Why Intelligent People Struggle in the Marketing World

Who, however, is expanding your company when you are attending to the requirements of your customers? What strategies do you have in place to entice and keep a regular supply of candidates who are qualified and motivated? How can you attract and maintain clients who are engaging and who pay you what you're really worth? You are probably unable to answer those questions, just like the vast majority of other professionals, because the answers include marketing.

Referrals certainly have the potential to be a good source of new customers for your business, but they should be viewed as just one strategy among a variety of others that should be employed in order to ensure that you continue to attract the kind of customers you want for as long as you so desire. It makes no difference how many referrals you receive if you are unable to cultivate and deepen the potential connection that each referral offers.

Because of your status as a smart person, you have access to a wide variety of opportunities to bring in new customers for your company. In addition, they don't have to consist of the pricey items that come to mind when you hear the word "marketing," such as glossy brochures, advertisements, or direct mail.

However, your professional experience by itself will not distinguish you in a competitive market, nor will it attract customers to you. Neither of these things will happen. You have to make them aware that you exist and explain to them how and why you are distinct, as well as why you are better suited than anyone else to satisfy their requirements. This technique is known as placement. To succeed at this first and most critical step in acquiring more customers, you will need to put in some effort that is both smart and innovative.

After you have established your company's place in the market, there are four further key actions that must be taken in order to attract customers to your company and yourself: packaging, promotion, persuasion, and performance. Each phase demands that you be able to communicate with your target client audience in a number of ways that they can comprehend—in a language that is based on their needs rather than the language that you use as an expert.

In a nutshell, the following is a list of some of the tactics you might use for each of the primary steps to attract more customers:

Positioning: niche, speciality, specialness, reputation, unique competitive advantage, client-centered worldview, saying no, commitment, no Plan B, congruence, self-knowledge, re-niche Positioning: niche, specialty, specialness, reputation, unique competitive advantage,

Information dissemination in the form of articles, reports, surveys, websites, presentation decks, CDs/cassettes, videos, books, and mini-books is included in the packaging.

Knowledge-sharing, public speaking, writing, networking, recommendations, newsletters, e-newsletters, letters, postcards, calls, and teleclasses are all forms of promotion.

Listening, diagnosis, openness, curiosity, visioning, education, presentations, asking, advising, reassuring, and sharing are all essential components of effective persuasion.

Performance includes the following characteristics: competence, solutions, results, keeping promises, managing expectations, intelligence, creativity, guarantees, thank you's, commitment, living the talk, innovation, persistence, integrity, generosity, alignment within the organization, staying in contact, and management competence.

There is a good chance that you are now on a learning curve for at least one of these important milestones. To take your practice to the next level, even if you've been in business for years and have developed a successful firm, you need to set new KPIs, make sure that your niche hasn't become stale, and learn new techniques to reach that next stage in your firm's growth or maturity. This is true even if you've already been in business for years.

Are the owners, management, and staff of larger companies truly "walking the talk" about what it is that they offer to customers in the market? If so, it may be time to start paying attention to how your company delivers on the promises that it makes about its brand. Or are you a shoemaker whose children go barefoot, much like the majority of businesses that provide professional services?

Or perhaps you provide services to "internal clients" within a very large business and require support or buy-in for the services that your department provides. In this case, you would need to consider the second option. You can put these guidelines and tactics to use in your work to increase the likelihood of getting noticed, invited, receiving favorable attention, and gaining buy-in from others.

The question now is, what can a smart person do to bring in more customers? Listed below are some ideas to consider:

Raise the level of consciousness in your practice regarding the role that strategic marketing plays there. Put it on the agenda and use your wits to solve the problem, just like you would with any other significant component of your company's operations.

Develop a specialized area of focus for your practice, as it is impossible to please everyone with your services. On the other hand, the fact that you take pleasure in working with a specific market or favor a particular strategy does not guarantee that your target customers will feel the same way. You must have an understanding of the distinction between a good niche and a bad niche in order to formulate an appropriate strategy. The book "NicheCraft," written by Lynda Falkenstein, is a good source of ideas.

Position yourself in relation to other people, using their viewpoint rather than your own. Start your introduction with "I help Fortune 500 companies increase their market share" rather than "I am a strategy consultant." You should modify the statement to reflect the people you assist and the nature of the issue you tackle, but the general concept should be clear. Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing is the expert on the process that he refers to as "creating an audiologo," and you can find a wealth of information on how to do this correctly on his website.

Create a marketing strategy that not only brings in new customers but also assists you in retaining the ones you already have. Start with the measurements that represent what you want to change or improve in your practice, and then attach the system to the factors that are driving those metrics.

Create a plan of action that transforms your marketing system into concrete activities, complete with genuine assignments, deliverables, and due dates, and then stick to the plan.

Make a commitment to and establish a structure that will help you stay on track and motivated as you carry out the steps of your plan. Include non-billable time for marketing activities in the framework of your company model. A good rule of thumb is that your company should devote at least 20 percent of its total time to marketing.

Obtain the assistance and resources of knowledgeable individuals for any of these proposals, including their execution. This necessitates being away from the office for one or two days in order to facilitate concentrated thought and conversation among key personnel at many professional service firms. When you take into account the consequences of failing to act, you'll see that the time and effort were well spent.

In actuality, there are still two more "p's" involved in marketing. Patience is a necessity for marketing strategies that are both intelligent and effective, as well as the capacity to view this not as a string of transactions that can be finished in a few weeks or even months, but rather as a process of relationship-building with your present and potential customers over the course of time.

Learning basic marketing techniques is an important part of being an educated professional because this is a skill that will serve you throughout your life. What a brilliant move that was!