Marketing - A Skill or Mindset?
Marketing a business, especially when you are the business, can be one of the biggest challenges to starting up.
If you struggle at attracting clients, then you have no one spending money with you. And if you have no one spending money with you, then you don't have a business - do you?
But what is marketing?
Is it a skill that you can learn from reading a book or going on a course or two? Or is it a mindset - the way that you think and feel about you and your business?
There is no doubt that to attract clients you have to know what to do to get prospects contacting you. You have to understand who your customer is, how to reach out to them and discover how they like to be communicated with. Understanding the marketing process is a skill that can be learnt, developed and put in to action for your business.
But what I see many self-employed professionals doing is asking how to attract clients without understanding how important the marketing mindset is.
Let's take two image consultants. Both image consultants finished their training from the same course, at the same time. They both live and want to work in and around their own, similar affluent market towns, where their target audience of corporate executives commute in to the city. They both have similar branding reflected in their websites, business cards and leaflets and they have both got a 12 week marketing plan that focuses on networking, getting speaking appearances, offering a free report to build their database as well as nicely packaged programme that a client will discover exactly how to improve their personal branding to get their next promotion.
The only difference is that one image consultant, let's call her Sue, is having a bit of rough time at home. Money is little tight having spent all her savings on the training course and her new website and, although she does not say anything to her partner, she is worried about how on earth she is going to make a go at this business.
The second image consultant, let's call her Mandy, is in the same financial position but she has a very clear vision of where she is headed in 12 months. She can almost smell, taste and feel what it will be like when her image consultancy practice is full and she imagines what it will be like to work with a couple of associates. Mandy even smiles to herself on the inside when she sees her book up on her bookcase. You know the one - that book that Mandy is going to get written and self-publish to establish herself as a personal branding guru in the city.
Sue, although outwardly confident, is allowing doubt gnaw away at her. That little gremlin pops up every time she walks in to her office and switches on her PC. The same little gremlin sits on her shoulder at her first few networking events, quietly whispering in her ear "What do you think you are achieving by being here? Can't you see that everyone knows you are a fraud and that you have only just finished your training?"
Mandy has the same little gremlin popping in from time to time. After all, listening to our doubts and fears are an important part of making good decisions. But she smiles at her little gremlin and tells it "I hear what you say and thanks for pointing out what could happen. But be gone because you are not helping me achieve my goals", and the little gremlin shuffles off, head hung low in disappointment because Mandy has chosen not to listen to it.
Who will bring in more client leads?
They both have the same marketing skills, the same starting point and the same process to attracting clients - but who do you think will have the full practice this time, next year? Sue or Mandy?
© Karen Skidmore, 2009
If you struggle at attracting clients, then you have no one spending money with you. And if you have no one spending money with you, then you don't have a business - do you?
But what is marketing?
Is it a skill that you can learn from reading a book or going on a course or two? Or is it a mindset - the way that you think and feel about you and your business?
There is no doubt that to attract clients you have to know what to do to get prospects contacting you. You have to understand who your customer is, how to reach out to them and discover how they like to be communicated with. Understanding the marketing process is a skill that can be learnt, developed and put in to action for your business.
But what I see many self-employed professionals doing is asking how to attract clients without understanding how important the marketing mindset is.
Let's take two image consultants. Both image consultants finished their training from the same course, at the same time. They both live and want to work in and around their own, similar affluent market towns, where their target audience of corporate executives commute in to the city. They both have similar branding reflected in their websites, business cards and leaflets and they have both got a 12 week marketing plan that focuses on networking, getting speaking appearances, offering a free report to build their database as well as nicely packaged programme that a client will discover exactly how to improve their personal branding to get their next promotion.
The only difference is that one image consultant, let's call her Sue, is having a bit of rough time at home. Money is little tight having spent all her savings on the training course and her new website and, although she does not say anything to her partner, she is worried about how on earth she is going to make a go at this business.
The second image consultant, let's call her Mandy, is in the same financial position but she has a very clear vision of where she is headed in 12 months. She can almost smell, taste and feel what it will be like when her image consultancy practice is full and she imagines what it will be like to work with a couple of associates. Mandy even smiles to herself on the inside when she sees her book up on her bookcase. You know the one - that book that Mandy is going to get written and self-publish to establish herself as a personal branding guru in the city.
Sue, although outwardly confident, is allowing doubt gnaw away at her. That little gremlin pops up every time she walks in to her office and switches on her PC. The same little gremlin sits on her shoulder at her first few networking events, quietly whispering in her ear "What do you think you are achieving by being here? Can't you see that everyone knows you are a fraud and that you have only just finished your training?"
Mandy has the same little gremlin popping in from time to time. After all, listening to our doubts and fears are an important part of making good decisions. But she smiles at her little gremlin and tells it "I hear what you say and thanks for pointing out what could happen. But be gone because you are not helping me achieve my goals", and the little gremlin shuffles off, head hung low in disappointment because Mandy has chosen not to listen to it.
Who will bring in more client leads?
They both have the same marketing skills, the same starting point and the same process to attracting clients - but who do you think will have the full practice this time, next year? Sue or Mandy?
© Karen Skidmore, 2009
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