More Clients - the Online Marketing Newsletter
for Independent Professionals
from Action Plan Marketing
and Robert MiddletonIn This Week's Issue: Mastering the middle step between an intention and a marketing plan.
Pre-Plan Brainstorming
I got a lot of positive response from last week's More Clients on "The Action Trap" in which I discussed creating clear intentions.
Isn't it interesting that things like purpose, intention, goals, plans, and time management are just as important to marketing your business as specific marketing techniques?
I've fielded so many questions on this topic that I'm in the process of creating a new online program - the "Action Plan ToolKit." It will walk you through the steps of creating, planning and implementing successful marketing activities and projects.
For the next few issues of More Clients, I'll be giving you a bit of a preview of some of the ideas from this program.
Once you're clear on your intention and the marketing goals you want to accomplish, what's next? How do you start developing a specific plan for marketing your services?
What if you have no marketing ideas?
After all, you offer a professional service; you're not a marketer. Not really a problem. Why? Because you can borrow someone else's ideas. Best if you start with proven marketing strategies that have already been used successfully thousands of times before.
These include: networking, speaking, teleclasses, web site, email, joint ventures, mailings, writing and direct outreach. But how do you turn these into a customized plan that will work for you?
Pre-Plan Brainstorming
Pre-plan brainstorming is a simple process or tool to help you think about how to make this marketing strategy work for your unique situation.
You simply start with one strategy and a whole lot of questions. Your answers to these questions give you the raw materials to create a more structured marketing plan later on. I usually do this kind of pre-plan brainstorming in a spiral-bound note book.
OK, so let's get rolling with one of my favorite marketing strategies: Speaking engagements.
Let's say you've never used speaking before to promote yourself but you know that other's have done it successfully. That's all you've got to go on. Here's what pre-plan brainstorming looks like:
"Could I speak in front of groups? We'll I guess I could. I might not be very good to start but I could get better. I know many who've used this approach to market very successfully. Why not me?"Where could I get some training? I've heard of Toastmasters. I could check them out. Maybe a seminar. I'm sure there are a lot of books on the topic. I'll make a list and get a few.
"What would I talk about? Well, I've been a consultant for awhile and clients have all kinds of management problems. I could do a talk on the "Top 10 Management Problems and How to Solve Them." That's a start. I know, I could send an email to my clients and ask them what topics would interest them most.
"Where would I speak? I could put on my own seminars but that might be a little risky to start. But I know a lot of professional groups in town who use outside speakers. I've seen some of them and I could do as well or better.
"Where could I find lists of professional groups? Library? Chamber of commerce? Also the events section of the Monday paper lists business events. Shouldn't be too hard. I'll start calling around.
"How will I approach the groups? I guess I'm going to need a package of some sort to send out. Boy, I have no idea what it should contain. Maybe one of those books on speaking would help. Let me look one up on Amazon. Hmmm. Here are three: "Speak and Grow Rich," "Speaking as a Professional" and "Money Talks." I'll order all of them now. Click, click click.
"Now if I can create an interesting talk, get a little help on giving a good presentation, and learn some of the ins and outs of getting booked for talks, I'm on my way! What else?
"How am I going to turn participants into clients? At talks I've seen people do a drawing or offer a report in exchange for a business card. I could do that. I already have a few good reports. And then I guess I'll need to do some follow-up calls. Not a big problem. But I might want to bone up on that a bit too. Amazon again. "How to Win the Sale." Sounds good. Click, click.
"OK, I think that's a good start. I'll start working on talk ideas and researching organizations. When the books arrive I'll work up a more detailed plan for putting my materials together and contacting organizations."
And that's pre-plan brainstorming! It's very action-oriented. In the process I've made a simple list of action items and ordered four books that could help me. I'm going in the right direction despite never having spoken in front of a group before. Could you do this? Most definitely!
Next week: Creating a more structured plan.
* The More Clients Bottom Line: Pre-Plan Brainstorming gets the ball rolling towards a more definite marketing action plan. Start with every question you can think of and go wherever they lead.
Resources to help you develop your own plan
When you're doing your pre-plan brainstorming, some of the most important pieces of the puzzle are books, manuals, seminars and other information that provide the hands-on, how-to information you'll need to complete your marketing plan.
Good places to start for most Independent Professionals are the two main products below offered by Action Plan Marketing. They give you the information, resources and support to develop detailed and proven marketing strategies for your business.
The InfoGuru Marketing Manual
This manual will help you develop a complete, workable marketing strategy to attract new clients to your business. Includes detailed information on all the marketing activities that work best to attract clients if you're an Independent Professional plus an online Support Forum to answer any marketing question you might have.
http://www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html
The Web Site ToolKit
This ToolKit provides you absolutely everything you need to create a high quality web site that will establish a solid foundation for all your marketing. It will show you what to put in your site, how to write it, format it and design it for the best possible results. Includes dozens of tools and resources plus samples of web sites you can emulate.
http://www.actionplan.com/wstk.html
Until next week, all the best,
Robert Middleton
ACTION PLAN MARKETING
Cracking the Marketing Code for Independent Professionals~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
210 Riverside Drive
Boulder Creek, CA 95006
831-338-7790© 2005 Robert Middleton, All rights reserved. You are free to use material from the More Clients eZine in whole or in part, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify me where the material will appear. The attribution should read:
"By Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Please visit Robert's web site at http://www.actionplan.com for additional marketing articles and resources on marketing for professional service businesses."
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