by C.J. Hayden | Mar 6, 2019 | Following Up
To the average self-employed professional, following up with prospective clients feels awkward or even scary. You hate making phone calls that might not be welcome. You think you might be pestering people. You worry about being rejected. You aren’t sure what to say. After all, how many times can you ask, “Are you ready for us to work together?”
I get it. My clients and students share concerns like these with me all the time. I’ve even had them myself.
by C.J. Hayden | Feb 3, 2019 | Writing & Publicity
When self-employed professionals come to me with questions about how to attract their ideal clients, one of the first places I look is whether they have a blog. In my experience, most self-employed professionals have the potential to be excellent bloggers, even when they haven’t written anything longer than an email since leaving college.
Authoring a blog can solve several of the stickiest marketing problems for professionals. Here are five reasons that blogging is one of the marketing methods I recommend most often to my clients and students:
by Kristine Carey | Jan 22, 2019 | Filling the Pipeline
Are you considering adding promotional events to your marketing mix? Remember that promotional events are one of six overall marketing strategies (more on that below), and can be a great way to garner visibility and gather leads to fill your marketing pipeline.
If you’re not sure what promotional events are, here are some examples:
- Exhibiting at a trade show
- Holding a free demonstration
- Hosting your own webinar or workshop
by C.J. Hayden | Jan 8, 2019 | Filling the Pipeline
I’m a big fan of using attraction strategies to fill your marketing pipeline as a self-employed professional. Attraction-based tactics like blogging or publishing articles, posting on social media, and generating media publicity can all be effective ways to bring prospective clients into your sphere. Under the right circumstances, promotional events and advertising can work also.
And… attraction strategies alone are rarely enough to build a thriving business.
by C.J. Hayden | Dec 5, 2018 | Marketing Plans & Strategies
It’s the time of year when we self-employed professionals often begin to look back at what we’ve accomplished in our business over the last twelve months, and judge our progress and results against what we 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 done right this year.
My new client “Rhoda” had looked over her past year’s results and was feeling discouraged when we had our first coaching session. She’d hoped to get 10 new graphic design clients this year.
by C.J. Hayden | Nov 6, 2018 | Getting Things Done
One of the most persistent barriers to the success of self-employed professionals at marketing themselves is the “I don’t know how” problem. Here’s how it often goes.
An expert or a colleague advises you to take some specific marketing action: “Collect all your leads in a contact management system” or “Write a white paper” or “Ask your website visitors to subscribe to your mailing list” or “Develop some referral partners.” You evaluate that idea, and decide it’s a good one. “Great,” you say, “that’s just what I’ll do.”
