen in marketing - but only to those who know
how to produce them.
Luck has very
little to do with results because the law of average evens the
odds between good and bad luck!
With the Modern
Accountancy Marketing technology, you don't NEED luck because
your whole prospecting is based on and leading to a planned and
tested route from contact to sign-on. I know, it's sort of boring
- but it gets much more results. Try this system and you'll see
an immediate increase in results - and how easy it is when you
have the whole route planned from start to the end!
CLICK
HERE to get back to the main article on the seven-point prospecting
system analysis.
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