Today a client of mine emailed me with great news. He is starting to see results from the last 6 months of his marketing efforts. For instance, his sales pipeline is heating up thanks to an educational letter and follow up campaign we worked on — including 2 recently closed deals. He just spoke at an association that serves his target market and landed a client and a lead that way. Plus he is actively getting referrals from his existing customers, which now number about 70.
But 4-5 months ago, things didn’t look so rosey. It is only thanks to a consistent, focused commitment to marketing that he has achieved these results.
While you can see instant results by marketing, it takes time and persistence to build momentum.
Hopefully you have a plan and are sticking to it. Don’t get frustrated. Results come to those who persist.
Some positive thinking guru used to tell the story of a bunch of gold diggers who dug a big hole looking for gold and eventually gave up. Then someone else claimed the land and found a huge supply of gold after digging only one foot more. Keep digging!
yer, but for some people, they can dig till they drop and still nothing :lol:
if you feel you have tried, and you are tired of the enduring punishment, then try something else…
July 25th, 2006 at 6:14 am
Well, I totally agree with you andrew. Marketing is all about hitting the ears for long time over and over to get results. You won’t get those clients by sending couple of emails or mailshots and that’s it!! no way … I guess you have to keep marketing and adapting different ways according to the most effective Marketing Trend, and then push in that way.
Congratulations for you and your client ;)
July 25th, 2006 at 6:24 am
I am a client of Andrew’s also, and I agree with the ’stick to it’ factor. Andrew helped me to devise a marketing message that would help attract new clients from a market I was trying to reach. Refnining the message wasn’t easy, but the really hard part was repeating that message constantly in every format I could think of, while slowly (and painfully) building a pipeline.
Now, things are starting to move and I can see it all falling in to place!
July 25th, 2006 at 6:44 am
The most difficult part about being persistent is that if your original strategy is flawed then you are simply wasting your time. I think dhecker is downplaying the importance of a refined message.
I remember a blog entry of yours in the past Andrew on how you “cold call”. I have found that to be a fantastic way to do it. Now what good would being persistent do for me if I wasn’t marketting the right way?
The hardest thing to learn is what is an acceptable time frame to be persistent before you have to admit you have failed and need to try something else. What if you had only tried to climb 1 corporated ladder instead of 4 before going into business yourself?
This entry just seems to rely on the reader already knowing a lot in order to be helpful advice. That in its self is dangerous for a first time reader. Anyway your stuff is great Andrew, and even though I may seem critical I do appreciate the amount of FREE professional advice you give out.
July 25th, 2006 at 8:32 am
Gamermk:
Great points. My only point of difference is that we all have to start somewhere. Action somehow breeds results, even if the action is less effective than it could be. For instance, meetings one person who doesn’t buy can still lead to meeting others who do.
And, the more “novice” we are in our approach, the less slick we appear and the more likeable we are. That’s the “rookie luck” that we all hear about. Rookies have no preconceived notions and tend to ask questions and take things from a blank slate. So they perform better. Then they start getting smart, make pitches to the client, and get worse results. Finally, they learn to act like novices, in a conscious way. (This concept is borrowed from Sandler, You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar).
Anyway, you can always improve. Start somewhere, and keep improving!
The tension, of course, is when to quit if you keep not getting results. I’ve addressed that in other blogs — for instance, set a stop loss or time limit so you don’t go completely broke!
July 25th, 2006 at 9:05 am
Action somehow breeds results, even if the action is less effective than it could be.
Action always breeds results, whether they are the desired results or not; inaction only breeds undesired results.
Just thought I’d throw that in to the discussion :)
July 25th, 2006 at 11:20 am
Yep, success seems connected with action and possibly you need to attack your market from multiple positions and competitiveness.
July 27th, 2006 at 2:31 am