| Do you find marketing to be a constant
struggle? It doesn't have to be that way. The most successful marketers make it look easy
because they have found a way to market themselves that is effortless. Perhaps you have
tried to copy what those successful people were doing, and it didn't work for you. Here's
why.
Marketing is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. You have to
find your own unique path, the one that works best for you and your business. To make
marketing easy, that path needs to be the one where you will encounter the least
resistance -- both from the marketplace and from inside yourself.
Here are six steps to put you on the road to effortless
marketing:
1. Be willing to let go of struggle.
You may believe you want marketing to be easier, but stop
and think for a moment. Is there some part of you that is attached to making things
difficult? Is there a secret payoff you get from trying so hard? Whenever you find
yourself struggling about marketing, pause and ask yourself, "How could this be
easy?"
2. Market to the people you like, and who like you.
A colleague once told me I would never earn a living
marketing my services to solo entrepreneurs. "You have to focus on getting corporate
clients," she said. "Then you can afford to work with entrepreneurs once in a
while."
Thank goodness I didn't listen to her. Maybe that was the
formula that worked for HER business, but it's not where my heart was. One of the reasons
I became self-employed was to spend more time working in non-corporate environments. If I
had followed her advice, I would have failed miserably.
3. Start with the people who are ready for your message.
Yes, there is an entire population out there who would hire
you if only you could make them understand what it is you offer and how you can help them.
You can make educating those people part of your long-term mission. But in the meantime,
you need to make the car payment.
Seek out the customers who are most likely to already
understand the value of what you do. If you are a reflexologist, you need to be speaking
at the Whole Life Expo instead of at the Chamber of Commerce. If you offer a workshop on
corporate ethics, network with members of Businesses for Social Responsibility instead of
the Millionaires Circle.
4. Choose marketing strategies that match who you are.
I'll be the first to admit that I'm a mediocre cold caller.
It just doesn't fit my personal style. So I focus on the strategies that are natural to me
-- speaking, writing, and networking to build referrals. I've consistently maintained a
full practice that way for over ten years now.
One of my clients is also a business coach who targets solo
entrepreneurs. Her business is identical to mine, but her personality is completely
different. She loves to cold call, and has been able to fill her practice that way.
Speaking and networking don't come naturally to her at all. It's a good thing she didn't
try to copy me.
5. Find people who can pay what you need to charge.
If you persist in marketing to people who can't pay your
fee, you will encounter not just resistance, but a brick wall. Don't give up because it
seems that no one in the population you want to serve has any money. You have to look for
the intersection between your chosen market and people who have enough resources to hire
you.
Colleagues have told me that people suffering from
life-threatening illnesses, or recovering from substance abuse, can't or won't pay for
professional coaching. But I have had several people in these situations as full-fee
clients. The intersection is that they were also entrepreneurs. People say you can't make
money working with teens, but I have had many clients who do -- as life coaches, private
tutors, psychologists, and professional speakers. The intersection they found was teens
with well-to-do parents, or schools with funds obtained from grants and corporate
sponsors.
6. Pay attention to how people respond to hearing about
your business, whether or not you are marketing to them.
A client of mine used to be a computer skills trainer. When
she talked about her work, people nodded politely. But what she really wanted to do was
teach public speaking. When she began to talk about that idea, her listeners got excited.
The difference wasn't in the content of her message --
public speaking can be just as dry a topic as computer software. It was her own enthusiasm
for the work that attracted such a positive response. If you really want your marketing to
be effortless, you need to be in a business that excites YOU. |
