“What consumers are primarily interested in today are not features, but relationships.”
— Harry Beckwith, “Selling the Invisible”

How many times already today has someone tried to sell you something? The ads come in by email, snail mail, fax, radio, magazines, newspapers, TV, and your web browser; the salespeople write you, call you, and approach you in the store or showroom. Are you even listening any more? How often do you actually buy something because someone you didn’t know tried to sell it to you?

Your clients — consumers and businesses alike — are just like you. They are not only fed up with hype, most of the time they don’t even see it. Overwhelmed with communications, they tune out the vast majority of the marketing messages they are presented with just in order to get through their day. After attending a race plastered with Coca-Cola logos, a survey revealed that only a third of the attendees could remember who was the sponsor.

“A weekday edition of The New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in 17th century England.”
— R.S. Wurman, “Information Anxiety”

Making information available to your clients is still important, so don’t throw out your brochures or take down your web site. But with so many communications arriving all the time, your clients want control over how and when they receive your information. More than ever before people want to do business with people they know, like, and trust.

With a service business, what you are really marketing is you, not the service. When you are the product, your customers need to know who you are. They want to feel a connection with you and know that they can trust you before they will consider doing business with you.

“Beleaguered by e-mail spam and intrusive pop-up ads on the Internet, consumers are using the “delete” button with increasing frequency and losing confidence in other traditional forms of advertising as well… Consumers rank word-of-mouth recommendations from others as the most trusted form of advertising.”
– PlanetFeedback.com

According to psychologists, a primary motivational factor for human behavior is affiliation, defined as “the desire to establish and maintain warm and friendly relations with others.” We are naturally drawn toward experiences where affiliation is possible, and avoid situations where it is not.

When we receive a recommendation from someone we are already affiliated with, we believe that following that recommendation will continue the positive experience. If we think developing an affiliation is possible with someone new because they have approached us in a warm and friendly way, we are encouraged to establish a new relationship, whether it is personal or business.

“With the amount of information presented increasing, mass marketing campaigns become less effective… One-to-one marketing will not just be a possibility, it will be a necessity.”
Easton Consultants, “Information Overload”

Establishing a one-to-one connection with your prospective customers can begin with projecting the warm and friendly image that encourages affiliation. Make yourself available for contact and conversation that isn’t necessarily leading directly to a sale. Encourage word of mouth by developing and keeping in touch with a network of current and former clients, colleagues, competitors, referral partners, and influential people.

Focus on providing information to clients in objective, rather than promotional ways. A recent study found that a commercial web site scored 27% higher in “usability” by visitors when written in an objective style (sharing information) instead of a promotional style (singing the company’s praises). You can carry this principle off line by writing helpful articles and giving talks in preference to sending brochures and making cold calls.

Participate in your client community as a peer by attending conferences, seminars, fundraisers, and other educational and social events. On the web, frequent discussion lists, forums, and other online communities. When you read articles and posts, take a moment to post your comments to the author where other visitors can see them.

Prospective buyers name newsletters, weblogs, and other forms of opt-in, reader-friendly communications as one of their most trusted sources of information about products and services. As well as publishing one yourself, it pays to be mentioned in someone else’s.

“Get to know the influentials…invite them in and engage them in a conversation…Most are local community leaders, or have real involvement in their communities, and as such are the nodes of wide personal networks. They are the people … to whom others look for advice or counsel.”
– Edward Keller & Jonathan Berry, “The Influentials”

When you engage in a community, people begin to know you from the words of others instead of from your words alone. You can even create your own community by starting an affinity group or business network, launching a discussion list, hosting an online forum or live conference, adding commenting features to your web site, posting reader responses in your newsletter, and much more.

The real key is to begin connecting in person with the population you want to reach, instead of relying on promotion and selling to bring them to you and make them want to buy.

Copyright © 2007, C.J. Hayden

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now!™ Thousands of business owners and independent professionals have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of “Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You’ll Ever Need” at www.getclientsnow.com.

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When you place a call to a prospective client, does the person you are calling already know your name, even if you have never met? When new clients are referred to you, do they often say that they’ve heard of you from several different sources? Are you frequently contacted by people who are ready to work with you and don’t question your qualifications? These are just some of the results you can expect when you make publishing part of your marketing plan.

In the academic world, the phrase “publish or perish” reflects the common knowledge that people must know who you are in order to hire you, promote you, or fund your research. No matter what niche you do business in, experts agree that publishing your work accelerates your ability to gain clients. According to Tom Lambert, author of “High Income Consulting” (http://www.icfce.com), winning some level of fame is the surest way to higher earnings as a professional.

Here are some guidelines to help you start getting published or expand your publishing efforts:

1. Publishing is easier than ever before.

In the pre-Internet age, most publishing took the form of articles in newspapers and magazines or full-length books. Getting your work published usually required a lengthy process of approaching (and being rejected by) numerous editors. Now it’s possible to write an article in the morning and have it in the hands of thousands by afternoon, often with no editor’s stamp of approval.

You can publish your own articles on the web via email broadcasts to your own mailing list, posting them on your web site or weblog, or submitting them to the thousands of independent web sites and ezines eager for fresh content to inform their visitors. In addition, many print magazines and newsletters accept completed articles sent by email. Just check the submission guidelines of any publication that interests you to see if they require queries before sending.

Electronic publishing also makes it possible to easily publish shorter-length books as ebooks, web-based manuals, ecourses, or short-run printings of workbooks, booklets, and white papers. If you can put together ten pages of material, you have enough to publish in one of these shorter forms, and begin referring to yourself as “the author of…”

2. Write what you do.

The best articles or workbooks are not those describing the type of work you do; they are the ones that actually help the reader do that work. Instead of writing how life coaching can help people complete important projects, a coach should write his best tips on ending procrastination. A professional organizer could write about dealing with junk mail, and a sales trainer could write about motivating salespeople when business is slow.

If you’re feeling stuck for writing topics, make it a habit after every client meeting to mentally review each of the subjects you discussed with your client and note which ones might be good for a future article. Or, think of the ten questions that clients or prospects most commonly ask about your line of work. Each one of those questions is likely to be an excellent article topic or chapter in a book.

3. Make all your writing count.

Steven Van Yoder, author of “Get Slightly Famous” (http://www.getslightlyfamous.com) encourages his clients to get their articles reprinted as many places as possible. If you’re going to take the trouble to write a good article, why not reuse it over and over? Steve has helped many clients get a single article posted on up to 100 different web sites, as well as in multiple print publications.

Many sites and publications happily accept articles that have already been printed. If you want to write for an outlet that insists on “first rights” of publication for a certain length of time, no problem. Write a new article for that outlet, then concentrate on getting it reprinted elsewhere after the time period has expired. Remember, too, that every piece of writing can be re-purposed. An article can be expanded into a white paper; a collection of articles can become a book.

4. If you’re not a writer, work with one.

You don’t have to be able to write well in order to get published. It isn’t just celebrities that work with ghost writers, editors, or proofreaders to strengthen and polish their writing. If you’re better at expressing yourself out loud, you don’t even have to write. You can speak your thoughts and have them transcribed and edited by a professional.

5. Get started now.

The more writing you publish and the longer your work has been out there, the more you will increase your visibility, credibility, and reputation as an expert. Clients will come to you instead of you having to seek them out. Your sales cycles will be shorter, and the fees you charge can be higher. Each publication will become a salesperson to whom you never have to pay a commission, working tirelessly to bring you more clients.

Copyright © 2007, C.J. Hayden

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now!™ Thousands of business owners and independent professionals have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of “Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You’ll Ever Need” at www.getclientsnow.com.

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In any professional services business, you typically begin by serving clients one-to-one. As you improve your skills at marketing yourself and begin filling your practice, eventually you discover there are only so many hours in the day. You want to keep growing your business, but you have no more time available for additional clients. What can you do?

You can raise your rates, although there is an upper limit to what you can realistically charge. You can offer your services to multiple people at once through workshops and group programs. But these ideas are still based on the billable hours model. You must keep providing service in order for the money to keep coming. An entirely different direction to look is toward generating passive revenue.

Including elements of passive revenue in your business does more for you than just increase your income. It also allows you to make more of an impact on your profession and community. When you are locked into a cycle of constantly acquiring and serving clients, it’s difficult to find the time to think creatively, experiment, and build a bigger vision. But when you are earning money you don’t have to work for directly, you have more capacity to expand — on all levels.

Passive revenue models give you the ability to impact more people with your ideas, world view, and way of doing things, because they expand your influence beyond what you could ever do by yourself. A product or service you create that doesn’t require your constant presence to deliver it extends your reach in the world.

This extended reach has a substantial effect on your visibility and credibility as a professional. When your product or service becomes widely available, people begin to hear of you before they ever interact with you personally. Your products not only earn you income, they also market you. By the time a prospective client speaks with you, they may have already decided to hire you based on their experience with your product, or simply your reputation.

Sounds pretty appealing, doesn’t it? Here are thirteen ideas for how to start generating passive revenue today.

1. Affiliate programs and referral fees.

This is one of the easiest revenue streams to create, because you don’t need to create anything of your own. If there are products and services offered by others that you would recommend anyway, why not earn a commission on your referrals by signing up for the company’s affiliate program? If they don’t have one, ask. Many companies with no formal affiliate programs will make a referral fee arrangement if you ask them.

2. Sell other people’s products.

If you speak, give workshops, or have a web site, you have opportunities to sell products in the course of what you are already doing. Offer your clients and web visitors books, audios, or software that enhance your work. Selling products will compensate you for free speaking engagements and can double your income at paid workshops. If you sell products on the web and don’t want the bother of shipping, offer only e-products or arrange for drop-shipping directly from the publisher.

3. Sell other people’s services.

If the service you offer is in high demand, consider hiring other professionals to work for you as subcontractors. You bring in the business; they do the work; you earn a percentage of their fee. Or, if there is a service complimentary to your own that your clients often buy from someone else, consider offering that service as part of your own service package, then subcontract the work.

4. E-books.

Offering an e-book for sale on your web site is an excellent way to earn income from visitors who may never become clients. You may find it easier than you think to write down some of what you know in a way that will be helpful to your target market. Even if you’re not a writer, you can still put together a valuable product this way. Consider compiling a resource guide, collection of quotes, or digest of material contributed by other experts in your field.

5. Audio downloads.

Creating recordings to make available on the web is quick and easy. You can hold a teleclass or workshop on a topic you know well and make a recording at the same time. Convert your recording to Real Audio or MP3, upload it to your website, and charge a fee for people to listen to it.

6. E-mail and web-based courses.

Any material you might include in a workshop, e-book, or audio can become an e-course or web course by breaking it into multiple lessons. For an e-course, write a series of lessons as e-mails, and use an autoresponder to send them out automatically. For a web course, combine written material and audio into a syllabus posted on the web or sent as an e-book. You may not have to create any new material to do this, just package what you already have in a different way.

7. Audiotapes and CD’s.

You don’t have to use a script, sound studio, and professional editing to produce an audio for sale. You could do all that and create a highly polished product, but it’s also possible to record a live teleclass, in-person presentation, or even an interview with someone else, and sell your unedited recording as a tape or CD.

8. Booklets and workbooks.

If you speak in public or work with clients in person, the same information you might put in an e-book can be used for a printed booklet or workbook. Checklists, templates, or worksheets you are already using with clients are excellent candidates for workbook material. You can produce a simple spiral-bound workbook at any quick printer for around $5 and sell it for $10-15 or more, depending on the content.

9. Membership network or web site.

If you find yourself naturally connecting people and helping them find resources, you can turn this into a paying proposition. You can start a membership organization that meets in person, or a virtual group that communicates by telemeetings and on the web. A project like this can take quite a bit of time and effort to launch, but can also result in a substantial ongoing income stream.

10. Full-length book.

Writing a book may seem like a daunting project, but a book can evolve by writing articles or creating any of the products above, and over time putting all that material together in one volume.

11. Software.

Is there a process you use with clients that they could perform themselves if it were automated? Your process could become a unique piece of software. Like a membership site or book, creating it will take time and money, but could lead to significant profits.

12. Licensing programs.

If you have a book, workshop, or unique system, you may be able to create a program to license others in the use of your material. Depending on the complexity of your process, licensing can be as simple as writing a manual and conducting a brief training class, or could become an entire enterprise in its own right, involving training, supervision, and ongoing support. Your licensees can also become your subcontractors as described above.

13. Mentoring programs.

Potential mentees may be the same people that would be your clients, or they may be colleagues who would like to learn from your experience. Mentoring can take place in live groups meeting by phone or in person, by email, and also by incorporating any of the products mentioned above into a full-service package that includes personal contact with you. By having products to offer, you can increase the price you charge for your program beyond what your mentees would pay for just your time.

Pick just one of these ideas and get started today, even if you don’t yet have a full practice. The sooner you begin generating passive revenue, the sooner you will have more time available to spend however you want — on your business or not.

Copyright © 2007, C.J. Hayden

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now!™ Thousands of business owners and independent professionals have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of “Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You’ll Ever Need” at www.getclientsnow.com.

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How many of you made as much money as you wanted to last year? Don’t be shy; raise your hands. Hmm, I don’t see too many hands out there. What would you say is the cause of this gap between your goals and your earnings?

While you could certainly name the economy or inadequate marketing as the culprit, I’d like to suggest a third alternative. It may be the constraints of the billable hours model that keep you from your financial goals.

Let’s face it, there are only so many hours you can actually bill to clients. For example, the national average for consultants is 22 billable hours per week. You can only raise your rates so high and still find enough customers. And if you spend more time on marketing, that’s less time you have available to bill.

But there’s a way out of this trap. No matter what type of business you’re in, you can use intellectual property to crack the billable hours ceiling. Here are just some of the ways to start tapping into this resource today:

1. Package your process.

What if every time you began work with a new client, they paid an up-front fee before you spent even one hour with them? If you sell a process rather than your time, clients will pay for access to your previously developed materials. Examples are workbooks, forms, assessments, surveys, games, self-paced programs, and train-the-trainer packages.

2. Give a class.

When you assemble a group of people to learn together, you can earn more per hour than working with them separately. Classes can be given at your office, at a rented (or borrowed) facility, on the phone, or on the web. Your market for classes is not just your clients — think about what you could teach your colleagues as well.

3. Record a tape, CD, or video.

The simplest way to make recordings is to capture your live classes or speaking engagements on audio or video. Make your unedited recordings available immediately on the web or by phone. More polished recordings can be made with the help of a local studio or editor, or you can learn to do this yourself with the right 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 the 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 the 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 the 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.

Copyright © 2007, C.J. Hayden

C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now!™ Thousands of business owners and independent professionals have used her simple sales and marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free copy of “Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You’ll Ever Need” at www.getclientsnow.com.

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Do you want to live like the young, rich, flashy millionaires who live fast and die young? Or do you want to build a stable fortune? Sure the life of fast cars and expensive toys is fun, but does it last? Only until the next bear market.

In a recent Phoenix Cos. survey, all six types of millionaires shared one quality. Living below their means. It may seem obvious, but to be rich, you have to spend less than you make. That is, you have to have money left over to save and invest.

Being rich isn’t about what you have, it’s about what you save. But there must be something more, right? What else do millionaires know that you don’t? What’s the secret? Surprisingly, the secrets to being a millionaire aren’t secrets at all, they’re common sense. Here are nine more habits shared by the wealthy:

1. Remember, Money Means Work

Being wealthy is a full-time job itself because you have to keep track of where your money is and what it is doing at all times. In a way, it is practically like parenting. If you invest in the stock market, you have to keep a close eye on the health and well being of your investments. Smart millionaires don’t dump a lot of money into something- stocks, bonds, a new restaurant enterprise, or a patent for silent Velcro, without following what happens. They are always actively managing their portfolios and ventures.

2. Know Where Your Money is Going

What would you think of a company that had a large percentage of its income unaccounted for each quarter? You would think that company was completely unprofessional and definitely doomed. Do you know where every single dollar of your monthly income goes? Much of it is frittered away here and there, and you may not even really realize how much is spent that way.

3. Budget Wisely

Be aware of what you can do to cut expenses here and there, and put away the money you save, by investing it or storing it in an account. Not every wealthy person drinks champagne like water–any of them like water just fine. That’s how they became wealthy. I am not saying you can never drink champagne, I am saying you don’t HAVE to. Remember, being rich isn’t about image. It is about what you have in the bank, not how much you spend.

4. Get Rid of All Debt

I can’t stress this enough. You can’t enter the race to wealth until you have gotten to the starting line of initial financial stability in the first place! Debt starts you off several feet behind. You have to start with a clean slate to be able to begin amassing your fortune. Pay. Off. Your. Debts.

5. Compound Interest is Your Friend

Compound interest is interest paid on the original amount deposited and on the additional amount accrued. Even if you don’t think you can set aside enough money to make it worth it, you can. Just to give you an example, if at the birth of your child, you put $5,000 in an account earning 10% compound interest, by the time your child is out of high school, they will have over $30,000 in their account. That’s enough to go to college, to help with their first house payment, or to pay for that big wedding. If they let it sit until they were 60, they would be a millionaire.

6. Don’t Pass Up That 401(k)

There is no reason not to take advantage of your company’s 401(k) retirement plan if they offer one. A percentage of your salary is contributed each year, before taxes are taken out, and oftentimes your employer will match a certain percentage of funds as well. Then that money gains interest over time and you have some money saved for retirement, plus, in the present, the amount of taxes you pay is reduced because the money is taken out before taxes. So a 401(k) is doubly wise.

7. Get Yourself Started On an Individual Retirement Account

Similarly, you can have a percentage of your annual income automatically deposited into a separate savings account, and it is not subject to income tax as long as you leave it there. Though it will be taxed once you withdraw it, by the time you do you will probably be in a lower tax bracket, saving you money. Your IRA fund can be in a bank, or in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.

8. Or Open a Roth IRA

A Roth IRA is similar to a regular IRA only with more conditions to be met. Your eligibility is based on your income, and is different for singles and married couples. The maximum amount you can contribute starts at $3,000 for the first two years and increases to $5,000 by the 6th year, then $500 a year after that. Contributions to a Roth IRA are not tax deductible; however, earnings and withdrawals are not taxed.

9. Be Patient With the Stock Market

You always hear about people becoming millionaires over night through the stock market. That may happen sometimes, but more often, the stock market is a deftly nuanced game that involves guaranteed rise and fall. But if you pull through and don’t panic and sell at the first sign of a price drop, you can slowly build a balanced portfolio and your fortune. You can even be savvy and buy stocks at a discounted price during a bear market. The market will always go up. If the stock market can recover after 1929, it can recover from anything. Patience and wisdom are key.

Many of the wealthiest Americans are frugal spenders, knowing where to spend money, and where to save it. They treat themselves to some luxuries, of course, but they don’t overdo it. They use their money wisely so that it doesn’t run out, and it keeps working for them. They started saving up their money years ago, and now, when it comes time for them to retire, they are set to have a grand old time. If you start following their basic money habits now, you, too, can retire a millionaire.

© 2004 DebtGuru.com®. Michael G. Peterson is the Vice President of American Credit Foundation, an IRS 501 (c)(3) non-profit consumer credit counseling organization that has assisted thousands of individuals and families with their financial situations through seminars, education, counseling services, and, debt management plans. For more information, and free consumer resources visit www.debtguru.com

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