Frank Furness - Quick Links...
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Marketing Yourself Internationally
Choose your unique and specialty market. My market was initially the English speaking International Financial Services market. Over the years this has spread to include the IT and software market as well as any company in any country where people can understand English. Because of my delivery style, I have chosen not to work with translators (at this stage)
Marketing yourself – the key to success
· Identify clients you have spoken for in the past that have international offices. Get a referral to the decision maker in the overseas office. Email or send a letter and follow up with a phone call.
· Dial and Smile – Pick up the phone and cold call. When I started out, I identified companies and banks that have international offices and phoned the President. One of those calls resulted in a business relationship with a company that spends between $50k - $100k each year sponsoring me to speak to their clients around the world.
· Find five clients that will provide you with 50% of your work each year. I have five large international companies that each book me for between six and thirty talks each year. I also have two or three Companies that I am developing should any of the ‘big five’ drop out.
· Actively prospect when speaking abroad. When speaking overseas, I will scan the local papers, magazines and yellow pages for potential clients. I’ll then phone and establish who the decision makers are and endeavor to set up a meeting and sell my services. A lot of these Companies are open and receptive to meeting with you.
· Referrals – always ask for referrals. Apart from existing clients who I do repeat business with each year, I have over 200 potential clients that have been given to me as referrals. If you leave the client satisfied, they will always give you referrals – IF YOU ASK!
· Add on an extra day to meet with potential clients – Wherever I speak in the world, I add on an extra day to see potential clients and bureaus. I can normally fit in 5 appointments for the day and this always results in at least one extra booking. On a recent trip to Singapore I managed to give a keynote speech to a large Insurance Company and in the same day have five meetings with potential clients. One of these meetings was a cocktail party where I met with twenty of the most influential business leaders in Singapore.
This was only achieved because I had developed a center of influence in Singapore who had arranged the talk and all of the meetings. He is rewarded with a percentage of the fee, which makes it a win-win situation for everyone.
· Find the other offices – When speaking internationally, find out where the International client for whom you are speaking has other branches around the world. Find out who you should contact at the other offices to do the same talk. In January last year I spoke at a large software company in Dubai. The CEO from London was in Dubai at the time and heard me speak. After the talk he asked me to contact him to replicate the talk to their other international offices. They have offices in 33 countries.
· Network and socialize – Before going on an international talk, surf the net to see what social events are happening while you’re there. Then arrange an invitation, as you’ll always meet potential clients at these events
· Have fun and take a tour – If I visit a country for the first time, I’ll always take an extra few days to see the place. This normally includes a half-day bus tour. It’s amazing who you can meet on these tours. I’ve met and become friends with the Vice-President of one of the largest insurance companies in the USA and a grand old lady who turned out to be the wife of the owner of one of the UK’s biggest supermarket chains.
· Bureaus – find out who the bureaus are internationally and meet with them. When I spoke in South Africa two years ago, I met with the leading bureau. This resulted in bookings from this bureau to speak in Sun City, Mauritius for both Cape Town.
· Web site – Pay a company to generate hits to your site. By doing this I have just secured a talk with a USA bank from the Internet. This has also generated three other enquiries, one with an International Company who needs someone to speak in five different Countries for them.
· Always meet with the decision maker at the event. I was recently booked to speak in Scotland to a company who had just merged with a German telecommunications Company. After the talk we spent some time with the German CEO and now following up to present the same talk to the German counterparts.
At last, my new programme has been released: How to find new clients for speakers, trainers, coaches and consultants. It comprises 3 audio CDs, a DVD and a video CD with numerous videoclips on how to market yourself, website promotion, linking and article strategies and lots,lots more.
The normal investment is $120 & postage (&VAT for Europe). For the next 14 days only, you can invest in it for $80 & postage (VAT for Europe). I guarantee that there will be so many ideas to find new clients, that if you follow the programme your diary will be filled for months to come in your local market as well as internationally.
Order 'How to find new clients and business'
Frank Furness CSP CFP is a professional speaker and trainer specialising in sales and sales management. He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 42 countries. Based in London, Frank is the President of the Professional Speakers Association of Europe and the current chair of the International PEG.
His publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales Tips & Ideas’ newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com or telephone+ 44 (0) 870 240 6505. www.frankfurness.com
Selling & Branding with Articles
by Frank Furness
The importance of articles in today’s websites and businesses are immeasurable. They dictate a lot in the success and the drive of traffic into your site. They create links back to your sites and build your credibility and branding. It has become a key element in making a site work and earns a profit. Anyone with a website must have the good sense to include articles in their site that will work for them and earn them the many benefits articles can give to their site.
Articles have been known to be the driving force in driving traffic to a website. Articles play a massive part in giving site high rankings in search result pages. The higher a site ranks the bigger slice of the traffic flow pie you gets. With a huge number in traffic flow, there are more profits and more potential for other income generating opportunities as well.
But, it is not just about stuffing your site with articles; they have certain requirements as well. These requirements must be met to obtain the maximum benefits an article will provide for your site. A well written article will catch the eyes and interest of your customers and keep them coming back for more. They would also be able to recommend your site to others.
Here are some tips to help you and assist you in making your articles. Below you will read about four things all articles must have to make it successful and helpful in making your site a profit earning and traffic overflowing site.
Headlines
Whenever you read a newspaper or magazine, the first thing that captures your attention is the headline. If it looks compelling, this will encourage you to read further. It is just as important with sales copy, brochures, websites and any other marketing materials that promote you or your business. I use a useful piece of software http://www.headlinecreator.co.uk/ that enables me to create 100 headlines by just completing four sentences. Take a look at it, I find it invaluable.
Keywords and Keyword Phrases.
An article must always be centred on the keywords and keyword phrases. As each website visitor goes to a site, there are those who are just merely browsing but actually looking for a specific information. When this happens, a searcher usually goes to a search engine and types in the keywords they are looking for (e.g. Motivational Speaker, Panasonic Sound System, Dell Computers, Etcetera). It could be anything they want.
The important thing is that you have an article that has the keywords that are related to your site. For example, if you maintain an auto parts site, you must be able to have articles about cars and their parts. There are many tools in the internet that provide service in helping people out in determining what keywords and keyword phrases are mostly sought out.
Keyword Density
Know that you have your keywords and keyword phrases, you must use them fully. An article must have good keyword density for a search engine to “feel” its presence. Articles should at least have ten to fifteen percent of keyword density in their content for search engines to rank a site high in their search results. Getting a high rank is what articles do best for a site.
Keyword density is the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase is used in an article. The number varies depending on the number of words used in an article. With a very high density, the essence of the article is lost and may turn off a reader as well as the search engines. A low number may be ignored by the search engines.
Good Article Content
. Articles must be able to entertain people as well as provide good information and help for their needs. Articles should be written well with correct spelling and good grammar. If you want people to trust you, make your work good and well thought out.
People respond well to figures, facts and statistics. Try to get great information and as many facts as you can. A good and well written article will boost your reputation as an expert in your chosen field or topic. As more people believe in you. They will be able to trust you and your products.
Linking Articles
If you are going to submit articles to Ezines and/or contribute your articles to newsletters and other sites, DON’T ever forget to include a link to your site. A little resource box with a brief description of your site and you should always be placed right after your articles that you have submitted. If people like your articles, they will most likely click on the link directing them to your site. Google also places a lot of importance to link popularity, and this is the easiest way to get links back to your site.
Submitting your article to article directories
You must submit your article to as many article directories as you can. I submitted 12 articles to one directory and to date they have been downloaded 1232 times. It can be a laborious task submitting to the various article directories. I use a great piece of software that makes the submission process quick and easy. Take a look at http://tinyurl.com/osv5h
This software allows you to submit one article at a time to 163 article directories and will save you a great amount of time and effort.
Article Resources
I use many resources to promote my articles and have put together a valuable software` package for my readers and subscribers. Take a look at http://tinyurl.com/rcx8q
Frank Furness CSP CFP is a professional speaker and trainer specialising in sales and sales management. He has educated, entertained and inspired audiences in 47 countries. His publications and sales CDs have been sold globally. For more information or to sign up for the free ‘Sales & Speaking Tips’ monthly newsletter, email frank@frankfurness.com or telephone+ 44 1923 248200. Take a look at my website at http://www.frankfurness.com
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