Wendy’s Desk

Effective self promotion can't be faked. 

The gift of not having time for new clients is helium for business.

Some people spend too much time marketing, and some don't spend enough. 

Here's how to calculate exactly the amount of time that will feed your business.

How using stories can help your clients understand pricing.

The sales mantra is: never discuss price until first you've established value. It's the opposite for referrals. To get referrals talk dollars, talk price early. Here's why:

It isn't profitable to tell one person everything you do - they'll get bored in about a minute. Use these tools to develop 864 profitable minutes of self promotion.

A referral activator is an advanced marketing tool. Ready . . . set . . . go make money!

The ability to think about the other person while you're talking is a competitive advantage. That's what scripts give you.

What to do when someone adds you to their email list, and you don't want to offend them, but you're not interested in their newsletter.

It takes more than attending a meeting or joining a group to build a business.

Cards are the currency of business.
Like currency, they don't grow if they're hidden in the dark.

Best Clients are fun and profitable. Imagine your business being all fun and at the same time maximally profitable. Yowza! Here's how to get that.

Repeat something enough and we'll think it's gospel. That's what happened with the cliche "People do business with people they like and people who are like them." In real life, I have not found this to be true.

While it's natural to think you should go after easy targets, the "low hanging fruit", spend three minutes thinking about what your business would become if you gave up that belief. 

This is where the Best Client work begins: with identification

A brownie is not the same as a chocolate chip cookie. Not all referrals come from GateOpeners.

A GateOpener is:

• a classification 
• whose clients
• ask them
• for referrals to our classification.

A GateOpener is a business classification that has repeated referrals for us, because their clients ask them who to use.

GateOpeners aren't altruistic. They don't refer to us for our benefit -- or even for their clients'. Here is John's description for why he refers to Steve.

You know how children like to re-watch cartoons? Use that brain system to read and get benefit.

Here's a tool that makes staying in touch less time consuming. Which means I'm more likely to do it.

When you're thinking about business incentives, read this.

Word of mouth is not the same as a referral -- but there's no referral without word of mouth.

"I know you're busy, but you're going to want to read chapter four,  it explains why paying for referrals doesn't work..."

To be effective we have to show the person we're speaking with that we understand them. And since people are each different, any method for identifying preference is an effective differentiator.

If it's uncomfortable for you to talk about price . . . 

It seems that bias doesn't always sabotage. 

Repeat. Do new things. Behavior matters. Practice. Go.

. . . what am I giving my customers free that they do not see as extra value? And what am I giving my customers, for free, that they would be very happy to pay a little bit extra for?

The 16 rules for profitable follow through say it's never about you. Which is why you benefit. And that makes it all about you.

Relationship marketing happens in four dimensions: mine and yours; forward or back.

There's a magic number, Dunbar's number. Here's how to know when you have a credible claim to a referral based business.

Networking isn't the goal. Business is the goal. It takes action to earn the money.