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Quickstart - Marketing is NOT about Getting New Clients
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Quickstart
Grow a Profitable Consultancy and Still Have Time for a Life
In this issue
Note from Beverley - The Big Win
One Step Further - Marketing is NOT about Getting Clients
Personal Reflections - You Never Know When
Note from Beverley
Well the waiting is finally over. I have been waiting, praying to every god imaginable and keeping positive thoughts that "the big contract" I was hoping to win came in. It did, last Wednesday and I am thrilled.
Firstly because it means great revenue, great work and more fun, but secondly and in some ways more importantly, it showed me that networking, keeping in touch and strategic alliances reap benefits over time (more of that in Personal Reflections)
Why not share your successes with us all - email me and let me know - go on boast!
Have a good week.
Beverley
bev@onestepfurther.co.uk
www.onestepfurther.co.uk
+44 (0) 1344 625713
Beverley Hamilton is the author of Take Control of Your Time: 7 Straight Shooter Strategies for Success. Find out how you can manage
- how and on what you focus your time
- how you can identify and eliminate your time stealers
- how you can change what you are in control of and live with what you can't change
Go to www.TakeControlofYourTime.com to change your time management problems into time control solutions.
One Step Further
Marketing is not about getting clients
... OK it is, but it's also about putting clients off.
Now before you say rubbish Hamilton you've finally gone mad. Think for a moment.
* As a business owner do you want great clients or do you want any clients?
* As a business owner do want ideal clients or just anyone with a pulse and a chequebook?
I know what I want - great clients
So how you can increase the likelihood that only your ideal clients will be attracted to you?
Get non ideal clients to deselect themselves right from the start.
Some of my clients moan and whinge about poor payers, poor decision makers and poor everything else in some of their "key" clients and yet they tolerate them, sometimes out of desperation - harsh? Maybe. But it's true.
Why do we tolerate bad/poor/non ideal clients? (That's another subject all together!)
Your marketing is about attracting your definition of an ideal client. It is also about detracting, deflecting and putting off non ideal clients.
So how you can reshape your marketing messages so that non ideal clients deselect themselves up front saving you and them, time, stress and money.
Worth thinking about?
Let me know what you think.
Personal Reflections
I met Chris Croft for a "30 minute coffee" about 3 years ago. Chris runs the Croft Management Centre, a training and development company based in Poole, Dorset.
We have kept in touch over the past 3 years and Chris is a subscriber and reader of Quickstart.
About 6 months ago I got a call out of the blue from Chris saying "Hi Bev, long time no speak. I can't believe it's taken 3 years but I think I've got a project that we could work together on"
Well that 3 year wait and keeping in touch has led to the big win, I mentioned earlier.
What's great about this story for me is that it reinforces some beliefs that I hold to be true
1. Networking works - if you do it correctly
2. Networking may take time to reap benefits
3. Networking produces mutual benefits
4. Strategic alliances work when you know what each other can bring to the party (in this case as it is a coaching project - I bring coaching experience and Chris provided the client)
5. Knowing what you are good at, where you can benefit from working with or using other people's skills and looking for opportunities reaps rewards - if you look for them.
I am grateful for Chris for giving me the opportunity to work on a great project that hopefully will lead to more work and I hope Chris can reap the rewards of both revenue and a ongoing client relationship that grows and is enhanced by this new programme.
So to the networking and alliances doubters out there - let me ask you.
What if...........?
Best Regards
Bev
bev@onestepfurther.co.uk
www.onestepfurther.co.uk |
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