"The Law of Consistency" in business

You all know how much I respect Robert Middleton's advice. He's got some great marketing products and although he's not specific to Noah's Ark Workshop, everything he says can be applied to our business in some respects - if you're treating your business like a business that is!

So, take a minute to read this and think through how you can use it to advance your business - get specific and write things down, etc.

This is one of my favorite laws of persuasion and I've used it
many times very effectively. You might also call it "the law of
small requests."

The essence of the law is this: If you make a small request of
someone to do something and then follow-up later with a bigger
request about something similar, you will get a much better
response than if you made the big request first.

The difference is often dramatic.

This law is the foundation of my approach to marketing. Like
many people, I discovered that making big requests ended up in
a lot of rejection. Over time, I discovered how small or
incremental requests made the process a whole lot easier.

This is called "The Law of Consistency" because once people agree
to do something small, they tend to be consistent with their
words and actions when asked to do something bigger.

One of the biggest keys to marketing success is to offer small
things, make small requests and then follow these up with bigger
things and bigger requests.

Let me give you several examples.

You've just joined a chamber of commerce and many members
are good potential clients. Contact them and say you'd like to
take them out for coffee as you're a new chamber member and
want to learn more about their business. If there's a good
connection, it will be much easier to ask for a sales appointment
later.

After a talk you want to get the participants to sign up for your
email newsletter. You hold up an article at the end and say, "I
have an article that covers much of the material in today's talk.
Who would like a copy?" When you get a show of hands (the small
request), you then make a bigger request: "OK, please give me
your business cards; I'll send you the article and also give you a
complimentary subscription to my weekly eZine."

You want to get some good testimonials from your best clients.
Instead of asking for them directly (which is often a problem as
people have a hard time writing them), you say, "I'm putting
together a series of client testimonials. Can I show you a few I've
gotten so far?" You send them and call back in a few days and
say, "I'd like to have someone interview you for a similar
testimonial. May I have them call you?"

You have very few prospects from networking and have concluded
you need to go after prospects directly. But cold calling and
asking for appointments is a big request and results in lots of
rejection. Instead, you make "introductory calls" and ask if you
can send a special article and complimentary subscription to your
eZine. A few weeks later you call back, make a deeper connection
and set several appointments.

Do you see how powerful this law of consistency can be?

Think of all the times you haven't approached a prospect because
you didn't understand this law. You were afraid to make a big
request (understandably), but felt that a small request wouldn't
get you anywhere. I hope you see the major difference this could
make in all your marketing efforts.

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The More Clients bottom line: Remember that it's always easier to
make small requests of prospects than bigger ones. But you can't
leave it at that. You then need to follow small requests with the
bigger ones if you want marketing results.

By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit
Robert's web site at www.actionplan.com for additional
marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional
service businesses.

What do you think? Comment if you have some specific ideas on how to use this with NA.