Who Says Marketing Can’t Be Fun?

Many independent professionals do lots of marketing, yet feel confused or frustrated that they don’t see more results. “Why isn’t it working?” they wonder. “I’m out there month after month to build my business, but my growth is so slow!”

I can relate. When I first started my coaching practice, I went to networking events with a goal of enrolling three new clients. Somehow, I really thought that I could meet three people in that hour and be so charming and compelling with them that they would want to hand me a check right there!

I was delusional.

Marketing services is somewhat like dating. You wouldn’t walk up to someone you just met and ask if they’d like to have a committed, monogamous relationship for the next few years, would you? It takes time to develop rapport and trust, and it must be clear to both parties why that relationship should continue.

Prospective clients need several things before they’ll be ready to think about doing business with you, such as a need or desire for your services, clarity about who you are and what you do, trust that you can and will deliver on what you say, and a degree of rapport with you. They will only get these things if you consciously take them through the required steps to get there, and it’s your job to make those steps happen.

Introducing Marketing Ball:

Marketing Ball is the first of the Seven Principles I work on with my clients. Think of the bases of a baseball diamond and how a runner must tag each one, in the required order, before returning to home plate. Like those runners, your ideal clients must go through the following steps with you, or else you’ll lose them.

Stranger – this is simply where all clients-to-be start out. They don’t know you, and you don’t know them.

Affiliation – rather than cold calling people, it’s easiest to connect with people you have something in common with. It could be membership to the same organization, being a part of the same industry, having similar interests, or anything else that provides an opening to the relationship.

Attention – where the relationship is borne of affiliation, it really gets going when you get their attention, by appealing to a need or want they have. This means they have a cursory understanding of what you do and how you might be able to help them. When you have their attention, you have them on first base.

For a lot of service professionals, this can be misleading; often we think that because someone’s interested, they’re ready to become a client, so we rush into talking about our process, and how they can become a client. But it’s too soon for that. Before they’re ready to think about becoming a client, they want to become familiar with you.

Familiarity – this is anything that advances the relationship and you develop a comfort level with each other. It could come in the form of coffee or lunch with the prospective client and finding out more about their business. It gives them the opportunity to feel who you are and what you’re about. They want to make sure you’re genuine, credible, and find out if there’s a real chemistry between you. Familiarity is where trust begins, and without that, a real relationship—business or otherwise—is out of the question.

Information – Once someone feels more comfortable with you, and sees that you might be able to help them, they need to fully establish that what you offer is right for them. They need to know more details about what results they can expect, the process or methods you use, and so on. By this time, they have a metaview of your services, and they’re starting to understand how you might help them. The information stage fills in the gaps for them. At this point, some people might be on second base—ready to explore working with you, and it can be appropriate to start the sales conversation (more on that later). However, one way to strengthen and advance the relationship before that is to give them an experience of who you are and what you can do for them. Experience - this might come in the form of a presentation you give to them or their company, it could be a sample session, or just spending some time looking at their business and evaluating what’s needed next for them, all depending on what’s appropriate to the service you offer.

Most importantly, it’s a chance for you to show off your skills and abilities, and for them to really see and feel what it would be like to work with you. Again, you’re building their trust that you can truly help with their needs.

Once you have a prospect firmly on second base, it’s time for the selling conversation. The selling conversation is not convincing, persuading, or manipulating them to work with you. It is nothing more than getting clear on what they want, what obstacles are in the way of them achieving it, and letting them know specifically how you plan on helping them with that.

These steps can’t be rushed, nor can they be skipped. Just because you’re hungry for more clients doesn’t mean they’re ready for you—yet.

The point of Marketing Ball is this: everyone in your pipeline, everyone that could become your client, is in one of those stages. Now that you understand the stages, all you have to do is identify where a given prospect is and do what you need to do to take them to the next.

If someone is familiar with what you do and you have (or have had) their attention, it’s time to get them some more information. If it’s someone you just met and you need to follow up with them, do what you can to build some rapport and familiarity.

And most importantly, always remember that there are plenty of clients out there. It’s your job to meet them where they are, communicate clearly, and build strong relationships. If you do those simple things, you’ll have an abundance of new business in no time.

Until next month, play Marketing Ball like the game it is, and have fun.

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