3 Strategies For Prospecting Online Review Management Clients

[Garrett Sussman]

3 Strategies For Prospecting Online Review Management Clients

Prospecting is an emotional rollercoaster...

When it's done wrong.

If you're an agency owner you're wearing lots of hats. You're juggling cash flow, sales, marketing and client work.

There isn't enough of you to go around.

So you spend your days running from one fire to the next. When new clients come in it's all hands on deck. You divert your attention away from prospecting to agreements, project managements, meetings, etc. Here's the part that makes everything more difficult.

You need to do that.

Do you spend time on marketing (fire) to bring in new customers? Do you help your team manage and complete projects (fire)? Or are you the customer service point of contact in case something goes wrong (fire)?

You won't have a business if you ignore these details.

But, you don't have enough time to generate the leads you need. How do you generate a steady supply of leads and maximize the time you have to work on your business?

Your business won't survive without a system

Is having a system an important thing to have? Let's look at two marketing consultants for the answer.

Rich wants review management clients so he...

1. Writes a book​

2. Guest posts on high profile sites​

3. Speaks regularly at entrepreneur and business conferences​

4. Creates helpful tools and resources clients can use right away​

5. Offers consulting to clients who need more help

​

Jason wants consulting clients so he...

1. Starts a consulting business
2. Buys a list of prospects from a vendor
3. Starts cold calling, sends out cold emails
4. Gets a few clients but eventually stops marketing to take care of his clients

​

See the difference?


Rich uses a system. That system gives him the leverage he needs to flood his business with leads. His marketing isn't dependent on him personally. It's dependent on his system. The better his system performs the more clients he receives.

Marketing gets easier for Rich and harder for Jason.

Rich, due to his thought leadership and useful content, is viewed as an expert. He works hard to create value for clients, but he does it in a way that removes him from the process. Jason is seen as a needy wannabe, a bottom feeder that pesters, begs and annoys prospects for their attention. He has no audience, no leverage and gets zero respect.

Does your prospecting system have the right ingredients?

Your prospecting system needs a few distinct ingredients to work properly. Prospecting becomes easy with the right ingredients. Agencies and consultants frequently run into trouble because their prospecting system is incomplete.

For example, agencies often attempt to win clients with attraction alone. If they win they pay a steep price (e.g. discounting, loss of respect, bad projects) and often struggle to keep them.

These ingredients fit into three distinct groups.

Attraction


· Education. It's the key ingredient that attracts new clients to you. Teach clients something surprising or new and you immediately have their interest. Captivate them with emotion and you win their undivided attention.

· Resources. Lead magnets, tools, checklists, ebooks and guides are all under the category of resources. Resources, when offered in exchange for an email address, begin the relationship. A well crafted resource can be positioned as an irresistible offer used to build a relationship.

· Entertainment. Fascinate, delight or inspire your prospects and they'll follow you to hear more of what you have to say. Entertain prospects with stories, songs, games and ideas. Entertainment, while important, shouldn't come at the expense of value. Value first, entertainment second.

· Engagement. Your prospects may push back on your ideas. They'll challenge you, ask questions, give you feedback. Treat each engagement as a test. As if prospects are evaluating you, your character and your business. Respond with kindness and respect at all times.



Conversion


· Authority. Why should prospects listen to you? What makes your voice significant and worthy of attention? What signals confirm your ability to help and serve them?

· Credibility. Your banker may have authority when it comes to banking and finance but that doesn't mean you trust them explicitly as people.

· Objections. Fear permeates transactions between two people who don't know each other. What if you fail to produce results? I don't think your process will work. Who do you have working for you?

· Information. What's your refund policy? How do you do what you say you'll do? How long before I see progress? Do you outsource work to independent contractors? Will you be the one to service my account?


Consumption


· Understanding. Do clients understand what they've paid for? Are they experiencing any buyer's remorse? Are they aware of what they can do with your product or service? If customers understand what you're giving them, what they can accomplish with your product or service, they're far more likely to use it.

· Usage. Are your clients using your service? Are they taking advantage of your reports? The more a client consumes your product or service, the more they'll buy. Getting clients to use your product or service is one of the hardest parts of selling, but it's also one of the most vital.

· Support. Are you there to help them when something goes wrong or do they have to figure things out on their own? Are you helpful and kind when they reach out to you for help or are you irritated, annoyed and eager to get them off the phone or chat?

· Growth. Are you proactively looking for ways to help your clients? Are you providing them with consistent value (outside of your content marketing efforts) on a consistent basis? The more you do to help your clients grow their business the more likely they are to stay with you.


You can add these ingredients as you go along. But you'll need them all to have a complete prospecting system. You'll need the attraction and conversion sections first to get started so we'll tackle those today.

Here are 3 prospecting strategies you can implement immediately.

Read the rest of Andrew's post here. He goes on to detail 3 great strategies for finding Online Review Management clients!

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Garrett,

It always amazes me how much of your detailed articles you share here with everyone!
Hope they click through at the end to see all the screenshots and the final, most important tips.
Great as always!

 

[Garrett Sussman]

Thanks, Linda! I blame Andrew for writing such great ideas that it makes sense to share some of the key ones here, but also have some very useful tactics saved for the full blog post!