Eric Albertson's

www.SucceedingInBusiness.com

In this issue: Getting heard through the noise

by Eric Albertson

Succeeding In Business helps commission-dependent individuals, organizations, and leaders that are seriously committed to enhancing their ability make more money, while working less. Does that describe you? If so, read on.

Today we are going to talk about Getting heard through the noise.

Word Count: 932

Time to read: 3-4 minutes

Summary

Three tactics that anyone can use to cut through the noise and get heard on their way to making more, while working less.

The pain

Recently a reader named Joan called with this complaint: "I can't seem to cut through the noise out there, to get my target market's attention and get them to say, 'Tell me more, enough times to make my new numbers. What can I do?" (Joan is a financial advisor in a large metro area.)

The desired ultimate outcome

I asked her what her goal was that prompted her to call. She said, "Reading your newsletter has helped me make more money every year since 2003. Some things have changed for me. Recently my husband was hurt in an accident and I am now the sole bread-winner in my family. I need to grow my commissions by 50% or more this year

"No matter how hard I work, I just don't see how I can do this. I just can'tseem to get past the roar created by the competition. What I really want is to change how I do things, make the money I need, and still have a life. Can you help?"

First, I shared this comment with her:

"As a new sales manager at a new company, I was able to go from last to first place, 3rd quarter, on the whole West Coast and doubled my business, using the principles I learned in the Succeeding In Business Marketing Fast Track program. Certainly I added skill, hard work and motivation. The Marketing Fast Track showed me how to build a message that gets people to say, "Tell me more." From there, I can convert them to sales."

~Kim Bishop
Sales manager
www.employee-benefits-custom-designed.com

What did Succeeding In Business suggest Joan do to get results like Kim got? This was a challenging situation. Here are the issues that Joan had, the changes we suggested, and the results she is enjoying. You can do these on your own or with help from our materials or classes. (Click here to get more information if you want some help.)

Issue	Change	Result
No targeting. Joan was in the "spray and pray" business. Talking about a specific pain common to a tightly- defined target is a big key to getting heard.	Build a list of "best- customer" clients who are all similar, such as "consulting practices with $5M to $20M in annual revenues, and then target the president, CEO or owner. Call and offer a free tele-class on how other people like them were solving a common investment issue with ESOP and other investment plans.	Joan was shocked to realize she previously had less than 10% of this "best-customer" market on her target list. She was delighted when 30% signed up to hear how they could solve this problem. She had assumed that everybody already knew.
Not getting action. Joan was great at precisely describing the problems she solved, but horrible at getting targets to action. She bored people to death.	Joan quit telling her targets how she was going to solve the problem, and just talked about the outcomes she was getting for others like them.	The appointment rate more than doubled. Everyone seemed to say, "Tell me more," because she was talking about their pain and their win.
Not converting. Once they said, "Tell Me More," Joan never said the same thing twice in a row.	We had Joan share a story, and ask for an appropriate next action step, instead of blathering on about what she did.	Joan was shocked at how many people said either, "How do we get started?" or, "When can we meet to take the next step?"

Additional Benefits
As you might suspect, the material above is just a portion of the success tips that we at Succeeding in Business provided.

No surprise: Joan started getting heard, and is most of the way to meeting and exceeding the 50 percent bump she needed, to take care of her family while her husband made his lengthy recovery from his accident injuries.

Credibility

More than 5,000 financial advisors, who represent practically every major brand, read the Succeeding in Business Success Tips Newsletter each week. A member of the Succeeding In Business team has been a very successful stockbroker in the past for a major New York firm.

Call to Action

If you want some help breaking through, and want to know more about how the Marketing Fast Track program might help you, we will have a 60-minute, no- cost introductory course overview on Monday, October 8th, at 11 a.m. Pacific Time. Send me email (eric@succeedinginbusiness.com), with the words, Get Heard, in the subject line and you will be sent instructions, links, and a course guide, so you can participate in this no- cost program overview.

If you want to take action now, to make sure you get one of the 30 seats that will be offered in the last marketing course offered in 2007, you can register here. This will guarantee that you won't be left out. As always, we insist on your satisfaction, and offer a 100 percent, no- questions-asked guarantee. For more information, click here.

The rest of the story

Joan is doing great. She still fights the temptation to tell her targets about her firm's great research and so on.

She still can't get over the fact that the problem she solved for her targets was strictly about how she would service the account, and how she would communicate, and that it had nothing to do with anything that financial services people usually talk about. Joan's mindset was the thing that changed the most.

Her targets told her that they figured rates of return would be about the same, no matter who they went with. But finding someone who could prove they understood their "unique" situations and communications needs was what carried the day.

How about you? Is this a problem you want to have?

If so, just keep reading the Success Tips Newsletter, and drop me an email if you want to listen in, when we do a no-cost Webinar about additional ways you can make more, while working less.
To your health, wealth and happiness,

Eric

Eric Albertson
Succeeding In Business
eric@succeedinginbusiness.com
503-635-2319

PS: You might have noticed that I have begun inserting the marketing syntax structure (pain, ultimate outcome, story, additional benefits, credibility, call to action, etc.) in my newsletters. I want to help you understand how you can use that marketing syntax, which we teach in our Marketing Fast Track: 7 Simple Steps to More Clients course. Helping everyone see how we walk our talk seemed like a good thing to do. What do you think? Drop me an email and let me know: eric@succeedinginbusiness.com

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