Do Your Prospects Believe What You Tell Them?

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bigstock Skeptical business woman iso 17815364 thumb1 Do Your Prospects Believe What You Tell Them?

I hear so many complaints from my executive search clients and from Chairs around the world – that prospects are distrusting of your claims, they are jaded in their perceptions of a traditional “pitch”, are capable of discovering information on the Internet by themselves, and generally struggle to believe what you tell them.

This point was driven home in a blog article the other day by Jill Konrath, on the RainToday.com Blog in an article titled “What to do when your prospects don’t believe you”.

Jill made the following comment in her blog post and then went on to talk about key steps to overcome this lack of trust and believability by prospects. I can’t vouch for her quantification of the metric, but I’ll agree it’s a fairly high number.

 

When you talk about your company, 92% of the time people don't believe you. And the more wonderful things you say about your organization, the more unbelievable you are.

 

My perception is that one way to overcome this traditional low trust and perception of believability is to share stories of success your members have directly been able to achieve through their Vistage/TEC membership. This is one of the central marketing messages we’re using in the Chair Coaching Program on Leveraging Social Media to find CEO Members.

Prospects will pay less attention to your claims – regardless of the number of statistics, metrics, and numbers you throw at them. They will sit up straight in their chairs, focus on you, and listen deeply, when you relate the stories of your members that are most comparable to the issues they are facing.

How do I define a story: Your member took an idea from a speaker, issue processing, your one-to-one, and implemented it. They got some specific quantifiable value from that implementation. It was something they would not have done on their own – it came from their membership in Vistage/TEC. If you’ve been a chair for a few years – you’ve got hundreds of these stories. Start writing them down in a journal. Keep them with you all the time.

I did a little informal research on this subject with the 75 plus chairs currently enrolled in my Chair Coaching Program. I asked each one to share with me on the spot the top 3-5 stories of something their member took away from Vistage/TEC, implemented in their personal life or business, and the quantifiable impact it had. Less than 3 chairs had this information at their fingertips.

This is THE marketing message to prospects in social media. The whole foundation of social media is sharing stories with your network and bringing them to the recognition they would also like to own those same stories for themselves. It’s not about selling features and benefits – that technique went out the door 10 years ago – so stop using it.

Put your prospects in the shoes of your members. Help them to visualize the same impact your members are getting in a precise, specific, and quantifiable story.

If you’ve not yet taken advantage of my personal coaching program for chairs on how to leverage social media to find and attract new CEO members, shoot me a note, give me a call, or fill out the contact us form by clicking here to talk about how the program works – and the success stories of the current group of chairs cycling through this coaching program.

Barry Deutsch

If you would like to read the full article on RainToday.com, please click the link below:

What to do when your prospects don’t believe you

Myths About CEOs NOT Using Social Media

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Content Marketing Institute thumb1 Myths About CEOs NOT Using Social Media

Joe Pulizzi wrote a blog post about the myths of CEOs not using social media. A lot of CEOs in small businesses and entrepreneurial companies use these myths as rationalizations and justification for why they shouldn’t get involved in social because their peers are not involved.

If you believe that to be to true, then prepare to be trailing everyone else in your marketplace. The very best companies are beginning to move up the learning curve of leveraging social media – and it starts at the top of the pyramid. If the CEO is not engaged, why should anyone else care?

Joe made the following comment in his blog article:

 

Myth #1: My clients don’t consume online content

We hear this all the time. Some senior marketers say that they target CEOs, who don’t use search engines or social media. Recent Google research tells us that the average consumer engages in over 10 sources of information before making a buying decision. Also, according to research from Doremus and the Financial Times, over 60 percent of senior executives read blogs, watch online video, view webcasts, and use professional networking sites like LinkedIn.

 

We’re seeing examples multiply daily of CEOs using LinkedIn, Google Plus, Twitter, and Facebook – not only to engage with their peers, but also with customers, vendors, suppliers, and channel partners.

Numerous case studies indicate that social media is NOT a passing Fad. It’s here to stay. These case studies, research projects, polls, whitepapers, and practical examples extend across every imaginable industry segment and include applications for customer service, retention, hiring and recruiting, lead generation and nurturing, marketing, PR, branding, and employee engagement to name a few.

I tell my high school girl’s basketball team that we never want to be in a position of chasing the other team, following their lead, or scrambling after someone else. We want to be the group that makes everyone chase after us.

Where would you like to be positioned on the court of competition? Leading by example or chasing the best companies?

After having just responded to a member request on the Vistage Village for examples of where companies are implementing social media, I realized that there is an enormous gap between what big-mid companies are doing and what small businesses and entrepreneurial companies are not doing. Stay tuned for this blog article in the next week or two.

If you would like to read the full article, please click the link below:

Selling the C-Level: 7 Marketing Myths Debunked

Barry Deutsch

Do You Give A Power Thank You?

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Keith Ferrazi Blog thumb Do You Give A Power Thank You?

I came across a blog article I had saved for future reading from Keith Ferrazzi’s Blog, in which he made the point that just saying thanks is not enough. When others in your network do something very special for you – by making a referral, spending time to coach you, give you advice, share best practices – do you give a power thank you. Do you express deeply how grateful you are and how much this person’s actions meant to you?

Some of us are not exactly the warm and fuzzy types. However, if you’re not practicing the power thank you approach, you pretty much guarantee that the individual in your network who went above and beyond the call of duty for you – they’ll never do it again!

Here’s what Keith had to see about thanking others:

 

If a person performs an extraordinary act of kindness or assistance and all you say is ‘thanks,’ you create a mirror neuron receptor gap because emotionally you’re not giving back as much as you received. Saying ‘thanks’ is better than nothing, but it’s not good enough

 

Keith also posed this question which got me to thinking about all the times someone in my network has done something special for me.

 

Have you found a creative way to say thanks when someone really went the distance for you? Have you  been the recipient of exceptional gratitude?

 

If you would like to read the full article, click the link below:

When Thanks Isn’t Enough – 3 Steps to Gratitude that Empowers

Barry Deutsch

Who Is In Your Network of Personal Service Providers?

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Blogging Tips Blog thumb Who Is In Your Network of Personal Service Providers?

Are you building out a part of your referral network to include subject matter experts or real trusted advisers/trusted authorities?

The distinction is critical. One you’ll rarely ever see referrals from, and one you’ll see an abundance of referrals.

I was reminded of this distinction in reading a blog post from Patti Stafford on the Blogging Tips blog.

 

First, you have to have competence in what you do. Experts don’t always have the competence or the confidence in the beginning to claim the title of “authority” but they work towards it.

The second thing you need to be the authority figure is to be committed to helping others, have a passion for helping those people. Often times, the expert wants to help others, but it’s not their driving force. Their driving force is to be the expert. The trusted authority moves past that and their goals focus on helping others.

The trusted advisers/trusted influencers/trusted authority figures have a level of respect with their clients and network that moves far beyond the influence of an expert. Remember the old EF Hutton commercials when the broker from EF Hutton spoke, a hushed silence occurred and everyone leaned in to hear what was being said. If your an expert, you’re contacts, connections, and relationships will view you simply as a subject matter expert – that’s the narrow light they see you in. When you’re a trusted adviser or authority, your network seeks your advice and takes action based on your advice.

Allow me to share an example. I have an extensive network of subject matter experts. I hope that these folks hear about executive search opportunities with their clients when they are working on projects in their area of expertise – benefit plan changes, legal issues, strategic planning, marketing programs, etc. Unfortunately, it’s usually wishful thinking. These subject matter experts are not “privy” to anything going on at their clients beyond the narrow scope of their expert-related project.

Now let’s look at the trusted adviser or trusted authority. This person is involved in counseling their CEOs on a wide range of subjects, including who to choose as a consultant for work that has nothing to do with their subject matter expertise. They are invited into their client’s confidence, brought to the table for advice, and trusted for their recommendations. My clients know that when i make a recommendation, it’s from my heart as a well-meaning attempt to give them value and help them succeed. My clients have to be guarded – fearing some hidden agenda or ulterior motive.

A few days ago, I was on a phone call discussing a project with a potential client, who had been referred to me by one of her trusted advisers. At the end of our conversation, the client said, “If Julie trusts and believes in you –that’s good enough for me. Send me over your contract and I’ll sign it.” How many of the subject matter experts in your network have that level of influence and authority with their clients?

How does this work for a Chair seeking CEO members. When a trusted adviser makes a referral, you can be assured it’s set-up, ready for you to take to the signing level. If that trusted adviser said you’re a good person and TEC/Vistage is the route to go, you don’t have to worry about closing. Are you working too hard on trying to close referrals from subject matter experts that just don’t have enough “juice” or influence to steer their CEO clients toward TEC/Vistage membership.

Who’s in your network – experts or trusted advisers?

One of the key elements we’re focusing on in the Chair Coaching Program for Leveraging Social Media is how to find and engage with true trusted advisers – real authority figures – who are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty in providing referrals of their CEOs to you. Have you signed up for this FREE program yet? I’ll bet you get few to none referrals from your network of subject matter experts.

Ask me to show you how in just a short 15 minute conversation how to determine if a network contact is worth nurturing based on being a trusted adviser vs. a subject matter expert.

If you would like to read the complete article by Patti Stafford, click the link below:

Expert or Trusted Authority: Which is Better?

Barry Deutsch

Small Business and Blogging Should be Linked Together

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Build a Better Blog Small Business and Blogging Should be Linked Together

I've been preaching this message for the past 2 years to individual consultants, advisers, speakers, and business owners. There is no better vehicle by which to drive your social media activities than your blog.  Denise Wakeman, one of my favorite blogging experts at Build a Better Blog, summed it up in one of her blog posts, where she said:

 

If you’re a small business owner here’s good news: social media has helped to level the playing field. In the past, smaller companies couldn’t compete with big companies and their megabuck advertising budgets to reach customers and prospects.

Now you can by going directly to your target audience with a blog as the centerpiece of your social media strategy. Think of your blog as your home base. It’s important to get runners on first, second and third base but they need to cross home plate for you to win.

From your home base, you can feed important information directly to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and many other social media sites where your customers are forming communities. Push the “publish” button and your article is immediately distributed to sites of your choice with a link back to your blog – think runners crossing home plate when visitors come to your site.

 

Are you publishing a blog yet? With the technology available today, nothing could be more simple. What's the fear or technological hurdle holding you back. Blogging - creating a platform for engaging with your network - is one of the 4 major topic areas we're covering in the current Chair Coaching Program to Leverage Social Media. Are you participating in this FREE one-on-one personalized coaching program? To learn more about the coaching program, check it out on the LinkedIn Discussion Group. Click here to go to the Discussion Group where hundreds of chairs are taking the best tips, hints, practices and applying them to find and nurture relationships with potential CEOs for their groups.

 

To read the full article  by Denise Wakeman, click the link below:

Why Every Small Business Owner Should Have a Blog

Barry Deutsch

Can You Build Trust Through Social Media

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Personal Branding Blog 300x73 Can You Build Trust Through Social Media

Kyle Lacy, one of my favorite blog authors, wrote a guest post on the Personal Branding Blog about how to build trust through social media/digital marketing. He gave 40 examples of how to do it. I focus on a few of these in my Chair Coaching Program on how to leverage social media to find new members. Kyle does a great job presenting a "holistic" approach to using social media. Even if you pick up one or two interesting ideas from this article, it's probably worth reading.

Here is his number one recommendation and the one thing I can attest to that has lead to my success in using social media. I can't emphasize enough the importance of having a content-driven marketing approach to social media.

In the new economy there is one major truth that stands above the rest. Trust equals revenue. If you are a small to mid-sized business or organization, it is the amount of trust you can build between people that strengthens your brand. Whether we are talking about donors or customers,  it is about building trust that filters into an integrated marketing system with digital and traditional tools. THAT is where the true success is found within the marketing world.

With trust comes happy people, and with happy people come referrals, or what we call advocacy at MindFrame. Trust is a fundamental block of building your brand. Marketing is built under the assumption that stories can create an emotional bond between a consumer and a brand… a client and a service. Can you tell a story… create a service and/or an experience that builds trust?

1. Content

Content is the number one way you can build trust with potential clients. By creating meaningful and thought provoking content you are building a bridge to later sell that person on your services.

 

Do you have a content marketing plan to generate leads with CEOs for your group and nurture those leads to convert them from prospects to members? Are you building a bridge for future interactions, or a cliff where if your prospects don't immediately sign up, they fall out of your sight?

To read the full article, click the link below:

40 Ways to Build Trust in Your Personal Brand on Social Media

Barry Deutsch

Are You Nurturing Your Prospects?

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HubSpot Blog Are You Nurturing Your Prospects?

Not everyone signs up after the first telling session or after a visit to your group. Do you effectively "nurture" your leads to convert them into prospects when they are resistant initially to becoming a member? If not, you might be leaving a tremendous number of prospects "on the table".

The subject of lead generation and lead nurturing has become a focal point for me - especially in our executive search practice and in attracting top talent for open positions.

Ellie Mirman, writing on the HubSpot Blog identified a series of reasons for creating a lead nurturing program to convert leads (prospects) into customers (members).  She identified 9 different items, but two that caught my eye were:

 

Build Thought Leadership - People do business with businesses they know and trust. The first time someone converts on your website, the likelihood that they really know who you are or understand why they should do business with you is pretty slim. Lead nurturing is an opportunity to show that you are an expert in your field.

Identify Interest or Pain - Lead nurturing emails are a great way to learn more about your leads - what challenges are they facing? What features or products are they interested in? By presenting different questions or types of content and seeing who responds to what, you can qualify your leads and set yourself up for warmer sales conversations.

 

What's your lead nurturing program look like - what type of messages do you send - either through email or social media to continue to communicate, engage, excite, and nurture?

Is any of this communication automated OR do you create each individual message to each individual person on your list?

If you looked back over the past 2 years, how many potential members initially said NO, that you subsequently signed up as a member?

Is it time to start exploring the basic elements of putting an effective nurturing program together. This is the stuff I remember Jim Cecil talking about back in the early 90s in my TEC Group - at that time he called he drip nurturing. Today you can automate this nurturing and come at your prospects from both traditional email and social media.

If you would like to read the full article, click the link below:

The 9 Benefits of Lead Nurturing

Barry Deutsch

 

4 Steps to Podcasting Success

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Social Media Examiner Blog 4 Steps to Podcasting Success

I know that many chairs are struggling with the question of whether to launch a blog, but here's another one "broadcasting" strategy I'll suggest. Have you considered podcasting?

I love podcasting since it's so inexpensive, can actually take less time than blogging, and you can crank these out with 5-10 minute "management tips" for your list of CEO leads. It's one way to reinforce why people should connect and engage with you. It gets circulated on a viral basis with others. You can broadcast it through your website, blog, or almost any other place you have a link. The equipment to do it is inexpensive and the learning curve is almost non-existent. Nathan Hangen, on the Social Media Examiner Blog, had this to say about the value of podcasting:

 

Podcasting is like any other content medium. To both provide value and keep your audience returning, it’s best that you have a plan that maximizes your potential.

The most important feedback I can give potential (or current) podcasters is that you should take the medium seriously, possibly more seriously than you treat your blog. I ask that you consider podcasting not as a way to get cheap traffic, but as a professional media outlet.

This is not HAM radio.

 

Is it time for you to consider "authoring" a few short management tips that you can use to engage with your potential audience of CEO prospects? How about using some of the already created tips that speakers and Trusted Advisers have put into the Vistage Village library? I'm sure the speakers and TAs would be willing to allow you to take that content and share it with your prospects.

As you can probably tell from many of my blog posts - content marketing - offering valuable content to your prospects is rapidly becoming the primary method of marketing, lead generation, and lead nurturing in social media. You've got to have a few "platforms" from which your content comes from. These might include a blog as your home base, audio podcasts, and video through a youtube channel. Once you start down the path of content marketing to your prospects, you'll find many ways to "re-use" the same content over and over in different mediums so that you're not forced to be continually "creative".

Sometimes the hardest part of doing something new is just taking the first step. Have you taken advantage of our FREE e-course offerings for the chair community to learn how to get started with social media and content marketing to find, nurture, and close CEO prospects? You may have received one of my notes inviting you to participate in our Coaching Program. Have you put your hand up asking to participate in our personal Chair coaching program for leveraging social to find new members?

If you don't know where to start or what to do - I think Steven Covey called this being unconsciously incompetent - perhaps it's time to acquire the knowledge. If you already know what to do - what's holding you back?

If you would like to read Nathan Hangen's full article, click the link below:

4 Steps to Podcasting Success

Barry Deutsch

Stun Your Prospects - Send a Follow-up Video

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Keith Ferrazi Blog Stun Your Prospects Send a Follow up Video

Here's a great idea when you've had a conversation with a potential member for your group. I got this off of a blog posting by Keith Ferrazzi.  Keith in turn got it from a member of his network.

When you got home, fire off a quick email with a link to one of the Vistage/TEC marketing videos - you can even put your own spliced intro on top of it. And to add icing to the cake, you can create a personalized link for them to download the video. I liked this idea so much, I'm going to start using it in my executive search practice, both with potential candidates, and with potential clients.

Here's an excerpt from Keith's blog post:

 

Step One: Create a short introduction script for your video and film it.  “Hi Sue, this is Keith. I really enjoyed meeting you at the conference and I thought you’d like this two-minute video tip I’ve created on how to [insert your subj matter here] – I think you’ll see it fits in well with what you’re working on.” That’s spliced in with the pre-recorded video tip you’ve created on your area of expertise.

 

Try it. Test it. See if it doesn't generate a few more potential CEOs who go to the next step with you. You could even send this follow-up to them after a phone call. A lot of marketing success comes from continually trying new techniques and strategies to see what works the best. Are you stale in your approach of engaging and nurturing potential CEOs? Is the same system you used 3 years ago still effective?

If you would like to read the full article, click the link below

Creative Follow-up Idea: Send a Helpful Video

Barry Deutsch

 

 

Are You Capturing the People Who Want to Talk With You?

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Are You Capturing the People Who Want to Talk With You?

 Goose Laying a Golden Egg Are You Capturing the People Who Want to Talk With You?

Your email list is your "goose that lays golden eggs". It's the group of potential prospects who have searched for you, stumbled across you, want to engage with you, found your LinkedIn Profile in a search, and been referred to you. Many of these individuals WILL CONVERT into viable prospects for membership in your group (if managed properly). Are you leaving potential prospects high and dry - without any ability to reach out and connect to them?

Are you feeding, nurturing, and tending to your goose (your email list) - or are you ignoring/killing this valuable source of potential CEOs for your group?

Let's review three simple steps in managing people interested in you, your group, Vistage/TEC membership. Using sales management terminology, we might call this "lead generation".

 

Lead Generation Step 1: Management of prospects

How do you capture them if they don't send you an email directly or phone you personally?

Do you have a master email list of names, email addresses, and other useful information about the prospect? Are you using an excel spreadsheet, iContact, ConstantContact, SalesForce.com, or some other tool to capture and communicate with all these people?

Have you automated the collection of names, email addresses, and other important information? Do you have an "opt-in" form that potential prospects can fill out? Do you link everywhere to this form? When potential prospects complete it, does it automatically input the data into your tracking tool like salesforce.com or iContact so you don't have to reenter data?

Is this form on your website? Do you have a link to it in your email signature, your LinkedIn Profile, all your social media sites, like Facebook and others?

Have you benchmarked yourself against other Vistage/TEC Chairs who do a great job in this area?

 

Lead Generation Step 2: Creating a Compelling Reason for CEOs to give you their email address

I love digital downloads. They are very easy to create. There is no cost. You can automate the download so there is no human interaction or time involved. Take a look at what we do with CEOs for our Executive Search Practice. We offer a free e-bo0k, numerous templates, audio programs, reports/surveys, examples, downloadable e-courses. The list is endless. In 5 years, we've developed an email list in the tens of thousands of CEOs interested in improving the hiring accuracy of their companies. You too could offer a high value download. As a Chair, you have more great content at your fingertips than the average person.

What simple digital download could you create within the next few days that would be impactful and compelling enough to encourage a CEO to give you their personal contact information in exchange for receiving the download?

 

Lead Generation Step 3: Market Your FREE Digital Download

Talk about the value of your download in your blog posts, on Twitter, on LinkedIn status updates, in the LinkedIn Groups you belong to, and other on-line venues. Build a series of messages around this template, report, tool that you're offering CEOs.

Once they start giving you their email addresses, and you begin to build your email list, you can start the next phase of "lead nurturing" by communicating with them on a regular basis through an email campaign, connecting and sending messages through LinkedIn, or publishing a newsletter.

 

What's Your Next Step?

How far are you along the path of creating a pipeline of abundant prospects through the very simple tools of lead generation and lead nurturing? You would be amazed at how much of this work can be automated. Give me a call or shoot me an email and let's spend 15 minutes cycling through our lead generation and nurturing assessment template. I'll bet within those 15 minutes, you'll get 2-3 new ideas for capturing and engaging with potential CEO prospects. I'm thinking that this might even be a great topic for one of the Chair e-courses on Leveraging Social Media to Find Members.

Barry Deutsch

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