10 Marketing Mistakes That Push Away Clients*

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Brian Taylor
5 years ago
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1 1 10 Marketing Mistakes That Push Away Clients* An Action Guide by Robert Middleton * Please note that the tone of this article is ironic. But the ideas underlying these ten points are absolutely serious. It seems crazy, but many Independent Professionals seem to do their best to repel clients. See if you notice yourself in the ten things people do to push away clients in droves. S uccessful marketing is overrated. It means a lot of hard work and aggravation, and can eat into the precious time you ve set aside for reality TV and watering the plants. What to do? Fortunately, most self-employed professionals are already pretty good at repelling clients. Call it a gift. But why not get even better? The ten time-tested strategies in this article are designed to drive away prospective clients in droves. The good news is that most of the strategies are fun and easy to implement; they take virtually no effort on your part. The key is to keep avoiding any kind of marketing activity at all. Before long, you ll achieve the lofty aim of repelling all your prospects. Think of the freedom! 1. Refuse to learn any fancy marketing approaches

2 2 Marketing is easy; there s nothing much to learn. Heck, you re a smart professional; you know how to talk to people and how to write s. That s about all it takes. Don t be seduced by fancy marketing strategies, tactics and processes. Not a good use of your valuable time. Marketing can also be tedious. Why spend a lot of effort learning the rules and working so hard when you can just wing it? You ve already invested a lot of time learning your profession, and that s all that counts. People already understand the value you offer, so why sweat it? 2. Hold onto your comfortable marketing mindsets Old, familiar marketing mindsets are fine. You don t want to get outside your comfort zone, so I recommend holding on to the following marketing mindsets: Marketing is pushy and leads to rejection Nobody is interested in my services anyway I don t have the time or the money to market myself I have superior services; I shouldn t have to market I can t start marketing until I know exactly what to do I m not a confident/dynamic/charismatic marketing type If you maintain these marketing mindsets you ll never have to take responsibility for your marketing. If you re not attracting clients it s a whole lot easier to blame others, your

3 3 circumstances and the economy (not to mention mercury being in retrograde). 3. Keep changing your marketing messages Keep em guessing! Don t settle on anything so mundane as a clear, consistent marketing message that people will remember. Where s the fun in that? No, you want to make them work to understand what you really do. Never really settle on one thing that captures the essence of your business. By changing your message frequently you ll appear cool. At one networking event tell everyone you re a coach specializing in motivating business owners. At the next meeting, talk about how you bridge the gap between vision and results. When people insist on knowing more, say, People call me a business alchemist. Very cool. 4. Talk only about yourself and how great you are Be the focus of attention, be interesting, and talk a lot. Gain admiration and build self-esteem by showing prospects how brilliant you are. After all, everyone loves an expert. So make it your top priority to sound like one. To accomplish this, use a lot of technical jargon. Plain talk just doesn t cut it. Use phrases like: interfacing personality resources, dynamic improbability, and enacting epistemological

4 4 paradigms. That ll wow them. Just keep talking; after all, your prospects don t have anything interesting to say. 5. Don t ruin your website with actual content When it comes to websites, less is more. Keep it cool and sleek by using a few bullet points and a lot of trendy white space. Don t bother with attention-getting headlines or text that explains how you help your clients. Keep your copy short and as vague as possible. And no pictures of yourself! Don t include any of the following: Information about your target market, details about how you work, or anything about the services you offer or the results you ve produced. Why confuse them? If you give them no clue about what you do, they ll never contact you to learn more. Easier for you! 6. Don t have a marketing game plan of any kind Marketing plans? Shmarketing plans! Don t burden yourself with a structured approach to marketing. Planning is so 80s. Better to depend on affirmations and the Law of Attraction to bring you new clients. Declare that you want to quintuple your business this year and it s bound to manifest magically. When the impulse to get organized rears its ugly head, suppress it. An ordered desk, to-do list, and mind are liabilities

5 5 for the self-employed professional. They can all lead to planning, and you know what that means: crushing your creative spirit. 7. Make your marketing as random as possible Why work on a focused, step by-step marketing plan when you can market randomly? One day leave phone messages with past clients, the next day post blurbs on Facebook and Twitter, and the day after write a blog post about what you did on your vacation. At least this will keep you busy. Remember, marketing is all about activity, not results. You wouldn t want to do any marketing activities that actually resulted in meetings with qualified prospective clients. That would be too direct, too manipulative. Instead, a flurry of random marketing activities will make you feel you re actually accomplishing something, even if you re not. 8. Completely avoid keep-in-touch marketing Why would you want to stay in front of your prospects? Look, if you meet someone or if they visit your website, they ll call you if they re interested in your services. Why try to force things by signing them up for an ezine? Those people with big lists who send out s with information on new services, upcoming events and special offers aren t professionals like you. You have more businesslike restraint.

6 6 Legitimate professionals wouldn t stoop so low. You may have a valuable service, but why call so much attention to yourself? After all, nobody reads these days. And what would you write about anyway? No, put any kind of keep-intouch marketing on a back burner. No risk, no worry. 9. Don t sell, just tell (and tell, and tell) If you happen to get the odd appointment with a prospective client, avoid the embarrassment of selling. You don t want to be persuasive, or, God forbid, pushy! All those selling techniques are worse than marketing techniques. Your best strategy is to simply talk all about the features of your service. Don t leave out a single thing. They want to know about your five-step process, how you developed it, and exactly how you d implement it in their company. Give lots of technical details. Don t spend any time asking questions, determining goals or outlining the costs if they don t take action. No, that s all too salesy. Oh, yeah, and wait for your prospects to close. They ll respect you for it. 10. Wait by the phone for prospects to call you back Following up is beneath your dignity. Whether you meet prospects at a networking event or sit down with them to explore your services, the ball is always in their court, not yours. You

7 7 don t want to look too aggressive or desperate by following up. The safest thing is to wait forever. Don t show too much interest in them. Any sign of enthusiasm about working with a prospect makes you look uncool. Better to be aloof and play hard to get. You want them to call you back asking for an appointment or for the privilege of working with you. If you never hear back, well, that s their loss (and a big relief for you as well). Well there you have it. A foolproof 10-step plan to repel every single prospective client who crosses your path. Give these ten strategies a try as soon as possible and you ll never have to worry about working with clients again. No doubt this will take some time and commitment, but if you adhere to these maxims you ll be out of business before you know it! About the Author I m Robert Middleton and I ve been working with Independent Professionals on their marketing since I ve helped thousands of professionals to make them better marketers of their services, through individual coaching and consulting, workshops and manuals, and programs conducted by teleconference and online.

8 8 I m the author of the InfoGuru Marketing Manual, the WebSite ToolKit, and the Fast Track to More Clients Program. My weekly ezine, More Clients, now goes out to more than 40,000 small business owners all over the world. My experience is that I ve never met a person who couldn t be a better marketer by taking the time to learn and practice my seven proven strategies for attracting more clients. An Alternate Approach to Marketing If you re open to a radically different approach to marketing by checking out the Fast Track to More Clients Program that instills the practices and skills to attract as many ideal clients as you ll ever need. All the best for great marketing, Robert Middleton

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