Marketing Archives - Monetization Magic

You have screened your client, agreed to create a relationship and have created value for your client. Recently, you notice that the energy of the relationship has changed. Any of the following could be occurring:

General disrespect from either party
Client does not honor ground rules originally set at the beginning of the business relationship
You no longer enjoy servicing this customer
Your clients needs have outgrown your capabilities
It is getting harder and harder to please them
They are no longer honoring your original agreements
The amount of time spent to fulfill the agreement is more than the value of the agreement
Verbal abuse – It happens!
Client has stated that they (or someone they know) can perform the job better than you can
Constant drama
Insufficient lead time given to accomplish agreed upon work
Client is not clear on the intended goals
Client is not completing their required tasks and blames you
Client is not giving clear direction even when coached
Client is not devoting time needed to the project
Client wants you to be their personal psychologist
Client is expecting free services because you have become “friends”
Something has changed for you which does not allow you to honor the original agreement

Obviously, this is just a sampling of reasons to part ways with a client. You may have found one of the reasons above applies to one of your clients or you may have a completely different situation with which you are dealing. One thing is clear though, you are at a crossroads with your business relationship!

You will want to attempt to resolve the situation; however, if you still cannot resolve the situation it is time to work out how to amicably part ways.

Some of the things to consider are:

Settling the financial end of the agreement – my take on this is if it costs more to collect the monies owed than the actual amount owed, just let the client know that they will have 10 days to settle the account or you’ll be sending them a 1099 at the end of the year for the remainder outstanding. If the amount is more, you’ll need to look at how you allowed that to happen and adjust your processes to not allow that in the future along with contracting a lawyer to handle the settlement of the account.
Turning over control of the digital assets – give the client the information they need to gain control of the account once all monies are paid in full.
Meeting with your replacement – meet with them to turn over control and be courteous. You never know if they might be your next joint venture partner! If you find that they do not have the skills to replace you, advice your client of your concerns and give them 1 or 2 references of more qualified replacements.

Occasionally, there are times when emotions run high. Do everything you can to take the high road and not get baited into an emotionally heated argument. This is a transaction, nothing more, nothing less. If they wish to raise emotions, simply suggest that the meeting be postponed until they can gather their composure. Here’s a trick that I learned from my son this past weekend: He said that if he’s talking on the phone, he always listens with his left ear because the left or logical side of his brain hears the conversation first and he’s less likely to get into an emotional discussion that way. When emotions are raised, intelligence is lowered – remain intelligent!

The way you end a business relationship is just as important as how you begin the relationship. You want to part ways as quickly as possible with the least amount of hassle on both sides and allow yourself the bandwidth to move on to your next ideal client. It is possible that after a period of time, this client may realize how good they had it with you and may decide to employ your services again or they may refer someone to you based on how well this transaction is completed.

When you start your business, you’re excited about it and you’ve told all the people close to you about your business. Maybe you’ve had a few sales and some interesting conversations about what you do and how you can help others. There comes a day usually within the first month or two of launching your business that you will realize that your business has encountered a lull and you’ve used up your warm market. You now need to begin to promote yourself and your value and speak to strangers about your new business.

There are many ways that you can promote your business. As you look around in your day to day life, you will see businesses promoted by billboards, TV commercials, radio commercials, direct mail pieces that you receive in your mailbox and internet advertising.

Why did you launch your business? You want to serve others and yet at the end of the day, you realize that you need to make a profit because everyday items need to be purchased in order to sustain the business. You may not have created a large surplus in which to pay for advertising and yet you still need to promote your business.

Rest easy, my friend, because my clients and I, myself, have created amazing amounts of money from my business while utilizing no cost ways of promoting business. Using no cost means of promoting your business frees up your funds to provide for you obviously more profits but also the ability to help others and from the tiny amount of value that you put out into the world, the ripples of your influence will radiate out from you and return to you in the form of people recognizing your value and needing your assistance.

All of the ways I will be introducing to you involve speaking to others. Speaking to another person is a great way to promote your business without incurring a cost. While you’re speaking with the other person about the value you have to offer you can also determine if you wish to invest your time in this person’s business to create value for them and move them to the next level in their awareness. This type of a conversation is often called a discovery session because you get to discover the person in front of you, either physically or virtually, and they get to discover you and what you have to offer. It is best to have no less than two of these meetings each week. This gives you the opportunity to start out in a low risk arena. We’ve all had one on one conversations and that’s all this is. No cost with the potential of great return. The medium you can use to have these conversations would be your own telephone or perhaps using Skype so that you don’t have to pay international telephone charges.

Once you have had the opportunity to have some one-on-one conversations, you may realize that you are now working more hours than you would prefer so the rest of the ways of speaking will move you from one-on-one conversations to one-to-many conversations. You can begin to hold your own teleseminar on the topics that will bring value to your ideal customers. While you’re bringing value, many who are attending your teleseminar will want to continue their studies with you and you would be doing a disservice to them if you didn’t give them an opportunity to continue their studies with you. You can also be interviewed by others and give their audience value. Generally, the host will allow you to provide their audience a way to connect with you further in the form of a gift that you would provide for them. A great no cost medium for teleseminars is FreeConferenceCall.com and it will provide you with your own teleseminar platform that can and should be recorded.

If you have content that lends itself to being presented in a visual manner, a third way is to create your own webinar. You can use Powerpoint slides or once you feel comfortable enough you can simply video record yourself for your webinar. You will still be providing value and an opportunity for your attendees to connect further with you just as you would with the teleseminar. The no cost platform that you can use for your webinars is called AnyMeeting.com and this platform will provide for 200 seats in your webinar. As you would with the teleseminar, you will want to record your webinar for reuse at a later date.

Once you begin to speak about your business outside your friends and family, you will receive great rewards in the form of feedback and clients. You don’t have to have it perfect when you begin! Just get out there and do it! Money is no longer an obstacle! Just as a baby learns to walk by trial and error, I would encourage you to call three people today and let them know when your first teleseminar will be held and ask them to attend. Whether or not they attend, hold the teleseminar anyway and record it. Once you’ve decided when you’re going to hold your teleseminar, I would love to receive an invitation. Really! Just reply to this ezine to let me know when you’ll be holding your first teleseminar. I love to hear about when a member of my tribe is taking action!

To find out 7 more no cost ways to promote your business, register for the upcoming no cost teleseminar to be held February 15th at 10 a.m. Mountain Time.

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