The zillion million ways to market your business

This weeks video was inspired by an email I received from a private mentoring client. We’d started our work together with a whole day planning out a strategy for her business. But a few months in and she sent me an email…

Watch the video or scroll down to read more.

The email went a lot like this:

“Catherine, I’m really enjoying the strategy we’ve been working on and I’m already starting to see the results, but a few days ago someone I met networking suggested I launch a podcast which I really like the idea of, and the next day someone else said that running a telesummit would be a great idea for me.  I’m also worried about my Facebook activity and think I should be doing more, and I know I should get more consistent with writing my blogs, and I’d like to speak to you about all this”.

Phew!

I don’t know about you, but I feel exhausted just reading all of that!  And this is from a Mum who only has so many hours in the day to work on her business in the first place.

I also know that she’s not the only one with an “idea a minute” about new things she could be doing to attract new clients to her business. Great ideas even!  Because she’s right, every one of those ideas is potentially a great one for her!

But can she do them all at once, without burning out, neglecting her family and ultimately falling out of love with her business?   I’d say probably not.

In fact, if she tries to implement all of these she’ll probably fall down flat through doing none of them quite well enough to get the results she needs.

Here’s what I told her, and it’s the same thing I want to tell you today:

There will always be a zillion million different ways that you can market your business.

To attract new potential clients to find out more about you, your work and how you can help them.

But here’s the thing that I’ve observed in the nearly 9 years since I first started my business:

Of all the people I know who have established a successful and sustainable business that works for them year after year, both business friends and former clients they have one thing in common:

All of them typically have just one or two core things that they do that bring in the majority of their clients and that they put their main focus on.

They do those one or two things very well, and they do them consistently.

They don’t and chop and change and start new things all the time.

If they do decide to do something new (like launch a podcast), they don’t do this at the expense of something else that’s already working. Instead they pause to see how they can fit it in to their other activities, consider the pros and cons and the demands on their time and energy.

And if they decide to do it they then go and do it properly

They do just one new thing at a time.

In other words most people with a sustainable and successful business that they actually enjoy running without making huge sacrifices in other areas of their life keep their marketing lean and simple.

After all, I know you didn’t go into business to be a full-time marketer.

You went into business because you want to get well paid to help other people. In other words you want to spend the majority of your time actually working with your clients – not constantly pursuing complex and time consuming marketing approaches.

So here is my advice to you:

First, get really clear on the one or two marketing strategies that you are going to focus most of your efforts on to attract new potential clients to your business. The ones that are likely to give you the best results given your personal strengths, weaknesses, location, budget, resources, contacts and what you think you’ll most enjoy.

Then implement these strategies one at a time and focus on them until you have:

a) Learned how to do them properly

b) Are doing them consistently as part of your regular business routine

Of course you’ll need to observe, and measure so that you know how well are they working for you.

But Beware:
Even the most effective marketing strategies take some time to get up and running and show results, so whatever you do don’t throw in the towel too soon!

But what about all the brilliant new ideas? I don’t want to get bored!

Once you have these core strategies up and running then of course you are going to have ideas for other things to do! Great ideas even!

These might be inspired ideas that bubble up from your own inner wisdom, something you come across online, or something that someone suggests to you and that you feel genuinely excited about.

And when that happens instead of being in a position of grasping at straws because you are spreading yourself too thin, you will be in a position of being able to sit back and ask yourself some important questions:

• Will I enjoy doing this?
• Given my stage of business and my existing resources and reach do I think that this will work for me?
• Do I think it will be fun to do even if it doesn’t give me the results I would hope for?
• Can I fit it in alongside the rest of my business commitments without stress and overwhelm?
• Can I do it without impacting on the marketing activity that is already working for me?
• Do I have the right sort of support to help make it happen?

If the answer to those questions is Yes then go ahead and give it a go – you might just find a new client attraction “sweet spot” and fall in love with your business even more!

But don’t be too in love with needing to try completely new things all the time – I can promise you there is nothing in the least bit boring about being fully booked with clients, or filling all your group programmes.  And when you are you can satisfy your creativity through new ways to serve and delight your clients, instead of constantly chopping and changing your marketing!

Is any of this resonating? Are you starting to see that you might actually be holding yourself and your business back through having too many ideas for attracting clients and doing none of them well enough to really get things working?

Create a Business you Love – Free PDF Guide

And, if you’d like to learn more from me about how to create a business you can truly love (without imposing arbitrary rules or other people’s “shoulds” on yourself) you can sign up for my free guide Create a Business you can Fall in Love — and Stay in Love with. Find out more and sign up here.