The One Thing That Could Transform Your Business
Every self-employed professional has unique circumstances. The solution that will help one person acquire more clients and earn a better living is not the same as the answer that will solve similar issues for another. Finding the best approach to make your business take off is rarely so simple as copying what another person does. It may take a bit of detective work.
Am I Doing Something Wrong?
My clients often ask me to help figure out what’s wrong with their marketing. The first question I ask is how much marketing they’ve been doing, since many failures have more to do with quantity than quality. But assuming you’ve been sufficiently active at promoting yourself, here are some other ways in which your marketing might need fixing.
There are three areas you should examine — the package of services you are offering, your marketing strategies, and your sales methods. In order to market and sell effectively, your package of services should meet the following requirements:
7 Ways to Overcome Sales Call Reluctance
No matter how many emails you send out, how much time you spend on social media, or how many networking events you attend, you still need to pick up the phone sometimes and call potential clients.
As a self-employed professional selling your own services, you may believe that you feel uncomfortable about calling prospective clients on the phone because you’re not a “real” salesperson. But studies reveal that 40-90% of experienced, full-time salespeople still have episodes of call reluctance at times.
The good news is that the fear or resistance you experience about making calls doesn’t have to be permanent. Research also indicates that for 95% of people who are reluctant to make sales calls, their fear subsides once they make contact. If you stop avoiding the calls and start making them, there is a very good chance that you will feel better once you start talking to someone.
To Get More Clients, Rely on Your Strengths
When you look back at what you’ve accomplished in your business so far this year, it’s natural to judge your progress and results against what you intended back in January. What frequently results from a process like this is a catalog of everything you haven’t done, or have done wrong. But I believe it’s even more important to consider what you’ve been doing right this year.
Three Ways to Have Fun Getting Your Marketing Done
There are days when you wake up ready to go, eager to get the word out about your offerings, and then there are other days when, well… you’re just not feeling as eager, or clear, or motivated, or… *sigh*
Is there anything you can you do on those days when it feels harder to do the marketing you really — truly! — want to (and need) to do? Yes, of course there is. Enter…
Fun!
Getting Over Your Fear of Asking for Referral Partners
True or not true? Asking someone to become your referral partner is scary.
If you said true, you’re not alone.
How scary it is to ask someone to send you referrals depends on your comfort level. The more you practice the better you get, and that’s something you can build on. Even if asking for referrals doesn’t seem to come naturally, you can train yourself to do it comfortably enough — and it might even become fun!
Does It Feel Too Hard to Market Your Business Right Now?
A year of pandemic life has taken its toll on all of us. At February’s Pandemic Office Hours, our virtual room full of self-employed professionals described feeling stressed, or even immobilized, about marketing their businesses. Since then, I’ve been noticing reports everywhere about how much this past year of stress, uncertainty, and grief has sapped our collective focus and motivation.
Are Fear and Resistance Blocking Your Marketing?
Imagine this conversation, between me and a client who’s looking to bring in more business.
Me: What about giving your potential client a quick call?
Client: That’s not really in my lane.
Me: How about grabbing lunch with a colleague you haven’t seen in a while?
Client: They already know me. Not sure what difference that would make.
Me: Could you reach out to some current clients and deepen those relationships?
Client: They hear from me monthly already via my newsletter.
Me: That’s the generic newsletter your assistant sends out, right?
Client: …Yes.
What Are the Most Effective Marketing Strategies for Self-Employed Professionals?
I recently ran across a 2017 study by FreshBooks Cloud Accounting asking 1,700 self-employed professionals, independent professionals, and small business owners what they found to be the most effective marketing strategies. All the participants had fewer than 10 employees, and 77% of them were solopreneurs, making this group a close match to the readers of this blog.
I was pleased to see how closely their answers aligned with the list of Effective Marketing Strategies in Get Clients Now! and the advice Kris Carey and I give our clients, students, and readers. Here’s what these self-employed professionals named as “highly effective” marketing strategies:
What Kind of Marketing Plan Does a Self-Employed Professional Need?
You need a marketing plan to get clients. That’s the first thing to know. A professional who tells you that he or she has gotten plenty of clients without ever having a plan is either: a) working way too hard, b) not telling you the truth about how many clients they have, c) working a plan that they’ve never written down, or d) one of those rare, incredibly charismatic individuals who seem to draw an audience as soon as they enter a room.
I find that most of the time, successful professionals who claim to not have a plan fall into the “c” category. They are working from a plan in their head. If you can do that, more power to you. Most people — myself included — need to write a plan down in order to keep it straight.
