Lessons From a B2B Consultant

If you are like many consultants you like to get business clients via word of mouth or referral.

I mean - large contacts via a warm introduction is ideal right? .

But of course this is so limiting because you are waiting for the jobs coming to you and you have almost no control over when this will happen..

Or you might get inbound leads via SEO, paid ads, or content marketing but do you find that the business decision maker is just not reaching out to you enough this way?

This is because those decision makers are not necessarily googling for a solution, or trawling through blogs or social content online.

Executives and heads of department tend not to be hanging out in Facebook groups.

These ladies and gents are just not accessible via inbound methods in the way that the average consumer is.

For B2B more than any other demographic, proactive cold outreach to a decision maker via LinkedIn and/ email is the MOST effective and MOST predictable form of client generation.

And too many consultants and business owners are NOT doing cold outreach AT ALL.

Here is a quick overview of the three steps of B2B client generation that as a consultant I have seen work with predictability time and time again:

1. Optimize

2. Engage

3. Convert

The first stage is OPTIMISE

This means really knowing who you are targeting in terms of:

• the size of company,

• the number of staff,

• the annual turn over,

• the industry,

• the department within the company,

• the decision makers title or role,

• the geography of the company

• its stage of development [start up, seed funding, merger, sale, etc.]

Once you have optimised what type of company you can help and who the decision maker is you have to optimise the message you use to connect cold with new clients.

For cold outreach, this message must be about their challenge or need and refer to their goal or desire.

You can’t talk in terms of what you do - but in terms of the results you can help create.

Of course it’s impossible to know with 100% accuracy via cold outreach which company is facing a certain need or challenge at any particular moment, but here a bit of research with your optimisation and niche targeting can help a lot.

The second stage is ENGAGE

This means setting up and sending outreach messages to the lists of decision makers you have found via LinkedIn and email.

Engagement messaging is not selling - you are talking in terms of results you create to gauge interest and open a conversation.

With a good engagement strategy, you should get a higher than normal % of people responding to your cold outreach to learn a bit more and this is where the sales conversations start.

And if you engage across LinkedIn AND email you have double the chance of reaching a decision maker and opening the door to a conversation.

The third stage is CONVERT.

At this point you have outreach messages going out to your ideal client decision maker regularly via email and LinkedIn.

To pour fuel on the fire you can automate much of this process through a few good LinkedIn and email automation tools.

This means you can send more messages to more people and book more appointments with regularity.

More conversations means a fuller pipeline of business, a handful of relationships that you can nurture and develop to the point of proposal or business contract.

A strong follow up and lead nurture process is necessary to all leads in your pipeline so being able to track and measure the value of your pipeline and touch base with leads regularly is absolutely essential.

This way you turn cold leads into warm leads and warm leads into hot leads. Finally hot leads turn into business clients.

To put this into context:

The average consultant charges a day rate of $500 - $1500 [and often more].

This means that projects of several weeks easily become $5k - $15k

Monthly retainers can turn into $10 - $100k annual contracts when positioned well.

Just converting ONE MORE project each month is therefore worth $50k per year more and one more retainer per month can easily become $100k - $1m per year more.

Most consultants can easily pass work to associates or grow their team on demand - it’s bringing in the paying clients that is the challenge.

Do you see how setting up a cold outbound lead generation system on LinkedIn and email is a no brainer?

I have an amazing 1-to-1 programme for experienced coaches and consultants who are ready to build a consistent strategy of winning $10k - $100k high ticket B2B contracts organically via LinkedIn and email outreach. (My highest personal win was $300k AUD and my highest client contract was £200k GBP)

The investment for the program is currently $5k which when you consider only one contract of $10k will more than repay twice or three times.

(Three months is actually about how long it takes for my lead gen system to start consistently showing results which is why we work together for this long allowing time to tweak and iterate your offer-message and targeting!)

If interested, simply send me an email. We'll have a quick chat to see if the program is a good fit for you and your business. If so, we can start right away!

To your success

Jen

ps. I have heaps of FREE resources and training via this Facebook group here.

Lessons From a B2B Consultant | Jen Bishop consulting best lead generation agency

The Secret To Big Sales

Want clients queuing to work with you?

Filling up your pipeline with high ticket clients is as simple as knowing the different types of leads to target and how: ⁣

• Hot⁣

• Warm⁣

• Cold ⁣

Each of these types require slightly different information to move them towards spending money with you. ⁣ ⁣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐨𝐭. ⁣ ⁣ These are usually your email list and people who know you well and know your offer. ⁣ ⁣ A hot prospect is aware of your name and your product and has realised that it can satisfy this desire. ⁣ ⁣ You can speak to your hot leads in terms of your product and process and they understand what you mean because they know how it links to results they want.⁣ ⁣ If they have not bought from you already, they might in future and are just biding their time until they're ready to invest. ⁣ ⁣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐦. ⁣ ⁣ They are usually your Facebook or LinkedIn connections or social media followers. ⁣ ⁣ A warm lead is someone who is looking for a solution to a problem but they don’t know as much about you or details about your process yet.. ⁣ ⁣ You must speak to your warm leads in terms of their desire, results, outcomes, benefits and impacts, not your product. ⁣ ⁣ This messaging will encourage them to move towards you to find out more about you and potentially invest. ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐠𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐩 𝐨𝐟 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐝. ⁣ ⁣ Cold leads are of course everybody else in the world who matches your ideal client avatar in terms of demographics, for a company that is location, size, industry and so on. ⁣ ⁣ A cold lead is a decision maker who is not really aware of what they are seeking in terms of a solution but they have a defined problem. ⁣ ⁣ They may not even realise that there’s a solution out there that will help them but they know they have a problem and it is painful. ⁣ ⁣ You must speak [or write copy] to your cold leads in terms of their pressing challenge and pains and crystalise this into a specific need. ⁣ ⁣ This will engage them to find out more and begin to see how not only there might be a solution to this problem that fulfils a desire, but also how your solution can bridge that gap. ⁣ ⁣ The best thing is: The cold market is usually the largest. 𝐈𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐦, 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐈𝐆 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬. ⁣ ⁣ Of course it’s important to nurture leads at every stage of your funnel - hot, warm and cold leads however it’s cold outreach that taps into the BLUE OCEAN of big sales. ⁣ ⁣ Filling your pipeline with leads who: ⁣

• have a painful problem you can solve, ⁣

• are aware there is a solution out there that can help them, ⁣

• are aware that your solution can create their desired results, ⁣

• trust that your solution will get them results in a defined time frame ⁣

This is the secret sauce to filling your calendar with high ticket business clients!! ⁣ ⁣ If you want a strategy to reach out to cold leads and bring them into your pipeline get in touch. ⁣ ⁣ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐛𝐢𝐠 𝐬𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮. ⁣

The Secret To Big Sales

3 Secrets of LinkedIn - From Someone Who Makes Thousands From LinkedIn Each Month

Often people say to me that LinkedIn has not worked well for them in the past. They post content, they add the right people, they might even direct message new connections - but nothing.

Zip, zero in terms of new business or revenue won.

Here is a list of THREE main secrets I have learned over the past few years both using LinkedIn for client generation and teaching others to use LinkedIn.

#1. LinkedIn is not about you it’s about other people

#2 LinkedIn is a database as well as a social media platform

#3 LinkedIn is a professional networking platform like events, conferences or meet ups used to be

Let’s go through them one by one.

First, LinkedIn is not about you, it’s about other people.

A classic mistake I see all the time is people use LinkedIn like a job hunting platform [that maybe it once was] where they hang their CV and hope people take notice of them.

They list every award, certification, notable achievement and press mention there and even write their about section in the third person as though it’s a formal biography.

The problem is that this focus is all about you.

Your achievements, your credentials, your stellar career.

This is lovely if you want to be admired, but not helpful if you want to sell a service because people ultimately invest in solutions and results.

Your Harvard pedigree is nice and your TEDX speakership is amazing but if you are not able to solve a pressing problem or create impressive results for a business, it’s just window dressing.

It’s far more effective to make your LinkedIn presence about other people and by this I mean, you make it abundantly clear the results you create and the problems you solve.

Turn your head line from a role description into a POWER PROMISE.

For example, instead of writing, ‘My NAME: Principal Consultant and Founder of My Company’ write ‘My NAME: I help small to medium businesses add $20k of revenue per month through organic Instagram strategies.’

Turn your About Section into a sales letter and by this I mean list:

1. Your power promise - see above

2. WHO you help

3. Results you have created in very short bullet points

4. How you help them - in steps if possible

5. How people can get in touch or find out more.

Of course optimise your featured content, your professional experience, your skills endorsements and recommendations to further back up this information.

In short, turn your LinkedIn profile away from being your CV and into being about the results you create for your ideal client.

Second, LinkedIn is a powerful CRM, lead finder and social media platform in one.

This is the second biggest challenge I see people face when using LinkedIn.

They share heaps of quality content like they would on Facebook, Twitter, their blog or via their email marketing channels and get frustrated when it's met by crickets.

While inbound leads from LinkedIn are entirely possible and in fact common, waiting for people to message you or call you because of content you have shared is missing out on the huge potential of LinkedIn as a database.

LinkedIn holds masses of data that can be useful for client generation.

You can find email addresses, phone numbers and other links relevant to your ideal client.

You can also find out important company news and events such as mergers or funding received, whether a company is hiring or releasing staff, and you can track down key decision makers and their relationships to each other and to you.

A little known feature of LinkedIn is that you can upload data to LinkedIn from your phone, your email account or from your own CRM via a CSV and then use this data to further extend your network by connecting to a new second degree network by finding similar audiences to your current contacts.

By not using the database features of LinkedIn and simply posting content like any other social platform many people are missing out on the huge unique potential of LinkedIn.

Third, LinkedIn is a professional networking platform [like events, conferences or meet ups used to be]

Since COVID19 has stopped many conferences and events, consultants and business owners who are used to generating business by networking have been largely stumped.

I’ve been invited to online BNI events and regional business breakfasts/ lunches/ round tables etc. via zoom and often have to remind people - LinkedIn is available to you 24/7 you do realise that right?

As like attending any industry event or conference you would get a list of attendees, their role in a company, their contact details and you can use the breakout sessions and meal times to approach people, strike up a conversation, trade business cards and essentially begin what can be very fruitful relationships.

LinkedIn is a 24/ 7 networking event.

Except LinkedIn gives you a vast array of ways to interact with people you would like to in addition to a direct message.

You can read their content, like or comment on it. You can follow them, endorse them, recommend them as well as add them as a connection.

Just like any networking event, walking up to people and asking if they want to buy your stuff is not good manners nor good business development strategy.

But nor is standing in the corner with a bright sign hoping people will come to you.

Networking requires proactive engagement and constructive relationship development, asking questions, offering resources, making relevant introductions, and yes, also making relevant offers of help to painful problems.

LinkedIn is such a great tool for business development. Take it from me as someone who has consistently made thousands of pounds each month from LinkedIn.

To your success

Jen

3 Secrets of LinkedIn - From Someone Who Makes Thousands From LinkedIn Each Month