if you try to sell your services using
marketing strategies that were designed
for product-based businesses you're
going to end up pretty disappointed with
the results this is because selling
services and doing marketing for a
service-based business requires a very
different approach than the standard
advice and strategies and tactics that
are out there strategies and tactics
that were designed primarily for selling
products and that rarely translate well
over to selling services so if you want
to get more clients grow your business
and sell more of your services there are
three things that you need to know first
you need to use finish line language get
this wrong and it doesn't matter how
great your services are how much you
care or how smart and funny and creative
any of your sales or marketing materials
are they're just not going to work don't
worry if you've never heard of this
before i'm going to walk you through
exactly what it means and how to use it
in just a minute next you need to nail
the feature to benefit ratio which will
make everything you say in your
marketing immediately more powerful and
believable and will make the whole sales
process about as close to effortless and
automatic as possible lastly you need to
be using something called a case funnel
this is a simple but incredibly
effective sales and marketing funnel for
service businesses that's been proven to
turn leads into clients and it will
allow you to replace hoping and wishing
in your sales and marketing with knowing
and the confidence of being able to
generate new leads new clients and new
sales anytime you want so let me show
you how it's done starting with the
all-important finish line language the
biggest difference between selling
services and selling products is clearly
the fact that services aren't physical
items they're intangible and your
clients can't see them or feel them or
hold them or do anything like that ahead
of time prior to making a purchase sure
you could offer trials or demonstrations
or show videos and graphical
representations of what it's like but
it's still not the same as being able to
pick something up and hold it in your
hands before making the decision to buy
it this is why one of the biggest
mistakes service business owners make
when describing their services is
focusing too much on the service itself
and all the deliverables that go along
with it rather than what is actually
important to the client because the fact
is when it comes to selling and
marketing services the single most
important thing is the end result this
part's really important so let me say it
again
the key to selling more services is to
focus almost obsessively on the end
result and how the client will be better
off after than they are right now
there's a quote in marketing that's
commonly attributed to theodore levitt
that goes people don't want quarter-inch
drill bits they want quarter inch holes
basically meaning your clients and
customers don't want the thing you're
selling they want the benefits of what
that thing is going to provide they want
the end result the outcome but we could
take this a step further and we should
because people don't want quarter inch
holes either so what i'm thinking here
is we just fill it with as many quarter
inch holes as possible yeah that's
perfect rather people want to hang a
picture or a shelf or a guitar or
anything else that people hang on walls
and this is where finish line language
comes in which is all about highlighting
the end state the end result the outcome
of whatever service that you provide how
will they be better or healthier
stronger or wealthier or whatever er you
see your potential clients all have some
kind of pain or problem or fear or
frustration that you could help them
with they're all at the starting line
suffering needlessly and in desperate
need of what you have to offer but
because they can't see or hold or feel
your services ahead of time you need to
show them what the finish line looks
like and show them how it will feel when
you guide them across it victoriously
like a winner let me give you some
examples if you're a coach or consultant
then you're not offering a package of
four 60-minute consultations delivered
in person or over the phone what you're
actually selling is better performance
or health or relationships and showing
them how their lives will be better once
they get this taken care of if you're an
agency then you're not giving clients
social media or content or video
services you're actually offering the
promise of more customers more clients
and more sales and revenue which in turn
will give them a feeling of success and
pride and safety knowing that their
business is growing and in demand if
you're a service professional like say a
landscaper or lawn care specialist where
you show up at someone's house and take
care of their backyard for them well
you're not just offering a freshly cut
lawn you're giving them back time and
freedom and the opportunity to spend
their weekends doing what they want
instead of baking under the hot sun
getting hit in the face with grass
clippings a photographer you're
capturing memories and helping preserve
someone's legacy child care services
you're offering freedom security and
peace of mind to parents meal
preparation services you're selling
convenience and time and maybe health
depending on what kind of food you cook
i think you get the point next let's
make sure you nail the feature to
benefit ratio one of the biggest sales
killers in all of services marketing
comes down to failing to do one simple
thing and that simple thing is failing
to clearly communicate why your
potential prospect or client should care
about what you're selling that's it
because if they don't care they're
definitely not going to buy and this is
where so many service businesses go so
wrong spending way too much time on
features and not enough on benefits but
i'm getting ahead of myself and i don't
want to totally trash features here
because they are important yeah bro what
you got against features
nothing against features so with that
said first let me uncover the key
differences between features and
benefits the simplest and most clear way
to put it is that a feature is what
something does and a benefit is what
something does for you or to put it
another way a feature is about the
service like how long it takes what's
included are there any guarantees and
things like that and the benefit is
about the client and how they're going
to be better off because of the future
like how it'll make them cooler or safer
or smarter or better off in some way the
feature is what enables the benefit but
it's not the feature they care about
it's the benefit and the result they're
going to get by engaging with the
feature this stuff can be a bit
confusing so here's some examples a
coffee cup has a handle that's a feature
the benefit is that you can hold a hot
cup of coffee without burning your hands
a pen has a removable cap that's a
feature the benefit is that you don't
write all over yourself when you're
carrying it around
a baseball has stitches that's a feature
the fact that these stitches help you
throw it further and faster well that's
the benefit catch
now those are useful examples to help
you understand the difference between
features and benefits but now let's put
that into a service context a good
example here would be something like say
domino's pizza which i appreciate is
also a product however the service is
pizza delivery and the feature is 30
minutes or it's free the benefit is you
know you're probably gonna get your
pizza in 30 minutes it's not going to be
very good pizza but at least you're
going to get it and while we're on the
topic of time-based features for
services well fedex is another good
example their tagline of when it
absolutely positively has to be there
overnight well overnight delivery is a
feature but the benefit is you're going
to get things whatever it is that you're
shipping fast overnight fast i think you
get the picture so now let's get a
little bit more practical and tactical
and a little bit mathematical that
rhymed more than i thought it would
because it's time to break down one of
the most effective service business
sales and marketing funnels of all time
the case funnel just to make sure we're
all on the same page here in case you're
not already familiar with a marketing
funnel it's also known as a sales funnel
and it's really just a visual
representation of the steps that a
prospect or potential client would need
to take in order to go from having no
idea who you are all the way through to
becoming a paying client and over the
past 10 years i've found there's one
simple marketing funnel that continues
to beat pretty much anything else i test
against it it's perfect if you sell your
services through a sales call and it
helps you to pre-qualify clients
overcome objections in advance and
really just makes the entire process
faster easier and a whole lot more
enjoyable i call it the case funnel
which stands for coaches and consultants
agencies service professionals and
experts and it looks like this we start
with traffic we move on to the opt-in
then the authority amplifier then to the
application a calendar booking and
ultimately a sales call where they
become a client i'll walk you through
the steps now every marketing funnel
starts with some kind of traffic this
could be a social media post a blog a
podcast a video an ad pretty much
anything the key here though is to drive
this traffic to the next stage of the
funnel which is the opt-in page the
opt-in page exists for one simple reason
to get someone to opt in that was
profound i know what you want to do here
is offer something valuable like a free
downloadable cheat sheet or a checklist
or a blueprint or a guide or some kind
of downloadable training and you're
doing this in exchange for your
prospect's name and email address so you
can follow up with them later once they
enter their name and email address and
they hit submit they're immediately
taken to the next stage of the funnel
which is the authority amplifier it's
here in the authority amplifier stage
that you want to provide value and
establish your credibility and expertise
what works best here is to provide a
short training and ideally in video form
that helps your prospect with a problem
that they have now you don't have to
give everything away but try to provide
a quick win and then follow it up with
an invitation to apply to your services
by clicking a link somewhere on the page
once they click the link to apply
they're then directed to an application
form which is the next stage of the
funnel having an application form for
your services is one of the most
valuable things you can do because it
not only allows you to collect valuable
and relevant information on your
prospect and whether or not you can help
them but it also sets the frame that
you're the expert and you're not
necessarily just going to work with
anyone just because they have the money
you can choose to review each
application manually or most online form
software will allow you to automatically
redirect depending on the quality of the
application and take them to the next
stage and the next stage is the calendar
booking here in the calendar booking
stage you can allow your prospect to
choose from one of your available times
in order to have a quick call with you
to go over their application discuss
their goals and decide together whether
or not you're a good fit to work
together all of which of course happens
in the final stage the sales call if
everything goes well up to this point
then your prospect is going to show up
to the sales call interested and
informed and with many of their
questions already answered through the
help of your authority amplifier if
you're anything like me and you don't
particularly love sales calls you're not
a pushy person and you just want to help
people then you're going to love this
because by setting your funnel up in
this way and providing so much value and
information ahead of time when your
prospect does show up on the sales call
they've pretty much already decided
whether they want to work with you or
not so now the choice is yours of
whether you want to work with them or
not pressure no persuasion no hard sell
tactics required it's a whole lot more
fun too but as great as this is there's
still a few more things you can do that
i didn't have time to get to in this
video and this is why i've linked up a
video right here with seven of my most
effective marketing strategies so make
sure to check it out now and i'll see in
the next video we offer higher quality
and we offer better service and all of
that stuff that everybody's heard a
million times before and they're
completely blind and deaf too so the
best way to solve this is to move on to
our next point here which is that you
need
an i c
a ica is marketing talk for ideal
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