Compound interest is considered to be the 8th wonder of the world. It leverages your money with exponential growth as long as you keep reinvesting your returns.
The power of your positioning with your market is similar.
i.e. The better you’re positioned as the expert authority in your niche, the easier it is to bring in clients. Your positioning does a lot of the heavy lifting for you.
Let’s look at how businesses traditionally bring in clients.
Take each rung on the diagram starting with marketing.
Every business has to have some form of marketing. Looking at the right hand column, a business that effectively markets itself is twice as effective generating business than one that doesn’t.
But marketing alone is generally passive. It’s like an invitation without an RSVP date.
Prospecting means you reach out to people who could be in your target. You’ve done some research, know they’re likely to have issues you can solve. Reaching out to see if they’re interested in solving them leverages your efforts by a factor of three.
Sales is actively probing deeply into a prospect’s issues, showing them a solution and ASKING for the order.
Someone who actively sells is 4 times more effective than someone who does nothing.
Once you have a client on board it makes sense to ensure you’re continually deepening your relationships throughout the organisation leading to expanded opportunities.
All of these activities are you pushing your message out, which takes considerable time and effort.
The real leverage and power comes from referrals, recommendations and positioning.
Someone referring you on is passing on a level of trust.
However, a referral is still passive. Your referral source may say to a prospect, “You should work with Fred” and pass your name along.
Or they’ll give you the prospect’s details leaving you to follow up.
More often than not, you’ll never get a call.
Recommendations on the other hand are active.
“Let me call Fred and see when he can meet with you.” Your referral source is going out of their way to introduce you which is a far more powerful stance.
Which leads to positioning. When you’re positioned as the thought leader and expert in your field, everything gets easier.
You are the guru sitting on top of the mountain. People have to come to you.
Your referrers can confidently say, “Fred is the best and you need to speak with him, now”.
Realise who calls whom is very important. Someone who calls you is twice as likely to do business with you.
Being positioned as the thought leader and trusted authority will make you 10x more effective in bringing in business than someone who uses none of these strategies.
Which is why you must strive to attain a position as a leader in your field and do everything in your power to build and maintain your reputation.
So if you’d like help positioning yourself as the thought leader in your market, reach out. We’ll put together a plan which will help you climb the ladder and be 10 times more effective.
