Australian Immigration Daily News

DAY 1 of a MULTI DAY SERIES

Two Fridays ago I was privileged to run LTA’s first “Reliable and Profitable Marketing for Migration Agents” seminar in Sydney. It was a fascinating training session. We explored what marketing means as opposed to advertising, creating your own marketing plan, defining your marketing niche and succeeding with joint ventures and 3 key areas of business growth:

1. How to establish what is unique about each RMA and the work they are passionate about

2. How to define, find and attract our desired client niches and

3. Whether the type of client we work for or what work we do is more important

Let’s discuss the first topic on day one – finding out how we are unique:

One could argue we all do essentially the same thing – we just obtain visas for clients. We all also share the same ethical and legal obligations. Yet, we are all unique.

Jimmy Page, infamous Led Zeppelin guitarist, proclaimed; 

1. “I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing.

They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.”

The same applies to RMA’s – we all have unique skills, interests and talents which we can develop. It is crucial that we each explore how we are unique and then communicate that to the market.

Let’s start with a glaring example of how not to communicate your unique point of difference to the market – this is the actual Skype conversation I had last night with a very bad (and probably poor)salesman from yet another unknown off-shore SEO company (their details deleted):

“Hi Justin - I am from (off-shore country) based website design and development company we found your address through our own effort from Google search

[23-Sep-15 7:07:24 PM] Justin Rickard: What's up?

….we are looking for some business opportunity, we do provide SEO services please take a look at our website www.xxxyyyzzz.org

… 10:14:31 PM] Justin Rickard: We get these sort of approaches almost every day specially from (off-shore country) why are you any different?

…sir we provide quality work - you are interested in SEO or website design?

…10:17:00 PM] Justin Rickard: Everyone should do quality work why are you any different otherwise? What is unique about your company?

…. We have team of dedicated persons working with us

…10:18:10 PM] Justin Rickard: So?

…if you need SEO we will provide you quality SEO with guaranteed result

…10:18:43 PM] Justin Rickard: Tell me something new or there is no pt. in talking further

This salesman just does not know how to tell potential clients what is different about his company – quality work and dedicated team members are not unique.

In the end, I had to virtually drag his testimonials out of him so I could find out myself – but it was too late. His initial approach is very bad marketing as he just does not know his own company.

Here’s 5 ways to find put and communicate what is unique about you as an RMA:

1.  List every individual feature and benefit which is unique about you, your product or service. Do a Google search and compare your features and benefits with your direct competitors. Identify those which set you apart. It could be your language skills combined with your ethnic and professional background – for example, are you the only Tamil speaking lawyer who grew up in Malaysia, as was one lawyer RMA at our training? This feature benefits his clients emotionally and practically as we see in point 2

2.  Decide what emotional needs are being or can be specifically met by you and your product or service. Think about this from your customer's perspective and add it to your list. For the Tamil speaking lawyer the emotional need he meets may be that his clients feel more comfortable speaking to him in the native Tamil language. It is also easier for them and him to understand each other and complex areas of migration.

3.  Identify aspects or combinations of your skills, talents, background, product or service that your competitors just cannot imitate. Put a star beside anything that cannot be easily duplicated, reproduced, or copied. This is easy to do when you are as a unique as the lawyer in my example above but we can all do this if we think for a while about our backgrounds, skills and talents

4.  Create phrases about your unique product or service that are short, clear and concise. Use the words from steps 1-3 that you singled out. Be sure they can be easily communicated to and understood by your potential clients.

5.   Answer your customer's primary quesiton: "What's in it for me?" & "How will I benefit from y our services?" Make it to the point and state it as a benefit to the client.

Now you are on your way to knowing why you are unique – tomorrow we will cover how to find unique clients to match your unique you. Very exciting.

For free initial guidance with your marketing our 20 minute “Fast Fact Finder “ session will help you learn more about yourself and get your business marketing plan under way immediately - please visit http://www.australianimmigrationlawyers.com/marketing/

Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  or phone 02.4448.6084/0416.212.021

JUSTIN RICKARD B.A LL.B M.A (Syd.) M.M.I.A

Australian lawyer* # 11272 (N.S.W) & Registered Migration Agent # 9790625

www.australianimmigrationlawyers.com