If you have a small service based business, this strategy may work for you. The goal is to pass the client though the following stages of relationship building.
Phase 1: Free Information
In the first phase you find ways to provide free information to your prospect. When I say free, it should still carry a lot of value. Free junk is still junk. In order for this to work you want the prospect to feel he/she is better off for getting your information.
Phase 2: Sell Information
This is a complete departure from how most systems go. You can create an informational product, such as a video, training course, or ebook. When you sell this product to your clients you are building up their level of trust in you in an incremental way. Additionally, you can use the proceeds of the informational product to pay for advertising to get more people into your marketing funnel.
Phase 3: Sell Your Service
After building credibility, trust and providing true value to your prospects, the natural next step is for them to hire you. Additionally, they are certainly facing challenges putting into practice the information you’ve provided them.
Case Study: Selling Organizing Services
A professional organizer has a specific challenge. She/he must sell the prospect on the idea of using an organizer before any thing else. Let’s take a look at how the process above may be put into practice for someone in this field.
Phase 1:
The organizer creates is simple 2-4 page report that can be given away when someone signs up for weekly organizing tips. It seems a little counter-intuitive, but the first thing you want to figure out is a title for the report. I would use something like, “5 filing blunders almost everyone makes, and why they cost you time and money” or “Can a full garage create an empty marriage?” or “7 simple steps to stop the clutter monster from attacking your desk”
The organizer sends people to a simple direct response page where the prospect can sign up for the weekly tips and receive the free report as a bonus.
Example: http://www.DirectResponsePages.com
Phase 2:
The organizer creates a full online course on how to organize something (i.e. home, office, garage, closet, car, etc.). He/she uses learnhub to charge money for the course. When prospects sign up for the report in phase one, they become part of the prospect list for buying the course. The organizer would need to create or have created a sales letter to sell the course.
Related Link: http://www.LearnHub.com
Phase 3:
In both the report and the course certain language is sprinkled in. Examples: “My clients often face…”, “When faced with a particularly challenging garage, my client and I…”
The organizer has a signature line at the bottom of each email reminding folks at each phase that they can skip ahead and hire help.
The organizer could create a specific sales letter to send to people after completing the course. The cost of the course may be applied to the cost of the initial service.
Hopefully this article has helped you get your wheels turning. Please comment on this article if you feel it’s of value, and/or if you want me to write more in-depth articles on this subject. For example, I could write more case studies of how this could be applied in different industries.