Incremental Commitment

The chill of autumn has descended onto the Blue Mountains. Thinking about having our first fire for the season. Trouble is, once we start it's very hard to stop having one each and every night.

I'm home for the whole month which is great. Plenty of time for reading, catching up on some DVD's and tackling assorted projects around the house as well as the usual marketing and office work.

I'm working with two major clients at the moment apart from my cruise ship assignments. They both put on numerous multi day events. So it's a bit of a juggling act keeping them both happy. One will probably have to get dropped, just not sure which yet.

But in thinking about it and working with them, I realised I hadn't discussed a technique that I often use with clients like this.   Incremental Commitment. It's especially useful with larger projects where the sales cycle can be longer. As an example, a lot of jobs I do now, require several phone calls, proposals, perhaps a face to face meeting before they commit. But it's equally useful with smaller quick phone or email proposals.

The idea is to start getting the prospect to commit "time" and "energy" into the process as well as you. You don't want to be the only one spending time on the proposal.

A quick example is to always ask a couple of questions to any email query that comes in. How did they find me? Did someone recommend me? Could they clarify how many people they expected at the event? Who did you use last year?

Instantly, not only do they see that you are on the ball and wanting to cover all bases, but importantly they are investing time and energy into the process and relationship as well as you.

You can continue the process with a request for more information, scheduling a phone chat etc etc. It's much harder for them to turn down or break the relationship that's starting to develop, when they know they'll have to start all over again with someone else. Alan Weiss talks about this a lot as does Barry Friedman @ Get More Corporate Gigs (  http://tinyurl.com/6c2ronm )

Note.   This is a slightly different to the Sales Technique of the same name where you get a prospect to say YES to different things, gradually building up to saying yes to the big question.

So next time you're spending an hour typing up a proposal for a show, think "how can I get them to invest more time into this as well?"

Tech Stuff

I mentioned Dropbox the other issue and was glad to see a lot of you went and signed up. It is free. Check it out here http://db.tt/t7AChOG

I also got this note from Magic Coach buddy Jacques Le Sueur

"Been a big fan of Dropbox for years, and there is another great tool at www.portableapps.com - tons of freeware software which lets you run an entire office directly from a flashdrive.

And you can combine the two: if you sign up for 2 dropbox accounts, you can load your portable apps into one, and they'll run directly out of Dropbox. You have your entire office system running off any PC or internet cafe you choose. Great for travelling businessmen!"

Wow. I had a quick look and will put some time into learning more about it soon.

MAGICCOACH PRODUCTS.

Note - With the surge in value of the Australian Dollar I'm getting less for each of our exclusive manuscripts sold. So at the end of June we will either be switching the cost from US$ to A$  OR increasing the pricing across the catalogue to compensate. So if you are thinking of getting anything HERE, do it in the next 6 weeks.

MAGIC COACHING
I get asked quite often to coach, mentor & advise people.

I frankly don't have time at the moment, but try and answer emails with the best advice I can, but further than that I'll try and steer you on to the best person. Two great resources ...

For Family / Children's / Party Entertainers  
Zero to Booked Solid by James Munton.
I'm still getting great feedback about this. By special arrangement we can offer this at the cheapest price ANYWHERE on the net.

Details here   http://tinyurl.com/py7byj

For Corporate Entertainment.
I still think Get More Corporate Gigs is sensational. I subscribed for 6 months to work on some specific bits of my marketing package and I'm still working through the multitude of resources and implementing the strategies.

If you are going to get help and advice on your marketing, don't talk to the hacks and part timers at the magic club or the armchair experts at the Magic Cafe, go to one of the busiest and highly paid acts in the USA.

Details here   http://tinyurl.com/6c2ronm

 
Someone complained last time that I mentioned these two sites that he thought they were a bit expensive. Zero to booked Solid is priced much less than most clowns get
for one birthday party show!

Get More Corporate Gigs is a monthly subscription. Even if you subscribed for 2 years the amount is about half of what you will get from just one low priced corporate engagement.

MAGICCOACH -   Facebook Fanpage

Important News. We are starting to use the fanpage on Facebook a lot more for quick bits of news and updates when we haven't got time to send out like this. If you are on Facebook please visit and LIKE us there and don't miss out.

http://www.facebook.com/MagicCoach

If you enjoy it help me out by sending the pdf on to someone else.

RETURN TO MAGICCOACH ARCHIVE