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More Clients
- the Online Marketing Newsletter
for Independent Professionals
from Action Plan Marketing
and Robert Middleton

In This Week's Issue: Not experiencing success at the level you know you're capable of? Try getting supporrt!

 

The Support Factor

Something I've noticed about myself is that I'm the quintessential do-it-yourselfer. This is both a strength and a weakness. On the strong side, I'm a self-starter - creative, independent, decisive and persistent. I make things happen.

But on the weak side I'm impatient, know-it-all, controlling and not the world's best listener. I don't naturally seek out support.

Sound like anyone you know?

Since the majority of my subscribers, clients and customers are either coaches, consultants, trainers or professionals whose focus is to help others, it's rather ironic that they are often the hardest to support themselves!

However, I discovered something recently that made me look at support in a completely different light.

Over the past twenty years I've structured my business so that I didn't need much support. I've been a "one man band" all this time. Without me there is no Action Plan Marketing. I pretty much do it all. (Sound familiar?)

Sure, this has its advantages, but it also has tremendous limitations. I can only do so much, can only work so hard, can only contribute to a limited number of people.

What I realized is that if I push away support (which I've done with a level of expertise that is truly astounding), my goals (and thereby my achievements) will always be relatively small.

Do you have big goals? Are there important things you want to achieve in your life and your business? Do you want to make a profound contribution? Do you want to break out of the ordinary?

If that's the case, you simply cannot continue to do things the way you've been doing them if you want a higher level of results. And the biggest thing you need to do is discover how to get support in making those dreams real.

Let me bring this down to eath, a practical example.

The InfoGuru Manual and the Action Plan ToolKit. Great tools, if I do say so myself. Lots of great information and how-tos. But you know what's the most valuable part of these tools?

The support component. Each includes a free Support Forum where you can share ideas, get feedback, learn about resources and be supported in moving your business and marketing forward.

The Forums are so useful that I regularly ask questions of them myself and get great ideas that have helped my business. Just yesterday I asked for and got some feedback.

But guess how many people who have purchased these programs belong to the Forums (let alone use them regularly)?

For the InfoGuru Support Forum it's about 17%. For the new Action Plan ToolKit, so far it's about 14%. In other words, over 80% of those who got these programs to help them be more successful marketers even bothered to take the approximately 20 seconds it requires to sign up for the Forums to see what was there.

Like I said, getting support is a big issue for Independent Professionals!

Anyway, in working with the Action Plan ToolKit myself, I've set some of the biggest, most outrageous goals of my career. And as my clarity has increased, it's obvious that I'll need other people to support me in getting there.

I'll keep you posted on my progress.

But back to you. What are you going to do to get outside of your comfort zone where support is a foreign concept? It's not so hard really. Set some big goals and then find a support structure that will help you realize them.

And, of course, I have a few recommendations.

One, attend a special "TeleIntro" on the upcoming "Marketing Action Groups." These are my ultimate support system for Independent Professionals who want to take their business and marketing to a whole new level of success.

It's on Tuesday, December 6 at 10 am Pacific by teleconference. Details at the link below:

http://www.actionplan.com/teleintro.html

For those of you not quite ready for that level of support, I have the InfoGuru Marketing Manual and the Action Plan ToolKit. But for goodness sake, sign up for the free Support Forums that come with them, if you're serious about making things happen!

InfoGuru Marketing Manual - The all-in-one comprehensive marketing resource for Independent Professionals who want to attract more clients:

http://www.actionplan.com/infoguru.html

Action Plan ToolKit - The catalyst that will help you turn your marketing ideas into solid plans and tools that will help you get past your resistance to marketing yourself.

http://www.actionplan.com/aptk.html
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The More Clients Bottom Line: Set big goals and get support in achieving them. Start to realize that doing it all yourself is more of a weakness than a strength. When you commit to this, you'll be amazed at the support that will appear to help you make even your wildest dreams come true.

 

Until next week, all the best,

Robert Middleton

ACTION PLAN MARKETING
Cracking the Marketing Code for Independent Professionals

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www.actionplan.com

210 Riverside Drive
Boulder Creek, CA 95006
831-338-7790

Contact by email

© 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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