Tag Archives: expert

Allowing Your Expertise to Shine Through: Common Reasons That Keep Entrepreneurs from Moving Forward

by Lisa Cherney

In today’s fast paced world we have access to more information than ever before, be it books, media or opportunities for education. And while it’s great to have all this information and learning at our fingertips, it can sometimes be a detriment to us. In fact, for some people, it can be an excuse for them not to move forward in their business.

Two reasons like this I’ve heard recently include: “I’m just not sure I can be successful. I know I help people, but I need more experience.” And “I need to get another certification [take another seminar/get another degree] before I can be an expert and really put myself out there.”

My friend and client Michele PW was held back by these specific reasons. Michele is an example of someone with great expertise – she is one of the hottest marketing strategists around, writes copy and creates campaigns for very well known people that get results (www.MichelePW.com).

Michele started out as a freelancer, selling services. She got into infomarketing and had some really big successes, but she always had trouble doing it for herself. She came up with a couple of products, but none of them sold as well as what she did for her clients. Her belief was that the real money would be in copywriting, not her expertise.

“I knew people could make a lot of money selling products. I knew that in my head, but I didn’t believe it for myself. I guess when you’re doing copy for people, even though you’re out there in the spotlight, you feel like you’re still the support and behind the scenes,” Michele says.

“The problem for me was that I was the expert who always needed to read one more book before I could call myself an expert,” she explains. “I was so stuck on that and I think that’s why I really didn’t value selling my knowledge. I had people pushing me to do some sort of copywriting product and all I could say was, ‘There are plenty of good products out there, what am I going to add to the mix?’ Working with Lisa pulled me out of that and now I’ve had some very successful products. Now I see that I didn’t value my knowledge. Then I wouldn’t have said that was the reason, but looking back I see that now. A big part of working with Lisa was her support and being able to call her in my moments of weakness and angst about change. If you don’t push through and have a number of people who support you, you’ll just start spinning your wheels and never get out of it.”

There will always be another book or blog to read or another degree or certification to be earned. There will always be another seminar to take or conference to attend. But at some point you need to realize that you ARE an expert in your field and you are holding yourself back – and not helping people you could be helping – by not allowing your expertise to shine through.

Entrepreneurs fail. It’s as simple as that. Every single entrepreneur out there, no matter how successful they look on the outside, has failed. Yes, they are very successful, but for all those successes, they also have failures. There were things they tried that didn’t go anywhere. But if you don’t own your expertise and take risks, you’re never going to have the big successes. Granted, you’ll never have failures, but you’ll never have success either.

About the Author

Lisa Cherney is a Marketing Intuitive and President & Founder of Conscious Marketing™. For 15 years she worked at Fortune 500 companies and top advertising agencies.

Lisa tells her story in her co-authored book “Inspiration to Realization,” available at www.ConsciousMarketing.com. Conscious Marketing also offers workshops and coaching. Visit her website for more details or call 887-771-0156.

The Top Skill You Need to Increase Sales

by Evelyn Fielding

Whether you’re selling information products, small business services, real estate or widgets, there is one skill you need above all others to increase your sales. It’s not a better autoresponder series. It’s not the most competitive price. It’s not even the best product.

What you need is empathy, the ability to step into your prospects’ lives and see and experience what they’re feeling. True empathy does more than just guess or project what you want them to feel; it acknowledges who and where they are in their own individual lives.

Get Into Your Prospect’s Mind

The easiest way to get into your prospect’s mind is to ask him questions. What does he think about the world? How do his emotions affect his actions? What are his goals and aspirations? What’s his life actually like?

It takes a very good friend to go that deep, so you’ll have to ask less invasive questions until you establish a solid friendship. Empathy is even harder to develop if you’re working entirely online and don’t see or have a dialog with customers. Email and landing pages are often a one-way street, but they shouldn’t be.

Put yourself in your reader’s shoes and approach your product/service/writing from his angle. You will see yourself differently. Walk through your process and identify where it could be easier for the reader. Empathize with his wants and needs. Increase clarity and eliminate distraction.

Avoid Hot Buttons

Copywriting gurus preach hot buttons, those painful triggers that get prospects to act immediately. There’s a place for hot buttons in your communications, but they shouldn’t be the sole focus of your interaction with customers.

Instead, draw prospects in with your kindness, respect, intelligence, and empathy. You can address every anxiety, frustration, and trigger through empathy and stop beating your prospect over the head with his failures and shortcomings.

Avoid Urgency!!!

Nobody wants to be poked in the eye with flashing copy, huge colored words, and exclamation points!!!! Your prospect will scream and run away in eight seconds flat. Likewise with words such as extremely, hot, limited time, deal, must, act now. Unless your prospect is actually on fire, she’s not having the same emergency as your copy.

The empathetic approach understands what led the prospect to your landing page, email, or article. She didn’t just randomly click a hyperlink and stumble upon you (probably). You can’t create urgency where none existed before the page view. Acknowledge where she came from and make it clear she landed in the right spot.

Become a Trusted Advisor, Not an Expert

Being called an expert no longer has the same punch. Everyone on the Internet is an expert, so that means nobody is an expert. When you empathize with your reader or prospect, you aim to be an advisor and knowledgeable friend.

Approach the reader from a sharing viewpoint. You share your knowledge and expect him to share his with you in an exchange. You’re not above him; you’re beside him walking through a teaching experience. You are trustworthy, so he trusts you.

Admit your own shortcomings once in a while and you will seem genuine. If your product or service or copywriting helped you overcome failure, tell your prospect that. You’re in this together-you just happen to know a little more than he does.

Develop Empathy and Your Sales Will Increase

Get to know your customers and readers. Ask questions and share responses and ask more questions. Calm down your enthusiasm and urgency-unless you really are a crazy person who shouts in real life. Be genuine and human and courteous and knowledgeable.

Always approach your copy from the prospect’s perspective. Believe what he or she believes, just for a little while. Have the same goals and objectives, the same feelings and desires. Your product or service fits into a real life. If it doesn’t, why are you trying to sell it?

About the Author

To learn more about article marketing, SEO, freelance writing, copywriting careers, and branding, visit Evelyn Fielding’s blog at http://www.10000seeds.com/conqueringcontent. Reach full potential online. Maximize income. Become the expert. Conquer content.

Legal Marketing: 8 Steps to Successful Marketing for Attorneys

by Cole Silver

I know that many lawyers reading this went to law school never giving thought to the idea of having to do any legal marketing. In fact, I suspect that you would rather undergo root canal surgery than spend your precious time marketing and selling.

Just the thought of legal marketing causes an allergic rash to mysteriously appear all over our bodies. Can’t we just be left alone to “practice”? After all, isn’t practicing difficult enough? The long hours, demanding clients, time constraints, firm politics, and of course, dealing with opposing counsel on every nit.

Yes, practicing law is hard, especially in today’s economic environment. It doesn’t help that today the practice of law looks more like a business than ever before. With over 1 million lawyers in the United States alone, competition is fierce. Outsourcing, increased utilization of RFPs and contract attorneys, budgetary caps and alternative fees, hiring freezes, deferred start dates, reduced salaries, mass demotions, de-equitization of partners, and technology that commands 24/7 attention, are all altering the legal landscape. Practicing law may be a profession, but today’s law firms are run more like a business than ever before. And like their counterparts in the business community, revenues and earnings drive major decisions. The result of all this change is that just being a good lawyer or tactician is simply not enough anymore. If you really want to succeed in today’s environment, you have to become knowledgeable about legal marketing and client acquisition. It’s the only way you’ll be in complete control of your professional destiny. Sure, you could bill an outrageous amount of hours, be a national expert in your area of the law, even a partner in a large firm, but these factors no longer guarantee your financial and personal success. Deep down inside you know this to be true…unfortunate…but true.

And getting started is the most difficult part. An attitude and belief shift may be in order. For many of us, legal marketing is seen as demeaning, time consuming and a waste of our precious time. It goes against everything we believe in. Yellow page ads, obnoxious late night cable commercials, glossy brochures and similar looking web sites all serving only to gratify an attorney’s ego rather than sell real benefits and value reinforce this negative view of legal marketing. Most of us know that today’s typical legal marketing activities represent the opposite ends of the spectrum…either professional garbage about the impressive “image” of the lawyer, or raunchy ads about getting the client massive amounts of money for injury claims. And worse, they all look alike.

The reason the majority of us dislike attorney marketing is that we were never taught how to do it in a professional and personally fulfilling way. And with the pressure to bill hours, how do we find the time to market? Even more, what tactics should we use that fits our personality and are comfortable to implement? Let me assure you that when you know how, marketing your solutions can be easy and enjoyable…if you implement a few of these ideas.

First and foremost, determine what it is you really want to be, do and have with respect to your legal career. Failing to address these important and unique issues will render any legal marketing strategy completely useless and boring. In other words, what do YOU want to do with your legal career; where do YOU want to do it, and what do YOU want your professional legacy to be? The answers to these three important questions explores what inspires and motivates you, what it is you stand for, what activities you love to do, the environment you want to do them in, who you want to serve, and what you want your professional life to stand for. Second, you will need to adopt the mindset of a rainmaker, for being a rainmaker should be the most important activity you’re engaged in and having a list of profitable and loyal clients should be viewed as your most important asset. You are simply going to have to recognize that legal marketing is not selling your soul or compromising your ethics, but is the key that will dictate your future. A marketing mindset is simply the expansion of your value proposition and awareness into the relationships and assets that already exist within your business and sphere of influence. You already have what you need to become a master rainmaker; you just have to leverage your existing assets for the opportunities that await you.

Third, get some help. There are coaches, consultants, books, experts, all sorts of people out there who can help you get started. You’re an expert at the law…not marketing. If you want to cut years off your learning curve, cut down on failures and save thousands of dollars, get the expert advice you need.

Fourth, the key ingredients of any marketing plan include: (i) strategic planning, (ii) tactical execution, and (iii) follow-up. Woody Allen may believe that half of life’s success is just showing up, but real achievement comes from preparation and follow-up. Marketing cannot be performed as a shotgun approach like the occasional power lunch or attending a dreaded networking event. You wouldn’t prepare for a deposition or trial without a plan; why implement a marketing plan without the same thought process. Every aspect of your client development plan must address your long and short-term goals, your strengths, niche, and what you want out of your business. Your strategy should be laser-focused and measurable.

Fifth, get someone to help with the grunt work. Your secretary or a virtual assistant can help write letters, call clients, send out articles, press releases, and help you build a client database. There is no way you can do this alone or completely depend on the firm’s marketing manager. It’s up to you; but apply the 80/20 rule and spend the brunt of your time on the most important clients and matters.

Sixth, do a little client development every day. Call that client who you haven’t heard from. Send an article of interest to a new prospect. Set a little bit of time every day to do some marketing and you’ll soon see a flower grow where once there was just a seed. Seventh, the reason most marketing efforts fail is due to a lack of follow-up with action. And we all make this mistake. In many ways, this is what determines your success or failure, and too often, we don’t realize it until it’s too late. Your system should utilize a “ladder” or “drip” multi- contact approach which will show you’ve been there for them and you’re the “go-to” person they need and want. The mantra here is to follow-up and stay in front of them consistently. And don’t stop until you either die or they tell you to drop dead!

Eighth, have fun with all of your legal marketing activities. Practicing law is difficult enough not to make the marketing fun. Choose tactics that you enjoy and are comfortable, or you won’t follow through. Be targeted and optimistic that you’re going to meet the people you need to advance your career and cause. And then with only a few simple disciplined actions every day, you will be led to the kind of success you desire. Executed properly, legal marketing will become like a second skin as your leads, relationships, and opportunities begin to grow exponentially.

About the Author

Cole Silver is an experienced lawyer and marketing strategist. His Raindancing Expert Audio Series and book, “How to Create Wealth and Freedom in your Law Practice”, 101 Powerful Client Development & Retention Strategies for Attorneys can be ordered by going to http://www.findcareersuccess.com.