One of the most important things for you to understand about your business and clients is whether you’re operating in a “one to many” environment or a “one to “few” one.
If you only need a few clients per year to have a thriving business, you’re in a one-to-few situation. Consultants typically live in this world. They have long engagement that lats weeks, months or even years and tend to have only a handful of clients every year. Each individual engagement is worth a significant amount – sometimes up to 6 figures, even for a sole practitioner.
On the other hand, if you deliver online training like me, then each individual sale is often only a few hundred dollars or pounds. So you need hundreds or more clients every year. You’re in a one-to-many situation.
The impact on your marketing is huge. If you’re in a one-to-few world, it’s a big decision for a client to hire you. Often you’ll need to have many meetings with them, usually involving multiple people. And you may need to submit a formal proposal or take part in some kind of “beauty parade”. You need to make a big investment of your time and money per client to win them. But because each engagement is large, it’s worth it.
If you’re in a one-to-many world, with each individual client paying perhaps a few hundred dollars to buy something from you, then the buying decision is much simpler. They’ll often be happy to buy based on the information on a web page or a video, or after attending a webinar for a slightly higher priced program. And of course, you can’t afford to spend hours on the phone or in a face to face meeting with someone who’s only going to spend a small amount with you.
So the type of business you’re in determines the sort of marketing you need to do. For one-to-few businesses they key is focus. Target a small number of high potential prospects and invest significant time and money in “high touch” marketing and selling to them. Conversely, in a one-to-many world you need to use much more scaleable and automated marketing to reach a bigger pool of prospects and get them to buy without so much personal involvement.
You can find out more details about these two different approaches in the video. And as you progress through Momentum Club and look at Lead Generation, Ongoing Nurture and Winning Clients you’ll see that different strategies and tactics work best in different situations.