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Kevin Fort Project Part Four

Here is an update with HMA Consultant Kevin Fort on his progress growing his marketing consulting business. When we last talked with Kevin, he was planning to meet with a prospect – a local chiropractor who was looking to grow his business – with hopes of closing the deal.

Needless to say, the chiropractor became Kevin’s first client! In this recording, you will hear how Kevin negotiated the deal, how his first meeting with the client went, and what he planned as his next steps. You’ll also hear how much Kevin has learned about the chiropractic practice and how he has started to come up with ideas for obtaining new clients as well as finding his client’s hidden marketing assets through the reactivation of past customers.

If you’ve listened to my previous conversations with Kevin, you will be familiar with another potential “contingency” client – a photographer who really cannot afford Kevin’s consulting services. This would be a great project for Kevin to pursue in his spare time to gain valuable experience.

Kevin goes on to describe a new prospect who is currently working with a different marketing consulting group. However, after talking to Kevin, she confides to him that she is not very satisfied with her current consultant and will probably use Kevin’s consulting services as well!

I was pleasantly surprised to hear that Kevin had also entered into business relationship with a bookkeeping and accounting firm. The company’s owner did an endorsed mailing of Kevin’s marketing consulting services to her 75 active clients. Included with the letter was an invitation to a free marketing workshop that will be hosted by Kevin. I’m anxious to hear how the workshop goes. The bonus of this new business relationship is that the bookkeeping and accounting company wants Kevin to conduct this type of workshop to its clients on a regular basis. This is a great way of getting in front of prospects time and time again.

Kevin is scheduled to conduct a sales training workshop at the local Chamber of Commerce. He expects to be presenting to approximately 60 people. Wow!

I’ll be bringing you future updates of Kevin’s progress. We all wish him success as an HMA Marketing Consultant.

Hi, this is Michael Senoff with HardtoFindSeminars.com and Consulting Secrets. Here is the fourth update with Kevin Fort. Kevin called me today to bring me up to date on all the great things that were happening. I have to tell you that some people would call Kevin lucky, but we all know that if you’re out there doing the things you need to do, you’re going to get lucky, but certainly luck had nothing to do with Kevin’s potential success. I’d like you to listen in. You can get a realistic idea of what it’s like out there trying to build your consulting practice, and Kevin has done some very smart things to leverage his practice. You’re going to hear about workshops that he has set up and a powerful joint venture endorsed mailing that’s going out today. So, keep listening, and if you have any other questions please give us a call.

Michael: When you called me a couple of weeks ago and you said, “I got my first client”, and that was that chiropractor.

Kevin: Correct.

Michael: You were going to get back to him. Take me back to that. You had left him. You thought it was going to go good, and what happened after that. How’d you end up getting him?

Kevin: It was a Friday morning. I was on a job for one of my other companies, and he put the phone call into me, and said that him and his wife had talked about it and wanted to know if I would be willing to give him a discount if he paid for a couple of the projects up front.

So, we went through a negotiation process, and we were able to come to agreeable terms with each other. So, we went ahead and scheduled his appointment to start project one the following Monday.

Michael: How much did you negotiate down? What did you quote him?

Kevin: I quoted him originally $775 per project, and he just wanted to know if he paid for the first three projects upfront if I would do it for $700 per project.

Michael: How did it feel when you got that first project?

Kevin: I felt extremely excited and almost overwhelmed.

Michael: Okay. You see? You did it? It’s just the first one. It’s getting that first one, and now you probably have a little more confidence in the whole thing, don’t you?

Kevin: Yes.

Michael: Now, it’s crunch time. You’ve got the project, and then you had to set up a meeting with him and get prepared for that, right?

Kevin: Correct.

Michael: Okay, so you set the meeting up. How many days was that?

Kevin: I gave him the weekend. His wife wanted to be a part of it because she’s part owner of the business. So, I said that was excellent, any decision makers need to be there, anybody who’s involved with it. He doesn’t have any employees. He relies on his wife to do a lot of the bookkeeping and scheduling and things like that for him.

So, she had to wait to get the kids to school. So, we went ahead and did as a lunch meeting. I told him the less distractions that we have, the better. So, he was able to go in and turn his phones off and we just went back to his office and had the meeting back in his office.

Michael: Great. Now, how did you prepare for that?

Kevin: I did a little bit of research on the chiropractic industry, just trying to get some numbers together just so I was a little bit more educated on the industry. Then, we went in and we just started walking all the way through the actual steps of project one.

I went through a series of questions that I got out of the training manuals, and just led him through and just tried to get their perspective on what they felt was unique about their particular practice.

Michael: Did you come up with some good stuff?

Kevin: I did. He’s one of two guys in the state of Arizona that actually does manual compression trauma treatment for the spine. The only other one in the valley that does it is a computerized accident injury facility that’s very hi-tech. They generate a lot of sales using their computerized compression trauma treatment table that they have. But, he’s all hands-on. He still does it the manual way, and he’s only one of two guys in the valley that does that.

Michael: Is that some specialized training he had to go through?

Kevin: Yes, so unfortunately there’s not a certified program that got him a certificate in that. The other guy that actually does it was his mentor.

Michael: Okay, how many patients has he done procedures like that?

Kevin: I would have to say probably about 150.

Michael: I would think that qualifies him as an expert.

Kevin: Correct.

Michael: And, what kind of patients come to him for this type of treatment?

Kevin: These are the types of patients that have degeneration in their spine or different areas throughout the pelvic area. Basically, what happens is if the bones are starting to rub too close together and the ligaments are gone, he basically puts you on a table and relieves those parts so you can have that room back in there.

Michael: That was definitely something unique. Did you find some other pretty interesting things about that?

Kevin: What I found interesting about that was when he started describing it to me, it sounded like this was the perfect thing for sports enthusiasts particularly with football season. So, my first thought was how we could start marketing this to parents of high school football players with us getting into football season. Football players mainly, because the type of contact with the head-on can cause a lot of problems with compression trauma. That’s what that table was designed for was to relieve the pain and things that those athletes are experiencing.

Michael: Was this the guy with the past customer list?

Kevin: This is the gentleman with the massive past customer database.

Michael: The reason I ask that is as a consultant, now you’re talking about getting him all these new clients. Keep in mind, we want to look at the hidden assets and increase the business with the old inactive past customers. That’s going to be a lot easier. Getting him new clients on a whole different market is a great idea and a good thing to suggest, but then you may as well have a start-up business. Do you know what I’m saying?

Kevin: Yes, it’s expensive. It’s time consuming.

Michael: Now, you’ve done that part looking at what he felt his unique things are. Did you talk to his employees? That would be his wife, so you probably covered two parts of that in that one meeting.

Kevin: That’s correct.

Michael: How about his patients? Did you get a list of any patients of his?

Kevin: I’ve got a list of about 75 of his patients, about 20 of those are active, and the remaining are inactive. I started doing the calling. It’s proven to be difficult to catch these people on the phone.

Michael: Did you catch any of them?

Kevin: I’ve only managed to catch one of them.

Michael: Was he able to give you some feedback?

Kevin: Absolutely. They stated that his service that he provided was one of the more gentle and holistic type of chiropractic approach that he’s seen, but the fact was that they had moved out to a different city, and it just required more for them to get out to his location.

Michael: You don’t need to get back with every single one of them. Are you having a hard time developing the USP? Or do you have something that you think is pretty good?

Kevin: That’s actually my project today. I’m working all day today on his USP. I’m going to start looking into his competition today and tomorrow, and figuring out what exactly his competition is doing and finding a way that we can set him apart from that.

Michael: You’ve got the DVDs that I sent you?

Kevin: Yes, I did.

Michael: Are you going through any of that stuff?

Kevin: I have not had the opportunity yet.

Michael: Okay, no problem. That sounds good. This is your first project, and you’re doing it. Anything else pan out with any of the other leads?

Kevin: The gentleman that photographs the Harley Davidsons, it’s looking like I may end up doing his as a contingency.

Michael: Okay.

Kevin: I didn’t want to go that route with him, but I know that there is absolutely no way that I can set him up as a regular client just because he can’t afford the fees, but I look at it as just as a challenge for myself. I can set him up on a contingency basis and work with him when I have some spare time, and just get the practice in.

Michael: Anything else?

Kevin: I’ve developed a new contact, a warm prospect, a lady by the name of Lisa. She owns a data imaging company. It’s a home-based business that she runs here in the valley. Her target market is the real estate market, and she basically converts all of their paper files into electronic PDFs.

Michael: That’s nice.

Kevin: Have you heard of a group called Action International?

Michael: Yes, I have. They’re another consulting opportunity.

Kevin: Correct. She actually started with them two days prior to my contact with her.

Michael: Doing consulting?

Kevin: Yes, attending some of their seminars and things and she said that a lot of the information was good they were giving her. What she didn’t like was the fact that all they were doing was giving her information or having her attend group sessions, and it was up to her to go back and implement all the stuff on her own.

So, she said, “I’ve already paid my fees to Action International, but” she says, “I understand what you’re saying. You’re obviously a lot more hands on and willing to be here and walk me through these processes.”

So, I know that she does want to go through three or four different projects. Mainly the USP she wants to figure out from the process. The database is a huge one for her because she’s only been in business since January of this year which I know is a little bit too mature for her USP project, but I figure we’ll give it a shot. But, the main thing that she wants to get a database in there and get a system found for referrals and follow up and things like that.

Michael: Did you take her through an opportunity analysis or just kind of got an idea from talking?

Kevin: I’ve gotten her halfway through the opportunity analysis, and then it was running a little late, and we had to scat. She had a PTA meeting and I had some things I had to take care of.

Michael: Are you going to get her hopefully as a paying client?

Kevin: Yes.

Michael: Okay, great. How much did she invest in Action International? Do you know?

Kevin: I don’t know.

Michael: They’re very expensive. I think it’s like $40,000.

Kevin: Really?

Michael: Yep. Ask her next time.

Kevin: I’ll have to do that. I went out and did a little research on Action International trying to get an idea of what she was paying for these people, but obviously they’re not listing their fees out there.

Michael: All right. That sounds good. You’ve just got to go through the process for developing the USP. If at any time you want me to get Richard on the line, we can do a three-way call. We don’t have to do it now, but as you’re progressing through this, but if you’re stumped or if you’re just having a hard time coming up with it, I can get Richard on the phone. We can hash it out and do another three-way if you want.

Kevin: Okay. You had mentioned that you have some information on a gentleman; his target market was the chiropractic industry. If I remember correctly you said that was on HMA University.

Michael: Yes. If you type in “Soap Opera”, it’s a recording with a guy named Dr. Greg Nielsen. It’s a great recording to listen to it because it’s a small chiropractor in a small town who does a ton of business. He’s been using direct mail for reactivating old patients, keeping in contact with his patients, and he has a product of all his letters. It’s called, “Soap Opera Marketing Letters”. You’ve got to listen to this.

He sells all his letters and everything already done, already proven, for like a hundred bucks.

Kevin: No way.

Michael: Yeah, listen to that recording. That’s in the HMA University, too, and that will be some actual letters that you can use and understand. You’ll blow this guy away. I mean, this is proven stuff. It’s called, “Population 2,000, one page letter equals 500,000 in sales. Here’s an exclusive interview for the HMA Consultants with powerful proof to demonstrate the power of direct mailing. Dr. Greg Nielsen is a chiropractor in a small town in Wisconsin. For the past twenty years, he’s been making a great living by marketing health services to a community of only 2,000 people. Dr Nielsen was one of the lucky doctors who got with Dan Kennedy right out of chiropractic college, and has never looked back. In fact, Dan Kennedy even stated in his recent newsletter, Dr. Nielsen does the best ads in the chiropractic profession. Dr. Nielsen’s advertising pushes the limits of what is considered professional in the chiropractor profession, however, he does get results. It is not uncommon for Dr. Nielsen to get between twenty and thirty percent response to his mailings when most would be happy with a two percent response.

Now, let’s find out why Dr. Nielsen is able to milk his mailing list like a cash cow and live to tell about it.” I cut out a bunch of this history on how he got into the chiropractic business and got right into the part about the success of his letters and his direct mail.

Kevin: I’ll definitely look at that. Great. Do you want to hear about everything else going on?

Michael: Tell me what else, sure.

Kevin: I went ahead and took yours and Richard’s advice and I tapped into my relationship with the bookkeeping and accounting.

Michael: Okay, now was this lady you had met? Did you do an endorsed mailing with her?

Kevin: We’re doing an endorsed mailing with her, and we’ve also scheduled a conference room for the 13 th of this month. She just sent out her billing cycle for this month, 75 active clients on her database.

Michael: And, did she send the letter in there with it?

Kevin: We sent the letter and the workshop invitations.

Michael: Oh, wonderful. Do you have a copy of that letter you can send me?

Kevin: I absolutely do.

Michael: Good, email it to me. So, is it a simple letter? Or did you write it up? Or did she help you write it? Or what?

Kevin: I wrote it up. I just basically asked her if we could do something like this and I told her what we wanted to do is just send a thank you to her clients for them doing business with them, and in the letter I stated that Bookkeeping had asked me to come in and provide a marketing workshop for their clients. I usually would charge $49.95 for this seminar. For customers only, I’m willing to offer that at fifty percent discount, and then the thank you saying that they will cover the fees for the workshop.

Michael: So, that went out to 75 of her clients right there in the Phoenix area?

Kevin: Yes.

Michael: You’ll hopefully be hearing some feedback soon. Now, are they calling you to reserve this spot or her?

Kevin: They’re calling me. On the letter, I provided both contact numbers so they can contact her or myself, and then on the workshop invitation that we thrown in there, I had only my information.

Michael: What day is the seminar?

Kevin: The thirteenth.

Michael: What day does that land on?

Kevin: A Tuesday.

Michael: No one knows for sure, but I think you’re going to see the effectiveness of the endorsed letter. It’s very powerful.

Kevin: I’ll be excited even if we only get ten.

Michael: That would be wonderful. I mean, look, all you’ve got to do is just go in and do a workshop, and the endorsement and the letter’s already done. That’s going to be exciting. You didn’t cut any kind of a deal with her, did you?

Kevin: I have not yet.

Michael: You’re doing a deal. You’re coming in there and providing a valuable workshop for her people. So, don’t feel like you have to cut her in on commissions of anyone, but if it’s something she wants, just understand that you’re already giving her a lot of value right now.

Kevin: Right. Her and her business partner have already approached me and stated that they want to do this on a reoccurring basis for sales training and just any aspect of marketing and sales that I can help them with and help their clients with, and then I think we also cut a deal that in return for what I’m doing for them, since I’m not charging them for anything to do this for their clients, they’re going to handle the bookkeeping for my business.

Michael: That is great. One little endorsement like this keeps you quite busy. It really can. Okay, do you have anything else going? That’s exciting.

Kevin: The 20 th of this month, I’m holding another workshop through the Chamber of Commerce for sales training. That’s their grow their business luncheon that they have once a month. It’s an hour and a half presentation. I think 45 minutes of that time is mine to do sales training.

Michael: Okay, you’re going to use the outline for the PowerPoint, the sales training one?

Kevin: Yes, I am.

Michael: Oh, that’s awesome. How many people are going to be there?

Kevin: They average about sixty people at those luncheons.

Michael: That’s excellent. Well, you really are doing everything it takes. You’re out there doing it, and some people may call you lucky, but we both know it has nothing to do with luck, but you’re making it happen. I’m excited for you.

Kevin: Have you started getting word of TAN developing in your area?

Michael: T-A-N?

Kevin: T-A-N.

Michael: No, what is TAN?

Kevin: I think I mentioned it to you. It’s the networking group. TAN stands for The Art of Networking, and you can read about their information on the theartofnetworking.com . It started here in the Scottsdale area about a year ago. If you go out there under the “meetings” tab on that website, you’ll actually see all the locations that we have meetings out her in the valley. It’s going to be a busy month for me. I’m really excited.

I’m the only male host of this networking group, and I just developed this networking group out here in Queen Creek because it’s an untapped resource right now. It’s a developing city. So, I have to get out here and get my name established with Queen Creek. So, I’ll be hosting that group.

Last month, they held the first one in Los Angeles, and this is a group that’s looking to go national. It’s similar to the BNI, except it’s not BNI. It’s a free networking group. They don’t have one per industry limitation. The only thing it cots is a business card, and it’s just a patio group to get together and just develop relationships.

Michael: That’s excellent. Well, you’ll see as the letter goes out, your cold call prospecting hopefully can really eliminate, and you can start working all through referrals. So, you won’t have the pain like you were having at first going out there cold. That’s just at the beginning until you get going. Do you understand that?

Kevin: Right.

Michael: And, don’t forget about your referrals. Your happy customers, the clients you’re working with, always ask for those warm referrals because it’s so much easier to go that route.

Kevin: Absolutely.

Michael: And, as you work with the chiropractor, document everything because then all the work’s done one time, and then you can go vertical marketing. You can go after other chiropractors and piggyback off of the stuff you’ve done for this chiropractor and the success he’s had. And, then it’s just a cookie cutter. All the work’s done. It’s just using the testimonial and referral from this chiropractor and just going to the next one, and then it will take a lot less time implementing the projects because you’ll have a good understanding of the market.

Kevin: Correct. Early on in my process of learning this, if I remember correctly, Richard had stated that he’ll usually only work with six clients at a time. Is that what you’re finding is about the max that a consultant can deal with?

Michael: It’s subjective. There’s no real answer for that. I think as you get better and more efficient, like for instance, let’s say you had your chiropractor thing and all the work was done, you can probably work with more than that because all the work is done. Do you see?

But, if you’re in different markets and you have more research – it just all depends. You just do whatever you’re comfortable with. There’s no rule. If you’re comfortable with one or two at a time or three at time, do that. You’re going to know where your limit is because you still have a life other than that, too.

Kevin: Excellent. I appreciate your time.

Michael: All right, no problem. If you’re stuck on anything, call me. I’ll get Richard on the phone and we’ll go into it in more depth like we did last time.

Kevin: I appreciate it.

Michael: Okay, keep doing it, and keep in touch.

Kevin: Will do.

Michael: Okay, bye Kevin.

That’s the end of this update with Kevin Fort. Stay tuned as a take a real life account of Kevin Fort’s success as he builds his consulting practice as an HMA consultant. Enjoy!