CRACKING THE BILLABLE HOURS CEILINGWritten by C.J. Hayden, MCC
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equipment. 4. Write a white paper, workbook, or booklet. Short publications like these are easily within your reach, even if you don't consider yourself a writer. A simple 20-page booklet might have as few as 4000 words in it. If you've written four articles to promote your business, you've probably already written this much. These are perfect formats for e-books, which cost you nothing to print. 5. Author a book. This might seem an impossible task, but if you write one page a day, five days a week, at end of a year you'll have a full-length book. If writing isn't your strong point, find an editor, ghost writer, or even a co-author who has skills you lack. You don't have to wait until your book is finished to start selling excerpts as articles and white papers. 6. Market other people's products. If you don't yet have your own product, don't let it stop you. You can begin earning passive income by selling other people's books and tapes, becoming a re-seller for software or assessment tools, licensing someone else's process, or joining affiliate programs. Any of these products can be marketed in conversations with prospects and clients, in your standard marketing kit, in mailings or newsletters, on your outgoing voice mail message, and on your web site. If you've been counting on hourly fees for your entire income, you may be surprised at impact developing your intellectual property will have. It will add not only to your revenue, but also your professional credibility. And in poor economic times, you will find that prospects who hesitate to pay for personal service will still purchase classes and information products. C.J. Hayden, MCC
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Since 1992, C.J. has been teaching business owners and salespeople to make more money with less effort. She is a Master Certified Coach and leads workshops internationally. Read more of her articles at www.getclientsnow.com
| | UNDERSTANDING THE CORPORATE BUYER Written by C.J. Hayden, MCC
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A supervisor must justify choices to a manager, manager to an executive, executive to CEO, CEO to board, board to shareholders. Each one of these people wants to look good to next link up chain, and dreads making a public mistake. If you want your sale to go through, you need to provide your contact with EVIDENCE why you and your solution are best choice. 4. The bottom line rules. When you provide your evidence, it had better include dollars and cents. If you are more expensive than your competition, what added value will you provide? If hiring you will cost more than solving company's problem in some other way, what tangible benefits will they receive that make added expense worthwhile? Individuals and small businesses buy services in category of nice-to-have, often to improve their quality of life or that of their employees. Corporations, especially in lean times, don't. You must sell them something they actually NEED and prove how it will enhance their bottom line. Real-life examples of results at other companies can speak volumes. Illustrations with charts and graphs are more convincing than any brochure. 5. No budget; no project. Even when company needs what you have and thinks you're best one for job, deal won't go through if there's no money in budget. You can ask your contact to try for a budget variance, but no budget usually means your project will be deferred until next fiscal year. Always ask if client has a budget at first meeting. Don't necessarily expect them to tell you how much it is -- price negotiations will come later. But if your contact can't answer budget questions, it's also a strong clue you are not talking to decision-maker. C.J. Hayden, MCC
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients NOW! Since 1992, C.J. has been teaching business owners and salespeople to make more money with less effort. She is a Master Certified Coach and leads workshops internationally. Read more of her articles at www.getclientsnow.com
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