Your Clients Really Want To Know YOU!
Caught this on Tom Peters blog this morning....
"Can't Buy Me Love
10 years ago, I moved into a new office and started using a travel agent across the street to book business travel. She never once tried to solicit my personal leisure travel, although I did have her book hotel rooms in Europe about 4 years after I'd begun to use her.
Her effort on my personal travel was, to say the least, lame. Didn't seem like she cared to be doing it, and I pretty much stopped using her for anything after that. About the same time their agency joined a travel agency consortium called Virtuoso, and I started receiving Virtuoso's quarterly glossy leisure travel brochures, overprinted with the local agency's name and address.
I've never received a personal call from them—over 10 years—to solicit my leisure travel, and the one time they did a trip for me they put in a weak effort. Yet, they're spending money 4x/year to send me leisure travel brochures that I'm not responding to.
Why do people think that the secret to marketing is to pay someone to do it for you? Great marketing isn't something you can buy. You have to do it."
This spurred lots of thoughts about being an Independent Professional and marketing yourself & your business.
1. First of all, Wow! It can be that easy! If his travel agent would have just picked up the phone and checked in on him, got curious, maybe even ask..."What else can I do to make your travel planning more wonderful?"...she might have received a more biz!!! It could be that easy!
2. Many business owners I talk to (especially anyone who considers themselves a cultural creative type) would rather die than PUSH themselves on anyone in the name of marketing! I am SO with you. AND, I think that in this busy, insolated world...you can't REALLY push yourself onto anyone. They just delete, don't answer, let caller ID screen, voice mail, call when you aren't there, computer crashed....yadda, yadda...
So, it's really thinking about it as "SHARING" yourself. That's it! Just sharing yourself, your passion, your stories, getting curious about them over there...it can be that easy! All the travel would have had to do was to SHARE herself!
3. The other piece here is about ACTIVE marketing vs. INACTIVE marketing. A glossy brochure is inactive. It doesn't do anything by itself - without you. Not to mention (well, ok, I will...) that I get a whole mailbox full of gossy brochures and they all look alike instead of standing out. Truly....put a bunch of them together and see for yourself! They only set a standard put they don't stand out and they don't market themselves.
4. What if....she took Seth Godin's advice (columnist for Fast Company and author, Purple Cow) and did something remarkable. Took the glossy brochure money and send TP a huge bouquet of the most exquisite flowers from Holland. WOW! (And TP is all about WOW!) He would have felt like he HAD to contact her and say thank you - that connection was easy, right?! AND, if it really was WOW! then he wouldn't be able to help himself...he would of shared with others what she did because he felt so special and was so impressed. And, TP talking about you is well, probably, an ultimate in referrals!!
Sidenote: It's not about sending the gift so you'll get the referrals, it's about be truly generous, daring to connect with your clients, making yourself available, being curious...
OK, enough marketing banter...I hope this inspires you in thinking about your marketing efforts....it can be that easy, natural & fun!
Happy Friday! Sourcing sunny skies in Atlanta soon!
Laura~
