#130: Why Your Biggest Client Opportunities Are Slipping Between Your Fingers—and What to Do Abou...

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Well, hello there and thank you for joining me for episode 130 of the High Income Business Writing Podcast. My name is Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to take their writing businesses to the six figure level or the part time equivalent. You can find details show notes of this episode by going to b2b launcher.com episode 1:30 so let me ask you something. Have you ever gone weeks prospecting for clients without something to show for it, some sort of result? And maybe part of the problem is that you haven't up until that point been prospecting like you know you should have. So you, you already feel bad about it. And here you are, you're knocking on what seems like a ton of doors, but no one seems to be interested. And then when you finally get a response, it's something along the lines of great, I'll keep your information on file. That's exhausting, isn't it? Well, there's a reason why this happens and that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode. This is an incredibly important topic and if you've been following me for a while, you know that I'm really passionate on taking a more holistic view of your self marketing or your prospecting efforts. But this is also a topic that on the surface doesn't always connect with people. Even seasoned marketers often forget this stuff. These are people who do this for a living. They know it. They understand and agree with what I'm going to be sharing with you in this episode. But I found that even the most experienced marketers often lose sight of these principles. If you can really understand the dynamics I'm going to describe today, and if you can start taking simple steps to implement these ideas, I'm convinced that your business will improve significantly and you'll be able to land new clients much more easily than you ever have before. The first thing you need to understand is that you're not alone. Everyone struggles to find prospects who are ready and willing to engage at that moment. And that's not just in the world of professional services or creative services. It's also true in virtually every business to business market, from medical devices to software, manufacturing, consulting, advisory services, heavy equipment. Basically, if it's a considered purchase, meaning something that it's not just bought off a shelf or off a website, it's not an Impulse buy, it's something that it's considered. There's a committee involved, there's a formal decision making process because it's an expensive item. So if it's a considered purchase, when you market a product or service, only a certain percentage of the target market is actively looking for what you sell or something along those lines. Meaning only a small percentage of the people you're approaching are ready right now or actively looking for something today. And according to research by business development agency Vorsite, only 3% of qualified prospects are actively searching for someone who provides your services. So you heard that right? At any given time, according to vorsite, only about 3% of qualified prospects in your target market are actively looking for a freelance writer or copywriter. That means that just three out of 100 people actually have a need and are looking for a freelancer who does what you do. These hot prospects, as you can see, are a needle in a haystack, you know. So the question is, what about the other 97 out of the hundred? Well, according to that same research, about 40 of them will probably have a need for your services sometime in the next few months. And these are what I like to call your not yet ready prospects. And then the rest, which is about a whopping 57 of them, will not be looking anytime soon. So these are not great odds, are they? You know, if you're working hard to find a few gems, you know the 3%, even when you find them, there's no guarantee that they're going to hire you. Now there have been a few studies on this topic. Warsight is not the only company to uncover this dynamic. And I experienced this for many years in my own sales situations. There is a more in depth study conducted by Kaner's Business Information of more than 40,000 inquiries generated by ads and press releases. And this study, I want to say, is about 15, 20 years old. It's pretty old. But the reason I like to quote it is that it was so comprehensive and they focus on the manufacturing business. So this is equipment and much of this was expensive stuff, right? But I found that the numbers still apply. When I was keeping track of my own numbers in different sales jobs, these numbers were very, very close. And you know, the point here is not to find out what the exact statistics are, what the exact metrics are in our own situations when selling creative services. The point is that there is definitely a, a pattern out there. And when you look at these studies, these patterns align very, very well. In my experience and the experience of many of My coaching clients with what's happening out there when you're selling creative services. So the Kaner study, again, very comprehensive 40,000 data points, found that 11% of prospects who inquired about a proctor or service purchased within three months of of inquiring. So that's not terribly far off from the 3% ready now metric from the foresight study. Okay, so 3 to 11%. My experience is that the number is somewhere in there. I tend to quote closer to the 10%, but we're talking about, let's just say it's 10%. Just to keep it simple. 10% of prospects are purchasing within three months of inquiring about something. So they've already raised their hand or whether they were contacted or whether they're the ones who initiated the inquiry. Only about 10% are buying that quickly. Now here's where it gets interesting. 17% purchase within four to six months. So that's quite a big number. Or purchasing beyond that 90 day window, 25% purchase within 7 to 12 months in 47% took more than a year to buy. Now, a more recent stat that I also found is from Marketing Donut, who found the 63% of people requesting information on your company today will not purchase for at least three months and 20% will take more than 12 months to buy. So you can see slightly different metrics. This is a little bit more encouraging. But the point is the same. We're looking at the patterns, not necessarily the exact numbers or only a small percentage of qualified prospects are ready today are actively looking for someone to hire to do what we do. So the bottom line is finding a prospect who's right for you and ready to hire you. Now, that's hard. The odds are definitely stacked against you. And when you consider the effort prospecting takes, these are very depressing figures. Now look, I'm not trying to talk you out of prospecting for clients. I'm a huge believer, as you know, in this form of business development. And as you'll see in a minute, the value of prospecting is not that obvious. The full value of prospecting. I really believe that what it takes to succeed is a shift in mindset and a shift approach. And it's really all about focusing on that 40% group that Warsite has identified, that 40% group that is not ready today, but is poised to begin a search for someone who provides your services sometime in the next few months. And this is the group that most freelance professionals ignore. So stay with me for a minute because the logic here I think is very sound. But it's, it's not something that a lot of us tend to think about because we are, at least both of us are raised in a culture of instant gratification and immediate results, spending tons of time and energy looking for that magical 3% or the 11%, depending on how you look at it. But let's just say 3%, 10%, whatever you want to say, that's a lot of work. But what have you instead looked for that group that's right behind them, that 40% group I just talked about, the not yet ready prospects who will probably be ready soon. They're qualified, it's just the timing is not there yet. And we'll talk more about that in a minute. But they're not ready today, but they might be ready at some point in the future. And what have you stayed in touch with that group until they were ready for you. When you go about your prospecting this way, you'll automatically find a 3% who is ready today and you'll be the first person these prospects turn to when the timing is right. So over the years I found that much of the difference between just getting by and earning a really nice income as a freelance professional lies in what you do with prospects who are not ready to hire you today. Now I call this lead nurturing. And once I saw the impact of this kind of follow up and what it had, the impact it had on my income, it quickly became a critical part of my marketing and sales process as a freelance writer. So which prospects do you nurture? I mean, if you're buying into this idea and you're thinking this sounds good, you know, how do you do it? How do you do it without turning them off? And the answer is that it's simpler than you would think. You know, this really is not about finding the perfect or optimal situation in combination and sequence. This is really about just being human, being real, and just staying in touch in a value added, non pestering way. And you simply want to nurture every prospect who indicates potential interest in your services but doesn't currently have a need. So that includes prospects who engage you but let's say end up going with another rider. Or maybe they end up putting the prospect on hold or going in a different direction altogether, for instance, hiring a full time staff writer or hiring a content agency and so forth. So really most people qualify. Now you should also nurture prospects who didn't go as far as to engage you, but who contacted you about your services, yet went completely silent before you were able to schedule a Phone conversation. Now let me just net this out. Right, so a simpler way to look at the decision as to whom you should nurture is to basically nurture every qualified prospect you come in contact with, except for the following two groups. Group number one, prospects who after some degree of follow up say flat out, look, we have no interest or need for a rider. In group number two, prospects who are not or don't seem to qualified either because you look them up and you can tell that they wouldn't be a good prospect, or because after a conversation or email exchange with them, you realize that they just wouldn't be a good fit for you. So what about everybody else? Does it really pay to stay in touch with not yet ready prospects? Well, let me give you some more statistics to mull over 44% of salespeople and let me just stop right there. As freelancers, we're selling our services, so we are salespeople. So 44% of salespeople give up after one follow up. Yet 80% of sales require five follow ups and that is according to scripted and marketing donut. Here's another interesting one. 80% of the prospects deemed bad leads by sales teams end up buying within 24 months. And that's according to serious decisions. According to Gleanster, on average 15 to 20% of the not yet ready to purchase opportunities convert to sales after lead nurturing. 15 to 20%. That's a lot of prospects. You know you've had a hundred that over the years have said not now, I'm not ready. That means that up to 20 of them could convert to sales if you are following up could convert to a client. Nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non nurtured leads according to the Annuitas group. And lead nurturing emails get four to ten times the response rate compared with standalone email blasts according to Silverpop. So why is there this delay between like an inquiry and when somebody actually buys or between when you contacted them and when they actually do engage you in a project? Why? Well, there are two key factors that are actually very simple and they are timing and trust. So landing a new client requires both the right timing and a certain level of trust. So the timing for hiring you needs to be right. You can't create urgency inside the prospect's organization. You really can't. But here's what you can do. You can stay in touch with them or at least your contact there until they are ready to engage you. You also can't build trust overnight. It takes time, it takes patience it takes a sincere desire to establish a meaningful connection with your prospects. And to do that effectively, you need a smart, methodical and sincere lead generating effort with your not yet ready prospects. So forget about your business for a minute. Let's just take this discussion outside of the world of creative services. Think about a big personal purchase you've made. Say your first house. Somebody you know referred you to their realtor and her name is Peggy. But maybe the timing wasn't right to hire Peggy. You needed time to save for down payment. So you happily connected with Peggy. But you also told her that it was too early to go out looking for houses. Now let's just say that Peggy was smart and she stayed in touch with you over the next few months, sending you an occasional article or relevant information on interest rates, maybe some really good advice for first time home buyers and so on. She wasn't pushy, she just kept in touch in a value added way. Providing interesting information doesn't have to be mind blowing. It was just interesting and relevant to you. Fourteen months later when you had all your ducks in a row and were ready to get started, I bet she was the first and probably the only realtor you contacted. It makes sense, doesn't it? Right? But what if Peggy hadn't stayed in touch? Well, 14 months is a long time. You may have forgotten about her, or maybe you did remember her. But when you texted your relative or your friend asking her for Peggy's contact information, you never got a reply text, so you moved on. Or maybe Peggy, she's gone about this the wrong way. She could have pressured you to start the buying process by emailing you and calling you every month and asking you, okay, are you ready now? Are you ready now? You got to buy now because interest rates are going up, right? So as you can see, it's easy to mess this up. You have to follow up. You also have to do it right. And fortunately it doesn't take that much to do it right. Now I want to give you some a basic framework for how to do this because a lot of people have trouble. They like the idea of nurturing not yet ready prospects, but they're not really sure how to go about it. And I want you to think of it in terms of four different elements. You just need four different elements. You need a content library and we'll talk about that. You'll need media, you'll need to think about frequency. And you need a way to track some of this information so that you know who you are nurturing and who you need to nurture. So let's go through each of them in a little bit more detail. Content library. Now, I don't want you to think that you're going to have to create this massive library of content you can send out, but you don't. First of all, I'll give you that hint. But a huge factor in the success of your lead nurturing efforts is again adding value in every follow up attempt. What you don't want to do is to call or email every month or every two months and say, are you ready now? Okay, you want. Which is what everybody else does by the way. You want to be different and being different alone, that in and of itself will help you stand out. So you need good quality content that you can include in your follow up messages. So what kind of content? Well, here's some ideas. Articles you've written. So if you write a newsletter and you already have a few articles laying around from previous issues, you can move those, the best ones, at least to your content library. This doesn't have to be a physical library. It doesn't have to be a physical folder in your filing cabinet. It could just be a folder in your hard drive, or it could be a notebook in Evernote. What you want is relevant, insightful and well written, self authored articles that always makes excellently nurturing material. They give you the credibility, they position you as an expert on the topic, and they provide your prospects with ideas and insights that could help them do their jobs better. Some people ask me, well what about you mentioned the newsletter? Does that count as a lead nurturing vehicle? And yes it does count. But I feel that you also need a personalized nurturing layer, if you will, on top of your newsletter. Because the newsletter is one to many, right? It's me broadcasting a message to everyone on my list and the recipients know that. But when you're sending something to Tom, you can easily make it look because it's true that this is a one to one communication. This is me at Gandia sending a nurturing email to Tom Smith. Okay, so I think you need both. Another thing you can include in your library are reports or white papers. So these can be very powerful nurturing pieces. And here again, reports and white papers give you that credibility while offering value to readers. Now if you don't have a report or white paper you've authored, it doesn't matter. Try assembling one with previously published articles that touch on a common theme. Useful and relevant resource tools and resources is another one. So I'm talking about checklists, cheat Sheets, templates, process maps, step by step plans, shortcuts, worksheets, scorecards, any other tools like that that you've created. If you don't have anything like that in your files, hey, this is a great reason to start creating a couple of these. You know, I bet that in the course of your work you've probably developed internal checklists or processes or templates and other tools that you use to write, copy or content or to manage writing projects. These might be things you already do naturally without thinking much about them. Maybe they're all in your head, but this is a good time to consider reverse engineering and documenting what you do. Not only will it be helpful for you, but these are nice little assets that you can give away. And clients and prospects really love this stuff. And it doesn't really matter. They use them, they'll immediately see the potential value in it and they'll appreciate the fact that you thought of them Another great category to add to your content library are success stories, or also known as case studies in marketing speak. So success stories are short articles that describe how you help the client solve a specific challenge and how the client specifically benefited from your service. If you have one or two case studies already written, perfect. Add them to your library. They make fantastic nurturing material. If you don't have any, but have a few client successes that would make for a great story, this might be a good time to approach those clients about doing a quick write up. They don't have to be fancy, they don't have to be long. A simple, short one page success story can go a long way. You can get a lot of mileage out of that. Third party content is another category to add to your library. It doesn't have to be completely self authored stuff of your library content. You know, it's good to have a mix of self authored content and third party information. So I'm talking about things such as statistics, reports, blog posts, white papers, success stories, reference material, survey results, all those things you want to keep your library fresh and current, of course, so you know, make sure these things often have a shelf life, especially statistics and studies and survey results. But when you come across those you feel are helpful or interesting, just go ahead and add them to your library. This is something you can, you can, you can use and give away. Books is another great category. So if you work in a field in which each new client is worth thousands of dollars over the course of a year, could potentially be worth thousands of dollars, you may want to consider adding books to your nurturing library not for every prospect, but maybe for some prospects that you know are worth spending a little bit of extra money on. So pick books that are timely. You know, it shouldn't be the same book year after year. Books that are timely, that are relevant to the prospect, tied somehow to what you do, and written by credible sources. The reason I like books is that books are memorable. Physical books are not things that prospects get every day in the mail, especially one that's relevant to their work. And nobody sends these out right? So if you can send out a book with a quick little handwritten note and send that out to a prospect you're nurturing, that really makes an impression. Links to videos and podcasts would be another asset to add to your library. It could be a video you've put together with some practical and relevant tips. It could be a podcast you came across, not necessarily yours. It would be relevant and valuable to your audience. Rich media can really be a great way to stay in touch while adding value. I've seen some people do this with like in the marketing world, with videos that have kind of inside marketing jokes, you know, that only marketers would get. Those are always fun, those are evergreen. Make sure to add those so you can change things up in your library. Helpful Tools so if you come across helpful tools, apps, utilities, software, websites that would help your prospects do their jobs more easily, add them to your content library. That's another great category. Become the person who brings those valuable ideas to your prospect's attention. They're not going to forget you. Another category is news stories or general announcements. This is kind of an obvious one, so interesting news reports can work really well, but so can general announcements about new things you're doing in your business. So for instance, if you recently partnered with another freelancer to deliver a more complete service, why not draft a one page document that describes a service that lists all the deliverables that explains what's involved? This could be a great excuse to send something to a prospect who might consider it. Sure, it's a little bit self serving, but it's one item in a mix of other pieces that are not self promotional. Handwritten cards and other creative items is another category. So, so this is where you can really get creative. Handwritten cards stand out in a world of electronic and mass produced correspondence. I found that the personal touch goes a long way towards staying top of mind with not yet ready prospects. And in terms of where to find relevant information to add to your library. You know, I think this is pretty obvious, but if you're staying on top of events and happenings in your industry or in the world of marketing or copywriting. Industry publications, newsletters, blogs. These are things that you should subscribe to. These are things that you should have on RSS feeds. These are things that you should constantly be scouring. And as you come across useful information, again, clip it. You can clip it digitally to an Evernote notebook. You can save it into a special folder in your hard drive. One app that I really like is called Pocket. You can find that@getpocket.com and it enables you to clip and store articles and other content from the web. And the cool thing about it is not only does it keep it really organized, but once the app learns your clipping patterns, it makes recommendations of other relevant content the system thinks you might like, which makes it easier to find other great relevant content. So that's a great one to consider. Pocket the second important element of a lead nurturing effort is media. And I mentioned that because using multiple media is important, you want to change it up. It shouldn't all be your contacts shouldn't all be over email. By changing it up, you diversify your efforts and you also add variety to your messages, which can help cut through the noise of junk mail and flooded email and voicemail boxes. Now there are three basic media that you're going to want to use, and I like to do it in a rotating fast way. And there's usually no gatekeeper, so the chances of getting through the prospect can be higher than with postal mail. Of course, the downside is that it could get lost in the shuffle and never read. And then there's a phone. I do believe that it pays and I've seen some great results with this to throw in a few phone calls into your nurturing mix. The telephone is a very personal and interactive medium. It humanizes you and it could easily become part of a one, two punch strategy to let the prospect know that you've just emailed them something and wanted to give them a heads up. So for instance, you could combine that email with a voicemail message and let me give you an example of a voicemail message. You'll see where I'm going with this. Hi Jill, Ed Gandhi here. I'm the business to business copywriter you contacted back in December. I'm calling because I've recently worked with two clients to turn some of their white papers into one sheet summaries for the sales teams. This concept has really caught on with these two clients and I thought it might be something you'd be interested in exploring. If you'd like to connect, you can reach me at 770-555-1876 or you know your email address. Take care. So notice how that's simple. It's relaxed, sincere and to the point. And notice that even though it's obviously promotional in nature, there's value in there. It's not your typical hey, do you have anything for me? Are you ready yet? So notice that I've done, I sent the email and then I can follow it up with a voicemail. You could do the same message and what you're doing is you're approaching the prospect from two different angles. Or you could just do a standalone. But the point here is that you can integrate some of the media in different ways. If you are trying to make sure that you get notice the next element of a good lead nurturing effort is to think about your frequency. Remember, 44% of salespeople give up after one follow up. Yet 80% of sales or deals or clients or projects, however you want to look at it, require five follow ups. That doesn't mean you call or mail five times with a are you ready for me? Message. Okay, five or more attempts means that you stay in touch in a relevant and pursuit and what you're doing is you're approaching the prospect from two different angles. Or you could just do a standalone. But the point here is that you can integrate some of the media in different ways. If you are trying to make sure that you get notice, the next element of a good lead nurturing effort is to think about your frequency. Remember, 44% of salespeople give up after one follow up. Yet 80% of of sales or deals or clients or projects, however you want to look at it, require five follow ups. It doesn't mean you call or mail five times with a are you ready for me? Message. Okay, five or more attempts means that you stay in touch in a relevant and personalized way over a period of time. The frequency and nature of your follow up depend on a few factors. It depends on the stage of the sales cycle. Meaning where are you right now? You know, how far did you go? Because obviously somebody who contacted you and gave you a little bit of information and they were interested but then they kind of fell off the face of the earth is very different from someone who not only contacted you or you contacted them and you got into some discussions and you talked about some specific projects and let's say you sent a quote over and you had some discussions about the quote and suddenly things got put on hold. Okay. Two very different situations. So you have to be mind where you were or where you are in the sales cycle where you left off. You also need to factor in who contacted whom. To me, there's a big difference between somebody who contacts you and somebody you contacted out of the blue cold, the prospect's responsiveness and cues throughout the process. So once you're engaged with them, how responsive were they, what kind of cues that they give you in terms of their timing, their interest or trust level, et cetera. And then the other factor is how long they've been on your nurturing list. So the longer they've been on your list without any kind of response or acknowledgement, then I tend to lower my frequency of contact. So I just use those four elements to guide my decisions in terms of how frequently to nurture someone to contact someone. But in general I want to give you kind of a baseline to think through or to to start from. In general, sending something to a prospect on your nurturing list about every one to three months is about right with the average being about every eight weeks. And last element to to keep in mind or to that you want to incorporate into a lead nurturing program is tracking and automation. I know that sounds fancy, honestly a simple spreadsheet will do when you're starting out with your nurturing program. Once lead nurturing becomes a habit for you, you might consider implementing a contact management system. Some popular options out there are highrise, contactually, Zoho, HubSpot, HubSpot actually, as if this recording has a free CRM or contact management system. And I have several coaching clients who use it, they love it. So certainly something to check out. And I'll have the links to all of those in the show notes. Now in terms of automation, I urge you to resist the temptation to automate this process with emails or mass broadcasts or services such as send out cards. Because remember, the personal touch is key to effective follow up. I talked earlier about the fact that yes, it's nice to nurture your list with an email newsletter. I'm a big believer of the power of a newsletter. There's tons of benefits from that, but you need a nurturing layer over that or under that. And that's the one to one approach. The personal touch really is that critical to making lead nurturing work for you. Also, don't treat lead nurturing as a desperate attempt to convert a prospect to a client. Let go of any expectations and instead focus on sending relevant and personalized messages to the prospects on your lead nurturing list. Detaching yourself from a specific outcome really is key to making this work. The moment you turn it into okay, I'm going to spend a couple hours today nurturing some people on my list and something better come out of it. The moment you go there, things just start going south very quickly. And finally understand that 80% compliance is good enough. That's better than not starting your nurturing initiative because you want to get everything just right. So in other words, perfection. So don't wait to start nurturing you're not yet ready prospects until you have everything done perfectly. Don't wait until you have your spreadsheet ready and you've compiled this really nice nurturing library. You know, these are elements to help guide you. I'd rather see you go ahead and start following with people, up with people today with relevant value added messages and just kind of make it up as you go than to set up and spend months setting up these systems and steps and processes and then start. Because the chances of you starting at that point are really, really low. The longer you take, the less motivated you'll be. You'll forget why you're even doing this. So the time to start really is today. Remember, ready, fire, aim. That's the key. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and if you did, I have a quick favor to ask of you. Why not forward it to a friend and colleague who might benefit from it? There are a couple of super easy ways to do that. One, you can just click on the forward link or icon in your favorite podcast app for this episode. Most apps have something like that, and it enables you to text or email a link of the episode to someone you know. The other way is to just share this episode by emailing them the link to the show notes page. B2B launcher.com episode 130 so that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have an awesome day. Take care.

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