.
Q.
“I don’t really know how to do marketing for my own business — I avoid it because it makes me feel uncomfortable. I’ve always gotten business by referral in the past, but I can’t count on that for regular business anymore. How can I start to effectively market myself without feeling like I’m being pushy, which then makes me apologetic and ultimately ineffective?”
A.
This is a really great question, and it has got to be one of the things I have to reinforce most in my clients — the real reason you owe it to yourself and your clients to market your business. Most small businesses have a problem with this . . . even marketing firms who create marketing campaigns for clients feel some degree of “ickiness” about promoting themselves.
Why you feel icky about marketing
First of all, why does the thought of marketing your company make you uncomfortable? It’s because marketing has gotten a bum rap. It’s all those years of dinner-time telemarketers and used car salesmen and people pushing products and services on you that you don’t want or need, and the strong desire you have to not be like those people and/or companies.
Well, you don’t have to be.
You can market differently. You can market with integrity.
What is marketing?
When you think about what marketing really is, you realize you have a choice — and you don’t have to take the icky route.
Marketing is simply getting what you have to offer in front of people who don’t know what you have to offer. And if you do it correctly, marketing is getting what you have to offer in front of people who want what you have to offer.
It can also be getting your ability to solve a problem in front of people who want the problem solved.
There’s no pushing or coercing involved.
It’s like if you had extra potatoes
When we all grew our own food (no, I’m not that old, I’m being hypothetical here), there was no need for food marketing. If you needed potatoes, you grew potatoes. But what if you had extra land and extra potato seeds and one year you decided to grow extra potatoes for other people in your community — how would you let them know you had the potatoes?
You might decide to put them in a wagon and take them to the town square. (Because you grew these potatoes before the Internet and had no other means of distribution.) As a service to your neighbors, you would take the potatoes “to market” (hence the term marketing) so they would know you had them available. Maybe you’d find a piece of wood and write “Potatoes” on it so people could see your wagon and know what you had in it.
And if you were really helpful, you might yell, “Potatoes! I have potatoes!” every once in awhile so your neighbors could scurry over and take advantage of your bounty. They’d be so pleased you did this (because they needed to feed their families), that they would pay you well for your potatoes. You did them a service by taking your potatoes to market and letting them know they were available.
Everyone wins. No one feels icky.
You’re actually doing your prospective clients a favor when you let them know about the availability of your products and services
Have you ever searched for something you wanted to buy and not been able to find it? Sure you have. When you finally did find it somewhere, did you feel like you stumbled on a best-kept secret? Did you feel like telling the shop owner he should advertise more so people could find him? Yes? Would that marketing have felt icky to you, or would you have been grateful for it? I think you can see what I’m getting at.
Marketing that is authentic and correctly done is a service to the customer. And, businesses that don’t market themselves are doing a disservice to their customers by making their offerings difficult to find.
So think of potatoes the next time you think about marketing your company. Remember that someone is looking for your service — how can you get what you do “to market” so people can find you, in a genuinely helpful manner? What can you do that would make them feel grateful instead of icky?
When you’re putting together your plan, just leave the ickiness out.
Get my free special report "5 Power Shifts You Can't Succeed in Business Without" when you sign up for my PowerSmarts list.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve said this before, Marcia, but …
I think sometimes people get marketing and advertising mixed up. They’re not interchangeable. They’re two horses of very different colors.
So what’s my point, you wonder?
For me, the “ickiness” is associated with advertising.
When I just think about the word, advertising, I get an immediate image in my brain of all those junk ads and flyers I get in my mailbox and hanging on my front porch doorknob, the nuisance of interruptive advertising on television, the bothersome calls I get from companies who install windows who just “happen to be in my neighborhood” this week and want to stop by to give me an estimate (I rent a condo, for crying out loud!), and other forms of “icky” advertising.
I welcome and embrace marketing with open arms. And, actually, it’s fun!
And I enjoy it to the fullest when I’m marketing someone’s product, program, or service I adore. :)
That’s because you know how to do it well, Melanie! And you do it right.
I do talk to many business owners who can’t bear the thought of promoting themselves, in any way — it’s actually painful for them. Instead of being visible, they’d kind of rather hide. And that doesn’t get them any business.
This is especially true for business owners who enjoyed a steady stream of referrals and word-of-mouth marketing for years and then for one reason or another, with the change in the economy, now find themselves without that steady flow. They’re lost. And kind of frantic sometimes.
Oh, if they only had your point of view and could embrace it with a sense of fun! That’s what I love about you, Melanie.
So listen up, everyone, if you want to see how someone does it right, check out Melanie’s blog on a regular basis — her conversations are inspiring: http://www.melaniekissell.com/
Thank you Mel!
Thank you for the wonderful compliment, Marcia — I’ve learned from the best! (present company included) :)
I hear what you’re saying about some biz owners who “hide” behind their businesses or those that feel “lost” without the comfort of a steady flow of word-of-mouth referrals. In today’s marketing environment and with the inception of social media, no wonder they want to coil up and slither away.
The Times They Are A Changin’ (Thank you, Bob Dylan!)
You’re a doll — thanks for the shout out!