This week I want to tell you a story about two management consultants,
John and Mary. Both provide similar management consulting services to small and medium sized
businesses in the metropolitan area. Both generate the majority of their new business through
referrals. Both, it is safe to say, are in competition with each other.
John is an avid networker who belongs to several local networking groups, attending breakfasts, lunches and dinners, making connections and following up on leads and the contacts that he has made. John is a very personable individual, knows his stuff, is easy to get along with and is well liked among the members of all of his networking groups.
Mary on the other hand does some networking although she spends considerable effort contributing articles to local newspapers on a regular basis. She has written a book and ensures that her online presence reflects her level of expertise and is viewed as somewhat of an authority in her field.
If you were in the market for a management consultant and had a choice between John or Mary, who would you choose? Even if you knew John and had seen him around some of the networking events, Mary's positioning is irresistible. Why would you not want an expert or an authority in their field to help you out with your company issues? Now John may be every bit as competent as Mary, but the perception doesn't reflect an even playing field.
Professionals and business people need to work on their positioning and level of authority. The reason why they must pay attention to this is simple. With today's technology, professionals who have been referred to a prospect will have their profile and qualifications researched online by that prospect. So how would John's online authority match up against Mary's?
Elevating your online authority to that of an expert takes consistent effort but is an area that can not be overlooked simply because of the changing habits of your potential clients. The internet and Google in particular now grants your prospects the luxury of researching you and your competition anywhere and at any time. The power has swung in favour of the consumer where they can now get all the information they need to make an informed decision. Mary caught on to this consumer trend a few years ago and started working on her online positioning. She blogs on a regular consistent basis on topics that is of interest to her potential clients. She identifies some of the issuers her clients are experiencing and then produces content to advise them on how to solve those issues. She works hard to re-purpose her material into several different formats so her followers can consume her content in the format that they find most convenient. She also works hard to ensure that all the content that she produces is optimized to its fullest potential so the search engines can index her content favourably when clients are search for solutions Mary can provide. Mary has not adopted a tactic but rather developed a strategy that she has embraced with as much passion as she has for her profession.
Now that Mary's online authority is in a healthy position, she finds she does not need to network at the same frequency that she had in the past. She finds that her ideal clients are finding her online and contacting her directly. The best result is that Mary can now command the consulting fees that she feels is warranted because of the perceived level of expertise and her clients are happy to pay for it.
If you are a professional or business owner who relies on referrals for a good amount of your business, then you need to start working on your online authority and understand how client's perception of your online profile will affect their decision to contact you. The next series of blogs will discuss many of the things that you should look into in order to raise your online authority.
M.J. Plebon is an online marketing specialist who has over 35 years of business development and marketing
experience. M.J. helps B2C / B2B companies and professionals develop an online marketing strategy
for their business and then helps them execute this strategy so their message is seen online by potential
customers. He works with professionals to position them as an expert in their industry. Have a question
about marketing your business online?
Call M.J. at 514-996-3357