1. Watch this free video on getting clients fast and contacting them

2. Read the full Whiskers & Cheese Method Below:

The Whiskers & Cheese Method to Getting Video Clients

Why ‘Whiskers & Cheese?”

First before we begin, I want to mention that the term ‘Cheese & Whiskers’ marketing comes from a marketer named Dean Jackson which he only reveals to his 25k coaching clients. I’ve taken these basic methods and applied them to landing local video clients in which you can see your services or sell your actual videos.

The reason this is called the ‘Cheese & Whiskers’ method is due to how most marketers present themselves.

Marketers present themselves to potential clients as cat or ‘the whiskers’ or cheese (which mice like). The clients in this case are the mice. We know mice hate cats and will run away if they see whiskers, but will chew through a 3ft rope to get to cheese.

Most marketers, especially those trying to sell offline marketing present themselves as ‘whiskers’ because they aren’t focused on delivering something that the business really needs. They are trying to deliver things they THINK the business needs. Examples include, graphic design, SEO services, website redesign, and the list goes on.

What Businesses Really Want

People don’t want to be sold to, and business owners especially don’t want to be sold to. They often have tight budgets, especially if they are mom & pop brick and mortar stores.

When you call and try to present something they don’t think they need or they have to pay money for, it causes pain or scares them away, the same way a mice would react if a cat appeared.

Instead, you need to focus on presenting & finding the ‘cheese’ of every business, and get out of the salesman mindset and into the value adding mindset.

People like buying things but hate being sold to. When you try to sell your services, you probably are met with a lot reactions from gate keepers like: “Well, I don’t want to make that decision,” or “I don’t wantto be the one to spend that money,” or “Eh, we’re not going to be interested in that,” or “We tried that.”

But the truth is, decision makers & gate keepers have no problem buying something if they clearly know it will bring the business money.

So, what you need to do to is to find the ‘cheese’ or what the business really wants, then present it one small piece at a time.

Any time you call, email, direct mail etc. and it isn’t all about cheese in your message, don’t expect a returned email or call.

For example, mentioning something like ‘We’ve been in business for 15 years, A+ rating with the BBB…” is the cat talking. It’s all about ME, ME, ME and and how I’m here to sell you. There’s nothing about what THEY want.

Which One Will Have More Success?

For example in real estate, which marketer do you think would have more success.

Marketer A.

Marketer A creates a well-polished add and posts it to a street chair or online banner saying something along the lines of “We’ve sold x number of home, top rated real estate marketer, we’ll get your home sold fast, call XXX-XXX-XXX now etc….”

Marketer B

Marketer B does some digging and finds out that people who are trying to sell their home in her area are worried about how much they can get for their house. They create a short report about the estimated value of homes in that area then send postcards to the people in that area with a link to the free report. All they have to do is call or enter their email address.

Which one do you think would have more success? The person offering this free ‘cheese’ or report that builds trust and gets the person running to the computer for their free home evaluation, or the Marketer A, the cat, who’s trying everything to sell the person on their services.

Obviously Marketer A is getting past the barriers to entry and is going to have a list of hot prospects wanting more of their services and more information since they’ve found the ‘cheese’ of the prospect AND proved upfront fast that they can deliver on their promises.

Anything that even HINTS of selling will cause alarm bells to go off in the gatekeeper or decision makers head and they will go into defense mode to save the business.

Cheese and Whiskers in Action

Here’s another example. Say you were trying to sell your video marketing services to a local pizza place and they are rejecting 99% of all marketers who are pitching them.

Instead of cold emailing, calling, or doing stupid tricks to get past the gatekeeper that rarely work, find out what the ‘cheese’ is and focus ONLY that in your email.

Now, these might take a little work like sending an email from a different address tell them your looking to refer clients to a pizza place and asking what their biggest money makers are, or ordering a pizza from them and asking a worker there what their biggest money makers are so far this year.

But once you have one pizza place figured out in your area, chances are other ones are having that same desire or same frustration they want to get rid of.

So say that it turns out pizza places don’t really want SEO or marketing help, but they DO want to land corporation for catering gigs because that is actually driving in 60% of their business.

Just send an email from a gmail.com address or yahoo.com address (remember NO whiskers can be present, that means no .com domain or fancy lawyer warning at the bottom of your email) and say:

Subject: ? or Subject: Question?

Body: Do you guys do catering gigs for corporations?

-Ben

and that’s it. All cheese, exactly what they want.

Of course since the email is so simple and focused only on them someone will respond back yes and even ask why you’re emailing them.

Then you can continue on with something like:

RE: ?

Can you guys handle 5-6 extra corporate catering gigs per month? I have a way I could get these to you

with some video. Just let me know- Ben (XXX-XXX-XXXX)

By now, you’ve passed the gatekeeper and the decision maker is on board because there’s potential for 6 major jobs that would bring a ton of money into business. You STILL haven’t tried to sell them or talk about your video marketing services yet.

After the next email, try to land a meeting one-on-one with the decision maker in which you can explain how creating videos or buying videos can help them land gigs along with Facebook marketing or whatever marketing expertise you’ve learned and thing you can help them with.

But I hope you can see how you can get your foot in the door by providing value up front and staying clear of the traditional salesy tactics 99% of your competition will use.

What happens if you can’t find their specific cheese?

Maybe you’re not able to figure out that they want corporate parties or you can’t figure out exactly what it is they want. Then just ask yourself this: “How can I make it so ridiculously easy for somebody to get started, that there’s 100% upside, it’s all cheese for them, and my whiskers don’t even come into play?”

Thing of something that would add value to their business and doesn’t involve ANY selling or pitching at all. Something you could write in one or two lines in an email and know it will get a response.

If you want, even create a video specifically for them and give away for free. Then, after they contact you back you can start discussing ways to help them get more views to it or how to use it in their business.

 Action Steps

So now you understand the basic concept, here’s some action steps to get you your first clients.

1. Decide on what business or niche you want to help.

Don’t try to call up every local business in town trying to pitch your videos. Focus on one submarket like wedding planners.

2. Find out their ‘cheese’

What would really help out this market that you could use to get your foot in the door? Talk to some planners, call them up, do a survey to a lot across the country, or again ask the question:

“How can I make it so ridiculously easy for somebody to get started, that there’s 100% upside, it’s all cheese for them, and my whiskers don’t even come into play?”

then write it down.

3. Create a simple ‘cheese email’ and send it to them

Just like in the example, figure out a short all 100% value based email and send it to them. Or create a 100% free report to get the conversation started like how to close high-end bride clients if that’s what they really need help with.

4. Start a dialogue in a natural way that leads to a face-to-face meeting or video demonstration of how your

skills will help them.

Then once you have them responding back, it’s time to close them on your services. The better you’ve presented yourself as the ‘cheese’ the easier this will be as they will be pursuing you and not running away.