Sharpen Your AXE
Abraham Lincoln once said, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.” If you don’t sharpen your axe and put in place the necessary foundational elements first, the rest of it won’t be nearly as effective. What we’re doing here in The Cribbin System is building a system that you’ll come to rely on for new leads and appointments for years to come. Trying to shortcut the process just isn’t worth it. The first step is clearly identifying who your ideal prospect is. Don’t make the mistake of saying “everybody” or “any small business owner.”
If you market to everyone as a prospect, you’ll get no one as a client. Your success will improve dramatically when you focus on a specific niche.
The key is to have a very clear picture of who your ideal client is. From there, you will be armed with the information you need to create your solution, which is essentially a roadmap of the places that these prospects hang out in. It could be certain LinkedIn groups, or Facebook groups. Maybe your prospects hang out in niche forums or other communities. Most markets can be found in niche-specific LinkedIn groups, as there are over 1,000,000 of them.
Your clients are under siege. They’re bombarded daily with emails, ads, and messages from businesses trying to sell them something. Like a pesky mosquito buzzing around their face, these advertising messages leave them wanting to do nothing less than SMACK! If you think all it takes to book some appointments is to pile on with everybody else, think again. You’ll be just the next in line to get smashed and left for dead.
The key to getting a foot in the door, is to position yourself as somebody they know, like, and trust. People do business with people they have relationships with. If you want to generate more appointments, you need to develop more relationships.
Asking Permission to Send Your Lead Magnet is a great approach. Here we’re going to utilize a special piece of content, a lead magnet, or possibly a case study. But instead of sending them to an opt-in page where the prospect has to enter their email, we’re just going to send it to them.
Hey John,
We’ve been connected here for a while and I thought you might be interested in a new report I’m putting together. It’s all about how {avatar, type of company, etc.} can {benefit} by {thing you do}. I’d love to send you a copy. Would you prefer I send it here on LinkedIn, or would email be better?
Another key to successfully implementing The Cribbin System is to put in the time. It should go without saying, but again, there is no easy button. I don’t know of any systems for generating new clients and sales in your business that don’t require putting in some work. That said, the beauty of this system is that you can reach a large number of highly targeted prospects, and you can do it efficiently.
