I’m often asked to help solo professionals re-vamp old and never-used marketing plans, but I can’t do it without a mindset check first. Why? Because the surest way to waste your marketing budget and your time is to be unclear about what your business is about, what exactly you offer that benefits your customer, and why anyone would want what you are offering.
A few weeks ago I was listening to a potential client voice her concerns that her accounting firm was not “changing to meet the times.” She wanted her other two partners to get enthusiastic about a new specialty for the firm – adding on accounting services specifically for the elderly and the adult children who often end up having to manage their parent’s finances from another state. She has quite a bit of passion about this idea and feels that the demographics support it. She wanted to hire me to help them come up with a new website and 12-month marketing plan for this new part of the business.
After just a bit of questioning, I found that the other two partners didn’t support it. Older than she, they were nearing retirement and felt they had enough work and enough money. They were past the point in their careers where they wanted to build something new. This fact threw new questions into the pot. Would the woman push forward, putting her own time and money into the effort with only luke-warm support from the rest of the firm’s partners? Would she break off from the firm and establish an entirely new business? If she did that, did she have the money to both establish a new firm and build a new service at thet same time? Would she do some of her old work to give her financial footing, and only work to establish the “geriatric” accounting services part time? Was she positioned well in her personal life to take on breaking away? Could she bring the other partners around to her point of view?
While she was impatient to “get started” I was not! The mindset and marketing required to make such a new endeavor pay off would be very different if she went out on her own as opposed to remaining part of the existing firm, which had been together for many years. My experience is that creating and implementing a marketing plan means that the basics are already in place. Otherwise, it’s too easy to spend time and money only to decide that you must go off in a slightly different direction because of the shifting ground of your business and personal life.
My focus for working with the person became helping her envision how her idea might best work, the structure it would take to support it, assessing if she had the personal and professional ground in place (she was recently divorced, had just lost a parent, and had been ill for months with mono). After that ground is firm, we can build a kick-butt marketing plan. But you gotta answer the deeper questions first. Otherwise, you’re going to waste your entrepreneurial energy. And that’s a precious thing to waste!
Lisa Scott says
July 2, 2010 at 11:29 amThanks for the reminder, Sue! I am one of those who has been known to jump in first and ask questions later, especially when it came to new business ideas that seemed so wonderful. I am learning to slow down, think it through,and ask for advice from those who know before jumping quite so quickly these days.
Kudos to you for telling your client what she needed to hear instead of what she wanted but would not have served her well in the end.
Kristina Shands says
July 1, 2010 at 6:05 pmThis is a great reminder that even our marketing efforts need to have a solid foundation instead of trying to build those elusive castles in the sky. Right on as always, and, as always, I have a few questions I need to ask myself thanks to you.
Kristina
suepainter says
July 1, 2010 at 7:17 pmThanks, Kristina.
Pinky McKay says
June 30, 2010 at 6:50 pmSue – I admire your integrity. Your clients must trust and love you . What a great reminder not to go off ‘half cocked’ but to think things through first before we waste precious time and money marketing something we cant provide because we havent found the ‘why’.
Mitch Tublin says
June 30, 2010 at 3:09 pmSue,
Great story to share with us. So often the reason a person reaches out to me is not where we end up spending our time and efforts.
There are times when they do not understand this and feel they must
find this specific answer and keep seeking to locate that one answer
with their blinders on. Good for you to ask the right questions and wait.
Mitch
Terry Monaghan says
June 30, 2010 at 12:46 pmSue –
I love this post. You are so right about the necessity of being clear. I am talking with some prospective clients right now about working with them on their strategy, and I am astonished at how unfocused and unclear they are about their target clients. Without a clear target, any direction will do. I am not letting them hire me right now – unless they are hiring me to hone in on their target!
Anything else would be a huge waste of time and money. Thanks for the reminder.
Beth Woodward says
June 30, 2010 at 9:49 amSue, you are so right about being clear on what you’re offering before putting the money into marketing. That is the BIGGEST dollar waste there is in business. In fact, I had a marketing purchase I was going to do this week and I thought long and hard. I realized it was not the best place for my marketing dollars.
Laura Hollick says
June 29, 2010 at 11:50 pmthe mindset is the foundation of it all!
you are very wise to start there first
Get Clear Goals with Lynn Moore says
June 29, 2010 at 11:14 pmA great service you did this client Sue. No room for people pleasing in the coaching business!
Lynn
Terri Brooks says
June 29, 2010 at 4:34 pmI have seen this so many times with my clients who come to me for website development and before we can even get the template developed, they have changed their minds 2-3 times.
It is SO important to know exactly what your end goal is and what you want before you start spending your time and money, only to spend more, when you change your mind.
Excellent as always, Sue!
Jeff Brunson says
June 29, 2010 at 4:18 pmI love y our integrity … and the consequent integrity of the marketing plans you build for your clients. I’m going to share this post with a colleague who is struggling to get his work ‘known.’ Thanks Sue, Jeff
Sandy Rees says
June 29, 2010 at 3:45 pmI think you were totally right to ask the Why question. Too often, we get excited about an idea and chase it before we even think about if we should.
Your client is lucky to have you there, asking important questions!
Sandy
Phil Dyer says
June 29, 2010 at 9:02 amSue – Great post! I think so many entrepreneurs are simply convinced they must be “in action” at all times and if business slows down, they must not be doing enough. I love that you asked that simple “Why?” question…
I also applaud your integrity in serving the client instead of just taking her money and delivering what she wanted…but not what your intuition told you she needed. Bravo!
Phil
suepainter says
June 29, 2010 at 9:45 amThanks, Phil. Yes, I’ve been accused more than once of being the “why” person, LOL!
Linda Pucci says
June 29, 2010 at 6:17 amThank you, Sue for the reminder. Some of us impatient types just want to jump into action and we tend to gloss over the basic groundwork that will make or break our marketing efforts. As always, very helpful information!
suepainter says
June 29, 2010 at 9:46 amThanks, Linda. See you Friday!