So you’ve got things up and running, maybe running for a while. You’ve got your business in motion. But maybe you’ve hit a dry spell or you were busy with another project and stopped marketing or you’re still trying to get things off the ground. You’ve been talking up your business at events, reunions, family gatherings and on a variety of social media outlets. You’ve got your elevator pitch ready, you’ve got shiny business cards, a crisp new suit, and a good solid website. But there’s just one problem.
Nobody’s lining up.
What do you do?
Take a look at your basic sales skills.
Review your marketing plan. Have you created a system for building relationships with clients? It takes more than a few tweets, website clicks or hellos at a wine and cheese.
Keep your marketing active. Even veteran consultants can fall behind if they get caught up in big projects and stop marketing. Keep connected. Follow up with people you meet. Connect with other businesses. Check in with past leads.
Check your target audience. If you’re doing your marketing and nothing’s working, make sure you’re going after the right market. Now, perhaps you’ve been taking a broad approach because you’d honestly give anything to be working right now. I mean, work’s work, right?
Wrong.
Let’s say you’re washing your car. The front window has a blob of tree sap and blossoms on it. The rest of your car is in pretty good shape. If you could just get this one spot, things would go better.
Would you use the regular, glugging water from your garden hose to try to get something like that off? Would you turn use the gentle, fine mist to spray the whole front of your car, just to get at that spot?
Of course not!
You’d probably put the sprayer on the setting for a single, fast, hard stream. Maybe you’d incorporate a few other techniques – cleaners, soaps, a brush, sponge, even your hands. You’d work hard to get at it. And that’s what would work in the end. Using a fine mist to cover the whole front of the car – even if you’re busy washing the car anyway – isn’t going to hit the spot.
It’s the same with marketing your business. If you want marketing to hit the spot, you have to figure out where that spot is! Identify, profile and target your market. Own your niche.
Remember, you need to market all the time, not just when you’re out of clients. Turn marketing into an act of self care and nurture.