Self Employed Success

When it comes to marketing to multiple niches, I have two words of advice:

1. Go ahead! There’s nothing wrong with targeting multiple niches. BUT…

2. Pick one and become a leader in it, then move on to the second one.

If you try to go after too many niches (target audiences) at the same time, you will wear yourself out. It’s exhausting and doesn’t use the “best of you.”

When you go after too many niches simultaneously, your marketing time and money is scattered too broadly. Say for example that you want to go after “salespeople in the pharmaceutical industry” and also want to go after “salespeople in the auto industry.”

Their appears to be a common denominator (salespeople), but the two industries and the two selling styles are dissimilar.  You would have to connect with both industries simultaneously, which means you can’t really focus all your time, energy and marketing money on just one target. Scattered focus equals scattered results.

In my article, The Problem With Niches, I said that the whole purpose of choosing a niche is so you can find a central place that potential clients congregate. Find ALL the places where auto industry sales people congregate: meetings, magazines, conferences, classes…especially those that are specifically focused on the niche you’re going after. Center your marketing attention on those areas first. Once you become known and recognized in that niche, then move on to other industries or other niches.

I’ll be adding to this series each Thursday, and you can check out all the past posts in the Why Marketing Fails series here.

This isn’t my ordinary blog post.

It’s long. It will take you exactly seven minutes to read it. (I timed it!)

It tells the story of my journey to reinvent my business. You might recognize yourself in the story.

And at the end, there’s something exciting waiting for YOU.

It Begins With a Feeling, A Knowingness

Two years ago I was feeling restless. I knew there was something more for me to do in the world, but I was confused about the direction I wanted to take my business. I knew I needed to reinvent my business model, but I was so busy running my current business, I couldn’t imagine where I’d find the time to think it through.

I found myself ignoring the call of my inner voice.

This wasn’t my first stab at reinventing my business. I’ve done it five times before! I know how it feels when the reinvention is complete (awesome!) but the process didn’t have boundaries or guidelines and it was making me nuts. I wanted a step-by-step process that combined linear thinking and a creative approach.

Then I started getting phone calls and emails. My clients and colleagues who were already running successful businesses were saying the exact same thing: I want to reinvent my business.

Was some sort of cosmic event going on or was it just a natural phase in every business cycle, this need to transform and grow a business? As I helped them, I explored the process, the techniques and the landmines to avoid.

My Ah-Ha Moment

It took me a year (no kidding) to finally get it. After a year of knowing I needed to transform my business, the idea synthesized and coalesced instantly: My new business model was going to be all about helping people reinvent their business!

As I worked on my model, I became clearer about my values and how they had to be incorporated into my new business model. After 16 years on the internet I was desperate to connect to real, live human beings. I missed face-to-face time with colleagues, students and clients. So that had to be part of my new business model as well. Both a virtual component and a live component: it had to have it all.

Zig When They Zag

But when I looked at all the live workshop models out there, they were all leaning towards huge workshops. Sometimes they had 400 students in a room and 10 different instructors. I’ve been to those kind of workshops and I learned a little from each instructor. But I had three things I hated about those big workshops:

• I didn’t learn enough in-depth information
• I didn’t walk away with an action plan
• I didn’t really get to connect deeply with the other participants

So while my colleagues were all creating mega-workshops, I decided to create a small, intensive workshop about business reinvention, one where I could see everyone’s face, learn each person’s name and their story, and create a group education experience which included training and brainstorming, action planning and connectivity to the group.

Is It Time to Reinvent Your Business, Too?

If you’ve read this far, you might be thinking, “I’m feeling restless, too. I know I need to change my business model. What’s next for me?”

Welcome to the tribe. Many people who have been in business for longer than five years feel the exact same way. It’s part of your business life cycle.

Sometimes life circumstances change and after less than five years you find you need to transform your business to fit what’s going on around you. Sometimes you’ve been in business quite a while, say 10 or 20 years, and it’s no longer challenging to you. You want to grow and you want your business to grow with you. Or maybe you’re looking to simplify and scale back.

Wherever you are on the journey to business reinvention, I salute you.

It’s Uncharted Territory: Until Now

I reviewed my own five business reinventions and pulled out the common elements. I found the step-by-step process by reviewing what I had done and what my clients had done during their business reinvention journeys. I interviewed my colleagues to see what their experience was like. I took all my knowledge about business strategy development, creative thinking, and business planning, and created a model, an easy way to think through the entire process and create a reinvention plan of your own.

Introducing Compass: Your Roadmap to Business Reinvention

This website isn’t for everyone. It’s for those of us who have owned our businesses for a while and are ready to reinvent and transform it, but don’t know where to begin.

In the Compass website you’ll find information on the steps you need to take to reinvent your business. You’ll find blog posts and stories from others who are on the path to transforming their business model. You’ll find inspiration and advice.

I’ll be updating the Compass blog each week with more information, more stories, more education. I’ll answer your questions and do what I can to help you on your journey.

And you’ll find The Compass Workshop, a live workshop I’m teaching in November in Philadelphia, where you’ll learn to use the Compass Model TM to reinvent your business along with a very small group of other solo business owners – just 15 people will attend this special workshop.

So now you know about my journey and the roadmap I created for myself. I am so excited about this next phase of my life! Don’t worry, Passion For Business and The Success Alliance aren’t going away; this is a new brand in my empire. LOL!

Are Your Ready for the Journey?

If you know that now is the time to start thinking about reinventing and transforming your business, visit the Compass website.

http://www.RoadmapToReinvention.com/

P.S. Remember to register for the free August teleclass: Get Off Your Business Plateau! Details are on the Compass website.

Remember the childhood game, Pin The Tail on the Donkey? You would be blindfolded, spun around three times, and a paper donkey tail would be put in your hand. Your job was to “find the donkey” and attach the tail to it, without raising the blindfold. Lots of fun!

(When you were 6 years old. Not so much today.)

In business and marketing, working blindfolded is a curse. And you’ve no one to blame but yourself. If you don’t have a business plan or a marketing plan, you haven’t answered the foundational questions, especially the ones that go like this:

• Who is my ideal client?
• Who is my target audience?
• How can my audience be divided into segments?
• Where can I find them?

If you feel like you’re running around in circles with your marketing, it’s because you ARE! Your prospects aren’t moving…but you can’t find them because you can’t see them. Pin the tail on the prospect.

Please don’t tell me that you have these marketing plans “all in your head.” Have you ever actually seen a business plan or marketing plan? These are sophisticated documents that takes several hours (sometimes several days) to really think through. It’s not something you keep in your head. Write it down.

And update it at least once a year. Times change, your customers’ needs and challenges change, technology changes. You’d better keep up or you’ll be left out.

If you do not have an up-to-date business plan and marketing plan, STOP marketing and get thee to thy writing desk! Learn how to write a business plan, and what belongs in a marketing plan. These are strategic documents that you can’t afford to be without.

You are capable of taking off your own blindfold. Make a commitment today to doing the homework necessary to building your business by building your foundation. It’s not as hard as you fear, but it takes a bit of thinking and pondering, and a little research. You’ll have a happier (and more prosperous) business once you get these documents under your belt.

I’ll be adding to this series each Thursday, and you can check out all the past posts in the Why Marketing Fails series here.

Did you ever work on a project that you just ADORED?

The kind that you think about day and night, the kind that gets you jumping out of bed each morning eager to get immersed in it?

In just 7 short days, I’ll be launching a new project I’ve been talking about, dreaming about, fretting about, and loving for over a year.

If you’ve been in business more than five years, you’re going to love this! I can’t wait to share it with you.

Keep your eyes peeled for the next big adventure…

There are some people in the world who love the challenge of “cold calling” – that is to say, they enjoy calling people who they have never met, have never had any contact via email or phone, and asking them whether they need your product or service.

But what about those people who DO contact you and ask about your products and services? Do you follow-up with those “warm” phone calls and emails?

Most people will make at least one follow-up phone call or email to a prospective customer. But if they don’t get a response back, they often drop the whole thing. No one wants to feel like they’re being a pest.

But you have to remember two important things:

1. The prospect called YOU.

2. There are many reasons why a prospect might not call you back.

Let’s look at both reasons. In the first place, the prospect contacted you. They ARE interested or they wouldn’t have gone to the effort of leaving a voicemail or sending an email. People who take action, even these seemly simple actions, are motivated and interested.

In the second place, just because they don’t return your phone call or email doesn’t mean they’re not interested anymore. Think about your own life for a minute: I bet you’re a very busy person and there’s always something going on that needs your attention. Items on your to-do list slip off, including returning phone calls and emails. Well, your prospects are just like you! They’re busy, they’re time-constrained, and they’ve got to put out fires, first, before they can take on another task.

I’ve done an unscientific test over the past six months. I’ve continued to call and email people who have expressed an interest either in my business coaching work or my website design work, just to see what happens. Amazing! In nearly every single case, the prospect was grateful that I took the time to continue to follow-up, even though they hadn’t replied to me.

So why hadn’t they replied to me? In short, life happened:

• A family member died and they had to go out of town to take care of funeral and house-selling tasks for a month.
• A child was preparing for a big college-entrance exam and needed a lot of extra time and attention.
• They, themselves, were working on a big proposal for a prospect and put everything else on hold until the proposal got out the door.
• They had never gotten my reply email (a spam filter had captured it).

…And any number of other reasons. All legitimate.

How often should you follow-up? Here are the rules of thumb I work with when I get a prospect call or email:

• First contact: we try to follow-up within one business day.
• Second contact: we re-try 7 days later, always via phone (darn those email filters!)
• Third contact: 10-14 days later, both by phone and by email

In marketing and sales, being shy or lacking confidence is a killer for your business. If people express interest in you, now is the time to connect with them, repeatedly if necessary, and not avoid it.

I’ll be adding to this series each Thursday, and you can check out all the past posts in the Why Marketing Fails series here.