4 Critical Tools for Consultants & Coaches to Market to the Modern Buyer

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On May 12, four experts will come together at the San Francisco Bay Area Business Growth Conference to teach you how you can implement all of these techniques below in your own business! Space is limited to only 50 entrepreneurs, so register now before all the spots are taken! If you’re in the first 25 to register, you’ll get amazing #SFGrowthCon bonuses worth over $2000.

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The Modern Buyer Has Evolved

Today’s buyer is much more sophisticated and jaded when it comes to online marketing hype. They’ve seen and heard it all before, and they just don’t respond to it as much. As with everything on the internet, times have changed, and reaching those buyers – and engaging with them – is harder than ever.

But with those changes, come changes in the technology that we as marketers have at our disposal. We have a much more robust and richer set of tools and techniques than ever before. The tough part is moving with those changes and figuring out the best way to use them. There are SO many systems, tools, apps, options, choices, and so on, that it becomes pretty overwhelming to even know where to start.

If you’re a consultant of any kind or a business/executive coach or a sales professional, reaching and engaging your target audience is key. Chances are good that either your buyers aren’t actively searching for your services, or you already have a lot of competition in the space. If you have a lot of competition (and who doesn’t?), it’s very hard to get noticed online.

Does this feel very familiar to you? Have you struggled to find a way to engage with your target customer? You know they’re out there, somewhere, but you’re just not getting the right combination of systems in place to make it happen effectively.

We’re all busy. Who has the time to try to figure it all out, and put together a system that will work for you? Putting together a cohesive system of parts that work together as a whole is a huge challenge.

What’s The Most Efficient Way to Engage the Modern Buyer?

You have to make yourself stand out from the rest of your competitors and competition for attention by doing things differently from everyone else. “Same is Lame”, so using the following four tools in a systematic way can really make you stand out. This is not complicated, it’s just a different way of doing it.

Update Your LinkedIn Profile

First of all, when was the last time you looked at your LinkedIn profile? LinkedIn is where your buyers are interacting with other business people and hanging out. They are evaluating you as a service provider and judging you based upon that profile. If you haven’t updated it in a while, it’s probably got stale information.

Update your photo with a professional headshot, not one where you’ve got a drink in your hand or you’ve cropped yourself out of a group. Take the time to get a good photo.
Optimize your profile for what your clients are searching for so they find you!
Start working on getting recommendations from happy clients. Go to your profile, hover over the little down arrow next to the “View Profile As” button, and choose “Ask to be recommended.”
Join groups where your target clients (not your peers!) are hanging out, and start contributing on a regular basis. Become a “Top Contributor” in the group.

This is just a start, but start using it on a regular basis to engage with your target customers so they get to know, like and trust you!

Optimize Your Online Presence

Making sure your web presence is optimized for the search engines is critical. It’s not hard to do, you’ll just need to spend a little time going through the most important pages on your site, and doing a little tweak to it.

Make sure every page has a strong call-to-action on it – this includes your blog. If people can’t figure out how to engage with you, they’ll go somewhere else. Get them to join your newsletter or sign up for a free 15-minute consultation. Whatever works for your business.
Manage your online reputation and start building a positive image on Google My Business and Yelp. These both show up high in the search engines, and you need that to be reflected there that you’re an awesome person to work with.

Start Using Social Selling Processes

LinkedIn, Twitter, and to a lesser extent, Facebook are all excellent opportunities for you to to engage with your buyers and ideal clients. LinkedIn is probably the most powerful tool because it’s truly an online power networking tool to connect one-to-one with people.

If you get a connection request, respond to it right away with a personal note back to the person and a simple call-to-action to check out some valuable content you’ve got (video, blog, or LinkedIn Pulse article). This warms up the connection to you, and you can further engage. Don’t SELL them on the spot. Warm them up to you first!
Use the Advanced Search capabilities in LinkedIn to winnow all your connections down to those with whom you want to connect, and start engaging them in conversations about what they want.
Use the tagging tools to keep track of them and who you’ve communicated with. Start working them into your sales funnel so as they get to know you the sales professional or consultant, you can show them your awesome stuff when they’re ready to buy.

Use Video to Really Grab Their Attention

75% of all traffic on Facebook is video, and most of that is consumed on mobile devices. By having compelling video shorts or infomercials (60 seconds) helps people to get to know you as an individual, and what you can do for them. Work past any nervousness about being on camera and quash the voices in your head that say, “Oh, I don’t look good or sound good on camera.” It’s pointless, and it’s just getting in your way.

Most of your competitors are NOT using video, so start using it as an attention grabber and thumb-stopper on their social media feed!

Get a coach to help you hone your message down so it’s short, to the point, and has a strong call-to-action at the end. Practice, practice and practice your elevator speech.
Get a professional to record your video or use good quality equipment (not your cell phone!) to get a good, high-resolution version of your infomercial.
Put it on your video sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, and start embedding it on your website, LinkedIn profile, and even in your email newsletter.

By implementing these four tools on a regular basis, you’ll continue to attract and ENGAGE your target audience. None of this is rocket science, it’s a process. Make it part of your daily routine and soon you’ll reap the benefits.

#SFGrowthCon – May 12, 2016, San Francisco

I hope you’ll join three of my colleagues and me at the #SFGrowthCon workshop in San Francisco. In the half-day workshop, we’re going to teach you ALL of these steps and exactly how to put it in place for your business.

ONLY the first 25 people who register will also get some crazy good bonuses worth over $2000:

A Webscan SEO analysis of their website and a one-hour live group coaching session with Thomas Petty, Digital Marketing expert.
A 15-minute private coaching session with Mario, a #SocialSelling Evangelist, to hone your 60-second infomercial and call-to-action.
A professionally recorded and produced video with Stephanie and John Shaterian, bothVideo and Storytelling Experts. You can take your video with you to put on your LinkedIn profile or website or wherever else you want to engage your buyers.