Circle of Love – Follow Up

Here's the bad, the good, and the opportunity. The bad, most of people who contact you or respond to your marketing will not be ready to hire you immediately. The bad, most of your Dirty Thirty won't be ready to refer you instantly either. The good, over the next 18 months or two years, a lot of them will be spending money or will be referring people on, exactly the type of service you want to provide. The opportunity is that most architects will never convert these prospects or referrals because they don't have any follow-up system in place. It's almost like running the bath with the tap out, or the plug out, running the bath with the plug out. We need to stay in touch regularly. Now wouldn't it be good if we said, we're going to stay with people for two years, and if at any point they decide "I am ready to push the button, go." We will have contact with them, in some way within 30 days.

Okay, so our next question is, if we're going to stay in touch with people, are we going to be salesy or helpful? Are we going to be calling up and saying, "Hey are you ready to go ahead with your project yet?" Or are we going to be continuing to provide useful information around the topic of their project? We I think we know the answer. It's going to be more use for us to be helpful and educational. Whoever educates the market owns the market. Well why is this? Well here's some reasons:

1. It positions you as the expert;

2. It keeps you top of mind. It's much easier to stay in front of people if you've got information on the relevant topic, that's something of interest to them;

3. It builds loyalty.

There's that reciprocation going, you've provided them with some really good content. Some of it they've read, some of it they've watched, some of it they've listened to it, and some of it they haven't, but they know you need sending it. It's easy to forward on to other people, so if they see something the like, it may or may not be for them, it's very easy to forward on a video or a newsletter to someone else, and finally builds rapport. They get to know you through your newsletter, through your video, they get to know you. Remember people buy off people, they don't buy your firm, they're usually buying you.

Don't just give out content, it's not just enough just to give out content. We need to stand out, and you need to stand out personally, as well as your content. Okay 'cause close friends stay in regular communication, but they also share their ups and downs, they share their personality, they share their trials and tribulations, it makes them more interesting. Get a friend who just gave you hard content all the time, it'd probably be a little boring.

Now this whole process is pretty simple, and we've covered newsletters, you know we are going to send a newsletter once a month. We've got content for you, we've got the templates for you, just take the content and put it within your templates, and reasonably easy. We've got the tools for you, you can provide tools for people, or you can make up your own. The one-pagers are often the best. But if you've got a book or report, or something like that, then they're great too. So you've got access to those. You've also got access to the LCCs or the low cost consultations. Now these types of, particularly that one on the left that Rachel Burton ... You know that could be a one-page insert, which goes into the newsletter. Makes it easier for people to see it and go, "Yes we're ready." They'll hold on to that, when they're ready they'll fill out, and send it to you, and pay their small amount of money to get some diagnosis from you. So that can be in there.

Of course I've talked about meeting for lunch or coffee. That's part of your Circle of Love and staying in touch with people, particularly your Dirty Thirty. But the one I'm most interested in today is about the video, that keeps staying helpful. So I'm going to frame this, that it's the Question of the Month, where you will create a short, three to give minute video, answering a question. You can see on this one, let's dive straight into it, but it's called the Question of the Month. In this one it's got a kind of a fancy video with a nice background. You certainly don't need that. You will have seen a lot of videos from me, where I'm just standing in front of some windows. Right, you know it doesn't have to be flash.

Now notice below it's got a consultation with [Elizabeta 00:04:25]. Now obviously it would be Elizabeta delivering the video in this case, just to fill out the page, I've just grabbed a YouTube video and put it in there, just so you could see a picture of someone in there. But by clicking on that button it goes through to booking a consultation, or if you have a question, notice on the right-hand side they can email you a question. Now that might make up next month's Question of the Month, or if you don't have a Question of the Month, you just make it up yourself. But what it does is it looks like, you know when you come up with the next months question, it looks like there is a place to ask questions, and this probably is a valid question. Not that it matters if it's not, if it's a question you've made up yourself, but the point is, it looks like there is a service where you're constantly answering questions.

How long? Three to five minutes. Okay, so I'm going to go through and show you how to structure a three to five minute Q & A session, because the structure gives you freedom. Now often I don't use a structure, but if you're the type of person who likes to say, "What should I start with? What should I go next, and next, and next," I'll give you a step-by-step system and its structure. Now I just want to say about videos, when you're creating this Question of the Month type thing. In order to stay, you know to provide something useful and entertaining. So the contents got to be topical and relevant, and it really does help to be a little bit entertaining. You don't have to be a lot entertaining but just a little bit entertaining, not vanilla. You are not going to bore your prospects into take the next step.

So, have a think about this, is a E3 formula I use. It needs to be education, it needs to be a little bit entertaining, and empowering. So the education teaches something. Entertaining, does it in a way which is easy to watch because there's a little bit of humor or something gimmicky maybe. Empowering means they can use it to actually get a result, it may only be a small result but it gives them that small result. In terms of keeping it interesting 40/40/20. 40% relevant out of 100% relevant, 40% seemingly relevant content, and maybe 20% completely irrelevant. Now there is nothing wrong with 20% of your Question of the Months being something completely, which just doesn't apply to projects at all. It's just a quirky, fun question that you've had, and you just want to have a little bit of fun with it.

I know when I write my blogs, I get far more feedback and comments when I've written a blog on something completely irrelevant, where it's just a funny story about something I've done and I've mucked up. People love that stuff, and you know I've delivered some really good content, you know high quality content, that we have sold. I've just given it away in a video, you know no comment at all. Okay, so it is the personal stories, the funny stories ironically it's that 20% which is often the sticky bit, which makes them want to come back because they never know quite what they're going to get. Of course it's proven because in "Reservoir Dogs," John Travolta says, "But a dog's got personality and personality goes a long way." They're talking about different animals and you need to watch it to see it, but personality in animals really helps.

So let's go through how to structure the video. You don't have to worry about it, you can keep it really simple. It could be a video like this, where I'm just going through PowerPoint slides. It's good for delivering educational content, but I'd actually prefer you use the Live video, even though you probably don't want to use one. "Oh, I don't like the look of myself, I don't come across well on video." Just remember while you're doing it, smile. That's my big tip. Just smile while you're delivering your content. I'll give you a really simple structure that you can follow.

Okay, now a couple of resources before I get into showing you how to structure your video. I often use a thing called leadpages.net. You can go there and make a very simple one-page. Well in fact this one back here, that's a leadpage page, they can click on that button, go straight through to our appointment booking formula with me. So leadpages.net, weebly.com is another good one for making up just a very simple page. Look if I can do it, you can do it. I'm not technically as savvy as any piece of string, but I can put together a leadpages or a weebly. Or you put it on your existing website, not a bad idea either.