Tag Archives: clients

Do You Believe in the Impossible?

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At a very young age, I believed I could fly. My beliefs came crashing down when I took a flying leap at the top of the stairs.

The Golden Thread that weaves its way through my career was very much like believing I could fly — if I didn’t know how to do something, I learned very quickly how. My best resource is my coach.

Consciously I began to change my thinking to what I wanted, the outcome, and desired result. I changed my thinking to affirmative achievements and surrounded myself with individuals who are also proactive and positive thinkers.

We are also grateful for all the good that we have. I’m thankful for my clients and my expanding, wonderful client base. I appreciate my family.  I’m thankful for my energy both on and off the tennis court and in my work. I’m grateful that I had the opportunity to represent this Region on the National Emmy Board and travel the world with them for four years. I’m grateful that this Regional Board recognized my contributions and gave me the Governor’s Award, which is an Emmy. Yes, I have a Golden Girl.

Recently, someone said it was hard to get clients and hard to know where to find them. If we believe it is hard, then it will be hard. Take a look at your thoughts, comments, and actions and determine if they are affirming and reinforcing what you do want or what you don’t want. Take a really hard look. Change your actions to be proactive and knowing that you will find plenty of clients. Learn how to shift your actions from being reactive to proactive. Shift from react to respond. I can help you with that.

Be patient with yourself. This may be a new way of thinking and it will take diligence and powerful intention to keep declaring WHAT YOU DO WANT!

Never mastered the flying thing, however.

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Become friendly

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Marketing Coach Carol Naff

Show interest. Ask questions

Networking is more than face time at meetings. It’s about really getting to know others. Just showing up and passing out cards isn’t enough. You need to spend some time getting to know other people, learning about their businesses, and understanding how (and when) to refer to them, just as you are hoping they will send referrals your way.

Start a conversation with anyone and everyone. Learn how to ask questions and discuss topics that have nothing to do with your business. Establish a common interest and develop a relationship. Keep asking questions until you find something in common. To be likeable, first and foremost, you must be friendly. As simple as that sounds, friendliness is not the norm. Being friendly requires time, attention, and mental focus.

Remember, many people at networking events do not know how to network. They may brush you off because they really don’t know that you have a large network and can give them referrals. Therefore, it is important to find out as much about them as you can. Then you can inform them of people and situations in your life experiences that can help them. Offer to send them an article or a link to a website that might be of interest to them. Ask who they would like to meet. Introduce them or send the information when you follow-up. Be a good resource.

Birds of a feather flock together

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Birds of a feather flock together. Many of these idioms are handed down from generation to generation are really good rules. Now, consider for a moment that you could apply this idiom to your business. According to Marketing Coach Carol Naff, you can use this wisdom in your business.

Birds of a feather

If it is true that birds of a feather flock together, then when you identify your target market or niche, you can easily know where your potential clients gather. Your niche helps you identify your marketing strategies for your ideal clients. Marketing is about creating relationships. With unlimited money, time, and energy, you can market to everyone.

Chances are that you can’t market to everybody but you can serve everybody. Choose a small target market. Then when people outside your target come into your life, you can still serve everybody. By knowing whom you want to meet, you can then identify where to find them. Identify your Niche. Reflect on your ideal clients or perhaps even just one special client. Your ideal client is the person most likely to buy from you, and whom you most want to serve. My ideal clients are identified on my website at SoloBizMarketing.com Your ideal clients:

  • Acknowledge or recognize a strong desire to have the outcome, experience, or solution that you provide.
  • Are motivated for whatever reason to take action to get it.
  • Realizes that the ROI exponentially exceeds the cost.
  • Can and will find the money to pay for your product or service.
  • Are thrilled with your product or service.
  • Tell their friends, family, clients, and colleagues about you and how much they love your work.

Strategy: Identify whom you want to meet. It helps you describe your target market so everyone can easily identify a perfect referral for you. Then identify where to go to meet them. It means that, yes, you can provide services to everyone and at the same time, just market to a specific niche. Identify where your birds flock together.

Testimonial from Jennifer McCallum, Ph.D., Esq.

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What a joy to receive this testimonial from someone I’ve known for many years.

I had heard about Carol from several very successful business people I
knew in Denver who raved about her ability to provide focused, efficient
and reasonable business advice that took into account the need for a
work-life balance.  I found the stories interesting because folks raved
about not only their business success (increased sales) after working
with her but also how they felt more in-control and happy in their
entire life.  When I met Carol, I understood why successful people rave
about her – she has combined her business skills with an ability to
relate well to people and provides a comprehensive solution to whatever
problem is placed in front of her taking into account the whole person –
not just the business side of the problem. 

Best regards,
Jennifer
 
Jennifer M. McCallum, Ph.D., Esq.
Patent Attorney
The McCallum Law Firm, P.C.
685 Briggs Street, P.O. Box 929
Erie, CO 80516
www.mccallumlaw.net

Get Clients You Really Want Seminar

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Get the clients you really want with clear, focused Marketing Strategies with Carol Naff

What an honor to share my expertise on Thursday, April 14, 11:30 a.m. at the SBDC (Small Business Development Center) /Denver Metro Chamber. Only $15 includes your lunch.

Do you have a crystal clear idea of how and where to market? Are getting the results you need? Are you reaching your ideal clients?

This workshop will help you learn how to identify your best low-cost, no-cost marketing opportunities that work. You will learn about dead-ends that steal your time, energy, and income. Carol Naff will teach you how to implement a successful marketing plan that produces results.

Presentation Agenda:

Find your keys to marketing

  • See the big picture of how to grow your business
  • Develop your marketing hook
  • Find your target market
  • Identify your best proactive strategies
  • Assess the value of online efforts (Web Sites, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Blogs)
  •  Implement a value-based enewsletter to drive traffic to you and your website (Dell and Target use these ideas)
  • Learn how to become known as an expert

You will feel empowered once you know the correct strategies to grow your business!

Register to reserve your spot and lunch at Denver Metro Chamber 

Mixing Up Marketing and Selling Conversations

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 The simple answer is that marketing prepares the ground for selling. Everything you do before an actual Selling Conversation is marketing.

Marketing includes targeting your market, preparing your message and materials, and undertaking various marketing activities such as networking and speaking.

Marketing ends when you get to the Selling Conversation.

The Selling Conversation happens when the prospect is ready to explore working with you. The Selling Conversation consists of learning about the prospect’s situation, goals, and challenges and then presenting the service that will help them reach those goals and overcome those challenges.

When people are having trouble converting prospects into clients, they are usually doing one thing wrong – they are selling before they are actually in the Selling Conversation. They are selling when they should actually still be marketing.

It’s necessary to be clear about the distinction between marketing and selling or you’ll continue to make this mistake. Here’s what most often happens:

You’re talking to a prospect about your business. It may be at a networking meeting or over the phone. The prospect is interested in your services. And then, pow, out of nowhere you begin the Selling Conversation. You start explaining about your services. You stop listening and you say too much.

Often when you do this, you blow the opportunity to ever have a real Selling Conversation because you’ve told the prospect all about your services and they’ve already made a decision. “Well, this sounds interesting but it’s not what I need right now.”

What you need to learn to do is have “Marketing Conversations” or “Pre-selling Conversations.” These are very different from “Selling Conversations.”

Let’s look at the elements of a Marketing Conversation.

  1. Someone asks what you do, and you respond with your problem-oriented Audio Logo: “I work with people who have trouble getting major projects done on time.” 
  2. They follow-up with, “Oh, how does that work?” and you respond with your Ultimate Outcome: “The clients I’ve worked with typically double the speed in getting major products done and as a result end up getting promotions and raises.”  
  3. If you can do those first two steps , you’re doing better than about 90% of Independent Professionals. But what you say next, or more accurately what  

What you don’t say is the key to keeping this a Marketing Conversation, not a Selling Conversation.  

You now have their attention and they want to know more. “How do you accomplish those results?” And here’s where most make the mistake of explaining the “process” of how you do what you do.

Don’t do that!!!

Instead, you want to tell a story. “A client I worked with recently kept getting bogged down on projects and his job was on the line. We worked together and he became the most productive person in his department. Ultimately, he got a big promotion and a raise.” 

Now the prospect is even more interested. “Can you tell me what you did to increase his productivity?” Don’t tell him. You’re saving that for the Selling Conversation. “Well, I wrote an article about that called ‘Ten Mistakes Managers Make That Kill Productivity.’ Can I send you a copy?”  

By providing more information (not on the process of what you do, but on the issues your clients deal with), you are setting up the right conditions for the selling conversation.   

Next you would send the article, then follow-up by phone to learn more about their situation. You’d focus on them and what productivity issues were impacting them. You’d tell more stories, but still, you’d say little about your process. You’re informing, not selling. All of this is a continuation of the Marketing Conversation.   

If the prospect is showing sufficient interest, you’d invite them to engage in a Selling Conversation: “John, it sounds like you’re interested in being more productive. You’re much like the clients I work with.   

“I’d like to offer you a complimentary “Productivity Strategy Session” where we’d discuss your situation in more depth and talk about your goals and challenges around productivity. And I’ll also give you more details about how my services work.”  

You have now transitioned from a Marketing Conversation into a Selling Conversation. The prospect is interested and open to exploring doing business with you. Because you’ve held back about your process, they are curious to know how it all works.

Now let’s look at this from another angle, the mistakes you make in the Marketing Conversation that could sabotage your efforts to set up a Selling Conversation. 

1. You don’t use a problem-oriented Audio Logo. You use a label such as “I’m a productivity coach.” That’s all about you. Who cares? 

2. You don’t have a powerful Ultimate Outcome. Instead, you talk about your process. “I have a coaching service where I work with people on their productivity.” See the difference?  

3. You don’t use stories, but talk too much about process: “The first thing we do is sit down and find out all the areas where you’re not productive and then we work out strategies to increase your productivity.” True but boring.  

4. When they show more interest, you don’t offer anything. Instead, you exchange cards and say something inane such as, “It was good talking to you, if you’d like to know more about my service, please give me a call.” You’ll be waiting a long time!  

5. You don’t follow-up. And because you haven’t set the stage for follow-up, it’s pretty hard to do so. What are you going to say on the phone? The mistakes you’ve made have completely undermined the opportunity to set up a Selling Conversation.  

6. Remember, all the activities of marketing, including the Marketing Conversation, are designed to get you into a Selling Conversation, but it just doesn’t happen by itself. You need to have a step-by-step strategy and methodology, executed in a certain sequence if you hope to succeed.  

The More Clients Bottom Line: You must make a clear distinction between Marketing Conversations and Selling Conversations. If you don’t, you end up trying to sell too soon and lose the opportunity to set up a real Selling Conversation.

The Biggest Mistake in Selling

A question I’ve gotten a lot over the years is, “What’s the difference between marketing and selling?”

Are you managing your business?

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Are you at the mercy of other people’s demands and agendas? Are you overwhelmed by technological disruptions? Then you are in a trap of being connected to the 24-hour technological revolution. This isn’t getting any better since more information is available every day. Have you managed it yet? Is what you are doing working for you?

Run, Don’t Walk, to Increase Your Income

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Many times I’ve wondered why small business owners don’t run for the opportunity to significantly increase their business income.  You’ve heard my success stories.  They are all similar to Rick Bauman’s story, a former Coaching Group member:

“I can honestly say that while working for six months with Carol Naff, a professional coach, my website design and hosting business has more than tripled due to her coaching. I could not have reached this success so quickly without her help. My return on investment from coaching was surpassed within the first couple of months.

“Carol simply helps me clarify my goals and create a plan to achieve them. She does this by helping me see things in a new perspective and by holding me accountable for my actions. Carol helps me overcome my limiting beliefs and strive for higher levels of success.”  Rick Bauman, Arbis Inc.

If you haven’t increased your business income in the past six months, then start running to participate in my Group Marketing Strategies Games.  I realize that small business owners, who are not my clients, may not believe that coaching will make a difference for them.  So I woke up to the idea of offering a guarantee. Here’s the guarantee:  If at the end of the first month you absolutely hate being a participant in the group, you may drop the group.

Group coaching allows the shared wisdom of other professionals with the expertise of a professional coach.  Participants have the chance to coach and be coached. Because it is such a value to the participant, it adds more dimensions to coaching and accelerates achievement.

What Results Can You Expect from Joining the Group?

Ø      Clarify your goals and strengths

Ø      Balance your life

Ø      Transform your business

Ø      Achieve focus and confidence

Ø      Realize increased income

Ø      Implement proven and effective tools, concepts, and strategies

You’ll discover what your business requires in order to reach the next level and what’s standing in your way. This experience is targeted to your exact needs, and you’ll have time to talk through what’s going on for you and share it with the group. Another great benefit is the wisdom and experience contributed by the other members of the team.

How Do You Know if Joining a Coaching Group is Right for You?

Ø      You’re an ideal prospect for this adventure if you have a dream you’re passionate about and want to take your business to the next level.

Ø      You’re looking for structure and support.

Ø      You’re a self-starter.

Ø      You’re willing to experiment and are open to new ideas and change.

Ø      You’re persistent and dedicated.

If you’re taking too little action or frustrated because the action you’re taking isn’t working, then this group is perfect for you. But coaching isn’t for everyone.  It’s how the best get better.

What Are The Benefits?

Ø      You’ll identify what’s holding you back and break through to new levels of achievement.

Ø       You’ll build and implement an actual marketing plan that’s designed around your strengths, schedule, and budget. The accountability of the team experience will make you do what you NEVER would on your own.

Ø      This is an incredible value at any price, and a rare chance to transform your business and your life. You’ll receive training in marketing strategies. You’ll have the opportunity to test the viability of your ideas and plans with team members. You’ll receive help setting goals, establishing priorities, and strategic planning.

Ø      You’ll identify and break through roadblocks and resistance and get on the fast track. Your business and marketing will become an automated system—a well-oiled machine. You’ll have a support team to celebrate your successes, listen to your problems, and get you unstuck and back on the road to success. And since the group will be limited in size, you’ll get personalized attention and an interactive and creative environment.

If you’re running a business, you don’t have time to make costly mistakes. You need an edge. The power and synergy of the group and the proven coaching successes will banish isolation and inertia. Working with a coach AND a group of your peers is a powerful, transformative process.

Consistent application of new skills and strategies + accountability and support = success.

My experience is that group coaching is not only more economical—it’s POWERFUL.

It’s no surprise! It’s difficult to accomplish something big without accountability to someone. This dynamic group is ideal if you desire the tools, support, and guidance to really grow your business. This program includes:

q       A program paced in a way that allows you to absorb the information and implement it for immediate results

q       Two small group calls per month with tools and information from my business success process and coaching, support, guidance, and course correction from me and others working on goals just like yours

q       Comprehensive exercises for each step of the process complete with in-depth information such as checklists, goal-planning forms, time management planning tools, and assignments to deepen your learning and keep you in action.

q       Audio recordings of each class (so even if you miss a week, you won’t miss the information).

q       Access to a private web page containing all of the class materials, resource links, and audio downloads

q       A plan of your design for attaining your big goal and creating YOUR best strategies

q       The attention, accountability, and coaching from Professional Coach Carol Naff

PURPOSE: To help you increase your business income and your free time, while gaining simplicity, balance, focus, and confidence in all areas of your life.

PROCESS: Group coaching sessions. We will meet as a group on a telephone bridge* twice a month for 55 minutes each call. *Long distance charges are the responsibility of the participants.  One-on-one coaching also is available at a rate of $100/hour or $450 per month.

WHEN: 1st and 3rd Tuesdays from 12:00 – 12:55 p.m. Mountain Time. Or 1st and 3rd Wednesdays at 9:00 – 9:55 a.m. Mountain.

INVESTMENT: $250/month.  (If it’s not REALLY an investment for you, don’t sign up.) Inquire about special pricing to see if you qualify – only $150/month.

REGISTER: Email carol.naff@marinerco.com and request an interview.

Remember; don’t delay. If you think this is for you, please act now. I would hate to have you miss out and be put on the waiting list until the next team opens up.


WARNING: Do NOT Apply for this program unless you’re willing . . .

Ø      And able to invest the time and money that’s required.

Ø      To keep confidential the business and personal affairs of the other members.

Ø      To be honest with yourself about where you are and what you REALLY want.

Ø      To do the homework assigned.

Ø      To take responsibility for the results.

Ø      To accept the changes rapid growth and wealth could inflict upon you.

Mariner Company

Carol J. Naff