Over the last month I have been looking at my
marketing of my business. Although I spent 10 years
in sales and marketing, I have done precious little of it
for a long time now.
My tried and trusted technique of business coming to
me as a result of word of mouth, or just meeting
people and enthusing about what I do, has been
surprisingly successful up until now. However, this
approach on its own has created a cycle of feast and
famine, with far too much famine, for my liking.
There is a lot of truth in the saying "If you keep on
doing what you've always done, you'll keep on getting
what you've always got."
So why does someone, who has a large amount of
knowledge and experience of what works and what
doesn’t when it comes to sales and marketing, only
use one approach and avoid all other approaches? I
can assure you that as an expert marketing avoider, I
could give you many reasons and excuses for why
other techniques and approaches wouldn’t work and
why there is therefore no point in considering them.
For all my eulogising on the merits of setting future
intentions in a number of my past coaching tips, when
the distinction was made on my NLP course between
a problem frame and an outcome frame, I realised
that I have been looking at marketing through a
problem frame for all this time.
In what tense do you think a problem frame might look
at everything? You’ve got it – THE PAST! The problem
frame is all about: what the problem is; how long it
has existed; whose fault it is; who is to blame,
what your worst experience is with the problem; and
why it hasn’t been solved.
When I see it in that light, I’m not surprised that I
haven’t managed to address or solve the problem yet.
Since redefining my marketing in an outcome frame, I
have worked out where I want to be in a year, in 3
months and in 1 month. As a natural progression from
this, I have created several marketing sub-projects to
take me from where I am now to achieving those
outcomes.
Just that simple distinction has removed the
accumulation of obstacles that had piled up and
had created a dam in my marketing river.
So my question for you is "which particular river within
your job, business or life is currently blocked with
obstacles and you can only see it through the frame of
a problem?" For those of you who manage teams, the
outcome frame also applies if you want to help team
members reframe any problems they are currently
facing.
Identified the river? Good. Now ask yourself (or your
team members) the following questions?
" by Joseph O'Connor & Ian
McDermott. Ian McDermott is leading my NLP training.
His writing style, similar to his training style, is
relaxed, informative, practical and without jargon. I
have read a couple of other NLP books before, but this
is by far the easiest to understand and the easiest to
relate to your own life. It also highlights the difference
that using NLP concepts and techniques can make in
your life. *****
