Copyright 2006 Bernadette Doyle

When a client is thinking about hiring you, two major questions in their mind are: ‘Can this person deliver what they say they can deliver?’ and ‘Will their approach work in our particular business?’ The trouble is no client can really answer these questions until after they have hired you. And that’s the catch 22. This is a major stumbling block which can delay if not totally grind the sales process to a halt.

You can probably think of situations with your own prospects where this is the case. It’s a frustrating stalemate.

Yet for professional service providers, there is a way out of this frustrating conundrum. Promoting your own training courses or seminars can help you avoid this stumbling block because it gives your prospective clients a chance to sample you at low cost and risk for both parties.

Here’s how it works. Think about the REAL reasons why people hire you. For example, if you are a marketing consultant, people aren’t hiring you because they want a consultant: they want a marketing system that gets results! If you are a sales trainer, they aren’t hiring you just for training, they want to increase sales. If you are an accountant, chances are they want to lower their tax bill.

If you can identify the core ‘reason why’, you could then offer a seminar built around that topic eg ‘How to Use Low Cost Marketing Techniques to Attract an Avalanche of New Clients’ or ‘How to Double Sales Within the Next 90 Days’ of ‘How to Reduce Your Next Tax Bill: Secrets That The Government Doesn’t Want You to Know’.

Don’t offer a FREE seminar. Your knowledge is valuable and is worth paying for. You will attract better quality prospects and serious buyers if you charge a fee. Now you have something that you can offer to prospective clients, that gives them a chance to sample your approach, and also get to know you better. The beauty is: instead of you having to invest your precious time in sales meetings, they’re paying for the privilege!

So you get positive cash-flow and a chance to demonstrate your expertise and build your relationship with potential clients. They get immediate solutions to their most pressing problems at lower cost and financial risk. Everybody wins!

And, if you structure your event well, a good percentage of attendees will want more. They will want your expertise, hands on help, or your expert guidance as they implement your ideas, and now having had a chance to see what you can offer, they will be more than willing to pay.

So running your own events will not only bring in positive cash flow but can also give you a chance to showcase your expertise and have clients ‘sample’ your approach before they commit to hiring you and thus remove a major barrier to the sale.

Bernadette Doyle helps people to market seminars, workshops and training courses. She can show you how to make as much as £4,000 a day promoting your own events. For her free report on how to ensure your event is a sell out success go to http://www.howtomarketyourworkshop.com

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