DIRTY 30 – Leveraged Communication

Leverage communication. Return of the King.

Well, there used to be a time when newsletters were reasonably common. People would send them out, they'd make them up, and send them out back in January 1988. This might've been what you would've seen. And they were good, they were good. And then came the advent of the email newsletter. And the hard copy version kind of frizzled out.

But let's have a look at the high racket communication power. The problem with email newsletters is that they fit way at the bottom. They're the least powerful, the least influential type of communication. More powerful would be a phone call, and at the top, is face-to-face communication. Part of the reason for this is humans are geared up, that we are more emotional when we're face to face, and it has more impact. It's very well established in sales organizations that you need to keep the sales people out face-to-face, toe-to-toe with your prospects. It's considered lazy, and it's considered very, very ineffective to try and win deals by email. So you have a think about the amount of communication you're doing.

Now, obviously face-to-face you want to do more of but there is a limit. So that's where we need some sort of leverage in our communication, but we can't always be face-to-face. I'm gonna say trying to do a monthly newsletter via email is not the solution.

So, what you need do is we're gonna come up with a customized newsletter for your ideal client. Alright, so we are gonna give you content, we can gonna give you layouts, and all you're gonna have to do is put the content, if you wanna use our content you can use it, if you wanna come up with your own that's okay. But you can very quickly put together, a very professional looking newsletter.

So here's why newsletters are so good. Why physical newsletter is one of the best things you can do to create more referrals for your prints.

Right, reason number one. No one does them anymore. How many emails do you get in your inbox every morning? If you're anything like me, the first thing I do in the morning, it's almost a cleaning exercise, I get up, and I go through my 50 emails, and I just go delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. Anything that's not from someone I know, or I know is not important. If it looks anything slightly salesy or promotional, it's gone. Now how many letters do you get in your letterbox each day? Not many, okay? The competition, you might be one out of 50 in someone's inbox, we might be one out of three in the letter box. Just have a think about that.

Reason number two. The stories new newsletter are a way to build relationships, and let your dirty thirty know more about you, and what you're doing. Now, so the value of a newsletter is you tell stories. People buy from people. And it's very important that your stories are in there, you need to have stories. They're buying you. They're buying you, so you need to have stories about yourself, what you're up to, how you're working, what it's like, conveying stories about you working with clients. It's not all gonna be business because they need to get to know about you, and your personality, and a newsletter is a great place to do that.

Reason number three, Leverage. Keeps you front of mind without having to meet them every week. It's not as good as meeting them every week, but then again, maybe it is because they don't wanna meet you every single week or every single month. But a newsletter is a way to keep that connection, to keep that bond. Friends stay in touch.

Reason number four. Keeps you connected in a non-salesy way. So, if you were to call a person up every single month and say, "Can we meet?" After a while, they say, "I know you're just trying to ... You've got me on a sales routine or cycle, and just trying to staying to stay in touch, but I really don't need to see you every month." It would start to bug them. Unless there was a reason for the meeting. But to get a newsletter every month is not invasive. So in some respects, yes we wanna be face to face but often we can't be face to face with people for a number of reasons, including they will start getting annoyed if we try and book them in every month. Receiving your newsletter, particularly if it's fun and entertaining, not a problem.

Reason number five, builds your brand and establishes trust. There's one thing we know about the science of building relationships and rapport, is that consistency and familiarity leads to bonding. So the more we see people, the more we contact we have with a person, the more we trust people. Now this shouldn't be the case, but it is the case.

So reason number six, it informs people about the new services or tricks you've learnt. It keeps them up to date with the cool things that are happening that you're coming up with.

Reason number seven, allows you to educate and non-directly reveal how good you are. So, part of selling architecture and any complex service, is it's an education process. So a newsletter is a chance to do some of the heavy lifting, in a leveraged way, the heavy lifting being the education, teaching people what they should and shouldn't be thinking when it comes to doing their project. Indirectly, you can subtly imply how good you are without actually saying it. So by showcasing the projects you're working, by showcasing who you're working with, by showcasing some of the obstacles and achievements you've achieved, then it's a great way to position you.

Reason number eight, allows you to provide ideas that they wanna show others. So they wanna feel smart too. If it's set up in a way that they can then pass it on, they will pass it on. They wanna feel smart, they wanna help their friends out. That's reason number eight.

Reason number nine is you can set the buying criteria by educating people. You can tell them what they should be looking for when they're hiring an architect, or what they should be looking for when they're hiring a builder, or questions they should be asking themselves, or what they shouldn't be doing. How they should be doing it. And during this process, you're teaching how them to be a good buyer of architectural services, and how to be a good client for a project in general. You're teaching them your criteria becomes their criteria, if they read it and take it on board.

Reason number 10, gives people something to talk about when you do connect directly. Especially when you include personal stories, which you must. Okay so I send out stories, I send out newsletters, I send out emails. By far, the emails that get the best response are personal emails, where I've talked about something crazy I've done, or something silly I've done, or a big mistake. People love that stuff.

I told a story once about my kids getting three female rabbits. And when we went to pick the rabbits up, I had to pay for them, and I said, "They are all females aren't they?" And the lady turned to me, said, "Yes, I'm 99% sure they are." Well, 99% as she took my money and walked off into the distance. Well, it turns out one of them wasn't a female, and when they're young, it's kinda hard to tell. But people love that story. Right, here was I ending up with pregnant rabbits when I've got three rabbits in a hutch. Love that story. More than all the technical, and I've told some brilliant marketing stories about how to do this and that. That's not the stuff they get excited about. It's stuff where I've mucked up. So, a secret lesson for you.

Reason number 11, make recipients look forward to the next month's stories. So if you've got an ongoing saga, so this is a very, very cool strategy. You know the soap operas, they don't usually finish a soap opera, or a ongoing episode, without hinting about something which is coming up in next month's episode. Same with your newsletter, you should be doing the same, keep an ongoing connection and a link to stuff that's coming up, maybe refer to things in the past, and refer to things that are coming up. Don't put it all in one issue. Spell it out like a TV series or a soap opera. You wanna be developing the themes, and some of the ideas, and the concepts over time, so that they keep it.

Reason number 12, allows our recipients to feel smarter because they know more. People love knowing ... Particularly, if they're thinking about a project of their type, they like getting stuff and feeling like they know more and more. Because there's nothing worse than feeling you don't know. So whoever educates the market, owns the market. If they get their education around that type of project that they're looking at from you, they'll be delighted that you have helped them feel like the smartest person in the room.

Makes the recipient feel connected to you. Okay, we've talked about relationships and how by receiving something consistently, there's a power in consistency of doing this every month, it makes them feel connected.

Reason number 14, builds your personality. It's a chance for them to get to know you. Remember, they don't want an architect, they want a person. We need to get them to know you personally, your personal details, you need to share that stuff with them. Unfortunately, when I started out, I didn't wanna share it all either and you probably, "Nah, I don't wanna," you know? Most architects don't have their photo on their website because they really wanna keep a backseat. But unfortunately, you're selling yourself. So sharing stories, sharing ideas, is very important.

Reason number 15, is a chance to make offers and generate leads without being pushy. So we'll show you some examples of how you will do that in a minute.

Reason number 16, you get referrals. Especially if you promote your main piece first. So I'm gonna suggest what you do is, A, report off the month. So every month, in your newsletter out to your dirty thirty, and whoever else you wanna send it to, there is a chance for them to order the report of the month. Or for their client's partner's contacts to order the report of the month from you. So don't forget, these people are the influencers. So let's change that every month. There's always something they can order from you, and it doesn't need to be anything more than a one page checklist, or a flowchart, or something simple. It's just gotta solve a problem.

So combine a newsletter with a little extra love. A newsletter on its own, is probably not quite enough. It's good but the occasional phone call, schedule that into your 12 month communication plan. The occasional meeting, the occasional social visit. By the time you've got all these three things going, and the newsletter is the core that holds it all together, then you've got something really, really powerful. Particularly, if you're gonna go for 12 months with this, which I think you should. Okay, 12 months, you're gonna be sending a newsletter and having some form, or the other, communication over that 12 months as a way to make sure you're top of mind, and that it's very easy for them to refer people to you.

So what about email and newsletters? Remember, newsletters were king, then came the email, and the efficiency, excited marketers. Some marketers got cheap and lazy, I just wanna remind you that people get 50 emails a day and they're looking for things to cut. Emails not a format that people wanna sit there. and browse, and read over a cup of tea. They do not wanna read it on an email or an email newsletter on their computer. But a hard copy's different. They sit there with a cup of tea, it sits on the desk, or sits on their coffee table for a month, maybe. It's something they can pass around.

So what would happen if you did all these things? You build all these pillars underneath. You did the hard copy and newsletter. You did the occasional phone call, the occasional face to face meeting, the occasional social event. It's gonna be very, very powerful over a 12 month period. You are gonna be top of mind, and because you're educating people, people will naturally come to you, and refer to you.

And what we're gonna cover in the next one is what goes inside your newsletter. Well, one easy thing will be you can cut and paste the material and content we're gonna give you. But I'm gonna give you a full range of what you could put in your newsletter.