Ciamos

Bernadette Doyle

It's so frustrating isn't it, when your prospects do not share your sense of urgency? So what can you do to stack the sales odds in your favour and get things moving?

When I started my fledgling training company back in 1996, one of the first hard lessons I learned was that I did not have the funds to finance long decision-making time, and unfortunately in some cases it was going to be 6 or 12 months before I saw any real business gains. I knew that I was going to be out of cash well before that point. So I needed a way to turn things around - fast.

So, in desperation, I said to myself, "Well, what if I just run a one-off day on my specialist subject, and do it as an open programme? I'll hire a room in a hotel and do the training." So I started offering a one-day training on cold calling.

I had accidentally stumbled across a valuable technique. I discovered that running my own open courses helped position me as an expert and gain invaluable experience 'in the field.' It gave me an opportunity to 'showcase' my expertise. There were some people who came on the course and said, "This is great. We need to do this in house." And so it sped up the process of landing large sales contracts.

From the clients' point of view, the advantage for them was that they could sample what I was offering at much lower risk. If they sent one or two people to an event and they didn't like it, then there was no great loss. But imagine if the whole sales team had been taken from their usual duties to experience a training programme, delivered in-house, that wasn't suited for their needs? That's a nightmare that no sales director or training manager wants to contemplate. So you've got to lower the risk for them.

When you package your expertise and deliver it via a live event, you immediately change the sales dynamic. Instead of you having to wait for months for a decision, you gently nudge your contacts into taking action. That's because, by their very nature, live events have a limited availability. If you're selling in-house training or consultancy, the main frustration you experience is injecting urgency and getting people to act. But if the only way they can experience you is via a live event, you immediately have a built-in deadline and built-in scarcity.

One of the most valuable lessons I've learned about marketing and selling over the past 10 years is that you MUST give people a reason to act NOW. First of all you need to recognise that your biggest competition, whether you're selling to organizations or individuals, is not the other training company or the other consultant or coach down the road. It's the status quo. Most people would rather stick with what they know than take the risk of making a change and getting it wrong so it's really easy to keep putting you off. One of the reasons open workshops, seminars and training courses work so beautifully for speeding up the decision making process is because they have two elements which have been proven time and time again to both give people a reason to act and increase urgency. 1. Limited availability 2. A deadline.

When you're selling a bespoke solution, it's a challenge to credibly build these elements into your proposal, but when you're selling open programmes, they are an intrinsic part of the package. There are a limited number of seats in the room, and the course is taking place on a specific date. Once the places are gone, they're gone! Once the date has passed, the opportunity is gone.

Now, most people who are selling training, coaching or consulting do not exploit these elements to their advantage, but if you do, you can transform your business.

So what happened to me, completely by accident, was that as I started packaging my in-house training into an easier to buy, off-the-shelf solution such as a one-day programme, it generated immediate benefits. I got the primary cash-flow coming from bookings for my training course, followed by the secondary benefits of bookings for in-house trainings.

And since I've been teaching these techniques to others, my clients are reaping the same benefits: 'My first workshop resulted in a booking for an in-company day so it worked as planned. I am planning 3 more workshops.' Rosie Gray, Mosaic Learning.

If you are a trainer, coach or consultant, you MUST seriously think about offering your expertise via an open seminar, workshop or training course. Even if training isn't your main service, and your long term goal is consulting clients, if you build an event around a technique or a skill that you can teach prospective clients, it WILL stimulate follow-on business. And, if you market it the right way and it will put immediate cash in the bank too.

© 2007 Bernadette Doyle

Bernadette Doyle publishes her weekly Client Magnets newsletter for trainers, coaches, consultants, complementary therapists and solo professionals. If you want to get clients calling you instead of you calling them, then get your free tips now at www.clientmagnets.com