Work the Foyer

I used to be absolutely terrified of networking. I’d go to a function, or be in a foyer after a show (often one I’d acted in), and rather than face the crowds I’d stay huddled deep in a  long conversation in the corner. Even if that conversation was one I’d rather not be in. Anything had to be better than working the room. I told myself it was shallow and superficial. But the truth was that it was downright scary.

Now I’m known amongst my friends as the connector. The guy who moves from group to group and gets people talking. Ten years of corporate theatre, being the ‘meet and greet’ man helped to cure me. So did an article I read that said that people who were social were imminently more employable. As an actor employment was often, well, consistently inconsistent. Having your own business regular recurring income is  also a challenge in this arena too. Or as one of my mentors says, it's the holy grail of small business.

But here’s the juice. You won’t make sales sitting in the dressing room. You’ve got to get out there, and keep doing so. Connecting with your clients and colleagues needs to be a habit. People need to know you’re available. You need to make yourself front of mind. I know myself that the people I often contract are those I not only trust or value, but also those I remember. Why? Because they’re working the foyer. My foyer. They’re sending me emails or updating me on my facebook wall. They’re sending me notes or making a quick call to stay in touch. We’re catching up for coffee or they’re holding an event. They’re not annoying or obtrusive. They’re simple there. Friendly, willing and available. Personally I like that I don’t have to always go to them, because I know I still need to devote much of my time to actually producing the work.

When I’m not, I’m making it my business to interact with my communities; the speaking community, marketing mates, event buddies. I could do more of this. Much more. Not only because it’s good for business, but I also like these people and get a buzz out of hearing about them and what they do.

Make working the foyer part of your work week, even if it’s working an on-line forum, and especially if you work alone. Get fresh perspectives. Meet new people. Create more business.

This is an excerpt from my forthcominhg book. 'Marketing Makeovers: How To Bring In Big Money For Your Small Business.'
 
What do you think? Let me know: michael@mcme.com.au
To Your Success
Michael Neaylon

Creating Killer Copy

The more compelling your copy, the greater your chance of captivating your audience - on-line, off-line, in sales letters, sales scripts, on websites, packaging, brochures and newsletters, even in your presentations: this is all copy.

The more adept you are at writing copy yourself the better. Often you'll have the deepest understanding of your customer, which benefits and advantages matter most to them - and equally importantly, their language. You don't, however, have to do it all yourself. With the emergence of sites such as www.elance.com or the abundance of quality local copywriters you can always outsource good creative content. As with any outsourcing, though, the clearer your overall understanding of what makes good copy great, the better your results.

Let's start at the top:

Headlines: Nothing grabs your reader like a headline. Make it controversial, make it witty, make it stand out. Catch your readers' attention. Look at newspapers, and daily news websites. They're experts at the headlines. They're punchy. And they point to one of two things: people's pains or dreams. To test this out I just picked up a paper. The headline? Clinging To Hope. That's a golden headline as it points to both: pains and dreams.

The First Paragraph: call it our limited concentration spans, call it limited time, call it what you will. The first paragraph is the most important. This needs to do two specific things.

1. Hook your reader.
2. Give us much of the relevant information as possible.

As we don't have any guarantees that people will read anything past our first paragraph it's important we get us much of the important info upfront without overwhelming our reader. That's why hooking them with an offer, a quick story, or a tantalizing overview is helpful. The bonus is that if you give your reader a seductive first paragraph then they'll be more likely to read on.

Think Benefits: Picture your ideal client. What's in this for them? More time with their kids? More money to escape them? What keeps them up at night? What pressing problem can your solution solve? We've discussed these before, yet as many clients struggle with this differentiation (and I've also worked to get my head around this), I think it worth revisiting. Always think about what's in it for your audience.   

Rhythm: Play with the language. Dance with it. Let it swing and sway. Have a conversation with your reader. In any environment this is much more memorable than data dumping.

Tone: On top ranked multi-million dollar TV series they conduct tone meetings very early on in the episode's life. That's how important it's seen. For our purposes, seek to match the tone of you and your brand with that of your audience and / or offering. At the time of writing this I'm also writing for a major telco. In their brand file they're big on two things: the tone of their brand and the best way to match it to their audience.

Exercise The 10% Rule: This is something I picked up from master storyteller Stephen King. He says in his excellent book, On Writing, that a major turning point in his career was when he took the advice of an editor to trim all his writing by 10%.

End With A Call To Action: Take an offering you're passionate about and write a paragraph to sell it to someone whose life you know will be the better for it. By taking the tone that you know it will benefit for them - and that they'll happily accept your offer - you won't be data dumping, forcing, manipulating or delivering a sermon - you'll be helping out a friend. And that, in my mind, is killer copy. Give your reader no other option but to call you now.

That article's  a snippet from the book. I'd love your feedback. Does it help? Need to know more? Email me 

Your People

This week we're sending out invites to get more people onto our facebook page as the blog gets updated there and gets increasingly good response. We also have a growing network of businesses joining so encourage you to link up.

If you're a retailer or wholesaler please feel free to let us know about your Christmas or New Year sales. We'll gladly advertise here at no charge over the next couple of editions. First in, best dressed.

Your Event

This fortnight it's our distinct pleasure to welcome Woody Woodhouse to the stage.

Woody is a successful MC, musician, performer, presenter and teacher with over 15 years experience. Woody has performed and produced entertainment for GPT, Lend Lease, Perpetual, McDonalds, Stockland and many other large companies. He has also performed at and MC'd many small company events, weddings and private gatherings.

Find out more about Woody here

Like the Brand Stand? Please forward to a friend or colleague to sign up here

To your success 

Michael Neaylon

Author of the forthcoming book 'Marketing Makeovers: How to Bring in Big Money for Your Small Business'.

Sales Fitness

 Here's a quick power workout to increase your sales stamina.

Sales, for the most part, are an energy game. Depending on the sales environment you also require different degrees of strong communication and interpseronal skills, such as rapport building and maintianing client relatiionships,

Then there's your personal, product or service presentation to think about - sometimes all three, often all at once. You've also got to be a swift and adept information and research gatherer.

For this workout let’s start with the energy. Let’s get sales fit.

Warming Up: Most warm ups only need to be brief. Whether it’s the Monday morning meeting or choosing the list you’re going to work with, you only need to get warm. You don’t need to do the whole workout before you actually work out. Why? You’ll lose too much energy in analyzing that could actually be spent on doing. I’m not saying that strategy isn’t important. Far from it. But don’t get bogged down in how to play the game. I often find strategy is a review process. Try something. Get momentum up. Check to see whether it’s working, Identify what is, what isn’t and then keep moving.

Sales Strength: The key to building a muscle is repetition. You often need to do at least 4 sets to concentrate on that particular muscle to attack it. You might keep a particular routine for a certain period of time and then change your entire routine. It’s a paradox: just when the muscle is built through repetition, and your body has found a way to cheat (we don’t go out of our way to cheat, we just find little tricks and shortcuts), you purposely attack the muscle differently. You shock the muscle out of comfortable and stretch it in new ways. The same goes for sales campaigns. Just when you’ve found an approach that works, one that you’re comfortable repeating and you hit a peak it’s time to try a new strategy. This will keep you fresh in your sales approach.

Keep Up Your Cardio: Part of overall fitness is being physically fast and adept. This keeps you reflexive and responsive- great for new or challenging campaigns. It will also help with the only constant in sales: change. Just any good trainer will encourage you to mix up your cardio to keep interest, mix up your sales routine. Give it some variety, make it fun. Without losing focus, give your sales routine variety. Plus, a tactic or approach you discover in a meeting on one campaign you might be able to transfer to a phone call on another. Another tip from a trainer; my personal trainer told me after we’d been working on perfecting my pushups for a while to just do as many as I possibly could simply to stretch myself. Some days I do the same with phone calls or meetings. I just dive in and do as many as possible. I keep doing this because the results are always such a good return on energy, and it always increases my sales fitness. When’s the best time to do this? On the days you least feel like it. (I didn’t say it was easy).

Stretch Between Sets: This is one of the biggest sanity savers. I find people either fall into 2 camps. The constant doer or the person who works best in short, sharp bursts. Neither is better than the other in my mind. Both work. Sometimes the same sales person will go through periods of both ways of working. However, you’ll generally fall into one pattern or the other. Either way, pace yourself, and give yourself downtime between sets. Whether it’s the long marathons of travel or back to back meetings, give yourself time to recover, breathe and stretch wherever you can. You’ll have renewed energy and vigour for the next sale.

Recovery: One of the best lessons personal training has taught me is that we can often bounce back much faster than we think. Much, much faster. In sales we can bounce back from rejections, disappointments, time wasted on fruitless leads and any other of the mistakes made in strategy or execution. The key is in reminding ourselves that we can. I found abs challenging for quite some time until my trainer told me that abs are highly resilient if exercised properly. You might feel like you hit the point of exhaustion. That’s when it’s good to dig deep. You’ll be surprised how much you have in reserve. Perhaps you, like me, will find that the last call of the day, the one you had to force yourself to do, is in fact the most fruitful.

Cool Down and Stretch Some More: This is longer than the rest between sets, this is the relaxation part. If you’ve done a good work out (teleesales campaign, trade fair, series of sales meetings), then you owe it to yourself to relax, take stock, reflect on what worked, what didn’t and why. This way you give yourself – and your team if you manage one - the chance to reenergize and refocus. And as with any good strength building program, the muscle will actually be built during the rest and repair time.

This is an excerpt from the book. What do you think? Let me know: michael@mcme.com.au

To Your Success

Michael Neaylon

Author of the forthcoming book, 'Marketing Makeovers: How To Bring In Big Money For Your Small Business

Shifting Shape

Here's the latest edition of Brand Stand, our fortnightly newsletter.

Despite the title this edition is not about losing weight. It's all about stretching the boundaries of who you are.

Your Brand

A "shapeshifter" is an archetype used in storytelling from Greek mythology to Bollywood. The term can often conjure up images of a deceiver purposely misleading everyone around them. But despite Hollywood clichés, it's not always the case.

Coming from an acting background myself, I've learnt two truths.

1. Who you are can change in any given situation.

2. You can still remain true to who you are.

That might sound like a paradox, but I firmly believe you can adapt who you're being in any situation, and still remain authentic. For me, the key is in holding true to your core values, whilst stretching the boundaries a little; trying some new behaviours on for size.

For instance, you might have told yourself, ‘I'm not a salesperson. I could never cold call.' I said the same thing some time ago. Since then I've had clients come on board simply because I have cold called them. You might think, ‘I'm shy. I could never speak in public.' I'm sure you could if you were given encouragement, honed your message and acquired a set of tools to support you. Perhaps you've asked yourself, ‘Will I ever make this business work?' What if you asked instead, ‘How can I make this business work?'

Nothing's ever guaranteed, but the more you stretch the boundaries of who you're being, the more likely you are to shift. For good.

Your People

If you're one of the growing numbers of Mumpreneurs please join Cinde and Kim, founders of The Mummy Tree and myself at this info-packed lunch at the Sydney Theatre Co. Nov. 24th.

Book here

With Christmas just around the corner here's a timely opportunity to treat your people from our friends at Corban & Blair.

More info here

As we have many retailers and wholesalers on the newsletter list, please feel free to send in your sales and we'll happily publicise them free of charge.


Your Event

Speaking of Mumpreneurs, this fortnight's featured MC, Stylist and founder of YUMMYMUMMYINC, Trish Murray.

Trish is an inspiring entrepreneur, mother of two and developer of the national award winning YUMMYMUMMYINC, which is now a staple label in every yummy mummy's wardrobe. She has featured in the respectable Australian fashion magazine ‘NEW WOMEN',and the popular Australian TV show ‘A Current Affair', as a success story encouraging other women to become Directors of their own business.

She appeared on ‘Good Morning with Kerri-Anne' discussing the secrets of success being a single parent working Mum, as well as MIX 106.5FM as an expert "Mumpreneur" The Daily Telegraph call on her expertise regarding interesting articles affecting women and their sense of identity. ‘Women turning back the Clock'

Find out more about Trish Murray

To Your Success
Michael Neaylon

Author of the forthcoming book 'Marketing Makeovers: How to Bring in BIG Money for Your Small Business.'

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The Best Possible Light

Most marketers agree, perception is everything. That’s why having a key message is so vital. It’s our first impression, colouring every future transaction with our clients.


Having a clear key message that positions you firmly with your target market can also greatly enhance your income. As with any perceived value I prefer the deal to be real.

Like the plumber who fixes everyone else’s sink but never quite gets around to his own, I’ve often found the process of locating a key message easier for clients than myself.

That is, until now.

Last week I was giving a group individual training on their presentation skills. One energetic, confident consultant bounded into the room and said, ’so who are you and what do you do?’ Being put on the spot I said, almost without thinking, ‘I help people market themselves in the best possible light.’ I actually hoped I could rewind and re-position myself. It seemed too simplistic, too low key. But the woman instantly asked me for my card, interested in what I had to offer. I felt I’d passed some sort of test, but wasn’t quite sure how.

I’ve thought about that moment a lot this week. Here are some of the key factors to why I believe this moment worked.

1. You sell yourself best when you’re not trying to sell yourself.

2. I was in action. In my body. Not in sales mode; in service.

3. I was challenged. Sometimes someone asking you ‘well what makes you good,’ gives you an occasion to rise to.

4. Persistence. I’ve been working hard to locate a simple message in my own words for quite some time, having pursued this with persistence.

5. There’s nothing like being caught off guard. My intention was purely to reassure the client that we could work together. Right here, right now.

6. There was no defence, no justification. Two things I warn my clients against, with full knowledge they’ve been blind spots for me in the past.

7. I already had the gig. But even when we’re in action there are people that need to be enrolled. I coach clients to act ‘as if’ they already have the sale. This was reminder that we always need to be playing our best game, devoid of arrogance, yet full of confidence.

People buy who you’re being first and foremost. If you’re in doubt that your key message is working for you keep practicing your positioning. Keep trying it on for size, testing it out in every interaction you have. Embody your position.

As an acting teacher used to tell us at drama school, ‘the body feels, the soul responds.’ So will your prospects.

To Your Success

Michael Neaylon

 

Author of the forthcoming book, 'Marketing Makeovers: How To Bring In Big Dollars For Your Small Business.'