One Consultant’s Homework

On a regular basis, people who are interested in the TopLine Consultants training ask what we cover in our intensive 4-day workshops. And the answer, very simply, is “A LOT!”.

One of the most important things (in addition to how to attract clients, determine how to best help them, and create systems and solutions that will increase their business and create a very substantial income for yourself, is that of “Positioning” vs “Prospecting”. It’s much better (and more cost-effective) to position yourself as the only viable choice for your prospects to do business with… and to have them contact you… rather than you going through all the prospecting motions and trying to sell them your services.

Here is some “homework” one of our consultants recently submitted. I thought you might be interested in seeing the process and how she addressed it. Much of it is incomplete, but you can get an idea of needs to be done. After completing the assignment we schedule a time to go over the information and help the new consultant fine-tune it to make sure it fits them and their capabilities, and addresses the needs of their market.
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Here are the homework results that I’ve developed so far (not complete) prior to our discussion later today. Hopefully it will be helpful and I’m sure you will have suggestions to make it 10x better! 

Items to work on and share comments about

Profile Your Ideal Client
Industry, Geographic location, Income, Size, # employees, Etc.
Location: Northern Colorado (Cities listed here)
Type of Business: Service, professional, some retail
Revenues: $300K – $2MM
Number of Employees: 1 – 10

What Makes You Special? List 3, 4 or 5 thingsBefore I became a business development consultant I wasn’t in HR, or corporate America, or an engineer, etc. I worked directly in small businesses for over 20 years as owner, outside sales rep, marketing, operations, purchasing, hiring, firing, accounting etc.

I am a great listener and very caring and able to hold people accountable and get them into action. An uncommon mix of soft and hard temperament.

What is it that you do that is so special that I would be compelled to hire you?
(Incomplete)

Develop Your USP/Slogan
I help small businesses double or triple their net profits in 12 or 18 months.

Develop Your Consulting Strategy
(Incomplete)

What can you offer your market that can WOW your clients.
(Incomplete)What are the trends in your industry
(Incomplete)

What is the “bad news” in your market (this motivate more than good or positive things)
(Incomplete)

Identify at least five (5) pain points that would motivate your prospects to become interested in you.
Sales/profits are flat.
Too much employee turnover.
Owner burn out – too much work for too little results.
Want a plan to work toward.
Conflicts with employees, vendors, customers.

Identify five points that would motivate your clients to use your services sooner or faster

My focus is on business development – the systems and strategies that can be implemented that will grow their net profits quickly and dramatically.

Upgrade my clients’ leadership and management skills to enable them to cut employee turnover to the bare minimum.

Focus on my clients’ highest priorities using their top strengths and delegate and outsource the rest in order to prevent them from burning out and restablish joy and happiness in their business and personal life.

I create a plan that will bring laser clarity to what they need to do.

Their communication skills will be significantly upgraded to turn previous conflicts into win-win outcomes.

Identify five pain points that would make your prospect sign longer contracts (buy More)

I’m positioned to utilize the information I have to work with a competitor.

I hold my clients’ feet to the fire to ensure they keep on task and accomplish our objectives.

I create quick and easily implementable strategies that produce short term results that generate immediate windfall profits, and longer term results that creates a business of real value that can be sold and provide my clients with true financial independence. 

I develop and implement permanent solution to my clients’ problems and not “band-aid” fixes.

Rather than working with short term agreements that enable clients to backslide and fall back into their previous ways, I “partner” with my clients on long-term arrangements that enable me to monitor their results, implement new strategies and prevent backsliding. Thisis not only in my clients’ best interest, it ensures that I have a continuing source of income for my efforts.

Identify five pleasures that your client should want to attain, achieve, experience from your services

Systems that produce dramatic increase in net profits – what really counts.

New systems and procedures that will cut employee turnover to the bare minimum.

Easily implementable systems that put the repeatable day to day activities on auto-pilot.

A well-defined Exit Strategy that allows my clients to plan for the eventual sale of the business and establish true financial independence.

More personal income from the business, less time spent involved and a better lifestyle from their investment of time, money and effort in the business. 

Identify what it will be like when your clients have used your services – list five expectations

Dramatic growth in net profits.

Much more control over their business and their life.

Peace of mind knowing that things are running smoothly and on auto-pilot

Systems in place so the business isn’t dependent on people (who can leave for a variety of reasons and leave them stranded).

More market share, more wallet share and more customer loyalty.

(The following 6 points are incomplete.) 
Determine your prospect’s problem, hurt, need or want from the prospect’s point of view.

Enlarge, add to or magnify the problem.

Get your prospect’s agreement that this is, indeed, a problem for them.

Let your prospect know you understand their situation.

Articulate how you can help your prospect solve, satisfy or eliminate that problem by talking in terms of benefits to them.

 Offer proof that you’ve helped others in similar situations.

Develop your Elevator Speech/first 15 seconds

Prospect: Hi, my name is John Smith.

Consultant:Nice to meet you, John. My name is (insert name here).
 
Prospect: Tell me, what do you do?

Consultant: John, you know how a lot of business owners are working insane hours and still are not making the kind of money they want to be and that they know they should be making?

(The prospect will either nod, make a statement or at least smile acknowledging that they understand, can relate and agree.)

Consultant: (After a slight pause.) It’s ironic, isn’t it? I mean, they start a business so they can have more freedom and make more money, but they often end up in the opposite situation. They invest a ton of blood, sweat, tears and their own capital, and they really deserve to succeed, don’t they?

Again, the prospect will either verbally or non-verbally acknowledge that he or she is in agreement.

Consultant: Well, having owned several businesses myself has helped me understand exactly what a small business owner goes through. I’ve been in the trenches too and a lot of times it’s very hard to see your way out to a better reality. You just aren’t sure what to do. So what I’ve done is develop a system and a process to help my clients get their business back on track so they can have those rewards they wanted when they started it in the first place. It all starts with my first meeting with a client when we discuss their situation, how they got into the business, how it’s going now and determine exactly what the possibilities are for positive change. Then, if I think I can help that owner dramatically improve their net profits while helping them get back their sanity, I put together a Competitive Intelligence Report with a couple of plans they can choose from that solve their problems, and do it cost-effectively-without breaking the bank. In fact, my fees are based for the most part on a contingency where they only pay when they get the results they want.  It works great, and my clients’ love it. And that’s why most of my clients have been with me for several years.

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Well, this gives you an idea of what we put our consultants through. And even though it’s not complete and there’s a lot of work yet to do, you can see that we place a real emphasis on Positioning rather than Prospecting. By knowing the needs of the market and what the problems and pain points of that market are, we can easily define what needs to be done to position ourselves as not only the best choice for our prospects to do business with, but in fact, the ONLY choice they have.

Four days of very intensive training. That’s what we put our consultant through. And when they finish? They know EXACTLY what they need to do to hit the ground running. My personal goal is that there are absolutely NO questions left unanswered at the end of those four days. I want every single person in every single training class to know precisiously what they need to do, how to do it, and to have a paying client in their first 7 to 10 days. And if they follow my step by step system there is absolutely no reason why they can’t recover their entire investment in the first 30 days.

 Now what about you? Are you happy with the time you are spending in your present career? Are you okay with trading your hard-earned experience, your expertise and your time for the paycheck you’re currently getting? Or are you finally fed up with letting someone else tell you when to come to work, when to go home, what to do in between, and how much you’re worth?

So far, 667 people just like you have joined us and traded their old careers for the opportunity to call their own shots, name their own hours, work with people they choose to, and earn very substantial incomes. If this is something you would like to do and want more information, please visit www.BusinessConsultantsWanted.com/letter.htm or call Chad at 480-461-1866. He’ll give you all the answers you need to make sure this opportunity is right for you and that you’re right for TopLine. Our next training will be held in Phoenix, Arizona, February 25 – 28.

Regards,

Martin Howey