"I realized it's so hard for me to market myself because I have the belief that if you have to market, your service can't be good. After all, if your service was good, everyone would talk about you and you'd get all the business you could handle from word-of-mouth."

This was voiced by one of the members in my current Marketing Mastery Program, a very capable corporate trainer who has been avoiding doing any marketing for years. 

But she's not alone. This is a prevalent belief. And it not only stops self-employed professionals from achieving marketing mastery, it stops them from even attempting to implement most marketing activities. 

Marketing mastery doesn't start with marketing principles, but with a realization of all the limiting beliefs and mindsets that we hold onto desperately and that prevent us from doing anything. 

I answered my client by asking if this was really true. Is it true that your services are not good if you market them? After all, if you develop a new and valuable service, how is anyone going to know about that service unless someone (probably you) informs them and educates them about its existence and value?

She had to admit that this was true. Her beliefs had blindsided her, preventing her from taking action. 

But underneath this belief is an even more insidious one. It's the belief that when I market myself (especially if I'm a professional service provider), that people will disapprove of me somehow. Worse, they might ridicule me with my own belief:

"How could her services be valuable if she has to market them? She must be offering sub-standard service that can't stand on their own." 

Oh, the shame of it all!

Marketing seems to be burdened with emotional land mines, waiting for us to step on them and blow ourselves to smithereens. So better to stay safe and do nothing at all. Someday we may be discovered and deemed worthy. 

The trouble is, that by marketing, we are inherently looking for approval. And if we don't get that approval it means our intended prospects not only don't care about us and our services, they think of us as the equivalent of pond scum, just by the act of promoting to them. 

No wonder we avoid marketing like the plague. 

Is there a solution? Well, to avoid all disapproval and scorn we could attempt to market ourselves perfectly. 

And many endeavor to do exactly that. 

Perfect marketing would be sharing our services in such a dignified, ennobling and yet enticing manner, that everyone who heard about our services would respond with joyous exaltation! With perfect marketing, 100% of those we communicated to about our serves would not only respond, but would buy. 

Give me a frickin' break!

Marketing reality: Only about 1% to 5% (and sometimes much less) of those who hear or read a marketing message are interested in it enough to respond in some way. That means 95% to 99% simply don't care - at least right now.

And those who don't care, don't hate you or revile you in any way. They simply tune you out. They are paying attention to other things right now. Some may be interested later; some may never be interested. Your marketing is never going to be perfect. 

Marketing mastery isn't about perfection. It's simply about making an honest attempt to communicate about your services while maintaining some semblance of dignity and integrity and by following these guidelines:

      √ Offer services with real value

      √ Understand the needs of your clients

      √ Tell the unvarnished truth

      √ Communicate clearly

      √ Talk about results more than process

      √ Highlight benefits and advantages

      √ Tell success stories

      √ Make your message relevant and interesting

      √ Follow up unflaggingly

      √ Maintain friendly persistence 

If you do this kind of marketing consistently, ultimately you will get the attention and interest of those who need your services. And even if your response is a just a few percent, you'll attract the right clients who will pay you well. Not only that, you'll get more of the word-of-mouth that you wanted in the first place. 

So stop worrying about what people will think. Start marketing!

The More Clients Bottom Line: Marketing Mastery starts with the realization that if you have something of real value, it's worthwhile sharing it. Nobody will blame you for that; in fact, many will respond favorably. But if you hold back from marketing,  out of fear of what others think, you are depriving the world of something that could make a real difference.

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