The Lifestream of Jon Moss

Beware of the Marketing Trap

March 5 2009, 11:08am

I’m one of those heretics who believes that selling is much more important than marketing. Why? Because, a few years ago, I fell into the marketing trap, and my business almost failed as a result. What was I doing? Well, I spent a lot of time going to various networking groups, and just didn’t find that many viable clients. What I found were a lot of other people looking for (you guessed it) clients for their own businesses. I also did a lot of direct mail marketing, and lookie-lookie! It worked wonderfully. For a while. Then I noticed that the people on my carefully crafted mailing list had become immune to my oh-so-stylishly designed and cleverly written postcards. I might as well confess to all the time I spent on getting those postcards ju-u-ust right. Not just the Photoshop and Illustrator time, but the time spent in running them by other people. Carefully crafting that mailing list ate some hours too. Then there was publicity. I knew quite a few people whose businesses took off like rockets after they’d gotten some media coverage. Matter of fact, that just happened to a good friend. But, back here on the Martha Ranch, the PR news isn’t nearly as good. Except for one newspaper story which ran on July 4th (talk about a slow news day), my publicity-seeking efforts were for naught. Since networking, direct mail, and publicity didn’t help get my business out of the doldrums, I decided to try advertising. Which cost a lot of money – and produced very few leads. I also spent a few weeks in a mentoring program. And my mentor planted a seed. He suggested that I:

Identify people who might be interested in doing business. Get in touch with them.

He gave me the names of some of his colleagues, and I actually called a few of them. Alas, my first set of warm calls didn’t go well. Since I didn’t know what to say, I got tongue-tied. Which sure didn’t pique the interest of my mentor’s colleagues. My mentor was disappointed too. What’s worse, the lady running the mentorship program wasn’t too happy about my wanting to try, this, that or the other business venture in order to stay afloat. So, she showed me the door. That was in mid-September 2006. For a few months, business improved. I even joked that getting kicked out of that mentorship program was the best thing that happened to me. Then came 2007, and business sank back into the doldrums. Summer ’07 looked like it was going to be long, hot, and slow. It was time to try something I’d avoided for years: cold calling. In order to avoid the “I Don’t Know What to Say” problem from fall ‘06, I decided to use a calling script. I started with the script that Dan Turner offers in his Freelance Workshops. As for finding lists of people to call, no problem. I soon found myself inundated with lists of people who fit my Ideal Client Profile. And, since business was down, I had plenty of time for cold calls. I spent the summer of 2007 on the phone. And I landed a project before summer’s end. It was the design of two logos for a company with two top executives. Unfortunately, the two head honchos couldn’t agree on the appearance of the logos, so the project came to a standstill. Oh, well. Can’t blame that outcome on cold calling. And the good news was I was paid for the work I had done. In the fall of 2007, my cold calling efforts led to a couple more projects. Then came The Whale. This 2008 website redesign project that turned out to be one of my biggest – and best-paying – gigs ever. And it came about through cold calling. Last week, I submitted a proposal for a branding project. This one’s directed by man who was involved in The Whale. (I warm-called him after The Whale was finished.) And this project is even bigger than The Whale. (Should I call it The Whale On Steroids?) I don’t know if my proposal has been accepted, but I’ll keep you posted. It’s time to wrap things up, so I’ll leave you with five Morals of the Story:

The trouble with being marketing-centric is that you can get too dependent on putting things out there – advertisements, direct mail, media coverage, your business cards at networking events – then hoping that people respond. If they don’t, you have a big problem. You can also fall into the perfection trap. We all know people who’ve spent weeks and months perfecting their marketing materials while all sorts of business opportunities are flying by. I confess to being one of those people. If your business gets so lean that you’re backed into the cold-calling corner, prepare to live like a church mouse for a while. You’ll find yourself becoming quite adept at cutting business and personal expenses. Once business improves, don’t give up on your outreach calls, be they cold or warm. They’re a great way to keep your name out there. And they’ll force you to cut to the chase. No striving to create the perfect marketing materials now. Your job is to describe what you do – and how it benefits others – in as few words as possible. Does all this mean that you should cut out marketing altogether? No! I still go to networking meetings – but I make sure that they’re attended by people who fit my Ideal Client Profile. I’ve also been known to send a postcard now and then. As for publicity, I wouldn’t mind it, but I don’t make seeking it into a major life activity. Seeking clients is much more important.