PRACTICE MARKETING blog

On Ethical Selling Thumb Rule #11: Book A Meeting From A Meeting

Tarzan could travel through the jungle faster than anyone, never breaking a sweat, while at the same time avoiding the pitfalls (think snakes) that awaited him on the path everyone else took. He did it by becoming intimately familiar with his environment and using it to his advantage.

We all know that Tarzan would race through the jungle by swinging from one vine to another. The trick was to grab the next vine as his ride on the current vine was ending, then smoothly transition forward.

Back here in civilization, we would be well advised to become intimately familiar with our client development and client service environments. One simple way to transition from one vine to the next is to set a date for your next meeting at the end of your present one.

I learned this simple, highly effective marketing/service habit from my chiropractor (whether you “believe in chiropractors” or not is not relevant for this discussion). Every time I finished getting adjusted, it was protocol for me to go to the reception desk and book my next appointment. Depending on how I felt I was doing, I would make the appointment or choose not to.

So by booking a meeting from a meeting, my chiropractor (or his assistant) didn’t have to make a note to call Dominick to see when he wants to come in again. He did a better job of fixing my problem, made his practice run more smoothly and had more billable visits.

Even if you “pencil in” an appointment with a client or prospective client for a future date, it’s “in the book” until one of you calls to take it out. Suppose a tax accountant sits down with her client in March to prepare his personal returns. Might it make sense to pencil in an appointment for a quarterly review before the client leaves the office?

If it typically takes several “touches” for a prospective client to become your actual client, “book a meeting from a meeting” can be your Plan B if the prospect doesn’t hire you at the end of the current meeting. Have a reason (or quiver of reasons) to reconnect again at an appointed time.

This method is also can work if you don’t like selling, or if your prospect doesn’t like deciding. If a prospect meets with you three, four, or even five times, there comes a point where you can take the lead and let them know when to expect their bill.

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"Take a picture with your clients and link them to your website. Ask them for a reciprocal link"Better yet grab your camcorder and record a video testimonial - Call your client and tell them that you would like to come to their place of work and get a video testimonial. It doesn't matter what kind of work they do, construction biz - go to the job site, restaurant biz - go there, an if the work in an office even better. Use a tripod, you can get one for as little as $20, it will take a better quality video, you will also look like a pro. When you go to their place of work and set-up the tripod, their co-workers will be curious and will want to watch. Try to get as much privacy it will add to the curiosity. If possible try to get the logo of your clients business in the shoot, which will help promote their biz.. Once completed make sure to leave any collateral material that your client can hand out to co-workers once you leave.

The video should be short and sweet. Upload it to your YouTube and own site. Call your client and tell them the link is on the way, then send the link. Ask them to create a new e-mail with the link of the video to your website. Tell your client not to evaluate who it might be good for - just get it out to as many of their network. Let The Power of The Video Testimonial Flourish

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When I work with clients, our relationship is forged on what I call "The 10 Basics." It is what it sounds like. And even seasoned professionals have to go back to the basics once they are serious about marketing their personal brands. One of these basics is their "Marketing-friendly Bio." Some of my clients have a CV (curriculum vitae) or resume; but most have to dust it off.

Don't worry about the past. Start from scratch. We don't want a boring litany of professional moves. As a practicing professional, your Marketing-friendly Bio should show-off your expertise, experience, and enjoyment. I've attached a template of 7 thumb-rules, with my own bio as an example. More importantly, erase what I wrote, and brag about yourself.

Remember your professional codes of ethics and what compliance/legal wants to see. Name-drop and use "keywords" your target prospects would catch onto. Moreover, let the star within you shine!

(This is a wonderful exercise to do with your networking circles. Learn how to brag about one another.)

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David J. Bilinsky is the Practice Management Advisor and staff lawyer for the Law Society of British Columbia. He is a Fellow of the College of Law Practice Management and the Editor-in-Chief of Law Practice Magazine (American Bar Association). He also authors his own blawg at thoughtfullaw.com:

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Full "Web 2.0 Direct Marketing" panel seminar, hosted by the Direct Marketing Association of Long Island.

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I AM BACK! Yes, there is a big gap between the last post and this one... nearly 2 months. I took the month of March off (from my practice and from blogging) to tour the Philippines, on behalf of the Rotary Club Foundation (its Group Study Exchange for young professionals). It was wonderful to see how the Rotarians are improving the extreme disparity.

While over there, I did 2 impromptu seminars: 1, for their largest privately-held real estate development & management firm, Century Properties (owned by their Ambassador to China, Mr. Jose Antonio - who recited my bio from memory).

My 2nd seminar in March was for Philamlife, aka AIG Philippines, their largest insurance agency (SGA). I addressed over 21 MDRT (Million Dollar Round Table) qualifiers, and 30 aspirants at their first team meeting; Philamlife CEO, Mr. Jose L. Cuisia, Jr. was in attendance. I sold dozens of books, and expect to return to do more business in the near future... BUT NOW ONTO MORE PRACTICE MARKETING THUMB-RULES:

A big area of interest (and focus) for my clients with firms, and especially for the agency managers and broker-dealers that I work with is RECRUITING.

I am in the process of developing 2 recruitment programs, based on our Personal Brand Marketing Model™. My column on this topic is featured in the free version of Personal Branding magazine. You can get a copy at PersonalBrandingSample.com.

While the issue is really dedicated to "being recruited," as the e-zine's Entrepreneurship Branding columnist, I focused my article on "recruiting others." Here's a quick video featuring the publisher:

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I was having lunch with two of my clients; I was introducing them (there's a tip).

And during it, one of my clients talked about a quick anecdote that illustrates the importance of dressing appropriately.  He was going to meet with an executive at a top big box retailer.  He had heard they had a very laid back culture at their Texas HQ.  In fact, he was told that he may want to dress casually.

He took that advice and threw up a nice pair of khaki's and a button-down shirt emblazoned with their corporate logo.  When he entered the lobby to meet his prospective client, the client was in a pair of jeans and cowboy boots!  Whew, thank goodness he wasn't in the traditional garb of sales professional.

In such a scenario, the dark suit, white tie, and red tie combo - a sure bet for a banker - would have turned off the prospective client.  At best it would have made the prospect uncomfortable, or worst brand my client a NY city slicker.  Matching your character style and tone is essential for building rapport!

Sometimes, it's great to stand out!  (For example, when you're the MC hype-man for the evening fundraiser.)  And other times, it's better to fit in with the community culture.  Have you ever made a fashion faux pas?

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10 years ago today... well, yesterday... I launched my SUNY Albany's creative writing magazine, The Fountain Pen. The name was a pun on all the celebrated fountains around campus. Earlier this month, 10 years ago, I had produced an advert calling for submissions.

The call to action was simple and to the point. I started the magazine because there was a void: Our campus of over 20,000 students did not have a creative writing & arts magazine; and more selfishly, I didn't have a soapbox for my writing.

(Incidentally, I got into a lot of flack because I didn't feel censoring the rants of our students was prudent. As you can imagine, the angst and diversity could clash with more conservative viewpoints. I defended our write to express ourselves to the end.)

And now, 10 years later, my plea to you is to do the same. It need not be poetry or short stories, but articles from your expertise will help position your personal brand.

The Albany Student Press, and The Fountain Pen, used to have a Wikipedia page... alas, it is now gone. Ah well, at least I still have my original ad hanging up and the original issues somewhere.

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Ah, there are so many ways we can influence the way people perceive our personal brand. But our real personal brand - our genetic code - is hardwired (for now).

What if we could understand (and improve) our whole DNA, and our genetic strengths and weaknesses? And what if we could have our medicine tailored to our genes? And what if we could google our genetic family tree & our distant relatives? Well, welcome to the future personal brand community:

23andMe.com, started by Anne Wojcicki, the wife of Google founder, Sergey Brin, is going to help us store, analyze, and possibly create a search-based community of our genetic code -- for free. Google has invested about $4 mil into this company; and has many genetic research companies as investors too.

A couple of the blogs I read referenced the Forbes article about it. It's worth the read. And the webcast about the company powering the genetic deciphering (Illumina) is also facinating. Preview the audio through the slideshow; it can get a bit technical, but fast-forward to the truly sci-fi future we will experience in the next few years.

The future is now. Your personal brand community is about to go genetic. And our family tree is about to expand big-time!  ...talk about personal brand SEO!

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It happened to me again: I was commenting on somebody else's blog, and I got inspired to elaborate on my point here. (You can read my comments, featured on other people's blogs, on the lower right hand side of this page, later.)

Branding is all about pulling prospects to you (or your product) with an emotional connection... We're moved by great brands; great brands are movements. The Culting of Brands is a great book on this subject.

Corporate Brands force this emotional connection: After all, it take mighty marketing mavens to have us fall in love with what is really a multi-national, multi-billion-dollar, conglomerate. But we do.

Personal Brands, on the other hands, have natural emotional connections. We are a naturally inspired, moved, and are attracted to other people. As we start focusing on what makes our character and charisma distinctive, we immediately differentiate our competency. As we focus on a community to which we can relate, we naturally develop personal brand appeal.

A happy medium between corporate branding (what I call a "forced emotional connection") and personal branding (aah, "natural emotional connection") is Mascot Branding. For those of us who don't want to really capitalize on ourselves, or make our business dependent on our reputation (a vulnerable position as Martha and Imus both felt), we can leverage the personal brand appeal of a MASCOT.

We can think of many other famous companies who use mascots to personify their own service, or their "evil" competitor, a lousy or great customer: In fact, we can vote on them and see the winner parade at NY's Advertising Week "Favorite Icon".

Marketing a mascot is just like marketing any other personal brand. We can build a whole world around our mascots even, as the Caveman's Crib is doing: It's an experience worthy of its distraction -- learn a few "immersive experience" marketing lessons from playing around on the Caveman's Crib website.

If you don't want to leverage your reputation, or want to embellish your own personal brand... consider the route of the Mascot. For example, Adam Schwam, founder of Sandwire - a computer technology services company, regularly uses mascots in his marketing and advertising. I interviewed him last summer for a book that I'm writing. Since then we've grown a cool relationship; we're working on writing a "marketing technology" column together and more. (In fact, his illustrator, Michael Mastermaker is the one who drew me for the cover of my Audio-Books.)

I'll be visiting a new client this afternoon. I know he wants to sell his business after a few years, so he may not want to develop and leverage his own personal brand. Let's see if he can think outside-the-box of what's traditional for his industry. By creating a legendary mascot, he would immediately set his company and his "commoditized" service apart. When he's ready, he can also very easily sell the rights to the business & its mascot - an income-producing asset.

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All of my comments on other people's blog are listed on the right hand side of my blog through a cool utility called CoComment. For example, I just commented on Maria Elena's blog and felt my comment was worthwhile enough as a post here!

Core Values is vital to our inner Character (our outer Character is our Style). Yet reading corporate mission statements that list core values is like reading about motherhood and apple pie... Of course, of course, of course. Your personal brand core values should immediately make you stand out; after all, you're unique just as you are!

We all tend to agree with what I call the "MOTHERHOOD 5." It's the 5 values our mother's taught us. When we violate them, it is the most destructive and leads to the common media scandals. So we better remind ourselves, affirm 'em, and follow em... but our personal brands should go beyond these: 1. Honesty 2. Accountability (integrity) 3. Trust 4. Loyalty 5. Lawfullness.

How we put these principles into action may vary: For example, is going 85 in a 55 zone violating our core values? Not for me

But more important for our Personal Brand core values, are the ones that MOST PEOPLE don't share: Its the values and principles that make us who we are, and differentiate us from the rest. Its also the values that help us connect with a niche target market Community that most of our peers won't.

For example... I have 3 core values that most people do not share: 1) Entrepreneurship - Less 5% of our nation practices this value, even though we are the global leader in free enterprise 2) Vegetarianism - Less than 10% practice a day-to-day philosophy of not killing animals for a living. 3) Frugality - I'm cheap. I don't thrive on status: I enjoy making money and spending money on people... but not on commodities. Ironically, I enjoy looking beyond brand status and am more practical. Personal brands are worth the emotional and economic value; rarely are corporate brands.

So beyond the typical "Motherhood 5" (the values our mom taught us), what are your core values that shape your personal brand?? I look forward to reading about you! Got anything to add to my Motherhood 5?

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The July/August issue of Harvard Business Review features an article that discusses a new study about "What makes an expert?"

My quick podcast highlights the best parts.

...speaking of experts, I was interviewed to be on a panel of Blogging Tips, by the Egg Marketing Blog. Click here to read the 5-part series.

Happy listening!

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Want to make a splash with your next seminar or event invitation?

Want to grab the attention of prospective clients?

Want to get 'em keep talking about you... with INSTANT BUZZ?

Want to thank somebody in a fun way?

Here's how to generate more Response from your next Regular mail campaign! Your clients & prospects will surely remember you & talk about you, even when you're not there!!

Quick 3 minute audio photo slideshow of me doing it!  Ad specialties, promotional items, and greeting cards are always great... but, this is the best choice for cost, safety, novelty, & fun appeal! What other great Regular mail response gimmicks you got?

Sendaball.com send a ball The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch

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Isn't it ironic? Personal branding started with the oldest profession....

Politicians..

And yet they yearn to be so alike... logo colors RWB are all-American (and worldly too).

Sure... but as Americans we should be proud to stand out for what we believe!

If you had to vote by logo... who's got 2008?

Thanks to Matt of 37signals for the pic & post inspiration.

i heart huckabee --- at least he dared to use Yellow.

... and I love that Obama uses a circle, reminiscent of his initial... and a new dawn, over our Stripes. Aaah... (hmm, would a rising Star look awkward?)

Who d'you think got the best p'Brand Logo??

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So why bother with blogs? 1) Reading blogs help stay up with the trends in your world. 2) Commenting on blogs help you practice articulating your point of view. 3) Commenting on blogs also helps grow in-links to your website or blog. 4) Commenting on blogs also furthers your Personal Brand positioning. 5) Hosting your own blog gives you a soapbox platform. Make it worthwhile.

Doing all 5 can take a lot of time. Well, blogs aren't the problem. It's your time management with them... become more productive with easy technology. #5 is time well spent... after all, personal brand marketing attracts the right prospects!

How can we make better use of our time with #1 - 4?

Subscribe to your favorite blogs!! Have their posts come to you. You can even create Google Alerts to have new websites, news, and blog posts e-mailed to you ... Thousands of professionals are on my e-mail list.

And I have a over a thousand on my RSS feed subscription... they know the value of a RSS reader. They want to be on top of the blogosphere ... but know that their time is too valuable to go a-hunting. RSS feeds force the news & blog posts come to you.

See the word SUBSCRIBE on the right-hand side? Or the orange icon next to the world RSS in the upper right-hand corner? And all those tiny icons on the right hand side of my blog? They all do one thing... it's going to be the newspaper of the future! get hip to it... Wonder what that RSS stuff is all about?

Common Craft created a great video about RSS:

Thanks for subscribing

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