Getting ahead of the competition (5)

In last week’s newsletter, we looked at the power of aggregation. It can be seen everywhere. High-end luxury brands set up shops on Bond Street next door to other high-end luxury houses. Art dealers take a stand at the Frieze Art Fair alongside their competitors. Both luxury houses and art dealers know that together, they will attract potential clients and professionals who like to browse similar service providers before picking the one that is right for them and their clients.

Therefore, if you want to position yourself among your competitors so that you will be seen by potential clients and professionals who want to work with you to create effective marketing material, you need to know how to be spotted and picked ahead of your competitors. 

Once again, numerous psychological tricks show you what to do, and Caroline’s Club makes it easy to do it. You can find out how at https://carolines.club.

In psychological jargon, you increase the odds of being picked ahead of your competitors if you are supported by ‘social proofing’ or third-party endorsement.

It is easy to select professionals within your expertise. You can discover which professional has the requisite knowledge and experience with a few well-chosen questions. However, how do you pick professionals from disciplines outside your specialist area?   You don’t know the right questions to ask and cannot evaluate the answers.

Robert Cialdini PhD, in his 1984 book Influencers: Science and Practice, says that in circumstances of indecision, people look to see what others are doing. If you are in a restaurant and cannot decide what to eat, you may look at what others are eating.

Research in a Beijing restaurant discovered that if a dish was labelled speciality of the house or our chef’s recommendation for tonight the uptake was insignificant. However, if it was labelled ‘most popular’, sales jumped by 13 to 20 percent on average. 

When choosing an advisor to work with to create compelling marketing material, which we will cover in the next episode, you or your business development manager will look to see which professionals have third-party endorsements. 

Here are four examples of social proofing. There are specific libraries that feature each of them on Caroline’s Club. You can check them out at https://carolines.club 

1 Speaking at events

Speaking at events is a great way to showcase your expertise, but it also indicates to your audience that you are an expert in your field. If the event organiser has chosen you as a speaker, the audience will recognise you as a leader. However, the return on investment for a speaker is low. 

The speaker presupposes that the audience understands what they are talking about, can remember the problem they are discussing and can make a meaningful recommendation to their client. Caroline’s Club provides a library for talks with a link to the speaker's profile. Therefore, the content of the speech is always available when the opportunity arises for our members to refer a professional to their client. 

Caroline’s Club recognises that not just the audience needs to know who the experts are. The speaker needs to publish a summary of the content of their talk, which event they spoke at, and what comments, if any, were made in response.

Most speakers do nothing with the content of their talks other than post it on their website. Most people use websites to look for addresses and contact details. They rarely click on content posted by their professionals. The content of the speech is, therefore, largely wasted unless it can find a public platform on which to be published.

Caroline’s Club promotes the content of your talks and blogs—all your marketing material in one place. If you are a leader in your field, you will easily be spotted ahead of your competitors because you have so many third-party endorsements, which means you can be trusted to provide the best service in your field.

2 Winning awards 

Awards are another form of social proofing. Winning awards indicates to your peers and prospective clients that you have been recognised as a specialist in your area of expertise. The award is an endorsement of your knowledge. A professional cannot be criticised for recommending another to a client who has won an award from his industry.

Again, it would be best if you made your award go further. Displaying a perspex star in the office reception room or referring to it in the bio on your website does little to showcase your expertise. It needs to be prominent and public.

Caroline’s Club interviews award winners for its How to Keep Your Money podcast series. This gives the Club gravitas and prestige as the authority among professionals. A professional who has won an award should be eager to be interviewed. If you have won an award, you are more likely to be picked by other professionals who would like to work with you to create marketing material that you share with your respective clients.

Listeners to podcasts recognise the power of authority in our interviewees and its attraction as an aggregation platform. This is why our first 40 podcasts were downloaded 80,000 times and ranked among the country's top 160 investment podcasts.

3 Active or passive

Caroline’s Club includes an internal messaging service so our members can connect. You can congratulate a member on winning an award and listen to their podcast. Highlight something amusing or interesting from their recording to show that you have taken in what was said. This is highly effective in getting noticed and building good working relationships. It is a powerful form of reciprocation, which we covered last week.

At Caroline’s Club, we can track member activity. This objective analysis can be fed back to a Participating Professional’s organisation to match against business origination.

‘Split testing’ is the marketing jargon used to see what works. If you work with other members to create marketing material, you may notice increased visits to your podcast interview. You will then be more inclined to invite those professionals to future ‘Perfect Pitch’ events. If the online activity remains high, the invitations can become more frequent, and eventually, business will originate from this activity. 

Being active online ticks several psychological boxes. We have already mentioned that it is a gift to which the interviewee will feel obliged to reciprocate. It also raises your profile and increases the likelihood of being listened to and watched in return. The greater the interest, the higher the social proofing is, and the more likely you are to win a new business.

However, remember the basics when connecting with other members using the messaging service. If the professional you want to contact does not have clients you would like to work with, connecting with them wastes time.

Like any other form of networking, you must be disciplined. Don’t connect with someone who connects with you. If there is no reason to connect, don’t waste your time or effort, regardless of how nice it may feel to be spotted.

Most marketing for most organisations is like shooting a shotgun in a blizzard. It is a volume game of shooting in the dark. The problem with this approach is that you do not know what you will hit. The idea behind identifying your ideal client type is to rifle-shoot in broad daylight so that you only target the clients you want to work with. That is why Caroline’s Club is an effective business origination tool that saves time and money if used correctly.

Note also that non-members do not have access to our members' directory and so cannot network online. 

4 Satisfied customer quotes

Getting feedback from clients is essential; when it is good, let everyone know. Again, this is an excellent third-party endorsement and very persuasive at getting you picked over your competitors. 

The most persuasive quotes are from clients who have expressed how they feel. ‘I felt in safe hands,’ or ‘they made me feel that my concerns were being listened to’. 

Satisfied customer quotes again need to be prominently displayed on your Caroline’s Club profile and at the end of the recording of your Case Study at a Perfect Pitch.

If you want to learn more please phone 07979 188 288 or email caroline@carolines.club.