Stella Orange, WORDSMITH Marketing strategy & copywriting to make your cash register sing

Pulling back the curtain on getting clients

Are you hiding behind your marketing?

There’s a myth out there, and it’s making me crazy. Let’s bust it, shall we?

It goes something like this: to get clients, you need a slick website, fancy business cards, and a whole bunch of marketing “stuff.” As in, things you send or give people. Professional things. Impressive things. “Look how many certifications I have and what schools I’ve attended” things.

Horsefeathers.

You don’t need that stuff to attract clients.

(Recovering Perfectionists: I’m talking specifically to you, here. I know this is hard to believe, but you don’t need to have your whole brand or entire program planned down to the last detail before you start reaching out to people. That’s the beauty about being human—others like us better when we aren’t totally together!)

I’ve been noticing that lately, with all the nifty ways to communicate with each other—cell phones, email, the interwebs and social media and so on—it’s really tempting to run around like a chicken with your head cut off.

When in fact, you can just revert to doing things the old-fashioned way. Help people out. Show that you will go above and beyond to help them reach their goals. Call people to share a resource they’ve been looking for. Listen. Send handwritten cards. Share your sparkling sense of humor, your uncommon generosity, your belief that things really do turn out for the best most times…and when they don’t, no hard feelings.

In other words, you will get really good at selling once you put your focus on how to help other people. In the way they want to be helped. Using your talents, skills, and wisdom. Without being a pest.

What you really need to get clients isn’t marketing infrastructure. All you need is something that people are willing to pay for—and a way to find those people. Here’s Stella’s preferred technique to finding clients for your jelly:

1) Grab a sharpie marker and yellow legal pad.

2) Write what problem you are trying to solve (via program or coaching or product)

3) Make a numbered list of all the people you know with that problem

4) Write an email or bullet list of how your jelly can make their lives better

5) Call or email the people on your list and ask them if they’d like to hear more about putting an end to this problem they are highly motivated to solve

This works a whole lot better when you have built up goodwill ahead of time. More on that in future posts—or if you’ve got a way to build goodwill that you’re happy to share, put it in the comments, below.

Mighty thanks to hsingy’s flickr photostream for the red velvet curtain.