Okay, I'm talking to myself here. I admit it. I hate networking.
Well maybe it's more that I'm intimidated by it. Those horrible early morning breakfast clubs of bright eyed, bushy tailed people are my worst nightmare besides dreaming about snakes crawling on me. (Funny, they both give me a creepy crawly sensation)
However ----
Most of us do more informal, unconscious networking than we realize. Time to reframe the creepy crawly feeling, and optimize these moments to help us stay in business.
My favorite form of unconscious networking is to be an active, helpful participant in several online communities. There are multiple opportunities for using this tactic:
- membership forums and topic specific discussion boards
- Yahoo groups and other e-lists
- social media -- post questions, links to resources, compliments to others, not your daily activities
- blogs -- yours and your comments on others
A second form of unconscious networking that doesn't involve breakfast is the random sharing of info and resources on a personal basis. Whether a tactic for staying in touch with former clients, or cultivating new ones, you can:
- pass along links to online resources of interest
- forward notices of others' events
- send new tips sheets of relevance
- recommend books, services, workshops
- ask for their opinions or help
And third, make a point of meeting influence leaders in your niche for lunch or coffee. Ask for their help in understanding the concerns of their friends, colleagues, or clients (as relates to your specialty, of course). Use the information you gain to develop a tip sheet, and send it back to them with your thanks (and your card!). Request that they pass it along to everyone they know who'd be interested.
There. Now isn't that easier than trying to get a word in edgewise at 7:15 am that's coherently self-promoting?
A coaching colleague has been telling folks that it takes 4 or 5 years to get a solo practice really profitable. That's true for a lot of self-employed people, it seems. But the questions to me are, why and is that timeline the only reality?
You may have already been asked -- are you running a business, or a hobby -- and not realize what that means. Here are my rules of thumb for making that distinction:
You're dabbling at a hobby if you:
- tell a few friends and ask them to spread the word
- send a few fliers or postcards to names out of the phone book
- design a website that talks all about you
- put a few "articles" on a blog, call it a website, and never update it
- try to appeal to everyone with every problem because you "can't afford to turn away clients"
- spend more time getting organized than doing marketing tasks
- change your pricing too often, or give away your services, or use sliding scale too much
- use less than 4 hours a day for marketing in the first year (or more)
You're seriously running a business with a commitment to succeed if you:
- create do-able business and marketing plans before ordering business cards
- schedule 4 hours a day, 6 days a week to accomplish tasks on your marketing plan
- hold yourself accountable for keeping those appointments with your business
- isolate an ideal client niche and use the language they do in describing their problem
- work methodically in developing the foundational pieces of your marketing message
- be systematic in pursuing your marketing strategies for connecting with those ideal clients
- create many ways to give valued help as a relationship-building strategy that gets clients
- develop an emotionally compelling, helpful to clients web-presence
- lead with your personality strengths in determining the right marketing activities for you
- pull together a support team that includes professionals with expertise you don't have
Sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it? It is.
Being in a self-employed business is like having several businesses going at once. You have to do the all the work that corporations have multiple departments and many people to accomplish. Yes, some of the work can and should be outsourced to those who can do it better, faster, and cheaper than you can (after factoring in trial and error).
If you aren't ready to eat, breathe, and sleep your practice, you've got yourself a hobby.
Asking our target audience what they're main problems are that they are right now willing to invest in solving is the action of getting basic marketing intelligence. Big corporate advertisers do this by paying research companies to host focus groups.
Solopreneurs can do the same thing. In fact, it's a good marketing strategy to do so. People love to give their opinions usually. And they like to talk about themselves, and complain about their problems. A focus group is a gold mine of marketing intelligence.
The basis of an invitation to come to a focus group can be that you are gathering information on the topic of ______for a special report you are writing, or for the development of a special tip sheet or CD or workshop. Pitch the invitation as you wanting info from the "in the trenches" experts (your target niche audience).
During the focus group, be sure to sprinkle into your listening a few free tips. Just because you are acting as an information gatherer doesn't mean you aren't still the specialist in your field. Never miss an opportunity to let people sample you doing your work.
Of course, you then do have to create the report (or whatever), but that becomes a further good marketing tool itself.
Gathering marketing intelligence is a standard phase of business development for all startups, and for any new major product or revenue stream launch. They can be fun, informative, and excellent networking -- all at the same time! A great way to leverage your efforts.
I'm hearing coaching students voicing reluctance to declare a niche in the same way that my counseling colleagues are reticent to do so. In the coaching spirit of reframing and shifting perspectives, I offer these thoughts:
What A Niche Is
A niche is a magnet. It's a way of presenting yourself as a specialist in helping an identifiable set of people with a defined range of problems, and drawing those people to you to aquire your help.
A niche is a focusing tool. It helps you determine how to put the range of your skills into language that people who will want them can recognize.
What A Niche Isn't
A niche is not a description of you. You are not the niche. Your clients and their problems are the niche.
A niche is not a way to limit who you work with. It's a way to better ensure that some if not most of the people you work with will be ideal for you -- ideal as in, have issues you really like to work with and feel exceedingly expert at, and who perfectly match your preferred way of working, your personality, don't blink at your policies, and think you're worth every penny.
A niche is not about the work you do. It's about getting clients so that you can DO the work you do. Despite believing that a good coach can coach anyone who is coachable (or that everyone is coachable by a good coach), that idea is not helpful in marketing. In fact, it's counterproductive because it promotes vague, overly general, and confusing messages.
The same holds true for naturopaths, who by training are primary care generalists. Specialize in a condition and/or a population, and you'll have a full practice.
Likewise for mental health counselors, who take comprehensive exams and then feel we can treat almost anyone. Maybe so, but prospective clients want a clinician with some expertise in their specific issue.
Prospective clients will not care or be impressed by the fact that you can coach, counsel or heal everyone on / with everything. That actually may sound implausible and therefore suspect. It will make your marketing backfire.
We all feel special and unique, and when we need help we want the specialist who is expert at our unique problem. We don't want the jack of all trades.
Ironically, holding yourself out as a specialist in one area will make you seem more client attractive to others in other areas. They psychology is that if you are an expert at one thing, you're probably pretty darn good at a few other things. Whether that's true or not, it works for the purposes of marketing.
And that's why niche marketing works for coaches and NDs like it does for counselors.
Posts
