What can you do for me?
But just knowing what someone says they can do for us usually isn't enough, especially when we're laying out a lot of money. Before we give our business to someone, we need to have a sense that the person is competent and deserving of our trust. It also helps if they're likeable ... someone we feel a certain rapport with. The bottom line is we need to believe that the person can produce the results we want and we need to have a good feeling about working with them.
And what's the best way to determine if a practitioner is likeable, competent, trustworthy, and therefore most likely to produce results?
The very best way is to have an actual experience of the person, to see them do what they do or hear them talk about their area of expertise and how they get results. The next best way is to get an endorsement of them from someone whose judgment you trust.
So, what does this have to do with successfully marketing your business? Everything!
The simple truth is that people hesitate to give their business to people they don't know. So marketing strategies that don't give the prospective client a personal experience of you should almost never be your primary marketing tools if you're a service provider.
That means that brochures and websites and advertising and other "passive" marketing strategies, while important elements of an effective overall marketing plan, can't be expected to take the place of "active" strategies. Active strategies are approaches such as speaking to those in your target market, networking with them, and setting up strategic alliances and joint ventures with other professionals and businesses who can recommend you to their clients.
And yet, one of the five fatal marketing mistakes we see practitioners routinely make is that they try to make these passive "arms length" strategies take the place of giving the prospective client an up close and personal experience of them.
Some people know, at least at an intuitive level, that they need to make live contact with people in their target market, but they resist doing so, because they're uncomfortable with the idea of putting themselves out there. These are usually the introverts among us, by the way. It's easier to "hide behind" the more impersonal passive strategies. So, they let themselves get caught up in "doing things" that they hope will promote the business and fail to think strategically about what actions would get them the best results.
At BBI, we make a critical distinction between the strategic and the tactical elements of your marketing efforts. The strategic involves thinking, planning, and deciding. The tactical involves doing ... taking action to implement the elements of the strategic vision.
If you start taking action before you have a strategic plan, you're putting the cart before the horse. The likely result? You end up with a bunch of passive marketing tools ... nice business card, brochure, logo, sign, website, etc. ... that won't have the desired result of attracting clients!
So, our advice to you is to step back from all the doing and take some time to think strategically about the big picture. Do less and think more, especially in the beginning. Take time every week to analyze what will bring you your greatest results for the time, money, and effort you put into it. And, honestly, if you can't see yourself using one of the active strategies, you really might want to think about pursuing a line of work that doesn't involve personal marketing.
But if you're committed to successfully marketing your business, here are the four key elements in creating a marketing strategy:
