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Small
Business Marketing: Marketing Along the Path of Least Resistance
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.
C.J. Hayden is the author of Get Clients Now! Thousands of
business owners and salespeople have used her simple sales and
marketing system to double or triple their income. Get a free
copy of "Five Secrets to Finding All the Clients You'll Ever
Need" at
http://www.getclientsnow.com
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