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2 The Reason Why Some RIM Vendors Struggle Lurking just beneath the surface of every RIM vendor is a burning question How do I get more new customers? It is evident that once we have a customer, the RIM service business is very solid. With a recurring revenue stream as the foundation, long term client retention and options for other additional services make the lifetime value of even the smallest client quite exceptional. But the struggle to acquire new customers is ever present. Even the most established RIM vendors face this problem. The prospects are out there. It is clear they need what we have to offer. But, how do we get to them? How do they find us? Occasionally we come across a method that seems to work for us. So we pump a huge amount of investment and energy into it. Historically, telemarketing has been the preferred methodology in the industry. But its glory has faded. It s just not producing the results it once did. More recently the focus has been on web marketing and pay-per-click tactics. The results have been incredibly effective for some. For others, not so much. It is not a magic pill for new customer acquisition. But a funny thing happens when there seems to be no apparent option. We put our head down, and go harder at that which we are already comfortable at, thinking that if we just work a bit harder, we ll get a better result. A friend told me about a car ride he took with his grandmother. She mistakenly made a wrong turn onto a one way street. Upon realizing the problem she decided to just keep driving. With almost dogged determination she played a deadly game of chicken with the traffic coming towards her. I guess she figured at some point an escape route would open up for her. Going forward the wrong way seemed so much easier for her than stopping and turning around. He told me that his grandma hated backing up. So, in this situation, driving forward into oncoming traffic seemed more logical than turning around. After pleading and begging his dear old grandma to stop, she finally did. After a traffic stopping u-turn that took mere seconds, she was able to drive away without the struggle. My goal in this RIM Marketing Manifesto is to convince you to do the same. Stop and turn around. If you aren t facing this struggle for clients, I don t need to convince you of anything. You deserve applause. But if you are living with this struggle, or maybe you have a nagging sense in your gut that there might be a better way, and you are going the wrong direction I want you to stop the direction you re headed to get new customers. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 2 (Go to next page)

3 Going harder at what you are currently doing will not achieve the outcome you are wanting. You are actually hurting yourself in the process. Times Have Never Been Tougher To Get New Clients As you know and experience, competition is fierce. It s a battle out there. Your competitors are fighting to own a share of your marketplace. The monster companies who are publicly traded come with unlimited resources and a lot of marketing muscle. They already pre-own the national accounts. They can dominate large clients on volume pricing. Their very presence requires you to be world class in your service offerings. You can no longer afford to be just good enough to compete. There are also those other companies providing RIM services as a sideline business or merely a value add to that which they already do. Not too concerned about price, they seem to undermine reasonable pricing strategies and professional standards. But they snipe away at prospects in your marketplace. And they get their fair share. Frustrating, but it s the reality. You want to ignore them, but you can t. They are a presence you have to contend with. And then there are the other independent vendors in your market who want to build a professional RIM service business just like yours. And they are good. Their service levels are exceptional. They are bidding on many of the same accounts you are. You have to respect them because they are doing the same thing you are trying to make it happen. And when they win accounts, you are frustrated but realize that they will get their share. Every so often they lose one to you as well. As you know, acquisitions in the RIM vendor space are happening at a record pace. The buyers want a footprint without having to do the long-term work of start-up. They are coming ready to purchase. They will buy someone and when they arrive, they will aggressively build that business. It might be you or one of your competitors. Either way, it s becoming more and more apparent the writing is on the wall. In this new competitive RIM industry reality Only The Strongest Will Survive You can t afford to go into 2007 without being as strong and as effective as you can be. If you attend any of the industry conferences you are very aware of this. Every year there are more and more new companies coming into the business. Look at the growing attendance at the PRISM and NAID conferences. They keep getting larger. Walk the trade show floor at ARMA and you know this is a big business. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 3 (Go to next page)

4 Suppliers are doing well. More shred trucks than ever are rolling out of the factories. Rack companies, despite high steel prices are going strong. The competition is increasing in the supplier space too. The RIM business is no longer quietly doing business in the background. Don t delude yourself by believing the competitive reality won t intensify. There is big money coming into the industry and setting up shop. The companies who have used RIM services as a sideline business are waking up to it. RIM service is a good business. Competitors don t want to dabble they want to play hard and win at it. Hope is not a strategy at this point. Neither is cut rate pricing. The Problem with Competing On Price One of the more common comments I hear from people when I am at trade shows and conferences is the complaint that with all the competition price shopping among prospective clients is at an all time high. Seems that what many customers care about these days is the cheapest price. And for those who choose to play the pricing game against their competitors in town it s not long until you realize that it doesn t get better, it gets worse. The price never stabilizes, it just keeps dropping. The margins this business promised on the front end begin to fade away. And in the quiet struggle, the compete on price model is no longer appealing. There is no long term future in that approach. At least not profit wise. So you decide that maybe the solution is to diversify the service base Doing More Isn t Enough If I just add imaging or if I add a copy center How about electronic vaulting? Or what about electronic and data destruction? I met people at the conference who were doing these things and they were having lots of success. So you sink another round of cash into a new service infrastructure. And you are excited for a period of time about the new offering. It gives you something else to take to your existing clients. And it s all good until you realize that you are not alone in offering the service anymore. The competition has added it to their arsenal as well. We ll Improve Service Levels How many times have you said this to yourself We already do great work. But let s tighten it up and that should help. I actually have no doubt that you re already one of, if not, the best RIM service business in town. You have a great staff working for you your systems and equipment are second to none. You ve done it all right. You keep on top of industry trends, you are certified. Your service response times are amazing. The customers you already have love you. You have a binder full of testimonials. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 4 (Go to next page)

5 And with your commitment to always be the best, you invest in industry conferences, ongoing staff training, the latest technology and so much more. But that alone doesn t get you all the business you can handle does it? NO! Being the best RIM service provider in town must not be the real secret to getting lots of new clients because Your competitors are getting plenty of business, even if their service isn t as good as yours. The sad truth is they are getting customers because they probably do a better job marketing their RIM service business not because they are better at doing the business. If you want to have a never ending stream of new clients the truth is: The most important thing you must know is not about operating a RIM service business In other words It s about MARKETING your RIM service business. First you ve got to know how to get a continuous stream of new clients. Then you need to get better at operations, infrastructure and management. Being a Marketing Expert is a heck of a lot more effective and profitable than being a RIM Services Expert. I know this may sound foreign to you but you need to accept reality. The competitive landscape demands it. Your desire for a business that provides you exceptional results demands it. Your own need for new clients requires it. It seems to me we ve been taught wrong. Look at most industry education. It s around operations business management, improving existing services and implementing new services. And subtly implied in that is that if we have it all the clients will come. Having good management skills, providing the best services, and providing the widest range of RIM related options only helps after you get a customer. Unfortunately you can t get that customer until you learn how to MARKET YOUR BUSINESS All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 5 (Go to next page)

6 In fact, let s go one step further. Not only is marketing important it s what you are all about. The service is secondary. The primary business you are in is not the delivery of your RIM services it is the marketing of those services. Embracing this principle means you are not in the business of records or media storage, shredding and imaging you are in the business of marketing those services. You are not a records storage vendor, you are a marketer of records storage services. You are not a media vault operator you are a marketer of your media management services. You are not a shredder you are a marketer of your shredding services. But I Do Market No argument here. Every client I work with is already doing something - Yellow Pages, telemarketing, some display advertising, brochures and a website. Your trucks are billboards; you attend Chamber meetings and work the ARMA crowd. Each of your marketing approaches has earned you a customer here and there. The factual evidence is clear. You can point to a correlation between a marketing activity and a contracted customer. And that is terrific. But somehow the nagging feeling remains It s not enough. You need a more consistent flow of leads. There are not enough of them coming your way with these existing approaches to optimize your success. Actually, I Don t Market Very Well At All Maybe you gave up a while ago. And your beliefs about marketing have trapped you and caused you to no longer see yourself as someone who can do marketing very effectively. Belief #1: I can t do marketing because I m not creative. I have learned for myself and observed in others this very powerful principle What you believe deeply becomes your reality. Here are some of the reality-shaping beliefs I have witnessed in so many people in our industry and as a result suspect you may share these beliefs as well All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 6 (Go to next page)

7 It s been subtle, but over time the Madison Avenue driven approach to marketing that surrounds you has had its effect on you. Much of the advertising you see is creative. It s typically called image advertising. Image advertising means that someone Takes an empty page and gets creative on it. One might place a picture on there meant to imply something then add some pithy or humorous statement or phraseology near it and include logo and contact details. Or not. But they are always sure to leave lots of blank space. And if possible they make it cute, witty or obnoxious. But always, they make sure it is creative. Image advertising is placed in magazines, radio, TV and other mediums every day. Some of it is beautiful, other ads are downright weird. And for the companies that spend millions of dollars each year paying to have it produced, it has an impact. But they have a very different agenda than you do. Image advertising does not necessarily produce results for local based RIM vendors or many other B2B type companies, for that matter. The problem with image advertising is that nobody can effectively measure whether it is good or bad. Effective RIM marketing is more scientific than it is creative. Marketing is much more about metrics and numbers than it is about fonts, graphics and colors. It s not that the creative factors aren t important, it s that they are far less important in the grand scheme of things than you have adopted as a belief. The best type of marketing is not about being creative it s about doing stuff that works. You don t have to be creative to do that. Belief #2: When I hire a marketing person we ll start marketing. It certainly is a good option. It will take a load of weight off your shoulders, especially if marketing is something you feel uncomfortable with. But if you don t understand how to engage effective RIM marketing before you hire someone, you can be sure it will now be the blind leading the blind. You will almost certainly throw lots more money down the drain having someone do it for you. After all, they have been taught all the stuff that doesn t work too, and now they will have to justify their existence on your staff with marketing activity. So they will start creating display ads to go in media sources they will respond to every ad medium salesperson that they come across and will spend, spend, spend. After all, their job was to market your RIM service. And you will garner some results. Because what you focus on tends to get results. But you ll most likely discover the results are not much different than when you did it on your own... it just costs you more. You now have the investment of a staff person and the output of their marketing initiatives. The problem is that you have once again abdicated control. Not to an outsider this time, but to an insider who is motivated to spend. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 7 (Go to next page)

8 Belief #3: I am not very good at marketing. This is the worst belief of all. I bothers me when I hear it because it traps RIM vendors into reliance on third party marketing providers whose agenda is very different from yours. Their goal is their pocket and the filling of it, not yours. You are the one and only best person to market your company. No one has that intuitive sense about your business more than you do. Not even me. I can t market your business better than you. I just know what works. I have spent years learning the tactics, tools and mediums that deliver results. So if you did start marketing your company as only you can, and changed your mind about yourself and your abilities, you would for the first time see the incredible power and results that you can drive doing it yourself. Imagine walking into your office on Monday morning knowing that you or your sales people had appointments lined up all week. And that the week after that was almost booked too. Wouldn t it be great to quit struggling today? What s The Difference Between Selling and Marketing? One of the reasons we get our marketing approach wrong is we really don t understand the difference between Marketing and Selling. Phil Kotler, marketing author and expert suggests the following The belief that marketing and selling are the same is a common and mistaken view held by both the public and many business people. I observe this in our industry on a regular basis. And it severely restricts your ability to generate leads for your self. Simply stated, marketing is getting your market to desire your service. Peter Drucker said it in a different way The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. A Tale Of Two Suitors All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 8 (Go to next page)

9 This story might hit close to home. Maria was an amazing woman who had decided to be open to a potential relationship. One night she attended a party. During the party she had occasion to meet two men one who understood marketing and another who understood sales. Both men were immediately attracted to Maria, but approached her in very different ways Both men were similar in terms of look, success and personality. Upon meeting Maria, Sales Man immediately went into close mode. He approached Maria and asked her questions then proceeded to tell her all of his best qualities. He made sure she knew about his job, his car, how much he made last year the great vacation he took and more. He tried obtaining her contact details so he could follow up with her to take it to the next level a coffee or even a date. He worked hard all night. He kept his eye on her the whole night, trying to be in her direct line of sight. Then he would bump into her and offer to get her a drink. It seemed like Sales Man only wanted one thing to score a date with Maria. When Maria met Marketing Man something very different occurred. Other than some initial introductions, the conversation turned to something other than who he was and who she was they talked briefly about where they lived, about pets and then someone else joined the conversation and they all talked about the latest movies. And then they each moved on. A bit later Mary noticed Marketing Man sitting at the piano playing. He was good. A little later she saw him talking to a close friend of hers. They seemed to be enjoying their conversation. An hour later she joined a game at the pool table. He also joined. She was awkward with the cue so he offered her some advice. After a couple of games, Mary joined her friend and they talked about Marketing Man. Her friend told her about what he did. A couple of times during the rest of the evening they crossed paths and chatted. At the end of the evening Mary was ready to call one and to run from the other. Can you guess who? Do you know why? Are You Chasing Your Prospects In Order To Sell? Are you perceived by your prospective clients to be chasing them in order to sell your service to them? Or do they perceive you to be someone offering RIM related services as something they can choose to buy? The chase approach has been the preferred approach for B2B sales for many years. It relies on salespeople or even subcontractors to prospect on your behalf as a way to find new leads. Prospecting includes various formats but phone based cold calling is usually the primary tool. For some it also involves door to door prospecting. But the key point here is that the salesperson must engage their valuable time in prospecting to locate those to do business with. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 9 (Go to next page)

10 If you are like so many others, you dislike prospecting. That might be why you hired salespeople or subcontractors to do it for you. What you told yourself was that you had so many other important things to do. What I suspect you actually believed and acted on was that inner sense of deep dislike for the cold call process. Because at the end of the day, cold call prospecting feels like a limited win proposition. Why The Chase Based Approach To Prospecting is Flawed Let me explain why. When you chase your prospects you are no longer an equal with them. There is a perception on the part of the prospect that you need to do business with them. Your hope and stated goal is that they will grant you an appointment. But by using this approach, you immediately give them all the power. This power appeals to corporate buyers because you must respond to their stated agenda, not your own. Add to that the perception that important, successful people with busy schedules don t cold call and they don t cold call because they have better and more important things to do. Even More Problems With Traditional Sales Prospecting I worked for a consulting firm about 15 years ago. Cold calling was their one and only way to generate business. I would sit and look at call lists all day long. The question was who should I call? I wasn t sure so would pick up the phone and randomly dial. What I discovered was this The approach I was being encouraged to take to get a lead made timing work against me, not for me. The problem was, I never called when they wanted me to I called when it was convenient for me. I was an interruption in their day. I became an unwelcome pest not a welcome guest. Granted, I got lucky sometimes, but mostly I was just spinning my wheels. It didn t make sense to call on someone who might only be remotely willing or desirous to do business with me. And in most cases I spent my time and energy talking to the wrong kind of people. Wouldn t it make so much more sense to only talk to those most likely to do business with you? If you have spent any time doing the same thing, eventually you reach the point where you give up on the approach altogether or you hire someone else to do it for you. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 10 (Go to next page)

11 Here s an example to show you what I mean. I have deliberately turned the tables in order for you to fully get the point. You are sitting in your office buried under a pile of work. You have three proposals to finish by noon and into your office walks a telephone system salesperson. Hi, he confidently states. I would like to take 30 minutes of your time right now to analyze your phone system requirements and determine if their might be a reason for you to become our new customer. Can you relate? To the prospect the approach seems entirely illogical. It creates a defensive reaction in them. And when you approach your prospective clients in the same way, you are creating the same reaction in them. There is an often used term for prospecting that is in direct conflict with the ongoing relationship we want to have with customers. The term is HUNT. Many companies I have talked with prefer to hire hunters as sales people. But know this. The real goal of a hunt is the kill. Your best chance to work long-term with a prospect is not to kill them first. Yet in a chase based, hunt type sales approach your prospects perceive only that they are the target. And in that hunt type sales approach we violate a principle that we understand intuitively most people prefer to buy than to be sold. There is a better way than the chase/hunt oriented model. You Must Employ an Attraction Marketing Model. Attraction marketing has a very different feel to it not unlike the difference Maria experienced between Sales Man and Marketing Man. Attraction based marketing is a system of strategies and tactics that ensure when prospects are ready to do business with you - they call you. And at that point they have already chosen to do business with you. The selling part becomes superfluous. In an attraction marketing model you ve employed a very effective approach to ensure the most likely prospects know who you are, what you do and why they should do business with you. You are not a stranger to them... you are a known entity. You have established yourself in their eyes as a vendor of choice using systems that engage your lead generation machine. And when they are ready they respond. And now, instead of you chasing them, they are now choosing you and the context for the sales discussion has changed dramatically. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 11 (Go to next page)

12 Instead of being a hunter you can now become a farmer. By using multiple lead generation and marketing tactics you plant the seeds and continue to nurture them over time until the harvest begins to happen. How Your Marketing Budget Might Limit You One of the questions I am most frequently asked is How much should I spend on marketing? What percentage of my budget should it be? It s a great question. If you do some research you will find numbers from 1% - 10%. If you are in start-up mode, that number might need to be considerably higher. But at a certain point the question itself becomes a problem because in many cases it is the wrong question. It s the wrong question because it s founded on an underlying belief that marketing and lead generation is an expense. It goes back to what most advertisers ask when they sit down to talk with you how much do you want to spend? What they are looking for is not related to you it s related to them. How much of your marketing budget can they possibly get? But for many companies it has created a marketing as expense mindset. Most companies take their revenue numbers and try to figure out what percentage they can spend on marketing in the upcoming year. The question then becomes How do I allocate that big expense number to the appropriate marketing approaches that will be used this year? In most cases, it goes back to a pretty simple approach. What did we spend last year? How much did we grow? How much should we add to the budget if it seemed like this worked well the last year? How much should we deduct if it seemed like it didn t produce results? The questions are answered and the budget is set. But problems show up with this approach. 1. When marketing is a budgeted expense item, once it is spent, it s gone -- even if that marketing approach produced exceptional results. 2. With marketing as a budget item, there is no need to justify the value of a particular strategy. There is no requirement from a marketing approach to provide an effective return on investment. Many companies close their eyes and spend the budgeted amount. The funny part is then they complain that it s not doing anything for them. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 12 (Go to next page)

13 Why You Should Market as an Investment I m proposing a more effective approach to marketing based spending. No longer determined by a percentage of gross revenue or an incremental increase from last years spending, marketing as an investment creates a radical shift in the use and requirement you demand of your marketing dollars. typically does not. Most importantly, an investment demands a return. An expense Think about Pay Per Click web marketing as an example. If I spend $10 to obtain a click to my website from a Google ad and average 10 clicks before I get a lead, the actual cost of the lead is $100. If I close one out of every ten leads, my cost of sale is $1000. And even if that one sale is only a 5 year contract valued at $3,000, I have just generated 3X return on my investment. With these returns, I would gladly invest even more. Now, if I spend the same $10 per click but need 100 clicks before I get a lead and I can only close one sale for every 20 leads, the numbers look pretty different. Assuming the sale was still a minimal account, it has cost me $20,000 to get a $3,000 sale. With these returns, my investment spending is quickly halted. What you immediately realize is this investment based marketing requires that a tactic or medium create a return on investment. Recently, I calculated that one of my clients spent over $2,000 to get just one phone lead from the Yellow Pages ad he was running. With only four calls that clearly originated from the ad over a year, and not one closed sale to support it s value, he had to take decisive action on what to do with that marketing medium. Why? Each marketing investment must produce a return. This Yellow Pages ad was not. Why Marketing Failure Is Not Always The Problem You Think It Is Many times a marketing approach is terminated because it doesn t produce a return on investment. But in many cases it wasn t the fault of the tactic or medium used, it was the poorly executed use of the marketing approach. Take for instance, direct mail. I have had so many people tell me that direct mail doesn t work. Yet when I look at the way they do their direct mail campaign, it is quite evident why it doesn t work for them. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 13 (Go to next page)

14 They are failing to follow commonly accepted success strategies employed by direct mail experts. For example, one campaign I saw recently was a tri-fold brochure inserted in a corporate envelope with a mailing label stuck on it, stamped by a postage machine. That was the extent of the campaign. Guess what the recipient thinks it is when they get it? You guessed it junk mail. And they toss it. So an investment in the brochure, envelope, mailing list, stamp and the labor to send it out is lost. So the actual fault is a poorly planned direct mail campaign, not the medium of direct mail itself. Yet it is easy to blame the medium and eliminate its future use by you. When you start to manage your marketing with an investment mindset, you also become very particular about your approach to marketing. You can no longer just randomly do stuff to get your name out there. Every marketing activity you engage should be all about creating a result. You can no longer advertise in the same ways. For every marketing action there must be a visible and measurable reaction by prospects. Marketing Implementation Is Not Easy Implementation is really where the rubber meets the road it s the difference between the RIM vendors who are getting clients on a regular basis and those who are hoping to get them. It s the difference between an idea and an action engaging a tactic or just hoping prospects show up at your door. With increasing regularity I see companies stuck in the trap of failing to implement. I have had companies retain me to design a marketing plan, layout out the strategic direction, the tactical approaches and the mediums to make it all work. And still nothing happens. As you look at your own marketing intentions what has been the reality? I suspect like most, you know what you need to do. But making it happen is the real key to success. If It s Not Happening For You It s Costing You Implementation is not just about thinking right; it s not even about knowing the right things to do implementation is about actually doing something. I understand it s tough to create the momentum to move a marketing initiative forward. And if you have recently added new service options have a staff to manage and are trying to maintain a balanced life, it makes complete sense why it s hard to get it going. Getting it done is often the biggest challenge we face. It s tempting to obsess over the perfect marketing piece and never send it out. It s easy to get lost in endless analysis of a color palette and neglect to ever actually market. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 14 (Go to next page)

15 And for many, it s easier to stay with the frustration of what they know rather than jump off into the unknown of a new approach to marketing. And since operational issues demand so much of our time, marketing gets left behind it gets sidelined or forgotten. Then you realize you haven t seen a new client in quite some time. Factor in the new reality of a super competitive environment and you ll soon realize you can t afford to be complacent anymore. Only the strong will survive! Bottom Line: It s All About Lead Generation If marketing is the key leverage area to growth, then lead generation is the lifeblood to that growth. In that new lead are the seeds of a huge potential revenue stream harvest. Think about it in terms of a hard copy box storage account or a monthly shredding account or a simple media case rotation account. If the prospect is only a minimum account and your lowest fee is $50 a month.and if they stayed with you only five years.they never grew and never used any additional services.they only employed your company for the bare minimum you have a lifetime potential value on that lead of $3,000. And you know based on your experience how incredibly low that number is compared to the reality. But I use it to make a point. Don t underestimate how important this one number becomes to you. Every single lead is potentially a $3000 deal. The minute you start looking at it that way, what you do with those leads becomes critically important. The goal then get lots of leads. If every lead is potentially valued at $3,000, I want as many leads as I can find. Clients often say to me Sound familiar? Put a lead in front of me and I will close most of them. The problem is, I just don t know how to get them in front of me Your Goal Is A Powerful Lead Generation Machine The key to successful marketing is to get a steady flow of leads in front of you; a regular supply of prospects ready to do business with you. And given the fact that you will likely close a good number of them, the result will be a never ending flow of new business. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 15 (Go to next page)

16 Therefore you need a conveyor belt of marketing strategies and tactics so compelling and convincing that your telephone will be ringing off the hook with people who are pre-sold on having your company (rather than your competitors) manage their RIM related service requirements. Is that occurring for you? If not, you need. A lead generation machine that provides new prospects based on a marketing system that works. Insert the required inputs and out come leads. A lead generation machine driven by proven strategy and tactics that once in place and tested for maximum optimization, continue to produce a steady stream of new leads - ready, willing and able to do business with you. A lot of times RIM vendors think they have a lead generation machine set up to get the results they want only to discover the machine just doesn t do it for them. And the best indication of an effective machine is results getting new leads on a consistent and regular basis. Effective and Consistent Lead Flow Allows You to Pick the Best Prospects to Work With If your lead flow is strong enough and you are effective at closing sales, you get a choice of clients instead of desperately taking every one that comes along. Imagine the power you have being able to choose which prospects you want to work with. It changes the nature of your business dramatically. You no longer are reduced to playing the low price game. So you choose the best clients, or all the clients. Whatever you like or want. But now you have the opportunity to do that, because of the power created by a perpetual lead flow. Not All Leads Are Created Equal When you possess an abundance of leads, you also have the good fortune of discovering the difference between the prospects they are not equal. And if you have an abundance of leads coming your way, it starts to make sense to differentiate between those who are merely in an inquiry mode and those who are actually qualified to do business with you. What then is a qualified lead? They have already accepted and acknowledged their need. As a result they are motivated to solve it. They have an imminent time frame requirement. They have already determined when the purchase decision will take place and how quickly they want to move. They are sales ready. There is comfort in the prospect of meeting with a salesperson from your company in order to work on the details of a deal. They have authority to make a buying decision. They have a budget. Your prospect is aware and capable of meeting budget requirements. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 16 (Go to next page)

17 When you have lead flow, you can choose to work with those who are most qualified to move forward in a sales process with you. The rest you can nurture until they are ripe and ready to do business with you. There s More Than One Way To Get A Lead If new leads are the key, and lots of them allow you to filter the best and most ready, how then do you make it happen? There is a tendency in any business to find a primary methodology to get a lead and then stick with it. And then with a collection of other minor approaches we hope we get the results we want. The problem is, only certain prospects are responsive to that one primary way you employ. While one prospect might respond to your telemarketing approach, 99 others ignore it completely. And as a certain tactic or medium is used repetitively, its value can dry up based on numerous criteria. Think of fax broadcast. What was once a perfectly acceptable medium for marketing - in one governmental act got legislated out of use. A simple fax blast would get your marketing message in your prospects fax inbox hoping to get a response. But no longer. You must realize there are lots of ways others are employing to create and generate leads and prospects for themselves. And if you have chosen one basic approach, hidden from your view are multiple other ways and means to create a lead for your company. If all the other opportunities sitting in your marketplace right now for your RIM service are being missed because your lead generation approach doesn t include a way to harvest them, you can t and won t succeed in this highly competitive environment. You really need more than ten ways that are consistently working on your behalf. Twenty would be even better. Based on how different prospects respond, you want and need many different tools and tactics as a way to ensure you attract all of them. Your success is tied directly to LEAD GENERATION Lead Generation Marketing is the only way to significantly leverage your RIM business success going forward. You must generate leads as a primary and fundamental part of your daily business life. Every single day you must be doing things to continue to attract leads to you. You need to put in place those things that will create a marketing result. Lead generation must happen all the time. You All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 17 (Go to next page)

18 must obsess over getting new leads. You need to wake up every morning thinking about ways to get more leads. You cannot afford to neglect this anymore. Your competitors are poised and ready to take the clients you should be working with. You can t go another day without changing your focus leads and the marketing necessary to obtain those leads. I can only imagine your question at this point is simply How Do I Generate Those Leads? That question will be answered in the final chapter of the RIM Marketing Manifesto which you can download immediately. It is entitled The Seven Secrets of Lead Generation Success In it I will outline the secrets I know and have learned to get leads to come pouring in for you. I will reveal the critical components of a lead generation machine that will fill your pipeline with new prospects. To download it click the link or point your browser to: All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 18 (Go to next page)

19 FYI: Who Is Tom Adams? You might know me from my established presence in PRISM and peripherally in NAID. I speak at their conferences and a contributing author in the association magazines. I am currently, or have already worked with many of the leading independent Record & Media Vault Centers and Shredding companies in the industry and have assisted them with their marketing programs. I am not an outsider. I was the managing partner of a record center in Canada. I know what it means to do all of the things you do every day. It is familiar turf for me. I hate those black stacker file boxes with the razors on the edge as much as you do. I ve agonized trying to recover a missing box for a client. I ve consoled a client who discovered they had mistakenly shredded a box of files they needed to keep. I know what it is like to market my services and sell in this industry. Before I ever taught or advised others about it, I did it. And I continue to do it every day with my clients. To your overwhelming success this year! Cheers! PS. A confession. Sometimes I get a little carried away. I have a tremendous desire to deliver the best insights and marketing advice humanly possible. So if this document seems a little overwhelming, I apologize. But I really wanted to share the knowledge that I ve gained over the years. I ve poured a lot into these pages, and if you study them carefully, many secrets of marketing can be had. I ve got some more killer stuff on the way. So I know we ll be in touch soon. All rights reserved. Flourish Press Inc 19 (Go to next page)

20 The Seven Secrets of Lead Generation Success - Tom Adams - Flourish Press Inc. All Rights Reserved The secret to my success is that I bit off more than I could chew and chewed as fast as I could (next page please)

21 You ve no doubt just read my RIM Marketing Manifesto. It was a lengthy report on what I know and believe about marketing in the records and information (RIM) services business. Hundreds of people have downloaded and read it. For many it has been reminder for others a wakeup call. It was, however, missing an important piece. the secrets that build on the foundation outlined in the Manifesto. These secrets have the power to change the outcome of your marketing. Lets Briefly Review the Foundations of the RIM Marketing Manifesto. The most important part of growing your business this year is to learn how to effectively market your business. It is the best way to grow your business in today s competitive environment. To market effectively you must change your mindset so that you see yourself in the business of marketing your services, not the delivery of those services. Sales are the ultimate goal of marketing. Marketing is really about getting your market to desire your services. It s the front end that feeds your sales process. When done correctly, marketing will make your sales process very easy. The most effective marketing is attraction-oriented, not chase-oriented. Attraction- oriented marketing understands that people prefer to buy rather than to be sold and implements strategies to support that orientation. Attraction based marketing should not be viewed as a budgeted expense line item. It should be seen as an investment that demands a return. If your marketing comes back with leads attached, you invest more. If it doesn t, no more investment. This requires you to be attentive to metrics and measurement to ensure that your marketing investment is creating an effective return. Your foremost goal in any marketing is to produce a motivated lead that wants to know more about your RIM services and to do business with you. Generating leads is the measure of a marketing program that works. If leads are the key to marketing success, then it makes sense to create a magnet that attracts an ongoing supply of those leads a magnet powered by purposeful strategy and implemented through effective tactics (next page please)

22 The Seven Secrets of Lead Generation Success Secret #1: Web Generated Leads The web is proving to be a significant resource in terms of lead generation. More and more prospects are looking online for a solution to their records management problems. And proof is in the results. Many of my clients are seeing great lead flow from their online marketing initiatives. The web is growing in use by our prospects and as a result, its effectiveness as a lead generation tool. But the major problem is, most RIM service providers just don t have the time to keep up with all the things necessary to ensure their web marketing is as effective as it can be. Here are some of the critical components of an effective web-based lead generation strategy:. 1. Your website must be designed to generate leads. That is its primary objective. Anything less than that means it is not living up to it s potential. 2. Your website must give a reason for prospective clients to give you their contact information. Not only must your site be created to generate leads, it must also employ a compelling offer or reason for prospects to give you their valuable information. 3. There must be a pathway to your site and through your site. Is your website accessible and available to prospects? Are all the pages on your site accessible? Is your site actually live? Do all the links work? You must be continually testing and confirming that everything is working. 4. Targeted traffic that finds you. If the way is clear and the site is built right, you re only part way there. You must then be sure you are getting the prospects you need to visit the site. That includes: a. Ensuring listings in search engines. This requires ongoing search engine optimization so that your site continually responds to the ever changing structure of the most important search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN. b. Effective and efficient use of Pay Per Click traffic building. Knowing how much to pay, what keywords to bid on and what ads to run. c. Ensuring placement of your company name and related site link in numerous directories where prospective clients might also be searching. d. Building linking structures from other outside sites back to yours (next page please)

23 5. You must develop new content on a regular basis to support new and returning site visitors. That in turn insures the search engine returns as well. A website that remains static is not worth returning to and search engines consider it outdated content. New content also includes follow-up , autoresponder series, downloadable information, and streaming content. Are you continually developing those to ensure your online marketing tactics reach the widest number of prospects you can? 6. You must continually monitor the effectiveness of your website. What is assumed to work often doesn t. You need to observe visitors on your site in order to confirm that they are actually doing what you hope they are. It is monitoring which site pages they are abandoning on a regular basis; it is watching their pathway through your site; it is determining if they are actually responding to your lead generation devices. And because analytics and testing show proof of what works and what doesn t, you must be doing it on a regular basis. 7. You must use offline tactics to drive prospects to online resources. You must ensure that you are using many passive offline methods to drive people online. 8. You need follow-up systems for every lead generated. Are you continually updating and enhancing your online follow-up systems to nurture the prospects who have responded online? Can you confirm that the s you send are actually getting through to your prospects and being read? Are your autoresponders driving calls to you based on the offers you are presenting? 9. You should employ third party web lead sources. Are you getting leads from all other online lead generation sources available to you? The web allows you to be comprehensive in your approach. When done right, it is one of the best new lead sources available. Secret #2: Publicity Generated Leads One of the most cost effective marketing strategies is public relations. The goal is to get free press. The goal of the free press is to gain exposure which in turn can build very effective lead flow. A personal example of the power of public relations A number of years ago I did some speeches for parents at schools in my local area. The subject of my speech was How To Build Self Esteem in Kids. That series of speeches became the basis for a press release pitch to the lifestyle editor of the local paper. That one pitch eventually led to an interview and a story about me. When the story was printed it covered ¾ of the front page of the Life section of the daily newspaper. Even if I wanted to purchase that prime newspaper location, I couldn t. It s not (next page please)

24 available to advertisers. My credibility was immediately enhanced by the story. Over $10,000 of income came as a direct result of that story about me in the paper. I had been providing press releases to the local media on a regular basis. The pitch I sent in this particular case was not the story that ended up being written. I has submitted a press release about self esteem in kids and ended up getting a story about me. One press release submitted does not mean a story will be written about you. You must send them to your local media on a regular basis. It s quite likely that many of the press releases you send will not produce a result. However, just one printed story can create such a great response that the ongoing work of submitting them must be included as a part of your marketing strategy. Some fundamental keys to success in PR. You have to submit the right press release. Ultimately, it s not about you it s about getting the attention of the reporter or media personality. They don t want a story about your new rack or your new truck -- those are not good stories. They want good ideas and sources for a story. You have to find the right people in the right media locations. You have to know what kinds of stories are relevant to them. Don t send a shredding story to the Life editor unless the story relates to them. You have to be consistent. You have to learn what they are looking for. You have to keep providing it. You must understand that what you pitch and what may come from it could be entirely different things. But the media will often reward your story by giving you coverage. Leads that come from press releases are very effective and cost you nothing. It is important to include this lead generation strategy in your marketing machine. Secret #3: Expert Positioning Generated Leads Building your credibility as the leading expert in your community on RIM services is another secret tactic that will yield you additional leads. There are some prospects who only like to work with experts. There are many prospects that you can reach when you are marketing via expert positioning. Nothing positions you as an expert more effectively than writing articles for local media, journals and newsletters or by speaking at business and niche market functions. These two tactics can catapult you into a unique position in your marketplace by virtue of the fact that you employ them and your competitors do not. When you write articles, try to get them published in highly visible places like the local business section of your daily newspaper, the local business journal or magazine, as well as less visible (next page please)

25 places like local association newsletters and publications. Your goal is to place articles in as many of these publications as you can on a regular basis. One article does not make you the recognized expert. But article after article does. And there is more Offer to speak at local events as an RIM services expert. Most meeting planners for local events welcome volunteer speakers. But do your homework before you show up to speak. Craft a message that is effective for your audience. A few things to remember as you consider this lead generation strategy: No one appoints you the expert you assume the position and role. There is no formal community board that grants the honor. You must take it on and act as the expert. Your goal is not to sell your RIM service but to sell the audience and readers on your expertise within the field. The expertise displayed and consumed then translates into them wanting more if they are a prospect for your services. When they request more, you now have a lead. When you write articles or give a speech, make sure you engage an offer that compels and drives response. When you deliver a presentation make an offer at the end. When you write an article include your offer in the byline. One more thing. Remind your clients and prospects of your expertise status. Provide your articles to them as a part of your regular mailing. Or make it a PDF and it to them. Include information about where you are speaking. There are other benefits from positioning yourself as the expert. Experts can charge more than standard service providers. Being an expert provides an attraction mechanism that is hard for other vendors to compete with. Being the local RIM services expert is a great way to generate high value leads for your business. Be sure to employ it. Secret #4: Direct Mail Leads One of the most cost effective, controllable and testable ways to generate leads is via direct mail. Many companies have a problem with this strategy. As outlined in the Manifesto, maybe the problem isn t the medium, it is the methodology (next page please)

26 By following a few important guidelines, you can ensure your direct mail campaign is effective. 1. The mailing list is half the battle. Direct mail experts know that your list is critical to success. So choosing a mailing list of qualified prospects is highly important. 2. Your copy is critical in direct mail. Some of the highest paid copywriters in the world are those who write direct mail copy. Why? Because it is such a highly effective medium. And despite what your instincts may tell you, more copy typically outperforms less copy. There are three important components of direct mail copy. Failure to employ these can be the difference between success and failure. The headline. The goal of the headline is to compel the reader to read the body of the mail. The PS. Tests prove again and again, the PS is incredibly important. People read the headline, then often drop to the bottom of your letter and read the PS. The offer. Failure to have an offer and a related call to action will leave your direct mail piece as recyclable content. You must give your reader something to do and a reason to do it. 3. Do you place your mailer in an envelope? Do you use a postage machine or a real stamp? How about your name on the return address? These presentation issues matter and have direct, measurable results on your campaign. If your list is on target and your copy works but your presentation fails to catch the attention of your prospect, then the direct mail piece won t be successful. 4. There other details that ensure an effective campaign. Bulk rate mailings are known to end up in the garbage. If it looks like unsolicited advertising, it may be treated as such by both the postal carriers and mail rooms. A study done recently by Direct Marketing Magazine suggested that almost 70% of the mail that goes through a corporate mailroom gets pulled out by its staff. In any direct mail campaign you must think about more than the marketing piece itself, you have to think about how to insure optimal delivery. Direct mail is a proven tool that must be a part of your lead generation machine. Secret #5 Referral Generated Leads One of the most valuable approaches to getting new clients is by personal referral. But so often we leave referral to chance instead of building it into our marketing system as a crucial component. You must systemize your referral marketing approach to fuel effective lead generation strategies. A referral system is a methodical process you put in place to capture qualified prospects through your association with other people (next page please)

27 Referral based lead generation is effective for a number of key reasons: The credibility that comes from having someone recommend you There is no significant cost associated with it Referrers tend to be more loyal to you and will repeatedly refer you Giving great service isn t enough to make referrals happen. You have to be much more proactive about it. Referral marketing is more than trusting people to recommend you to others. That is too random. You need a process that is more consistent. There are two sources of referrals that will create leads for you -- influencers and clients. While clients are more likely to be passionate about your service when they refer others to you, referrals from influencers may be more effective in terms of the volume of leads you receive from them. Influencers are joint venture partners, lead sharing affiliates or those who are willing to support you by exposing you to those they have an established relationship with. I recommend a generous, performance based incentive for leads that become clients based on a referral from an Influencer. For referral leads generated from clients, a gesture of thanks is a wonderful response. The best way to keep your referral marketing system primed is to make regular contact with your clients and influencers. Once a month send them a positive relational letter they will enjoy reading. Include in it gentle reminders to them to continue referring you. Referrals can make a significant difference in lead generation. Be sure to formalize a referral program in you RIM business as soon as possible. Secret #6: Advertising Generated Leads Have you heard this quote? Half the money I spend in advertising is wasted I just don t know which half. With so many different places to advertise, the decision about where to spend your money can be overwhelming. As a result, many RIM vendors are very cautious when it comes to advertising. It is very easy to waste money on ineffective advertising campaigns. I include advertising as one of the critical secrets of lead generation success because, once implemented in the right way, it is a great source of leads. If done correctly, Response-Based Advertising creates a response in the prospect that encounters your ad. Your advertising should be different than most ads you see in the media. Most ads are oriented to promote brand which implies getting your name out there. The problem with brand based ads is the difficulty in tracking response. There is rarely a compelling offer or call to action in most brand-oriented ads (next page please)

28 Your ad should outline a problem and offer some type of solution. It should make an offer and provide a way to respond. This allows you to track the success of every ad you run. A mistake many companies make when considering advertising decisions is to start with the media usually because a salesperson is working to convince them of the value of their media offering. When a deal is struck, the work begins to create an advertisement that will fill the space that has been purchased. That s a problem because it s not strategic. Successful advertisers always begin with their defining their market. Then they craft a message for the target audience. Then they determine the best medium to deliver the message. The advertising media is merely a vehicle to deliver a marketing message to a targeted audience. And the vehicle is chosen based on how effective it will be at delivering the message to that target market. Media Delivery Options In terms of media options, there are many. For the sake of clarity, I have not included anything related to the web as we have already addressed it. But recognize that it is just another marketing message delivery option. Here are the general advertisement media groupings and some ideas related to each. Traditional media including newspaper, radio and television. Targeted media including local business journals, business magazines, local industry association newsletters, Chamber magazines or newsletters, or business shows on local radio and television. Directory Media including the Yellow Pages, industry-based or local business directories. Sign Based Media including billboards, posters, signage and vehicle wraps. Advertising, in all its various forms, must be included in any effective marketing program. Secret #7: Education Generated Leads Without question, educational marketing can be an incredible source of leads. The reason is because most people don t want to be uninformed about things that affect them. Often, effective education based marketing relies on all the other (next page please)

29 strategies mentioned above. Educational marketing can be the deal maker. Prospects might not respond to a lot of other marketing approaches, but if you put the opportunity for education in front of them, many will take it. Here are a number of ways to facilitate an educational marketing strategy: 1. White papers, special reports and case studies all provide your prospects with the opportunity to learn something. It can be a great place to start. 2. Teleseminars and webinars are efficient ways to get multiple prospects involved in an educational session that still allows them to be at work. They don t even have to leave their desk. 3. Executive Educational Events. These events create a much more personal connection with prospects and have been proven to be very effective at moving people into the sales process. 4. Lunch and learns, brain breakfasts and other mini-educational events can be great way to meet prospects as well. You feed them, educate them in some way and you ll often gain a lead. 5. Audio or video education. Pre-recorded audio or video that is educational in nature can provide a great lead generation mechanism. The bottom line is that educational events are great lead generators and great sales set-up tools. Be sure to employ them in your overall marketing plan so you don t miss out on all the leads they can provide. The Biggest Secret of All There you have it seven secrets of lead generation success. These strategies added to your existing marketing activities can begin to generate significant results for you in the area of lead generation. But there is an even bigger secret tying all these secrets together. It is the INTEGRATION of each of the seven strategies into a cohesive marketing plan which means that each of the secrets is not just working independently they are doing their part in the integrated whole of your marketing plan. The direct mail you send to a target niche list relates to the article you wrote in the local business journal and the press release you distributed to local media. In the same timeframe you also provide an educational marketing event for the same target audience. Your advertising shows up in media that your prospects are reading. And your referral strategy engages the support of people of influence within the same niche context (next page please)

30 Once this type of integration happens in your marketing, the results in terms of lead generation become consistent and recurring. You will have a lead generation magnet that is producing exceptional results. The Big Problem Knowledge isn t usually the problem implementation is. You probably recognize that success would come from employing these marketing strategies I just outlined so they could work together to generate an ongoing supply of leads. Getting it all done however is the big problem. It s hard enough to implement one marketing approach. Creating and then integrating seven may seem almost impossible no matter how effective they are. So you might resign yourself to the thought that this type of marketing will never happen for you. But, what if I told you that there is a way to begin to implement this type of marketing? What if someone who knew how to do it would be your advisor and guide? What if you could get direction and advice from someone who has walked in your shoes and has also assisted many others business owners just like you? What if you could have someone to both show you the way and accompany you as you implemented your marketing strategy? NOW YOU CAN! Would you like to have me on your team as you prepare and engage the basics of your lead generation machine? You ve watched me for quite a while now. You know how I work. Have you noticed how I market? (next page please)

31 I don t just teach it I do it every day! You ve just read my Manifesto and now this Secrets document. You know even more about my philosophy and approach. The question is, do you want someone to rely on as a trusted advisor? If you want my help, I am available to work with you. I have a one or two day consulting process as well as ongoing, monthly coaching programs. Let me know if you want to learn more about those. To your ongoing marketing success and a never-ending supply of leads! Cheers! Tom Adams Marketing Advisor, Consultant & Coach Tel: x101 [email protected] PS. This could be the year you confidently move forward. Are you ready? Do you have the knowledge, the tools and the commitment to move forward? If so, I am cheering for you. Make it your best one ever! (next page please)