There are two big challenges for business owners, marketers, and salespeople, no matter what industry….How do I consistently win new clients without resorting to ads or pushy tactics?
How do I sell or position my services so I can sell them at a higher price?
These two issues are connected.
In this article, I’m going to layout how I’ve helped hundreds of businesses to achieve that by working with them directly.
My big promise in this piece is that you get sight of how to do this for yourself.
These two big challenges are connected because the root cause of a ‘sales’ issue and a ‘price’ issue stems from the same ‘big’ issue. When we boil it down, for us to sell more and charge more, we must achieve one thing…. convince potential clients you and your service are the right choice. Sounds simple right?
Yet many businesses spend years struggling with this. They try new tactics, test out new tools, invest in paid ads, and still find that, well it’s all pretty much a struggle. All those new gadgets work for a while but then they become as ineffective as the last tool or tactic you tried. It leaves you with a perception that all marketing and sales are just a numbers game. It isn’t and it shouldn’t be.
Of course, there is an element of ‘numbers’ but what most people mean by this phrase is, if I knock on enough doors someone is bound to buy. Likewise, if you buy enough lottery tickets, you are bound to win something.
You must be in the right place at the right time…. The stars need to align.
The reality is the ‘numbers’ in this sense aren’t sustainable.
Does all that sound familiar?
How I’ve turned that around for businesses.
Let me just say, for what I am sharing to deliver for you, there is a ‘field testing’ process to refine this and get this working. This methodology works across all platforms, all mediums, and all businesses. Why? Because it convinces human beings… Whether your decision-maker is a global CEO or a Solopreneur, human beings tick in the same way… that’s why this methodology works.
Aligning the stars
We’ve all been guilty of chasing the silver bullet. The one campaign. The one tactic. The shiny new object that will make everything work. The reality is to get more clients, to get higher-paying clients, it isn’t about tactics… it’s all about strategy.
I’ve got one PDF that consistently generates me inbound leads… without ads.
But, it’s the strategy and works behind the PDF that makes it work.
I did some consultancy work with a client in 2020 that generated more than 1000 downloads of their PDF lead magnet per month. The marketing department was ecstatic…. but the sales conversion was 0.01%
1 sale from 1000 leads.
This resulted in a blame game between the sales and marketing teams. One side saying the leads were crap, the other saying the salespeople were lazy.
Two things were wrong… there is a golden window when people engage with you… 72 hours. The follow-up by the sales team was too slow. That was problem one.
The second problem was that the lead magnet wasn’t aligned with the sales process. The marketing (PDF) didn’t align and set up the sale.
This happens a lot, not just with whitepapers and lead magnets, but with sales and marketing in general. The alignment of the messaging and content should set up the sale…. But it doesn’t.
When you align marketing and sales, you can do two things….
CREATE DEMAND — Helping people see their need for the change you bring (more on this later)
REDUCE THE FRICTION — Make the sales and closing process less pushy and more consultative.
We developed our own model for doing this, which we call… MARKET PRIMING.
Instead of doing the usual stuff around marketing and sales, we help people align the two together… by doing this you achieve three things…
- EXPERT AUTHORITY — Create awareness, relatability, and belief in you and your company/brand
- COMPELLING VALUE — Find the intent to establish your value in the minds of your audience
- CLEAR-CUT OFFER — Make it easy for people to see how you can help them and how they can work with you.
The benefits of this process mean that often the ‘sales’ calls you have done less because the marketing did more.
I’ve applied this methodology in hundreds of businesses, and they have seen the difference this makes.
Not only does it reach more people organically — it leverages influence to sell rather than raw sales skills.
Not only does it create inbound leads… the leads are of better quality.
Not only does it position you are experts and thus can command higher prices — it increases the conversion rate of your initial calls into done deals.
This method will align your sales and marketing and create the demand for your services.
Don’t preach to the converted
This is one of the hardest concepts for people in our programmes to grasp.
Often, they market to appeal to the converted. You would think this would be a successful strategy, appeal to the people looking for what you are offering…. unfortunately, it is a mistake.
When you promote and market yourself to what I call a ‘self-aware client’ what you are in effect doing is appealing to the low-hanging fruit.
How big is your market?
How many potential clients are there for your services?
For most people reading this, there will be hundreds if not thousands. If you have only 10 or 20 potential clients… this article becomes even more important.
Often, I’m asked, “How do you convince people of your value, when they don’t see their own need?”
I usually answer politely, but for the sake of brevity…. This is 100% your job.
This is exactly what your marketing and sales activity should be doing.
This is what MARKET PRIMING, which we implement with clients, achieves.
The aim and objective of your sales and marketing activity are to help prospects see their need. The fact is most of the people who can buy from you are not even thinking about a service like yours.
It’s true, they don’t see their need. You must help people see their own needs.
You need to get their votes
Political campaigning is a good example of this. Now, imagine you are running for office, to get elected you need to get the votes. The only way to win is to get the votes. You don’t get a fair hearing… it’s down to you to persuade people to vote for you.
Voters won’t diligently examine the different candidates. They won’t weigh up the options. They pick based on how they feel and think. If you don’t influence they won’t vote. Let’s say you’re not the incumbent, you must disrupt the way someone has voted before.
You need to convince people to vote for you. Not tell or ask… convince. They need to realise for themselves, that you are the best choice. Influence is the word here… not cajole or plead or ask.
Do you rely on them making their own choice and logically making their own decision?
No! You get your message in front of them and help them see, why they should vote for you.
Your job is to persuade them that you are worth voting for.
Most of your target clients aren’t thinking about your service, but they have the need even if they don’t see it. This is where you are marketing steps up and aligns with sales. Stay with me as this will be your light bulb moment… but you need to read this bit a few times.
When Doctors see people in pain, they don’t expect the patient to diagnose themselves.
Very few patients can accurately diagnose themselves.
In fact, most times when patients do diagnose themselves, they get it wrong.
When a doctor asks you what is wrong 99% of the time, the patients don’t even try to diagnose themselves.
The patients talk about the symptoms. Where it hurts.
Symptoms are not the real problem. The pain isn’t usually the real problem. Doctors talk to the patients about symptoms to understand the root cause and provide a remedy. Once he has engaged the patient on the symptoms, the doctor can then give a remedy. Most of your prospective clients don’t go to the doctors because they think they have XYZ Disease… they go to the doctor because they have pain or discomfort.
- What are the symptoms a client needs you?
- What are the pains that indicate the root cause is they need you?
- How often did your marketing, content, and outreach focus on the disease rather than the symptoms?
Trying to sell a solution to a root cause requires the patient to understand their illness before they have been diagnosed.
We don’t preach to the converted we talk about the symptoms to the undiagnosed.
When we do this we effectively create a magnet that draws people with symptoms around us. When we do this we elevate ourselves as experts because you are talking the prospective client’s language.
There is a huge value, trust and influence gained when you diagnose someone. That’s how you elevate yourself as an expert and how you elevate your services so you can charge higher fees.
The other thing to point out here… the number of people looking for your services is less than 3% of your total addressable market.
- 3% of your market are diagnosed and looking to buy the treatment
- 7% of your market are diagnosed and considering getting treated
- 90% have symptoms and don’t know what is, think its normal or are just accepting it.
If you try to sell and market to the diagnosed (converted), 90% time you will get a ‘not interested’ or ‘not relevant
Ever wondered why most marketing has a response rate of less than 3%?
If you try to sell and market to the symptoms, 10/10 times you will get people curious. Curiosity is a powerful tool you can use to find the intent of your client — you create demand. Then you spend less time prospecting and more time converting clients — you reduce friction.
In the Accelerator, we teach you how to do this, perfect this and leverage it for inbound and outbound leads and inquiries.
What is the change?
For years marketing and sales have been disjointed.
They haven’t truly communicated or collaborated. This applies to both large and small enterprises. The sales plan and the social media posts are not in sync. Marketing should be the prelude to the sale, but it isn’t always the case.
Someone who buys from you must have a need…. a need and a desire to alleviate that suffering and solve the underlying problem. Few people buy goods until they have this need and desire, or as I like to call it, a pain and an outcome — simply put change.
The change is what convinces people to part with their money to buy your service.
Many don’t think like this and so what happens is they never connect their services to the change they can bring.
Change isn’t just a result.
Change is the difference you have to make… I use this process with my stock-market listed clients and my solopreneur clients to create inbound leads and grow their sales.
To do this you have to deeply understand the change you can bring for clients.
How do you work this out?
It’s simple, your work this out from your own services value proposition.
In Maverrik’s Accelerator Programme, we run this as an exercise to help people see their value from their target audience’s perception.
We then zero in and ‘field test’ through social content and experiments to find the MOST VALUABLE PAIN POINT.
We get into the mind of a client… what matters to them. The change is what people value… The more valuable the change, the more people are prepared to pay.
Usually, when I am presenting this concept in a room full of people, someone will ask “Do you mean to sell the result?” and I say NO.
The result and the change are different but often confused.
For example, on the Accelerator, we don’t promise 10 new clients every month, what we promise is to help them end feast and famine, end the uncertainty on their pipeline, get more clients and make more money — without ads or pushy tactics.
The change — we sell the difference between how things were and how things are.
Change is a bigger motivator for people than a result.
People will take action to get rid of pain much faster than they will take action to achieve a result.
Pain is a powerful motivator.
Leaving the uncertainty and unpredictability of getting clients, quitting pushy sales tactics and ads is a bigger motivator in many cases than a promised end goal.
The only time a promised end goal can convince someone to buy is with a 100% guarantee. For many businesses selling their expertise or knowledge — this isn’t achievable…. or isn’t honest.
Also, with so many people using the 100% Moneyback guarantees these days, offering it can undermine your value and credibility.
In Summary…
I’ve tried to unpack what I teach and help people implement it as concisely as I can. I could share stories of people where they make this change and their whole business changes — I’m happy to send you some videos.
The key thing is… hunting for clients is expensive….and if you aren’t the hunter-killer type, it’s incredibly draining.
What you want to achieve is more inbound, less push, and more high-value sales — that can never come from the automated, template-driven, cold pitching process.
There will always be those hail-Mary attempts for a particular brand or logo client you want to get onboard… but you can’t build a sustainable business from hail-Mary sales pitches every week.
Market Priming does what it says — it prepares your market for you, the value you bring, and the service you sell — that elevates you as an expert authority, shows the compelling value, and makes your service a no-brainer decision for the right clients.
This way of doing things is a change in thinking but it truly does create the demand and reduce the friction….
