How to Stay Visible, Relevant and Remarkable While Trying to Win A Client – in Just 7 Minutes with Adrian Miller

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A one-hour, deep dive into your business as long as that involves sales, marketing, social media, and business growth. If you send me some stuff in advance, I promise to read it and get acquainted and then I will talk about tips, tactics, tricks, techniques that will absolutely help solve some of the issues you may be having. The website is called www.paymewhatyouwant.com.

Summary:

Adrian Miller runs 4 companies that have one common theme - business attraction and growth. Her businesses include sales consulting and training, content development, integrated marketing, and business networking, quite a handful but somehow it more than works!  Her consulting and content expertise includes working with the owners and “C” level executives of companies ranging in size from entrepreneurial start-ups to middle market firms across a vast diversity of industries, and helping them to identify and overcome obstacles to sales growth and increased revenues. She provides customized sales training solutions and content that brings stories to life and she also creates marketing programs that help her clients to woo and win new business.

Here are the highlights of this episode:

1:45 Adrian’s ideal Client: Any company across pretty much every vertical and professional services category that wants to get new business but perhaps even more importantly, wants to retain and grow their existing clients. Particularly important in this point in time when getting new might be a problem now.

2:21 Problem Adrian helps solve: Most of my clients have the inability to deploy really results-driven sales tactics and strategy. They are getting less revenue than desired and, in some cases, than they actually need. So, they may have these tactics and strategies somewhere written out in some process plan but they can't figure out how to get them to work.

3:09 Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Adrian: Definitely decrease revenue and that can be COVID induced or not but definitely decrease in revenue. Lowered morale, anyone in the organization feeling reduced enthusiasm and energy for what they actually do. And the worst, client's attrition. Because that lowered morale usually results in diminished productivity, the deliverables aren't as good as they were or they should be and that leads to client attrition.

4:12 What are some of the common mistakes that folks make before finding Adrian and her solution: First of all, doing it yourself and that self-reliance that entrepreneurs or small business owners have, it's the cold cliché; it's hard to see the picture when you're in the frame, and it really is. And so that's problem number one. Problem number two is kind of a 'new-ish' problem in this era, people think social media is the answer; if they post it, they will come. They see it as very minimal variables to entry, probably three in a lot of cases, and so they reduce their marketing that actually has an investment attached to it. Because if I post on LinkedIn X numbers of times an hour, I'm going to definitely be able to get new clients. So, they don't really continue their investment in marketing and perhaps as well they don't invest in skills enhancement for themselves as well as any staff members they have. It's a full pull back.

5:44 Adrian’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): PICK UP THE PHONE; I know that sounds so old-fashioned, but pick up the phone. And I know it's hard to get people and you'll have to leave voicemails, all the rest of that stuff and that's fine. Because voicemail can be very powerful too. But pick up the phone and 'stay on brain'; don't become invisible, unrecognizable but pick up the phone and utilize some of those skills and tactics that were very useful and effective in older days. And go back to basics, and definitely stay visible. We have competition that's happening worldwide now, our competition is not only across the screen or in the same city. It could be 10,000 miles away just as easily. Make sure to stay on the brain of your prospects, clients, referral sources, networking contacts and all those business 'friends' you have that need to remember you.

7:03 Adrian’s Valuable Free Resource (VFR): It's another website called paymewhatyouwant.com. And what that means is, there is a one-hour, deep dive into your business as long as that involves sales, marketing, social media, and business growth. Not operations, finance, or any of that. It's a conversation, we'll go as deep as the time allows. If you send me some stuffs in advance I promise to read it and get acquainted and then I will talk about tips, tactics, tricks, techniques that will absolutely help solve some of the issues you may be having, show up some of the things you're doing and make them be deployed in a better way. It's a no conversation about money, no talk about money, it's strictly your hour.

8:14 I have a very long sales cycle; how do I stay visible because checking-in and touch-based really just makes me a pain in the butt? The three I's: introduction, invitation, and information. Number one, reach out to all those people that you want to stay visible with. Make introductions. Introduce them to people proactively. People who have synergies not only business synergies but perhaps synergies in their personal life as well. No one ever ignores us on email or a call from a connector. Two, invite them to think. Share all these zoom things we have going on, all these podcasts, networking groups, all these different things add a tremendous amount of value for our business. And to share an invitation, all you have to do is press forward, and the work is done for you. Introductions you actually have to write but invitations are already there. Information is a little more difficult but incredibly impactful. Be known as a thought leader, as a true business resource, share best practices through TED, through very reputable newsletters and business publications. Share links to videos that you just know have general business interest and provide a comment about it. And so, the three I's and value to the relationship even before there is a business relationship, keeps you upfront and recognizable in a very positive light.