Bombshell Academy SuperBlog

My baby is 7 weeks old this week and me and my partner have been taking loads and loads of photos of her almost daily. It would be nice though if I had some professional shots of her because I know she is only going to be this tiny once and that the moment soon passes. Whilst in hospital a photographer from Bounty came round and offered their services but I didn’t really want them at the time but now regret it slightly. So, I was looking around on the net for local photographers who do baby shots and found a couple but the prices amazed me to be honest, not only do I pay for the photo shoot which may or may not result in photos that I like but then I have to pay for each photo and unless I pay a huge amount then I don’t even get the photos on disk so that I can give copies to family etc. I know, copyrighting and all that but the upshot was that I couldn’t find anyone that suited what I was looking for. The risk to me, parting with my money and hoping I got what I wanted and then maybe having to start all over again if I didn’t just seemed to expensive for me. There was not one photographer that said, book the shoot with me, see the shots and then purchase the shots at your leisure – thats what I wanted. I would have probably ended up buying lots of shots AND if they were good I would not only have recommended them to others but I would also use them again in the future, who knows I might have another baby, get married, have a christening etc, etc – there are lots of future opportunities for business from me but small businesses seem to forget that!

If you calculate the potential you can earn from a customer over the years its worth going the extra mile to get them in the first place, which doesn’t mean you have to offer something at a loss, you definitely don’t, just make sure you offer exactly what they want and make it easy for them to do business with you.

Think what you can offer your customers in order for them to ‘try you out’ without spending too much money, and for you to take away the fear of doing business with you. Free engagement shoots are a nice touch and many of you already do these, how about selling sample cupcakes so brides can try all the flavours at their leisure, you could even sell these over the internet. What about if you are a florist? Maybe a small bouquet for £5/£10 so that a bride can get a feel for how her flowers will look on the day?

There is no limit to what you can offer, just use your imagination and you’ll come up with something your customers will appreciate AND part with cash for!

Claire xox

If you are having trouble coming up with your own entry-level product then just get in touch for some ideas and thoughts.

Tags: Baby Shots, Christening, Entry Level Product, Extra Mile, Money, Photo Shoot, Photographer, Photographers, Photos, Professional Shots, Risk, Small Businesses, Upshot

Everyone loves M & S, we all aspire to do our weekly grocery shop there because the food is just amazing but how do we know the food is so amazing? Of course we’ve all had food from there and probably enjoyed it but mostly its to do with their marketing which is simply genius and is SO influential that their slogan ‘Not just any……, this is an M & S…..’ is so widely recognised that it is used for slogans. jokes. news headlines etc  - now THAT is effective marketing!

Actually the technique that M&S have recently been using in their marketing is a well-known marketing technique and you can use it yourself to generate more sales and for people to get the same sense of quality with you that they do when they think of M&S.

The technique is all about telling people HOW you do what you do, and when I tell my clients about this they automatically say ‘but what if people copy me’ – well the truth is let them! No one else is you and no one can produce what you produce as good as you so REALLY don’t worry about it! So WHY would you tell people how you do what you do? Think about the M&S adverts, take an apple pie as an example, they explain where they get the apples from, how long the bakers have trained for, how much care and attention goes into making the perfect pastry and even go into detail about the decoration that goes on it, just to make it pretty, and then they end by saying, you could do all that OR you could buy one from them – so what do you do? You don’t make it yourself, you buy it from them because you have been told what care and attention goes into the whole process and as if by magic that justifies them charging you loads more than the apple pie you could get from your local Aldi! The funny thing is, the process of making the apple pie is probably exactly the same as goes into the Alsi apple pie, the difference is Aldi haven’t told you about it!
Another company that is great at explaining what they do is Pret a Mange – on all their sandwich packets they tell you how they’ve made it! You COULD make it yourself with their instructions, but no, people rather pay an extortionate amount for them to do it. Innocent also use this technique to great effect and yes, Innocent are another company that on the face of it chargea huge amount for something very simple!

You to can tell people HOW you make what you do – if you are a cake maker, don’t obviously tell them about your exact recipe but tell them how much training you’ve done, how you select the good ingredients, how you have chosen the particular good quality cake tins you use, why you use a certain icing etc….

This kind of marketing REALLY does work a treat and is definitely worth doing, if you need some help  formulating your own ‘How to’ story get in touch…..

Claire

Tags: Aldi, Amp, Apple Pie, Apples, Bakers, Effective Marketing, Funny Thing, Genius, Grocery Shop, Jokes, Magic, Marketing Technique, News Headlines, Perfect Pastry, Slogan, Slogans, Truth

If there’s one thing I get asked more than anything else its ‘How can I get more clients’ or ‘How can I get more sales’ Trust me, if I had a magic wand that I could wave to solve this problem then I’d probably be writing this blog from my million pound yacht moored just off the coast of the Maldives ! People that get it ‘right’ realize that getting new customers is not a thing that you suddenly do every now and then when you need more, its an ongoing process that is about building relationships with people and needs to be done regularly so that you get a steady stream of customers. Placing an advert in a glossy magazine isn’t going to work, it may get you a few customers while it loses you a whole lot of £’s at the same time but it wont solve the ‘no customer’ problem. Likewise a good bit of PR may solve your problem for a short while but it wont solve it long term.

In order to get more clients week after week, month after month and year after year you have to appreciate that getting clients is a process that you can learn and apply. First you have to generate ‘leads’, in other words find out the people that are actually looking for what you are supplying. The better you can identify these people then the higher your conversion rate will be and the less work you will have to do to convert them.  Once you’ve identified your interested people you then have to build a relationship with them through newsletters, blogs, FB interaction, snail mail, however you want really but you need to demonstrate to them that you know what you are talking about, you are willing to share some of that knowledge for free and that you are by far the best person they could possibly chose to work with. During this relationship build you give them lots of opportunities to do business with you and you make it simple for them to do so by making time limited offers (preferably dont discount your service or product because this can make people suspicious of the original price) but ADD VALUE such as an extra bonus if you order by the end of the week or an upgrade to a better package etc.

Then, once you have them as a customer don’t be tempted to stop there, what additional services will they want now or in a few months or even years time? Keep in touch with them on a regular basis.Ask for referrals and testimonials. Your greatest fans are always people that have sampled your product or service and this resource should be used.

Do all these things, automate them as much as possible and you will never need to go hunting for another client ever again, they will just keep turning up effortlessly…………………..

Claire xox

If you need help attracting all the clients you want then don’t delay, join my Wedding Wealth Program and have them beating down your door in no time…….

Tags: Advert, Blog, Building Relationships, Conversion Rate, Customer Problem, Glossy Magazine, Interaction, Magic Wand, Origina, Relationship, Snail Mail, Steady Stream, Whole Lot, Yacht

My first introduction to Apple was about 10 years ago, I was dating an IT expert and it used to drive me nuts the way he always told me what I SHOULD be doing on my laptop and was always using it and ‘upgrading’ it.  One afternoon my car was broken into, my laptop (amongst other things) was stolen and I needed a new one. Of course, the IT expert knew exactly what I should buy and what spec I needed etc which again I found annoying and so I bought something he knew absolutely NOTHING about…. I bought a Macbook and I’ve LOVED  Macs ever since. 

As soon as I received my Mac my love affair started, it was delivered exactly when I was told it would be, it came beautifully packaged and when I took it out of the box I didn’t have to faff about installing anything, I literally plugged it in and started using it. Not only that but it was SO easy to use, I didn’t need to KNOW anything because it seemed impossible to break or corrupt and whatever seemed the obvious way to work it worked! Not only have I used a Mac ever since and literally could not be paid enough money to go back to PC’s but I’ve had several Ipods, and when the Iphone was launched, even though previously I had always been a die-hard Motorola fan I immediately ditched them to buy one !

So what has my rather unhealthy obsession with everything Apple got to do with your business?  Well, when developing soething new Steve Jobs concentrated on Yes, the technology, yes, the design, but most of all he focused on the user. When he developed his first Macintosh many years ago he sat in front of it and said, whats that noise? Its the fan they said, all computers then were cooled by hard working fans and the Macintosh was the first one that was cooled differently so as to eradicate the noise – it annoyed him therefore it would annoy the users.  He thought about his customers at every stage and developed products that made their life easier……

We can all learn from Steve Jobs, how easy do we make life for our customers? I’ve been on a few websites just recently that were actually hardwork to find any contact details, I searched for ages to locate them but a potential customer wouldn’t, they would give up and go elsewhere. Do you follow up when contacted or do you expect your customers to do all the running? When working with them do you keep them informed of progress or expect them to chase you?  Its easy to go that extra mile and put your customer first and make their life easy but so few businesses actually do it. Do you deliver on time, everytime, does the package look nice when you DO deliver?

You too could have raving fans like I am with Apple, I tell anyone that will listen how much I love them and I’ve converted some! Raving fans are the least expensive sales force you can ever have and they are also the most loyal and devoted – So what exactly are you doing to build yours?

Claire

If you need help getting your business to where you want it to be, join my Wedding Wealth Program Now !

Tags: 10 Years, Apple, Business Jobs, Developed Products, Die Hard, Enough Money, Expert, Fans, Genius, Iphone, Ipods, Laptop, Love Affair, Macbook, Macintosh, Motorola, New Jobs, Nuts, Steve Jobs, Technology, Unhealthy Obsession

Unfortunately in business things change all the time, and some business people like the challenge of keeping ahead of the competition and coming up with new ways to do business and make themselves original and others definitely do not!  If you want to succeed in business long term then you have to be in the former group I’m afraid because your customers requirements and problems change and unless you keep up then your business will simply run out of people to sell to.

One of the things I like to look at when working with a client is how can we keep streaks ahead of whats already out there, what innovation can we come up with or new way of presenting our skills is there? If you can constantly think outside the box with regards to your business then you are definitely on to a winner.

Did anyone see Dragons Den this week? Two women were on there because they have come up with the idea of people doing their own Wedding Videos. Now this struck me as odd because why aren’t videographers nationwide offering this service already? Lets face it Videos have changed a LOT in the past 10 years, they used to be a novelty that people went for then the price of videos came down and down so people did their own, then the CLEVER videographers started doing videos to music almost like pop videos and they were everywhere on YouTube and now we seem to be going back to the DIY version but brides want them professionally edited, so its changed a LOT!

Other businesses have changed a LOT – cakes are more fancy and quirky, photography has got more artistic, everything has had to change to meet the requirements of the bride and unless you supply what your customer actually wants then you will get left behind. So how do you know what they want? Well the easiest way is to ASK! Keep chatting to future brides at every opportunity and ask them EXACTLY what they want, don’t try and pigeon hole them into what you are offering – its their wedding, they are the customer and they are the ones paying so make sure you listen.  And especially important is to ask when you DON’T get the business, ask the bride why not, was iit price (very rarely is) or was it what you were offering?!?!

Claire x

Have you heard? I’ve just released my latest book… Wedding Fairs – From Waste of Time to Goldmine. The book tells you EXACTLY how to generate a huge income from every single Wedding Fair you do and bring in all the customers you want from them.

Tags: 10 Years, Bride, Brides, Business Change, Cakes, Dragons, Dragons Den, Innovation, Left Behind, Lot, Music, New Ways, People, Photography, Pigeon Hole, Square Peg, Streaks, Two Women, Videos, Youtube

It always astounds me how many email newsletters and blog I receive that make a really good read but they have no ultimate ‘Call to Action’ about them. The whole purpose of writing blog, articles, newsletters, direct mail, website copy etc should be to get yourself more business and if you are just writing with no outcome in mind then you may as well be writing for charity because you certainly aren’t going to make much money out of it.

When writing anything you should start out with the end in mind, what do you want your readers to actually do when they read? Are you wanting them to email you, go to your website and register for tips, get in touch for a free consultation, order something? If you don’t actually have an idea of what you want them to do then I can guarantee that the people you are talking to wont have a clue what to do either.

It is vital on all your writings to have a ‘Call for Action’ that your customers can respond to and for you to tell them exactly what to do. If you are writing to the telling them about a new design of jewellery then make sure you include a link of the item directly onto your website where they can buy it. Don’t just link onto the website, make sure its the specific page because if they then have to look for it on your website I can guarantee the majority of them will give up and not bother.

Its important to take away every barrier to doing business with you that you can so make sure your instructions are clear and simple. If you want someone to email you as a direct response to your newsletter then show the email address AND make it a link – make it easy!  And don’t just tell them once at the very end of the newsletter, tell them several times how to take action because if they decide half way through your newsletter they want to buy they may well have changed their mind by the time they get to the end !

So – the moral to this story is, with ALL your communications START with the end in mind! Decide what outcome you want from what you’re writing and make your writing lead to it!

Claire

P.S Have you heard the news I’ve written a fab book about how to SUCCEED at Wedding fairs? Wedding Fairs – From Waste of Time To Goldmine! More info here.

P.P.S  If you need help developing your Wedding Business so that you get MORE clients, MORE profits effortlessly then join the Wedding Wealth Program NOW!

Tags: Business Writing, Charity, Clue, Direct Mail, Direct Response, Doing Business, Email, Email Address, Email Newsletters, Free Consultation, Guarantee, Jewellery, Mail Website, Much Money, Newsletter, People Talking, Several Times

Whenever I am contacted by someone new the first thing I do is have a long chat with them to establish where they are now with their business and what their biggest challenge is right now. More often than not the problem is lack of customers and people want a quick fix to get them, unfortunately the bad news is that there is NO quick fix but there are lots of immediate things you can do that can generate customers in a fairly short time and if you consistently do these things then you’ll never be short of customers again. The great thing about these tips is that they are all really cheap to do and the main cost is just your time and effort.

So, here are my Top 5

1. Kick start new leads and interest by running a competition for your product/service. This is a really great way to kickstart your business and to get people to put ‘their hands up’ to identify exactly who is interested so you can start marketing to them. Remember, it can take up to 7 contacts with someone before they will do business with you. Getting them to enter, you emailing to thank them, then announcing the winner etc will soon add up to those 7 contacts.

2. Contact your previous customers – Previous happy customers can be a source of referrals. Write to them all, ask them if they know someone SPECIFICALLY, such as someone thats just got engaged, someone getting married, etc – DONT just ask them if they know someone that needs your service – the answer to this is ALWAYS no because its too vague and obscure for them to identify someone for you even if they want to. If anyone DOES give you a referral, send them a thank you gift because then they are more inclined to do it again.

3. Add a download to your website – Offering a free download on your website enables you to identify the people genuinely interested in your product or service and identifies the people that have visited your website. There is absolutely NO point in having 00′s or 000′s or visitors to your website if you don’t know who they are. You are better off having just 10 people a day on your website, having their details and marketing to them and converting half of them into customers than you are having 10,000 anonymous people look at your website that you can never get in touch with.

4. Reconnect with other local suppliers – keeping in contact with people that have the SAME customers as you is a MUST! Have coffee and keep in touch with local suppliers but make sure you approach them with the view that YOU want to help THEM find new business. If you go in feet first with the mindset that you are going to get new business out of them then you will not find them very willing to help you at all. Gaining referrals should be a two way thing and the more YOU can help someone the more they will want to help you.

5.Assess whats working – if you are doing something that IS working, then do more of it! If you get the odd customer from Twitter or Facebook then do more, if direct mail has worked in the past do it again. Also, if there is anything you haven’t tried then try it and see what happens. If sending out emails has worked, do more!

If you are trying to generate customers fast and cheap there is one thing I would advise AGAINST is advertising! As you probably know and have already discovered it is NOT cheap and gets you limited results. One of the worse things you can do when your back is against the wall is to sink  throw more money away. Advertising is great if you are the likes of Coca-Cola or Apple and want to keep your brand in front of the public but for small businesses it can just be a costly mistake.

Claire x0x

If you need help getting clients and bringing more money into your Wedding business then join the Wedding Wealth Program, it gives you the knowledge and know-how to put in place low cost systems to generate a consistent supply of customers. Dont just take my word for it, read the testimonials others have left

Tags: Bad News, Business People, Marketing, New Leads, Referral, Referrals, Short Time, Thank You Gift

I was inspired to write this blog today because a couple of businesses irritated me this morning with their marketing. The first one was on Twitter and they were promoting a package they were offering and they tweeted the same thing about 4 times in less than hour. Now, I’m all for repeating yourself, especially on Twitter because your audience changed from minute to minute and hour to hour but 4 times in an hour is REALLY overkill and will just lose you followers. If you have something to promote then do your homework about your followers, find out who is online when and tweet it several times a day but at different times of day and different day of the week so that you are reaching different people each time, don’t just bombard the same poor people with the same message constantly.

My second encounter with irritating marketing was through email!  I subscribe to lots of different newsletters and sometimes I read them, sometimes they get instantly get deleted. Well one that I hadn’t heard from literally all year suddenly started emailing again and my instant response was, oh, so they are looking for business now, but ok I thought and read the newsletter. Then just 2 days later I got another newsletter from them, equally as salesy and not interesting at all, and then just 1 DAY later I got a third email from them and that when I decided to hit the unsubscribe button!

People don’t mind receiving newsletters, thats why they sign up to them, they think you are going to give them something interesting and of value and if you deliver that part then they are happy to have a bit of sales patter thrown in. But be CONSISTENT! If you send them a newsletter make sure you keep sending them at regular intervals that suit your customers. More than weekly and personally I think you are pushing your luck, but equally if you send them not often enough you will go out of the customers mind and you will be equally as irritating. You could always be super-clever and ask your customer how often they want to receive it, give them the choice!?!

Claire xox

Need help marketing your Wedding Business so that you get more clients and more profits? Join the Wedding Wealth Program – 100% of my clients have said that they were glad they did!

Tags: Audience, Different Day, Different Times, Email, Encounter, Followers, Hadn, Homework, Intervals, Marketing, Patter, Pushing Your Luck, Several Times, Time Don, Twitter, Unsubscribe Button

I don’t know about you but when I first became self-employed one of the reasons was because the skys the limit on your earnings. My Dad has said to me more times than I care to remember ; “you’ll never get rich working for someone else”  Well this is true of course but I wonder how many of you actually work harder than you ever did working for someone else and I’m sure some of you don’t even earn as much money.

The problem with self-employment is that most people have a self-imposed ‘income ceiling’ and this is the very maximum you can possibly earn. I realised while working in my Wedding Planning business, it got to a point where I was working almost every weekend and what seemed like 24 hours a day during the week and then it suddenly dawned on me that if I wanted to earn any more than I currently was then I could either increase my prices (yep, this was possible but realistically I couldn’t double or treble them because I was already charging an amount I was happy with) OR I had to find another way to generate income that didn’t require MY time! I could do this but employing people (which I did) but the better way for me to do it was to productise something so that not only could I make money while I slept but I could also make money from the people that would NEVER be my wedding planning customers.

Now that I help people with their marketing one of the things I’m really keen about is to help them find a way for them to make money while they sleep so that they don’t have a CEILING on their income.

I know you love what you do but how can you make money out of the knowledge and expertise you have alongside what you are currently doing? If you look at some of the most successful people in the Wedding Industry they have no confined themselves to doing the thing that they first started out which was trading their precious time for money, they branched out in another direction that brings them a great income on top of all this.

Claire xox

If you want to explore how your Wedding Business can bring you maximum profits from your time AND bring you money while you are asleep, on holiday, having a day off then get in touch because the highly praised Wedding Wealth Program can help You!

Tags: Dad, Earnings, Income Ceiling, Love, Marketing, Much Money, Nbsp, Precious Time, Self Employment, Skys The Limit, Sleep, Treble, Wedding Industry, Wedding Planning, Xox

The other day I heard a fabulous story about a Lexus dealership in the US. Lexus are fairly upmarket cars and they had been hit badly by the recession and in act lots of dealerships were closing down. Their usual marketing involved advertising what cars they had and up til now that had been enough but no longer so they decided to try something new. They studied their market well and came up with a few neighbourhoods that were likely to buy a Lexus and then went door to door asking people i they wanted to give one o their cars a test drive or a whole day, of course nearly everyone said yes, then the ones that liked the cars were invited to borrow them for a whole week, again, of course they loved the cars and at the end of the week were really reluctant to get back in their old cars because they’d just spent a week driving a lovely shiny new lexus. This ‘out of the box’ marketing idea led to a sales conversion of 62% on all the people that had borrowed a car for a week! And the best thing is it cost the dealership virtually nothing just time, because the cars were sat on the forecourt doing nothing anyway!

This is a great example that marketing doesn’t have to be expensive and when times are tough the answer ISN’T to just do more of what you are already doing. I speak to many people that are having a tough time with their business and they tell me they are doing advertising with glossy magazines but it isn’t working and their solution to the problem? Increase their advertising! This makes NO sense at all. If something isn’t working then no matter how much more effort into it, it still wont work! The answer is to think of something else, try something you HAVEN’T already done. This may involve stretching your comfort zone such as doing face to face networking or making calls etc but if it gets you the business you want then I’m sure you will see the advantage in doing it.

The most effective way to market your business is to have MANY strings to your bow to bring you business, not just one because when that dries up then you are stuck! List now how many ways you are effectively attracting customers to your business, if its less than 6 ways then you REALLY need to come up with some more!

Claire x0x

If you need help converting enquiries into clients, attracting new business and effortlessly generating more profit then join my Wedding Wealth Program, 100% of my clients have said that they were glad they did!

Tags: Comfort Zone, Conversion, Doing Advertising, Fabulous Story, Forecourt, Glossy Magazines, Led, Lexus, Lexus Dealership, Marketing Advertising, Marketing Idea, Neighbourhoods, Old Cars, Recession, Stretching, Test Drive