Book Yourself Solid E-Book

Michael Port

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 510

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

The new edition of the bestselling business development guide Book Yourself Solid, Second Edition reveals whyself-promotion is a critical factor to success, giving you a uniqueperspective that makes this guide much more than an ordinary "howto" manual for getting more clients and raising a businessprofile. Book Yourself Solid, Second Edition enables you to adoptthe right promotional perspective and provides the strategies,techniques, and skills necessary to get more clients and increaseprofits. Through verbal and written exercises, you'll discover thekeys to developing a strong marketing plan and brand image. * Features unique, personalized, updated social media marketingstrategies for service professionals * Provides new pricing models and sales strategies for simplerselling * Delivers fresh networking and outreach strategies guaranteed totake only minutes a day * Offers new solid product launch strategies and tactics forcreating instant awareness * Author a New York Times bestseller, TV personality, andhighly recognized professional speaker Get the proven tools you can put into effect today with BookYourself Solid, Second Edition, and watch your business growexponentially!

Leseprobe

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Author’s Note

Preface

Module One: Your Foundation

Chapter 1: The Red Velvet Rope Policy

Dump the Duds

What to Do When You Don’t (Yet) Have Clients

Pruning Your Client List

The Old Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

Creating Your Red Velvet Rope Policy

A Perpetual Process

Chapter 2: Why People Buy What You’re Selling

Step 1: Identify Your Target Market

Step 2: Identify the Urgent Needs and Compelling Desires of Your Target Market

Step 3: Determine the Biggest Result Your Clients Get

Step 4: Uncover and Demonstrate the Benefits of Your Investable Opportunities

Relax, Be Playful, and Have Fun!

Clients Want You to Help Them

Chapter 3: Develop a Personal Brand

Branding

Releasing Blocks

You Are Uniquely You

The Three Components of Your Personal Brand

Your Who and Do What Statement

Your Why You Do It Statement

Your Tagline

Roma Non è Stata Construita un Giorno (Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day)

Chapter 4: How to Talk About What You Do

Five-Part Book Yourself Solid Dialogue Formula

Getting into a Book Yourself Solid Dialogue with Ease

Module Two: Building Trust and Credibility

Chapter 5: Who Knows What You Know and Do They Like You?

The Standard Credibility Builders

Standards of Service

Becoming and Establishing Yourself as a Category Authority

Do I Have To?

Where to Begin

Making the Mental Shift

The Power of Likeability

Chapter 6: The Book Yourself Solid Sales Cycle Process

Building Relationships of Trust

Turn Strangers into Friends and Friends into Clients

The Book Yourself Solid Six Keys to Creating Connection: Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How

The Book Yourself Solid Sales Cycle Process

The Book Yourself Solid Always-Have-Something-to-Invite-People-to Offer

Use the Book Yourself Solid Sales Cycle to Unconditionally Serve Your Clients

Chapter 7: The Power of Information Products

Brand-Building Products and Easy-to-Follow Programs

Five Steps to Developing Your Product

The Simple Three-Step Product Launch Sequence

Joint Venture Partners And Affiliates

A Necessary Step in Your Business Development

Module Three: Simple Selling and Perfect Pricing

Chapter 8: Perfect Pricing

Don’t Buy Into a Poverty Mindset

Pricing Models

When to Lower Prices, Discount, and Offer Specials

When to Raise Prices

Regulations on Pricing

Chapter 9: Super Simple Selling

Letting Go of Limiting Beliefs

Shifting Your Perspective

Successful Selling Needs the Right Amount of Trust at Just the Right Time

The Secret to the Book Yourself Solid System

The Super Simple Selling System

Book Yourself Solid Four-Part Sales Formula

If They’re Uncertain

Cut the Crap Out of Selling

Module Four: The Book Yourself Solid 7 Core Self-Promotion Strategies

Chapter 10: The Book Yourself Solid Networking Strategy

Networking, Ugh!

Making the Shift to the Book Yourself Solid Way

The Book Yourself Solid 50/50 Networking Rule

Have You Got Any Soul?

Share Who You Know, What You Know, and How You Feel

Networking Opportunities

Networking Events—What to Do

Networking Events—What Not to Do

Online Networking—and Social Media Marketing

You Are Always Networking

So You’ve Got Spinach in Your Teeth

Chapter 11: The Book Yourself Solid Direct Outreach Strategy

Direct Outreach Gone Wrong

You Will Connect More When You’ve Got the Skinny

Only One Link in the Chain of Destiny Can Be Handled at a Time

Socially Successful Conduct

The Book Yourself Solid List of 20

Making Your Case

Direct Outreach Plan

Patience and Persistence Pay Off

Chapter 12: The Book Yourself Solid Referral Strategy

Quick Referral Analysis

Finding Referral Opportunities

Beginning the Referral Process

Chapter 13: The Book Yourself Solid Keep-in-Touch Strategy

Relevant, Interesting, Current, and Valuable Content

Product and Service Offerings

Choosing Your Keep-in-Touch Tools

Automating Your Keep-in-Touch Strategy

Chapter 14: The Book Yourself Solid Speaking Strategy

Self-Promotion

Getting Promoted by Others

Booking Your Way Up

How to Find Your Audiences

Get Booked to Speak

Plan Your Presentation

Deliver Your Message

To Speak or Not to Speak, That Is the Question

Chapter 15: The Book Yourself Solid Writing Strategy

How to Get Out of Writing

The Five-Part Book Yourself Solid Writing Strategy

Help Editors Help You

Chapter 16: The Book Yourself Solid Web Strategy

Part 1: Designing Your Web Site

Purpose and Benefits of Having a Web Site

The Biggest Mistake Most People Make Online

Content and Structure

Web Site Basics

The 10 Most Effective Web Site Home Page Formats for Service Professionals

What to Look For in a Web Designer

Part 2: Getting Visitors to Your Web Site

9 Book Yourself Solid Web Traffic Strategies

The Two Essential Principles of Visitor Conversion

Part 3: Building Your Social Media Platform

Social Media Sites and How to Use Them

Social Media: Pulling It All Together

Final Thoughts

References

How to Reach Michael Port

About the Author

Index

Book Yourself Solid

Copyright © 2011 by Michael Port. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone], or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor author shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

For general information on our other products and services or for technical support, please contact our Customer Care Department within the United States at [phone], outside the United States at [phone] or fax [phone].

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Port, Michael, 1970–

Book yourself solid : the fastest, easiest, and most reliable system for getting more clients than you can handle even if you hate marketing and selling / Michael Port—2nd ed.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-470-64347-1 (pbk.), ISBN 978-0-470-92544-7 (ebk); 978-0-470-92546-1 (ebk); 978-0-470-92685-7 (ebk)

1. Selling. 2. Marketing. 3. Strategic planning. I. Title.

HF5438.25.P67 2010

658.8—dc22

2010024728

This book is a love story disguised as a business book, a love story between you and all the inspiring clients you will serve.

Foreword

Face it—you’d rather be doing your life’s work than filling the sales funnel or getting the word out. Every day that you aren’t on a project is like an airplane seat that goes unsold. You picked up this book because you know that you can do better and grow stronger in your business acumen.

You will get out of this book only what you put into it. Don’t just skim the pages to pick up pointers. Take the time to do each exercise. Take a few weeks to move through this book. Pretend you are in school and striving to be at the top of your class. Because you are. When you look at your calendar next year and you aren’t happy with all the white space, pick this book up and go through it again more slowly.

Readers are leaders, and I believe this is true with you. Read this book as a business owner and think about the suggestions as you build a culture for your company. Who knows how big your enterprise might get? You might be hatching the next Big Blue, and you will need a common set of values to guide your vision into the future.

I resonate with this book’s technology and its spirit. Most of Michael’s advice comes from a point of view that can be summed up in two statements:

Make yourself emotionally attractive.Live on the right side of the Law of Reciprocity.

Emotionally attractive people win the popularity contests that make up your life. Yes, you have experience, work ethic, and talent. But you still lose the business and see it floating to a competitor, and you know you are better than that competitor. Why? The emotional brain is two dozen times more powerful than the logical brain. The customer wants a great experience, not just good consulting or an effective process. The attention you pay to the emotional experience of working with your customers may be the best way to differentiate yourself and build a contagious brand.

Book Yourself Solid outlines practical ways to improve your ability to produce positive emotions in other people—from how you serve them to how you network with them. Above all, the book gives you advice on building a consistent process in your business. And process is very likable to a customer.

The Law of Reciprocity must be respected to build a sustainable business of any kind. This law postulates that in almost every case people reciprocate, especially when it comes to energy or generosity. If your customers receive added value from you, they will add energy to your relationship. If you give them enough (either intangible or tangible), you will reach a tipping point at which they become loyal to you and start to market you to their sphere of influence.

Conversely, when you create an I-win-you-lose scenario for the customer, your business is cyclical. You get a job, finish it, and return to selling yourself. You have to slug out every business win. This is true even when you are the excellent provider who behaves like the Soup Nazi on the Seinfeld TV show.

Either you build a business that obeys this law or you don’t. There is probably no in-between. Greed is too powerful and faith is too fragile. This book will guide you into a set of practices that always give your customer a reason to give back and wish you the best.

As I finished reading this book, I was reminded of an old saying that should send you deep between the lines as you read it:

Long after people forget what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.

—Tim Sanders

Author of The Likeability Factor: How to Boost Your L-Factor and Achieve Your Life’s Dreams

(Crown Publishing)

Acknowledgments

The first line of the acknowledgments section in virtually every book goes something like this: To list everyone I want to thank for their contributions to this book would be a book in itself. You really don’t know how true that is until you write your own book.

So, to all the people who have shaped this book and have made my life and work as spectacular as it is today . . . thank you.

And, to my son Jake . . . the goodness in you is the fire that fuels me.

Author’s Note

An unfulfilled vocation drains the color from a man’s entire existence.

—Honoré de Balzac

In early 2000 I was utterly dissatisfied and completely disillusioned with my work as the vice president of programming at an entertainment company. The environment felt like a prison—long hours, unresponsive colleagues, and no personal engagement. Sound familiar? I decided to embark on a new career path as a professional business coach and consultant: a service professional. I secretly passed the time reading, researching, studying, and honing my coaching skills. After much planning, my freedom date was marked on every calendar in my apartment with a huge victorious smiley face. My resignation letter was signed, sealed, and ready for delivery. I could hardly keep my legs from sprinting out the door to follow my heart and head (both of which had checked out long ago).

On that auspicious day, I received the envelope with my bonus inside, ran to the bank, cleared the check, and proudly delivered my letter of resignation. The joy, pride, and satisfaction that I felt at that moment was incredible. I floated home and woke up the next day to plunge into my career as a business owner serving others.

I didn’t bask for long in the glory, however, before I realized I was in for trouble.

Call me crazy, but I really thought clients were just going to fall into my lap. I expected them to meet me, fall in love with me, and trade their money for my services. Instead, I moped about my very costly New York City apartment, panicking, feeling sorry for myself, and doing trivial busy work that wasn’t going to generate a dime of income.

Within six months I was desperate, which heralded a new phase of my life. I was fed up. I’d reached my limit. I was not going to throw in the towel and give up on my career as a business owner. My innate need to support and provide, to serve the people I was meant to serve, kicked into high gear one chilly New York morning. Rather than dwelling on the cold reality of my financial struggle and the bitter temperature outside, I worked every single day for no less than 16 hours to succeed and pay the bills. I poured myself into more resources and studied everything I could get my hands on about how to attract clients, communicate effectively, sell, market, and promote my services. First and foremost, I wanted to learn how to love marketing and selling by turning it into a meaningful spiritual pursuit.

It worked. Within 10 months I was booked solid with more clients than I could handle. But the personal checks I cashed were not the most valuable part of my business. The real heart of what I was creating was the turnkey system that propelled my business and income every month. I started sharing my success secrets with a small group of trusted clients, and I watched their success unfold before my eyes. I could hear confidence, pride, and accomplishment in their voices. Their businesses boomed!

My clients, who were service professionals of all kinds, started to get booked solid: massage therapists, mortgage brokers, accountants, therapists, acupuncturists, dentists, hair salon and spa owners, bookkeepers, web and graphic designers, business consultants, chiropractors, professional organizers, financial planners, virtual assistants, health care providers, insurance brokers, attorneys, personal trainers, travel agents, photographers, physiotherapists, Pilates and yoga instructors, coaches, Realtors, reflexologists, sales professionals, naturopaths, and others were getting more clients than they could handle.

I immediately began to engineer a completely replicable system that I could pass on to you. That system is the Book Yourself Solid system, and you’re holding it in your hands, the same system I’ve been teaching to thousands of other service professionals around the world in my live seminars and Book Yourself Solid Intensive Coaching Programs. The results are powerful.

Over 93 percent of clients who have used the Book Yourself Solid system have increased the number of clients they serve by more than 34 percent and increased their revenue by more than 42 percent within the first year.

And that was before I published the book. When the book released in April of 2006, Book Yourself Solid was the Number 2 best-selling book on Amazon.com. It has since become an evergreen resource for professional service providers all over the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. It’s been translated into Spanish, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Polish, Bahasa Indonesian, Orthodox Chinese, and Korean. It’s included in curriculums at graduate-level business schools and is touted as recommended reading by professional associations like the National Association of Realtors, which called Book Yourself Solid a “must read.”

The thing about a published book is that once it’s printed, it’s done. Yet, over the years, in my speeches and coaching programs, I’ve changed important parts of the system, fine tuned others, and added new, up-to-date material. Enter the second edition. It keeps the best of the Book Yourself Solid system, clarifies essential parts, and trims the fat, doing away with anything that you don’t absolutely need to know. I’ve even added an entirely new chapter on pricing and another one on the most up-to-date social media marketing. I believe this new edition of the book should make for even easier reading, faster and more effective consumption, and bigger, more impressive, and profitable results.

I’d like to impress upon you right now how realistic it is for you to become a successful self-employed professional. According to Daniel Pink (Free Agent Nation—citing a study by Anne E. Polvika, “Into Contingent and Alternative Employment: By Choice?,” reported in the October 1996 issue of Monthly Labor Review),“Full-time independent contractors earn an average of 15 percent more than their employee counterparts.” Daniel Pink also shows (from a study by Aquent Partners) that, “independent professionals are twice as likely as W-2 workers to have personal incomes above $75,000 per year.” In fact the Aquent Partners study shows that one in four Americans is now an independent professional.

That’s great news, isn’t it? It proves that you’ve made the right choice to go out on your own. But I’d like for us to think even bigger. What if you could do more? Just imagine how different your life would be if you were earning $10,000 each and every month. How about $20,000, $30,000, or $40,000 each month? How about $100,000 each and every month? Amazingly different. I can tell you from personal experience that it opens up a world of possibilities. And you can do it too! Because the Book Yourself Solid system will get you up and out into the world in the biggest and most profitable way.

You need to learn the skills necessary to promote your work and become the go-to person in your field before it’s too late. I don’t want you to start working through this book two years from now. I want you to reap all of the rewards that you deserve now. If you haven’t yet reached the level of success you expected or wanted in your business, there is only one small change you need to make. Put yourself smack-dab in the middle of my Book Yourself Solid system. This one move will get you sprinting (not walking . . . not running . . . but sprinting!) to monthly income and personal satisfaction that will change your business—and your life. Think of all the freedom, abundance, profitability, and joy you can create for yourself.

There is no question that the Book Yourself Solid system can change your business and your life. Of course, it’s up to you whether you’ll take advantage of it.

You love what you do. You’re great at what you do. You stand in the service of others, and you are a remarkable human being for doing so—now it’s time to get booked solid.

I will show you the way to a profitable, meaningful, and absolutely booked-solid business, overflowing with as many clients as your heart desires, clients who energize and inspire you, clients with whom you do your best work, clients who will pay you handsomely.

I hope you feel the same exhilaration in building your independent business as I do every day. I expect that the Book Yourself Solid system will not only inspire you but will keep you keenly focused on learning and relearning, experimenting and honing all that is within you. I am certain the secret to your success isn’t just in the work that we do together. It lies within you. Book Yourself Solid will help facilitate your greatness.

We are all on this path together, learning from one another. We are all seeking joy, love, success, and happiness. I urge you to continue to trust that you are making a huge difference in the lives of your clients, yourself, and society as a whole.

Here’s to you—to focusing on getting as many clients as your heart desires. It is my wish that you come to the Book Yourself Solid system with an open heart and mind. Completely remove, or at least set aside, any preconceived ideas fluttering in your head. Let this powerful process be revealed to you step by step.

The Book Yourself Solid way is one of abundance, joy, and meaning. It’s my deep honor to hold your hand and walk you down this path. I’ve had the pleasure and fortune to serve thousands of other professionals just like you who want to build a service business based on their gifts, talents, and skills. And just like them, you inspire and energize me because you have dedicated your work to serving others. I know your successful breakthrough is near and will continue to be sustained by your faith, inner strength, and confidence.

As any silly, serious, significant, strategic, personal, or professional questions come up, please give me a shout. I’m always delighted to hear from you. Fire off any and all questions to me and my team at [email protected]. If there is anything I can do to serve you, please just ask.

Now, let’s get to booking you solid!

Think Big,

Michael Port

Preface

The Book Yourself Solid system is supported by both practical and spiritual principles.

From a practical perspective there may be two simple reasons why you don’t serve as many clients as you’d like to today. Either you don’t know what to do to attract and secure more clients or you know what to do but you’re not actually doing it. The Book Yourself Solid system is designed to help you solve both of these problems. I will give you all the information you need to book even more clients than you can handle; I will give you the strategies, techniques, and tips. If you already know what to do but aren’t doing it, I’ll inspire you into action and help you stay accountable so you build the business of your dreams.

From a spiritual perspective I believe that if you have something to say, if you have a message to deliver, and if there are people you want to serve, then there are people in this world whom you are meant to serve. Not kinda, sorta, because they’re in your target market . . . but meant to—that’s the way the universe is set up if you’re in the business of serving others. If you don’t understand this now, you will when you have read this book and begun to follow the Book Yourself Solid way.

The system is organized into four modules:

1. Your Foundation.

2. Building Trust and Credibility.

3. Simple Selling and Perfect Pricing.

4. The Book Yourself Solid 7 Core Self-Promotion Strategies.

We will begin by building a foundation for your service business that is unshakable. If you are truly serious about becoming a super-successful service professional, you must have a steadfast foundation on which to stand. You will then be ready to create and implement a strategy for building trust and credibility. You’ll be considered a credible expert in your field and you’ll start to earn the trust of the people you’d like to serve. You’ll price your offerings in the sweet spot of the customer’s desires and you’ll know how to have sales conversations of the highest integrity that work. Then, and only then, will you execute the seven core self-promotion strategies, thereby creating awareness for the valuable services you offer by using promotional strategies that are based on your talents—strategies that feel authentic and honest.

To help you design a service business overflowing with clients who inspire and energize you, this book includes written exercises and Booked Solid Action Steps that will support you in thinking bigger about your business. Step-by-step I walk you through the actions you need to complete on the path to serving as many clients as your heart desires.

As a reader of Book Yourself Solid, you will want to retain your responses to the written exercises for regular review. I have prepared a complimentary downloadable workbook that includes all of the written exercises and Booked Solid Action Steps contained in this book. Simply visit my web site and download the workbook so that you may begin today to take the necessary steps to get more clients than you can handle.

Go to www.bookyourselfsolid.com/workbook.htm right now and download your free copy of the workbook so you have it in your hands before you turn another page. So, your first Action Step is to get your workbook. Go head . . . I’ll wait. . . .

While you’ll no doubt get great value just from reading this book, the true value—and your success—lies in your decision to take an active role and to participate fully by doing the exercises and taking the Booked Solid Action Steps I’ve outlined. In doing so, you will begin an evolutionary journey of personal and business development that will empower you to achieve the success you know you’re capable of.

If you follow the system, it will work for you. No skipping, jumping, or moving ahead—the Book Yourself Solid 7 Core Self-Promotion Strategies are effectively implemented only after your foundation, credibility-building, pricing, and sales strategies are in place. One of the main reasons that service professionals say they hate marketing and selling is that they’re trying to market without these essential elements, which is like eating an egg before it’s cooked—of course, you’ll hate it. So no matter how compelled you are to skip ahead, I urge you to please follow the system and watch the process unfold.

So many talented and inspired service professionals like you run from marketing and sales because they have come to believe that the marketing and selling process is pushy and self-centered and borders on sleazy. This old-school paradigm is not the Book Yourself Solid way; it is the typical client-snagging mentality. And you must never fall into this way of thinking and being. If you do, you’ll operate in a mentality of scarcity and shame as opposed to one of abundance and integrity.

Ask yourself these questions:

How can I be fully self-expressed in my work to create meaning for me and those I serve?How can I work only in the areas of my greatest strengths and talents so that I can shine?How many relationships with people of purpose did I make and deepen?How can I better listen to and serve my ideal clients?How can I wow people with substance?How can I overdeliver on my promises to my clients?How can I cooperate with other professionals to create more abundance?

If you keep asking yourself these questions, set a solid foundation for your business, build trust and credibility within your marketplace, learn how to price and sell your offerings, and use the seven core self-promotion strategies, you’ll be booked solid in no time.

Ready to get started? Let’s do it!

Module ONE

Your Foundation

To be booked solid requires that you have a solid foundation. That foundation begins like this:

Choose your ideal clients so you work only with people who inspire and energize you.Understand why people buy what you are selling.Develop a personal brand so you’re memorable and unique.Talk about what you do without sounding confusing or bland.

Over the course of Module One, I’ll step you through the process of building your foundation so that you have a platform on which to stand, a perfectly engineered structure that will support all of your business development and marketing, and—dare I add—personal growth. That’s because being in business for yourself, especially as someone who stands in the service of others, requires constant personal reflection and spiritual growth.

Building your foundation is a bit like putting a puzzle together. We’re going to take it one piece at a time, and when we’re done you’ll have laid the foundation for booking yourself solid.

CHAPTER 1

The Red Velvet Rope Policy

He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away.

—Raymond Hull

Imagine that a friend has invited you to accompany her to an invitation-only special event. You arrive and approach the door, surprised to find a red velvet rope stretched between two shiny brass poles. A nicely dressed man asks your name, checking his invitation list. Finding your name there, he flashes a wide grin and drops one end of the rope, allowing you to pass through and enter the party. You feel like a star.

Do you have your own red velvet rope policy that allows in only the most ideal clients, the ones who energize and inspire you? If you don’t, you will shortly. Why?

First, because when you work with clients you love, you’ll truly enjoy the work you’re doing; you’ll love every minute of it. And when you love every minute of the work you do, you’ll do your best work, which is essential to book yourself solid.

Second, because you are your clients. They are an expression and an extension of you. Do you remember when you were a teenager and your mother or father would give you a hard time about someone you were hanging out with? Your parents may have said that a particular kid reflected badly on you and was a bad influence. As a teen you may have thought about how unfair that felt, but the truth is that you are the company you keep. Let this be the imperative of your business: Choose your clients as carefully as you choose your friends.

The first step in building your foundation is to choose your ideal clients, the individuals or businesses with whom you do your best work, the people or environments that energize and inspire you. I’m going to help you identify specific characteristics of individuals or organizations that would make them ideal to work with. You will then develop a rigorous screening process to find more of them. I’m also going to help you prune your current client list of less-than-ideal clients.

When I began my business I would work with anyone who had a pulse and a checkbook. Then I began to consider what it would mean to choose my clients. What it would mean to work only with clients that were ideal for me. And thank goodness I did. Now I live by what I call the red velvet rope policy of ideal clients. It increases my productivity and my happiness, it allows me to do my best work, and I have more clients and referrals than I can handle by myself. And so will you.

For maximum joy, prosperity, and abundance, think about the person you are when you are performing optimally, when you are with all the people who inspire and energize you. Now think about all of the frustration, tension, and anxiety you feel when you work with clients who are less than ideal—not so good, right?

Wouldn’t it be great to spend every day working with clients who are ideal for you, clients whom you can hardly believe you get paid to work with? This ideal is completely possible once you identify who you want to work with and determine with certainty that you will settle for nothing less. Once you do that, it’s just a matter of knowing which of your existing clients qualify and how to acquire more just like them.

Dump the Duds

Author and business guru Tom Peters takes us a step further. In Reinventing Work: The Professional Service Firm 50, he challenges us to dump our dud clients. “Dump my clients?!” you exclaim. I can just hear your shocked protestations and exclamations. “I thought this was a book about getting clients, not dumping them!” But Peters is referring to the dud clients—not all of your clients. It sounds harsh, but think about it. Your dud clients are those you dread interacting with, who drain the life out of you, bore you to tears, frustrate you, or worse, instill in you the desire to do them—or yourself—bodily harm, despite your loving nature.

I’m well aware of the many reasons you think you can’t dump your dud clients, and I know this can seem really scary early on, but hang in there with me. Embrace the concept and trust that this is sound advice from a loving teacher and a necessary step on the path to booking yourself solid.

Why have clients, or anyone for that matter, in your life who zap your energy and leave you feeling empty? In the first year of being in business on my own, I cut 10 clients in one week. It wasn’t easy. It required a major leap of faith, but the emotional and financial rewards were astonishing. Within three months, I had replaced all 10 and added 6 more. Not only did I increase my revenue, I felt more peaceful and calm than I ever had before, and I enjoyed my clients and my work more.

When I asked myself the question, “Would I rather spend my days working with incredibly amazing, exciting, super cool, awesome people who are both clients and friends, or spend one more agonizing, excruciating minute working with barely tolerable clients who suck the life out me?” I had no choice. I knew the temporary financial loss would be worth the payoff.

1.1.1 Written Exercise: To begin to identify the types of clients you don’t want, consider which characteristics or behaviors you refuse to tolerate. What turns you off or shuts you down? What kinds of people should not be getting past the red velvet rope that protects you and your business?

1.1.2 Written Exercise: Now take a good, hard look at your current clients. Be absolutely honest with yourself. Who among your current clients fits the profile you’ve just created of people who should not have gotten past the red velvet rope that protects you and your business?

1.1.3 Booked Solid Action Step: Dump the dud clients you’ve just listed in the preceding exercise. It may be just one client, or you may need another two pages to write them all down. (Did I warn you that I’d push you to step out of your comfort zone? If I didn’t before, I am now.) Is your heart pounding? Is your stomach churning at just the thought? Have you broken out in a cold sweat? Or are you jumping up and down with excitement now that you’ve been given permission to dump your duds? Maybe you’re experiencing both sensations at the same time; that’s totally normal.

Taking a Booked Solid Action Step is a bold action and requires courage. And courage is not about being fearless—it’s about owning your fear and using it to move you forward, to give you strength. There is no more rewarding feeling than the pride you’ll feel once you’ve moved past the fear to do what you set out to do. Maybe you’ll find it easier to take it one step at a time. Start by referring out just one of those dud clients. The feeling of empowerment you’ll have once you’ve done it will motivate you to continue pruning your list of clients until the duds have all been removed.

What to Do When You Don’t (Yet) Have Clients

But, Michael, what if I just started my business and don’t yet have clients, let alone dud clients? Ah, yes, excellent point, my new friend. Consider yourself lucky! You’ll never have to worry about dud clients because you’ll put your Red Velvet Rope Policy in place on Day One.

In just a moment, you’ll begin to create your Red Velvet Rope Policy. If you’re starting a new business, and don’t yet have many, or any, clients to speak of at this point, as you’re working through the exercises, think about current or former co-workers, friends, or even service providers that you’ve hired in the past. To create your future Red Velvet Rope Policy you’ll be able to draw on your past experiences—who inspired you and who made you want to do them bodily harm. Refrain. Rewind. Remember: love and kindness. Love and kindness.

Pruning your client list

If you’re struggling with the idea of pruning your client list, keep in mind that it’s for your client’s benefit as much as it is for yours. If you’re feeling empty and drained, or frustrated and dreading the interaction with the client, you’re giving that client far less than your best, and it’s both of you who are suffering for it. You owe it to these clients to refer them to someone who can, and will, do their best work with them. If you are working with people with whom you do not do your best work, you are out of integrity. And as we discussed earlier, you are your clients. When your clients go out into the world and speak of you to others, they are representing you.

With whom do you want to be associated—the duds or the ideal clients? It’s also the ideal clients, those who are wildly happy with you and your services, who are most likely to go out and talk about you to others, to refer other clients like themselves, more ideal clients. The fewer duds you allow to hang around, the more ideal clients you have room for, the more referrals you’ll get, and so on.

Clients are like family to me, so I know this can be hard. I lived through a period of intense and painful negative energy worrying about those challenging client relationships. It exhausted me and took me away from accomplishing the highest good for my clients. It was impossible for me to be productive, effective, or successful when working with less-than-ideal clients.

Let me share a story with you about myself and my former landscaper, when I was the less-than-ideal client. For a variety of reasons, my landscaper and I were just not a good fit for each other. One of them being that every so often I’d cut the grass on a whim and then his guys would show up with nothing to mow. Instead, I’d ask them to do other projects on the property, which I thought was reasonable. Anyhow, the point is, he had issues with me; he knew I wasn’t his ideal client, but rather than tell me so, he stayed with me while getting more and more annoyed until he blew up and acted like a jerk, forcing me to let him go. More than likely, he didn’t feel comfortable dumping his dud clients, or the idea had never even crossed his mind. Granted, pruning his dud clients wouldn’t have been as easy as pruning his clients’ trees, but had he not allowed the situation to deteriorate and end on such a bad note, I might have been able to refer other clients to him who would have been ideal for him. His inability to take the booked solid action step of letting his less-than-ideal clients go left both of us dissatisfied with the situation and jeopardized his reputation.

This is what can happen when you work with clients who are not ideal for you. At some point, you’re going to create a conflict, whether intentionally or not, because you’re going to be frustrated with those clients. Those clients will think you’re not providing them with good service, and they’ll be right. It doesn’t serve you or the client when you stay in a less-than-ideal situation. Please don’t make the same mistake my landscaper did. If you do, you’ll have former clients going out into the world telling anyone who will listen that you’re the worst person to work with.

There’s nothing wrong with your dud clients, of course. They’re just not right for you. Clients who are not ideal for you could be ideal for someone else. So keep in mind that you don’t need to fire clients; you just need to help them find a better fit. You can be tactful, diplomatic, and loving. You can even attempt, when appropriate, to refer them to a colleague who might be a better fit. Whenever possible, keep it simple. Try, “I’m not the best person to serve you.” Or “I don’t think we’d be a good fit.”

Are you always going to get a positive response when dumping your dud clients? Probably not. If the first thing that comes to mind is, “I don’t want anyone out there thinking badly of me,” I’m with you. I want everyone to love me, too. But living life fully requires difficult conversations and you can never please everyone. To even try is an exercise in futility, as the following fable demonstrates.

The Old Man, the Boy, and the Donkey

An old man, a boy, and a donkey were going to town. The boy rode on the donkey and the old man walked beside him. As they went along they passed some people who remarked it was a shame the old man was walking and the boy was riding. The man and boy thought maybe the critics were right, so they changed positions.

Later, they passed some people who remarked, “What a shame! He makes that little boy walk.” They then decided they both would walk.

Soon they passed some more people who thought they were stupid to walk when they had a decent donkey to ride. So they both rode the donkey.

Later, they passed some people who shamed them by saying how awful to put such a load on a poor donkey. The boy and man said they were probably right, so they decided to carry the donkey. As they crossed the bridge, they lost their grip on the animal, and he fell into the river and drowned.

The moral of the story? If you try to please everyone, you might as well kiss your ass goodbye.

The point is that you are looking for qualities in a person that you resonate with, so don’t limit yourself to just thinking about the clients that you don’t yet have. Your Red Velvet Rope Policy is a filtration system that lets in ideal clients. However, you can choose to loosen or tighten the rope at will. I’m not (necessarily) asking you to turn away your very first clients. I understand what you’re up against. When you start your business, if you feel that you’d like to keep your red velvet rope a little looser so you can work with more clients, go ahead. Just make sure you know what is ideal and what isn’t ideal about the people you’re letting into the VIP room. As you become booked solid, you’ll tighten your red velvet rope and become even more exclusive so as to work only with those that energize and inspire you—and most important—allow you to do your best work.

Creating Your Red Velvet Rope Policy

The benefits of working with ideal clients are many and meaningful:

You’ll have clean energy to do your best work.You’ll feel invigorated and inspired.You’ll connect with clients on a deeper level.You’ll feel successful and confident.You’ll know your work matters and is changing lives.The magic of you will come to life.

My ideal clients have these qualities:

Bright (full of light and easily excitable).Resilient (keep coming back).Courageous (face their fears).Think big (their projects benefit large groups of people).Value-oriented (they gain value from relationships with me and others).Naturally collaborative (they contribute to and focus on their solutions).Rapid responders (talk today, done tomorrow).Positive (naturally optimistic).

Your list might look completely different. Maybe you only want to work with certain types of clients. Maybe reliability or long-term goals are important to you. Maybe your top priority is how often a client works with you or how many projects they do with you. The economic status of a client may be one factor, but remember—it’s only one of many. In fact, it’s often a primary consideration for many service professionals who wind up working with clients who are less than ideal. So take heed—the economic status of a potential client should be only one of many considerations. Notice that my list considers the quality of my ideal clients first—who they are rather than what they have or the circumstances they’re in.

1.1.4 Written Exercise: Define your ideal client. What type of people do you love being around? What do they like to do? What do they talk about? With whom do they associate? What ethical standards do they follow? How do they learn? How do they contribute to society? Are they smiling, outgoing, creative? What kind of environment do you want to create in your life? And who will get past the Red Velvet Rope Policy that protects you? List the qualities, values, or personal characteristics you’d like your ideal clients to possess.

1.1.5 Written Exercise: Now let’s look at your current client base. Whom do you love interacting with the most? Who do you look forward to seeing? Who are the clients who don’t feel like work to you? Who is it you sometimes just can’t believe you get paid to work with? Write down the names of clients, or people you’ve worked with, whom you love to be around.

1.1.6 Written Exercise: Get a clear picture of these people in your head. Write down the top five reasons that you love working with them. What about working with them turns you on?

1.1.7 Written Exercise: Now go deeper. If you were working only with ideal clients, what qualities would they absolutely need to possess in order for you to do your best work with them? Be honest and don’t worry about excluding people. Be selfish. Think about yourself. For this exercise, assume you will work only with the best of the best. Be brave and bold and write without thinking or filtering your thoughts.

How different were the last two lists? You may have nailed it the first time. Maybe you’re right on track, or maybe you have some perfect client opportunities to uncover.

By knowing who your ideal clients are and selecting only those who have at least 75 percent of the qualities you identified, you will have more fun, accomplish greater results, and experience incredible joy and fulfillment in your business.

This is beneficial because you’ll be able to identify other ideal clients you’d love to work with. People enjoy knowing how important they are to you, and if they know you do your best work with, and for, people like them, they are much more inclined to work with you. It raises the stakes for them.

Look at these requirements and think about how you can start to turn them into filters. As for me, I’m like a giant generator—the more gas (meaning projects or clients) I take in, the more power I create. But the wrong kind of fuel causes me to sputter and conk out. Think about a hot sports car running on diesel fuel—not pretty. Neither is this roadster when he gets the wrong kind of energy. Every engine needs a filtration system to keep the system running smoothly and cleanly, just as you need to create a clean system of clients that will filter out the imperfections.

My client filters include these:

I feel more energized and excited after working with my clients.My clients seek open feedback, and better yet, they take action when they get it.My clients have faith that leaves some people bewildered and some astonished.My clients are not victims; they hold themselves accountable and think about the betterment of others.My clients continually seek out and develop valuable personal and professional relationships.My clients feel stimulated and energized by the input and collaborative efforts of others.My clients use anecdotes and colorful speech, and they share personal stories.My clients do not procrastinate; they respond quickly to new opportunities.My clients are naturally optimistic and do not complain.

1.1.8 Written Exercise: What filters do you want to run your perfect clients through?

Ideal Clients, the Duds, and Everyone Else

As you eliminate the duds, you’ll open up room for ideal clients. As you use the Book Yourself Solid system to attract more and more ideal clients, you’ll discover that you’re happier, more vibrant, more energetic, and more productive. You’ll be on fire. You’ll be giving your clients the best of yourself and your services, and you’ll love every minute of it.

1.1.9 Written Exercise: Draw a simple table with three columns: Label the first column “Ideal Clients,” the second “Duds,” and the third “Everyone Else.” Now divide your clients into these three groups. Don’t hold back or leave anyone out.

As if that weren’t enough, you may begin to notice that many of your mid-range clients, those who made neither the ideal client nor the dud list, are undergoing a transformation. Why? While you were working with dud clients, you weren’t performing at your best. If you think that that wasn’t affecting your other clients, think again. The renewed energy and the more positive environment you’ll create as a result of letting go of the duds will most likely rejuvenate the relationships between you and some of your mid-range clients, turning many of them into ideal clients.

1.1.10 Written Exercise: Brainstorm your own ideas for reigniting these mid-range clients. Contemplate the ways in which you may, even inadvertently, have contributed to some of your clients being less than ideal clients. Are there ways in which you can light a new fire or elicit greater passion for the work you do together? Do you need to set and manage expectations more clearly right from the beginning? Can you enrich the dynamics between you by challenging or inspiring your clients in new ways? Go ahead—turn off your left-brain logical mind for a moment and let your right-brain creativity go wild.

Observe carefully the ways in which your relationships with your clients begin to shift as you embrace the Book Yourself Solid way. Some of your mid-range clients may fall away. Others may step up their game and slide into the ideal client category.

When you’re fully self-expressed, fully demonstrating your values and your views, you’ll naturally attract and draw to yourself those you’re best suited to work with, and you’ll push away those you’re not meant to work with.

A Perpetual Process

The process we’ve just worked through is one that you must do on a regular basis. Pruning your client list is a perpetual process because all relationships naturally cycle. The positive and dynamic relationships you have now with your ideal clients may at some point reach a plateau, and the time may come to go your separate ways. You’ll get more comfortable with the process over time. It’s one that has so many rewards that it’s well worth the effort.

Let Tom Peters sum it up for us: “This is your life. You are your clients. It is fair, sensible, and imperative to make these judgments. To dodge doing so shows a lack of integrity.”

I’ll go one step further and say that doing so is one of the best and smartest business and life decisions you can make. It’s crucial to your success and your happiness. Prune regularly and before you know it, you’ll be booked solid with clients you love working with.

CHAPTER 2

Why People Buy What You’re Selling

Before everything else, getting ready is the secret of success.

—Henry Ford

The next few steps we take down the Book Yourself Solid path will either feel like you’re skipping over stepping-stones or like you’re taking giant leaps of faith. Either way, these few steps will be well worth the time spent. The most important thing is to submit to the process. Stay by my side as we walk and work together on getting you booked solid.

Taking the following four steps will help you keenly understand why people buy what you’re selling, an essential component in creating relentless demand for your services.

Step 1: Identify your target market

Step 2: Understand the urgent needs and compelling desires of your target market

Step 3: Determine the Number One biggest result your clients get

Step 4: Uncover and demonstrate the benefits of your investable opportunities

Step 1: Identify Your Target Market

Now that you’ve looked at the qualities of the people you want to work with, it’s time to identify your target market, that is—the specific group of people or businesses you serve. For example, your target market might be seniors in Vancouver, BC, or mothers who have their own home-based networking marketing business or orthopedic surgeons. Your ideal clients are a small subset of the target market you choose to serve. Remember, your ideal clients are those individuals who energize and inspire you; your target market is the demographics of the group you’re most passionate about serving. It is just as important to identify the right target market, as it is to identify the ideal clients.

It’s also important to understand the difference between your target market and your niche. If you’ve done other research or reading on the subject of building your business, you may have heard both of these terms before, and you may have heard them used interchangeably. However, in the Book Yourself Solid system, they are not synonymous. There’s an important distinction between the two: Your target market is the group of people you serve, and your niche is the service you specialize in offering to your target market. For example, you and I may both serve the same target market, say, service professionals, but offer them different services. I might specialize in getting clients and you might help them create systems for their business. We’ll get to your niche in Chapter 3. Before we can talk more about the services you offer, you’ve got to identify your target market.

Even if you believe you have identified and chosen a target market, please don’t skip this section. I often see service professionals who are struggling because either they’ve chosen a target market that isn’t as specific as it needs to be, or they’ve chosen a target market based on what they think is the most logical and most lucrative choice, rather than one they feel passionate about serving. For the sake of your own success, read through this section, even if you don’t think you need to. Trust me. If your target market isn’t specific enough or the right one for you, the rest of the book won’t be as effective. And besides, you just might be surprised at what you discover.

There are three primary reasons to choose a target market:

1. It helps you determine where to find potential clients who are looking for what you have to offer. If you have a target market, you know where to concentrate your marketing efforts and what to offer that is compelling and well received. You know what associations to speak to, magazines and journals to write for, and influential people with whom to network—you know where your potential clients gather. Voila! You now know where to show up.

2. Virtually every target market already has some kind of network of communication established. For your marketing to work, your clients need to spread your messages for you. If they already have a network of communication set up, they can talk to each other about you and your marketing messages can travel that much faster. What are networks of communication? Environments that are set up to help a group communicate—as I mentioned earlier: associations, social networking sites, clubs, various publications, events, and more.

3. And, finally, choosing a target market lets the people in that target market, know that you’ve dedicated your life’s work to them.

Marketing and sales isn’t about trying to persuade, coerce, or manipulate people into buying your services. It’s about putting yourself out in front of, and offering your services to, those whom you are meant to serve—people who already need and are looking for your services.

In order to reach the people you’re meant to serve, you’ve got to know where to find them. That’s why an essential step is for you to identify a very specific target market to serve.

No matter how much you might like to be everything to everyone, it’s just not possible. Even if you could be, you would be doing a disservice to yourself and your clients in the attempt. You can serve your clients much better, offer them much more of your time, energy, and expertise, if you narrow your market so that you’re serving only those who most need your services and who can derive the greatest benefits from what you have to offer.

If you’re just starting out in your business, or if you’ve been working in your business for a while but are not yet booked solid, you may be tempted to market to anyone and everyone with the assumption that the more people you market to, the more clients you’ll get. While narrowing your market to gain more clients may seem counterintuitive, that’s exactly what you need to do to successfully book yourself solid.

Think of narrowing your market this way: Which would you rather be—a small fish in a big pond or a big fish in a small pond? It’s much easier to carve out a very lucrative domain for yourself once you’ve identified a specific target market. And once you’re a big fish in a small pond, you’ll get more invitations than you can handle to swim in other ponds.

There are two primary ways to grow a service business. You can choose a target market and, over time, continue to add new products and services to this same target market. For example, if your target market is fitness professionals, and you’re currently offering them web design services, as you grow, you might start offering them search engine optimization services and then pay-per-click advertising services. Alternatively, once you get booked solid in one target market, you can begin to market and sell the same services in additional vertical target markets. So, if you currently serve wood floor manufacturers, you might offer the same services to manufacturers of tile flooring. Once you get a foothold in that market, you might then begin to focus on carpet manufacturers.

One of my first clients, Dr. Mike Berkley, L.Ac., a doctor of acupuncture, specializes in the treatment of male and female infertility using acupuncture and herbal medicine. He’s renowned for his work and he’s booked solid. In fact, he’s overbooked. You’d be lucky to get an appointment with him. Why? Well, he’s great at what he does, but he has also chosen a target market that allows him to do his best work, the work that he is most interested in, and which allows potential clients to see him as the answer to their problems.