Steps:

  1. Choose whether to have Matt do it for you, or to have Matt teach your people how to do it.
  2. Tell Matt which one you want to do.

Simple as that!

Or, if you have more in mind, talk to us about the custom-built concierge service:

Sprint (Matt does it)

What it is:

Matt rewrites your sales materials.

Who it’s for:

Companies who would rather have an expert do it than pull their force out of the field to take classes.

Duration / Price:

1 month / US$2,500

The result:

Customers respond to you better and your sales go up.

Details:

  1. You send three pieces of your company’s sales collateral (typically, that means your services list, your “this is us” presentation, and one case study) to Matt (don’t worry, all of the materials you send are confidential).
  2. For that month, you and Matt talk on the phone about twice a week for 25-35 minutes each time. During the calls, Matt asks you questions about your business so he can better understand your company’s story and how it uses the materials to tell that story.
  3. Matt rewrites your sales materials accordingly, we run them through a couple drafts together, and you end up with materials that convert better.

More about the process is here.

See the FAQ for more.

Class (your people learn how to do it)

What it is:

A three-month class where your people learn how to communicate better with your clients.

Who it’s for:

1-4 people in your company who develop the sales materials (case studies, proposals, etc) and head up the client-facing communications (pitches).

Duration / Price:

3 months / $7,500 per group

The result:

Customers respond to you better and your sales go up.

Details:

  1. Each person in your group gets one 1-to-1 class per week, plus one internal group class per week.
  2. Focus on the the Four Things (storytelling for business, filler word reduction, mirror neurons / speech practice, and vocabulary upgrade — in other words, public speaking) and the Taxi Test.

Pro tip: Put 4 people in your group, so you spread the cost out across as many people as possible.

See the FAQ for more.

ROI calculator:

Calculate the impact this service could have on your business, and compare that to the cost of the service. It takes surprisingly little to make an economic justification for this service. Clients often find that it pays for itself many times over.

Intermediate and advanced class

What it is:

A continuing class where your people dig deeper into their client-facing communication skills.

Who it’s for:

People who liked the initial sequence and want to go deeper on its principles.

Duration / Price:

you decide / we talk

The result:

You are better able to represent your company to international clients/investors.

Details:

  1. Unlimited sessions (most clients go for about 4-6 hours per month).
  2. Continued focus on the Four Things (storytelling for business, filler word reduction, mirror neurons / speech practice, and vocabulary upgrade — in other words, public speaking), the Taxi Test, and deeper concepts that improve your communication but we didn’t have time to go over in the earlier sequences.
  3. Flexible scheduling to accomodate your calendar.

See the FAQ for more.

Custom-built concierge service

The overview:

The most comprehensive preparation for your customer- and investor-facing activities.

The result:

Your clients/investors understand your pitch better and can better connect it to how it solves a problem they are having.

Your employees are equipped to not only pitch your product/service, but to comfortably respond to the customer’s/investor’s questions.

Service varies according to customer need.

Details:

Designed according to the customer’s needs (of course, since it’s custom), but often includes:

  1. Custom-designed, professionally-made pitch deck laid out to achieve your specific target.
  2. Professionally rewritten transcripts your people can use to deliver more effective sales and investment presentations. Your presentations will have:
    • Smoother, more effective transitions and more precise vocabulary.
    • Comparisons to other products/services/methods, so your customer understands your product better.
    • A tighter problem/solution cycle, a key cycle that determines the link between the problem the customer is facing and your product’s ability to solve it.
  3. Professionally-written responses to the FAQs your clients often ask.
  4. Mp3 recordings of a native English-speaker reading the FAQ responses.
  5. Mp3 recordings of a native English-speaker reading the presentation.
  6. Ancillary followup materials (PDFs, pitch decks, etc) you’ll need to persuade the stakeholders you DON’T meet with.
  7. In-person delivery of your pitches.
  8. Direct communication with customers/investors (think Fractional Communications Director).

See the FAQ for more.

Interested? Some FAQs and good things to know:

Why are you focused on the "Why are we here" so much?

There are a lot of cheaper options out there, so it’s very important for us to stay focused on what problem you’re trying to solve, how to solve it, and how solving it will make your life better.

Since a large part of our initial conversations will be to figure out what it is that you’re trying to do and how we can help with that, it’s important in the early days for you to keep in mind why you’re here and why you’re talking to us.

In other words, we’ll often be asking you what problem are you here to solve, and why are you trying to do it with us, and not someone else?

For the class, does the supervisor need to be involved?

Yes. Whoever is paying the bills, whoever has in mind the business benefit they want to get out of the engagement, needs to be indirectly involved. This does not mean the supervisor needs to attend classes. It means that about once a month, the supervisor and Matt will need to talk for about 30 minutes to review how things are going and which problem we need to focus on solving in the coming month. This “directional tweaking” involvement, indirect as it may be, approximately doubles the business benefit to the client.

How long does the class take?

The bulk of the work gets done in 3 months, with the main improvement typically coming in month 3. However, we’ll do a little project so you get some improvement right away in the first couple weeks.

If you want to enter the higher-level communication ranks, I recommend continuing on with Intermediate so you get the progress that comes in months 4, 5, and 6. But the beginning packages are enough to point you down the right path. 😉

The program is month to month, and there is no contract, so if you want to leave after one month, there is nothing stopping you. Some clients stay for a couple months, others for 10 years. Most are somewhere inbetween. The main improvement comes in months 3-6, so we highly recommend sticking with it at least that long.

What makes a successful client?
Based on over 10 years of doing this, I’ve seen three traits that successful clients all have. They are:

  1. A history of serial problem solving.
  2. A frustration coming from one of life’s slaps in the face.
  3. The fear of god (an external force that makes them want to solve the problem that #2 brought to the forefront).

Look inside yourself and get in touch with these three traits in you. You’ll get a lot more out of it if you keep them close at hand!

 

If you want to hear more on that subject, listen to this podcast episode:

What's this I hear about extra class sessions being free?

It’s true. If you are preparing for a particular project (a particular investor pitch, or a meeting with a client), remember, our job is to prepare you for that meeting, not to count sessions.

That means that if you need some extra practice, you just say so. We’re here for you. We get the job done, we don’t count sessions.

Does the price change if I want more or fewer classes?

No. Remember, we are selling a solution to a problem, not time. If you want fewer classes, the price won’t change. If you want more classes, the price won’t change.

If you’re currently at 2 classes per week and you want to do three, just say so. We’ll do three, and there will be no extra charge. Likewise, if you are currently at 2 classes per week and you want to do one, just say so. We’ll do one, and your price will stay the same. If you are currently at 2 classes per week and you want to do one hundred classes per week, just say so, and we’ll do a hundred. That has never happened, but we’ll figure it out. 😉

Think of it like an all-you-can-eat buffet. You pay to enter the buffet. From there, you can eat 1 steak or you can eat 100 steaks. It’s up to you.

Is it true I need to do 100% prepayment each month?

Yes.

The last time I told the airline I would pay them when I arrived at my destination, they laughed at me. The last time I told the grocery store I would pay for the milk when I got home and was done drinking it, they laughed at me, too.

It seems prepayment business models are all around us.

If another set of payment terms is important to you, someone else might be a better fit for you, and we wish you nothing but the best of luck as you continue your search.

Is there a cancellation fee or refund?

No. If you want to cancel a class, just don’t show up. There’s no fee. There’s also no refund. If you want to reschedule, let’s reschedule. If not, don’t. 

Can we have classes in the evenings or weekends?

Technically, yes. But keep in mind that everyone seems to like evenings and weekends, so those tend to be full. There is a waiting list for evenings and weekends, but the waiting list is usually about 3 months. We’ll have a better chance of working together if you can find an hour or two of weekday times.

Is it month to month, or is there a contract?
Prices are month-to-month, and there is no contract. So technically, you could just go for a month. But I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and I’ve never seen anyone make significant progress in a month. I would suggest a minimum of two months, and preferably three. Three gets you to the point where you can say later, “I made significant progress against my goal.” We have clients who have been with us for two years, or 5 years or even 10 years, where together we grow from project to project, but if you are a short-term kind of person and those kinds of long-term engagements aren’t your cup of tea, plan on making the biggest progress in months 3 and 4.
When will you bill me?

We will bill you at the beginning of our work, for the following month, and then each month after that. So basically, you are pre-paying for each month.

Don’t forget, there is no long-term commitment and no contract, so if you want to stop, just don’t pay for the next period.

Are you available outside scheduled times, too?
Yes, absolutely. No matter what package you get, they all come with one thing: Whenever you need help between sessions, just email, text, or call us. Any time. There’s no extra charge for it. Maybe you want an extra session to prepare for a particular presentation or interview, or you’re trying to read an email and you’re not sure what it means, or you are writing one and you want someone to make sure everything is correct before you hit send, or you’re getting ready for a phone call and you want to practice, or something else. Just reach out. We’re your coaches all the time, not just during our sessions.