Give me more than qualifications!

Something that happens a lot these days is that workshops which have been set up to help employers and to promote employer engagement activities are cancelled.

The reasons given are easy to recite:

• Not enough time
• Can’t spare the staff
• Workshop/seminar/programme not really relevant.

Most colleges and learning providers can add another item to the list:

• No money.

Is there any money around?

There’s an easy answer to this.  There’s always money around.

If a business wants to buy something and can see the benefit of doing so, the money is found.

We have just completed a £5000 + business mentoring programme with a sole trader.  That’s right a one-person band.  I promised her that in the worst case our interventions would be cost-neutral.  That is she would make back the £5000 before the end of the four months she would be working with us.  I also said that I expected her to make three or four times more than her investment with us over the six months which followed.

By the time she had been working with us for six weeks she had gained £14,000 of new business that she said she could not have gained without our help.

Therefore, she is very happy to spend £5000 + VAT with The Adams Consultancy Ltd.  She made huge gains for her business.

What do employers gain from your workshops?

It’s easy to remain in the comfort zone and sell skills, development, training qualifications and the like.

In difficult financial times people want more.  Employers want more.

Employers want to know how their business – or their organisation – will be improved as a result of their investing in providers’ programmes.

If you want employers to come to your workshops, ask the question that they will ask:

“What’s in it for me?”

If the answer is skills, development etc, then today that might not be enough.

Review your sales literature

Take a look at how you promote your workshops to employers both online and offline.

What else, other than skills and qualifications, are you selling?

To make the sales these days we all need to sell a lot more than development.

How do you feel about this prospect?

I’m regularly asked by senior managers in provider organisations if they should buy a list of employers who they will then cold call.

I have only one answer to this: “No.”

A list that you buy is an unknown quantity. It is probably differentiated in various ways, location, size, sector and so on, but that’s all.

Whilst these are interesting distinctions, they are not the most important ones. People won’t buy from you just because you’re local.

Employers, just like every one else, will do business with those they know, like and trust. It’s your job to build a list of people who like you and what you can do for them. Many of them will then go on to become your customers.

This means your list needs to be an “opt-in” list. You need a list of employers who have chosen to get just a little bit closer to you.

Do you have this sort of list and how do people join it?

In the first place, you must have a mechanism for creating your list and for adding people to your list. We have two lists that you could join. You find one on our Achieving the TQS blog. The other you find on my Margaret Adams site. They are targeted at different market segments, so I need a different list for each of those segments.

People who sign up undertake a “double opt-in” activity. That is, when they sign up, they are sent an e-mail via an autoresponder that invites them to confirm their interest in the newsletter/updates.

You have to make an active choice to join my lists. That means you are more likely to be interested in the proposed content than someone who has just been sent the newsletter because, somehow his or her e-mail address has come into my possession.

A list built around a double opt-in process is a good list.

If you build your list around a double opt-in process, you will build your list most slowly than if you bought a list, but the quality of your list will be much higher.

That will make your list a better list.

How do you encourage people to sign up?

Well, there are lots of ways of doing this. However, it’s all about giving them something of value in return for their permission for you to contact them.

So what could you offer?

Some suggestions include: the promise of interesting and useful content, free reports, discounts, early knowledge of new products and services, exclusive offers and so on.

The most important point is that whatever you offer must be something your readers value.

Doing this will help you to build your list.

We offer a special report called: “Bridging the Funding Gap” to our FE subscribers. We follow it up with a series of activities built around the content.

You can sign up for this newsletter at Achieving the TQS.

With my newsletter for consultants, organisations delivering professional services and anyone with a complex service offer to sell, you can ask to get weekly updates from me.

You will also receive my Social Media Healthcheck.

This is a self-assessment activity aimed to help organisations work out just how well they’re doing with social media.

You can sign up for these updates at:

Margaret Adams – hints, tips and more

Why do businesses create lists?

Building your list is the first stage on your journey to success with employers. Remember that in sales there’s an old adage that the money is in your list.

It’s true. That’s why businesses spend so much time creating their lists and then growing them.

It takes years to build a good list.  That’s why it’s important to start sooner rather than later.

If you’d like to join either or my lists, you’re most welcome to do so.

How do we deliver our newsletters?

I certainly don’t do all the work myself. I use a third party professional service to deliver all our newsletters and to manage our autoresponders.

We use Aweber Communications.

We like their service and have been using them for more than a year.

We have now become an affiliate, so the link below is our affiliate link.

Aweber Communications

If you receive either of our updates you’ll have experienced the Aweber service firsthand, so you’ll already know a bit about our supplier.

Your list of employers – next steps

Keep growing your list but make sure you only add people to your list who want to be added.

The best way to do this is to get them to opt in to receive information from you themselves.

If you want them to opt in, you’ll need to provide them with something of value.

Think carefully about what this will be.