Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Made in the UK for HR consultants worldwide. You're listening to the HR Marketing Guys podcast.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: Hello James here and welcome to this week's podcast. In this week's main event, I'm going to show you a very simple, yet incredibly powerful three step lead generation and marketing system I use to grow every single business that I work in. This system is your new client funnel, so I want you to listen up and implement it in your consultancy as soon as this episode has finished. And in this week's thought of the week, I'm going to talk about feedback. So I've been getting lots of lovely feedback from consultants about my podcast recently, which has honestly filled my little heart with joy. And it's made me think that you should be asking your happy clients for some lovely feedback too. And I explain exactly how you can do it without feeling like a big old beck. So let's jump straight in.
[00:00:52] Speaker A: This week's main event today, I'm going.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: To tell you about a beautifully simple, yet incredibly powerful three step system I use to help every business I work with to get new clients. This system is your new client funnel. And that's why I want you to listen up and start implementing this three step marketing system in your consultancy as soon as this podcast episode has finished. Now, before I tell you what the steps are, I'm going to give you a bit of background. In last week's podcast episode, I spoke to you about three basic marketing laws that you should definitely know because I use these to help guide my decision making pretty much every single day. And it's important for you to know these two, because if you don't and you get them wrong, then your marketing will most likely fail, which would be really sad. So, to recap quickly, my first law is to leverage your client's emotions. The second is to be highly relevant, and the third is to create a marketing system. And this is where my lovely three step marketing system comes into play. So let me explain why I created my marketing system in the first place by covering a few points. The first is that people are receiving an unprecedented amount of content at the moment, so it's harder than ever to cut through the noise and get your brand and message in front of potential clients. Just think about your own LinkedIn feed and emails for a second. I bet you're inundated every single day. The second point is that people only buy when they're ready to buy, which is why you need to be in the right place at the right time with the right message in the other big marketing company that I lead. People tell us that they've been listening to the podcast for years before they decided to buy, which I always find crazy, but it just goes to show that your client's right time to buy is completely out of your control. It could be there and then a week later, a month or even years. And the third point is that you need 28 to 62 touch points before someone is ready to take action with you. So sadly, we don't have a crystal board and there's no way to predict when that perfect moment will be. So the best thing you can do is just show up consistently. And because of all of this, one time marketing doesn't work. One time marketing is when you do something like send a bunch of emails or send out a bunch of LinkedIn DM's and try and get people to take action straight away. So I know loads of business owners that do this. They don't see any results and then they give up saying that marketing doesn't work. The reality is that they're just doing marketing completely wrong. So what does this tell us? It tells us that you need to create a marketing system that builds connections with people for as long as is needed before they book an appointment with you and turn into a happy client. And that is exactly what my three step system does. So let me talk you through it right now. Step one is to grow multiple audiences. So the main audiences I like to build are LinkedIn connections and an email marketing list. And I call these activities list building. And it's the first thing I always focus on when trying to grow a business.
Step two is to then build a relationship with your list. So once you have a bunch of LinkedIn contacts and an email marketing list, it's important to build a relationship with them. This needs to be done indefinitely because you need to be consistently seen and heard over long periods of time before people are ready to buy from you. And then the third and final step is to commercialise your relationship. This is when you turn your warmed up relationships into happy clients. And you do this by encouraging your people to book in a discovery call with you to talk about their HR requirements. And there are lots of ways that you can do this, such as specific campaigns, webinars, and via entry level products and services. So let me tell you about how I used this three step system when I launched the HR marketing box. So I knew exactly what the HR marketing box service was going to look like and I couldn't wait to get started. But I knew if I went straight into selling mode I would put people off, it would damage my reputation and it would just be a huge, big flop. So that's why I spent the first six months growing my list and building a relationship with that list. I started to do this by creating an awesome lead magnet. So a lead magnet is kind of what it says on the tin, something you create of amazing value that you can give away to attract potential clients. And I launched this business just as we were coming out of COVID It was a great time for the HR consulting industry because loads of people were taking the leap from corporate to consultancy. And I decided to write a book called firing people doesn't grow your HR consultancy. The book was full of marketing advice and strategies, but it was also very much about work life balance, which was a key theme coming out of COVID I had the book designed up into a nice little a five thing and got it printed out so it looked like a professional published book. And at the same time, I built a basic website and LinkedIn profiles that people knew that I was legit. To do all of this, I put 4k on a credit card. It was a bit scary at the time, but I knew that this investment would work out because I had used this three step system a lot before.
So once I'd created my lead magnet and website, it was then time to create my target list. And because I was targeting HR consultants, it's a very focused industry. This was a really easy exercise. So I scraped Google Company's house and LinkedIn for every HR consultant that I could find, and then found someone offshore to research the list for me and clean up the data. And now I had a cold list of every HR consultant in the UK and an awesome book that I wanted to give to them for free. You might think, well, James, you've already created a list of every HR consultant in the UK. Surely that's step one or the three step system sorted. Well, when it comes to any type of audience, the engagement of that audience is the most important thing to think about. The cold list I created was purely for targeting purposes only. The people on this list had no idea who I was and hadn't engaged with me in any way. So the goal of step one is to really grow multiple audiences of people that are interested in you and have engaged in some way. LinkedIn connections are a great audience because they have to accept your connection request, and there is a small degree of engagement there by doing so. But for me, the most important audience I can create is my email marketing list. Because in order to join that list, those people would have given me their contact details in order to receive something like my free book, and their engagement by doing so is arguably the highest.
So when I was ready, I worked my way through my target list and started to connect with HR consultants on my LinkedIn. Once they connected, I popped them a quick message offering them a free copy of my book, and loads of people replied, giving me their contact details and address. I also sent out a bunch of cold emails to my cold list, offering them a free copy of my book and asking them to complete a web form on my website in order to receive it. And within the first month of list building, I had around 400 hr consultants join my email marketing list and had got over about a thousand connections on LinkedIn. So I was really happy with this because I now had a nice number of engaged people to start building a relationship with. And in the background, my VA kept on connecting with people on LinkedIn and sending them a nice little message offering them a free copy of book. I think that this is really important to remember. The individual steps of this three step system are an ongoing thing and you should figure out how you can keep them ticking along in the background, whether that's doing it yourself, finding a VA to do it for you, or tentatively using software to automate your list building activities. Now that I'd built multiple audiences, it was time to build a relationship with my audience. The key word here to remember is value. Your marketing has to deliver genuine value, otherwise, what's the point of people reading it? So on a weekly basis, I created a big old educational blog post on my website and would send my list a little email about it and would post about it on LinkedIn too. I call this kind of activity evergreen marketing or your basic brand awareness marketing because it's the stuff that ticks along in the background to make sure that you're consistently seen and heard. And this is how you build a relationship with people for as long as is needed before they're ready to speak with you about your services. So for the first six months of my business, I simply focused on step one and two of the three step system. I'd built a nice email marketing list and had a nice number of LinkedIn connections. My VA was working in the background to keep these numbers ticking over, and I was sending out a weekly blog email and LinkedIn post to ensure that I was being consistently seen and heard and to build a relationship with my lists. And when I felt that I had built a good enough relationship with my lists, I then decided to go into sales mode and move on to the third step of the system, and that's to commercialize the relationship. I did this by creating an early bird discount for the HR marketing box, and I followed the Jeff Walker launch formula, which I've used in a few other businesses with great success too. And on day one of launching the HR marketing box, 22 HR consultants had signed up, putting me in immediate profit. It really was a textbook launch. And that's because I followed my three step system to the letter and I made sure I did each step well and did each step in chronological order.
So this is something that you can easily do too. Yes, you can do the whole multi channel thing that I did by creating an awesome lead magnet and doing it that way. But I think a much easier place for you to start is by doing the three step system on LinkedIn and just focus on getting that right first before moving on to emails and all of that jazz. So here's an easy way for you to do this on LinkedIn. And the best part is that you don't need to sell as navigator or any bells and whistles to do it. First of all, you need to decide who you want to target. So I'm going to do a big podcast on target markets. But long story short is that you need to give yourself some sort of focus when doing marketing like this. Otherwise you'll just end up flapping about like headless chicken. So then you should try and connect with ten business owners a day. You can do this yourself, get a VA to do it for you, or tentatively use software to automate this for you. Please be super careful when using software. LinkedIn did do a big crackdown a few years ago and the last thing I want you to do is get your profile blocked. In the words of Justin Tim Lake, I'd cry a river if that happened to me. Okay, so when you're connecting with people, you want to send them a nice connection message. I say something along the lines as hey would be great to be connected on here. Looking forward to reading and liking your posts in the future. And then when they accept your connection request, start to build a relationship with them by going to their profile and interacting with the last few posts that they've done. And at the same time make sure that you're posting regularly to your LinkedIn profile as your new connections will see these posts too. And then a few days later you can start a conversation with your new connection. What you'll say will depend on who they are and what industry they're in, but it's important to not be salesy at this point and to deliver value. And if you do this consistently, I bet you'll get a nice handful of discovery calls booked in every single month. And hopefully this will lead to lots of lovely work in the future.
So let's recap what we've discussed already. There's loads of reasons as to why one time marketing doesn't work, and that's why you need to use my three step system. Step one is to grow multiple audiences, step two is to build a relationship with your audience, and step three is to commercialize the relationship. You've heard how I use my three step system to do a textbook launch of the HR marketing box. And now I've given you an idea as to how you can get started with the three step system on LinkedIn, making it nice and easy for you. So I love this three step system. It's honestly the answers to all of your problems. It's your lead generation and marketing funnel. And actually every marketing activity that you do can and should be organized via each step of this system. I often get stuck with my own marketing quite a bit. I suppose you do when your head is in the business a lot. And when I get stuck and I want to create a growth action plan, I start by asking myself these three questions. So what am I doing this month to grow my audiences? What am I doing to build a relationship with my audience? And what am I doing to commercialize the relationship? So let me finish this section of the podcast by asking you the same three questions. What are you doing this month to grow your LinkedIn connections and email marketing list? What are you doing to build a relationship with your lists? And what are you doing this month to commercialize your relationships? Give it a go on LinkedIn and let me know how you get on.
So in this week's main event, I mentioned the HR marketing box and I wanted to give you a little bit more information about it because I think it would really help you to get more marketing out there. It's an online content library that's full of ready to use content and ideas. We talk about everything from employment law, performance management, mediation, leadership, recruitment, and so, so much more. It's all written by expert HR professionals, edited by expert marketers, and made pretty by expert designers. You can pick and choose what you use and use it in any way that you like, whether that's a quick copy and paste job or as a starting point for your own fabulous content. And you can customize everything really easily in canva. So why should you consider becoming a member? Well, quite simply, the HR marketing box is a huge time saver and it's great to value for money. The monthly cost is equivalent to just 1 hour of your billable time, so it really is a no brainer. But what happens if you still can't find the time or energy to put content out there as regularly as you need? Well, we have some fantastic marketing VA services available too, and our most popular package is the LinkedIn done for you package. As part of this package, we'll personalize all of your content and we'll create a LinkedIn newsletter for you, and we'll schedule three posts a week on your behalf. Perfect to keep your profile and presence ticking over while you're busy looking after clients. So to learn more, please visit my website, the hrmarketingguy.com and go to the HR marketing box page. Or feel free to book in a virtual copy with me and let's have a chat.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: James thought of the week.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: I've had some really lovely feedback recently about the podcast, which has filled my little heart with joy. It honestly has. Doing something like this does take up a lot of time and energy, so it's really nice to hear that you're enjoying listening because it makes every second worthwhile for me. And if you do have any feedback for me, whether that's good or more constructive, then I'd love to hear. So please hit me with it and make me smile or cry depending on what you've got to say. When I do get a lovely message or email, I cheekily ask if I can share it with the community because this sort of social proof is honestly the best type of marketing that any of us could ask for. And this made me think that you should be asking happy clients for a review too, so that you can shout about the great work that you've been doing and give your own marketing a bit of pizzazz. Social proof is one of the biggest psychological influences you can use when marketing your consultancy. When a new prospect hears or sees someone else saying that you're great, this will fill them with trust and they'll be more likely to work with you in the future. So I'm going to set you a little challenge. I want you to start systemizing how you get reviews from happy clients and to help you do this, I've broken this challenge down into a few steps. Yes, I know this podcast has been very step heavy. I'm sorry about that. But I do love a good system and process and it will odyssey just make your life a lot easier. Okay, so step one is to decide what type of review you're going to focus on. For HR consultants, the best type of reviews to get are Google reviews and LinkedIn recommendations. You should focus on Google reviews if you're wanting to approve your local SEO and get more clients that way. And you should focus on LinkedIn recommendations if you do a lot of prospecting on LinkedIn. Like me, most HR consultants I know will probably want both. So the answer is to have a nice mix. Okay, moving on to step two now, and that's to decide what happy clients you're going to ask and email them. You may decide to ask half of your happy clients to leave a Google review and the other half a LinkedIn recommendation. I'd probably advise giving them two options because this is another marketing principle called Hobson's choice plus one. If you give someone two options, they're more likely to pick one than if you were to have just offered one in the first place. So here's an email that you could send. The subject line would be, could I ask a favor, please?
And then the email would say, hey, name. Getting great reviews from happy clients is so valuable to us because it tells other business owners that we're good at what we do. It's the best type of marketing that we could ask for. And that's why I'm emailing you personally today. I really enjoyed working together. I'm confident that we made a positive contribution to your company and I'd love to work with more people just like you, which is why it would be great for you to leave us some kind words. You can do this either via a Google review link here or LinkedIn recommendation. And I've popped you a message to you on there, because on LinkedIn you've actually got to request for a LinkedIn recommendation of messages. It doesn't have to be long, just a quick sentence or two on your experience with us and we'd really appreciate it. Thanks in advance. That's an idea of the email that you could send. Obviously you can make it your own. And once you've sent your first round of emails, step three is to then systemize how you ask for reviews. This is an internal thing that you need to decide. The best way to do this is look at your client journey, and when the client is at the happiest, ask for the review then. And the fourth and final step is to screenshot your reviews and scatter them everywhere. Put them throughout your website. Put them all through your marketing materials like your leaflets and brochures and also post about them on LinkedIn and socials too. So by having more happy reviews across your marketing or build trust faster, and we'll hopefully get more lovely clients as a result. And that's it really quite easy. Like I said, getting social proof like this is a really powerful way to shout about the awesome work that you do and is a great way to get new clients. And if there's any lovely feedback that you have for me, then please get in touch to brighten up my day.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: You've been listening to the HR Marketing Guys podcast, helping you to get new clients and create a life you love.
