This time in the A-Z of Marketing Experts, B is for Brendon Burchard. He is an American coach and author of a number of books. He runs numerous online training programmes and charges a small fortune for his coaching services, which is taken up by some very high flying individuals.

Why is he on my list of Marketing Experts? There are dozens of people out there providing similar services to Brendon, and who promote their businesses in a similar way; I believe that many of them are doing it wrong, or badly. I like the way in which Brendon promotes his business.

I first heard about Brendon a few months ago through a sponsored post on Facebook. It had been ‘liked’ by a couple of people I know, whose opinions I trust. He was offering a short online test to see how you scored against his high performance habits – traits seen in high performers, according to his research. Take the test, receive a score for each of six areas and Brendon will send you a free copy of his book, High Performance Habits. Always keen to get hold of a free book, I paid the postage fee (OK, so it wasn’t quite free!) and waited for my scores and my book. The scores came through very quickly by email and the book arrived a few weeks later (it was posted from the US.) The book is written into six ‘habits’ that correlate to the six scores I received in the test. It is well written, professional produced and full of really useful, practical content – actions and ideas that you can put into practice straight away. It invites you to retake the test after six months to see how you’re getting on. So far so good – plenty of (nearly) free content, in a book backed up by research and case studies. No sales pitch. No automatic stream of emails trying to get more money out of me.

As part of the test and book sign up, I did subscribe to Brendon’s email newsletters, which drop into my inbox now and then. The first six that I received each contained a really helpful video, about a specific part of each of the six high performance habits. On their own the videos are really useful. Obviously they don’t cover everything in all the habits – they just gently encourage you to sign up to the next programme if you want more. This is how a lot of people promote their business – Brendon does it well because his main focus is on providing great content (80-90%) with just a subtle mention of how else he can help/what you can pay him for (10-20%.) Too many other businesses that start down this route just bombard you with useless sales email and I delete them or unsubscribe pretty quickly.

In December 2018, one of the emails I received from Brendon asked what I would like to do next – get more advice on personal development or digital marketing. Because I’m always on the lookout for ways to help my clients with their marketing, I chose the latter option. The web page that I was directed to contained a promise of more content to follow and a long video all about how Brendon uses social media. It was packed with plenty of useful tips and ideas that I can share with my clients. Again there was no sales pitch – just valuable content.

There are two key messages that I encourage you to look at from Brendon’s marketing, to apply to your own:

• Firstly, you need some structure to your marketing. He uses his six high performance habits. You could focus your marketing messages on a nine stage process, an A-Z, or anything else you fancy, as long as the messages are structured and easy to follow. Don’t just dash around writing about something that doesn’t relate to what you’re selling and how you can help your clients.
• Secondly, great marketing is about sharing tips and advice through useful content. It’s not about sending endless sales emails that contain nothing useful. Share good quality content with your prospects and they will learn to trust you and be more likely to buy from you than if you constantly try to sell to them.

In the past six months I’ve been looking at the online marketing employed by many different ‘successful’ service businesses. I’ve signed up to a number of newsletters, attended some webinars and ordered some (nearly) free books. Of all them, Brendon Burchard is the only one whose videos I regularly watch, whose book I use (and recommend to other people) and whose emails are allowed into my inbox without a rapid unsubscribe. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but so far I have been impressed by his marketing and have been able to put much of his advice into practice.

Take a look at your online marketing and see if you can use any of Brendon’s tactics to fill up your pipeline and find new clients. And if you need any help doing this, or you need a review of your marketing, give me a call on 01635 578500 or click here to email me.

(Remember that you can also nominate someone for the A-Z of Marketing Experts if there is someone else out there who you think is doing a great job. Feel free to nominate yourself if you want to!)