The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

Growing your business with marketing, week 44: Cumulative marketing

This is Week 44 of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. See the Project Companion Blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for in-depth posts, additional links and other marketing-related goodness.

During a week of zero networking events but several one-on-ones and (too?) many blog post, I suddenly had the whole issue of "regular" marketing reframed for me: not only is it a marathon, not a sprint (and cumulative, in a most excellent way), it allows for all kinds of adaptive implementation.

Visit the Virgo Guide to see what I'm talking about in explicit detail, along with some other insights and a schedule for the week.

Guacamole, Curry, Kung Po Chicken & Marketing Mind Blowers

Welcome to Week 43 of my adventure of following the Start Up Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and Week 6 as a member of the Marketing Plan Group. In my posts, I talk about my voyage down the road of self-employment as a website copywriter, my achievements and roadblocks along the way, and what I’m learning from my group experience.

Last week, I was in Lanzarote (one of the Canary Islands) on vacation. The trip was 7 days long, and I relaxed and had a therapeutic, fun time for 4 of them. After that, I was dying to get back to work. Not because I was stressed about what I was missing, but because I was excited to get back into the swing of things. While away, I realized a few things:

1. I love what I do. I missed it and couldn’t wait to get back to it. I’m so grateful for that. I also realized that the longer I’m self-employed, the more I adore it and the more I want to work towards being able to do it, successfully, for many years to come.
   
   
2. I don’t want to eat Eggplant Parmigiana at a Mexican restaurant. In the touristy resort town of Lanzarote, all types of food are available: Spanish, Indian, Chinese, Italian, Steak, Seafood, Mexican, Greek. Yummy, right?  Here’s the problem:  All of these cuisines are available at all of the restaurants. You can order Curry in the Italian restaurant, Pizza in the Chinese restaurant, and Paella at the Indian restaurant. Interestingly, none of the food was very good!  Lesson: As self-employed people, we can’t fill every niche in the same way these restaurants can’t satisfy every palate.  If I want Eggplant Parm, I want to go to an Italian restaurant that really knows how to do it right. If I want a Fajita, I want to go to a Mexican restaurant that really understands the spices. Experiencing this lack of specialization in the restaurant world made the dire need to specialize even more apparent in ours.

Marketing Plan Group Mind Blower #1

This week, my Marketing Plan Group got a lesson on the 10-word blurb. (This is what you say when someone asks you what you do.) I’ve heard a lot about the 10-word blurb and thought I had a good grasp on the concept, but then Ilise shared something that kinda blew my mind.

She said it’s all about the language. You can really draw in and attract your ideal clients by carefully choosing your words. Makes sense, right? But check it out in action. Here’s just one example:

I’m a fundraising copywriter.

OR

I can write a sales letter that will make your donors open their wallets.

It’s so short, but when done right, the 10-word blurb can be way more powerful than I thought.

Marketing Plan Group Mind Blower #2

We’ve also begun to compile information about where our prospects go, which groups they belong to, etc.  (I’m totally blown away by how many resources are out there for finding prospects!) Anyway, one of my group members found an event she wanted to attend but it was very pricey.

Then Ilise blew my mind again.

She said, “If you’re working with a small budget – why not volunteer at an event you want to attend? It gets you there, it’s free, and it gives you a reason to get involved with the other attendees.”  Seems obvious and perfect, but it simply never occurred to me.  Now you know… in case it didn’t occur to you either.

Have you learned any marketing lessons lately? We're always looking for guest posters. If you'd like to submit a post, send us an email!

A Positive Reference Isn’t Necessarily a Good One

I recently had a disappointing experience checking someone’s reference and it prompted me to change the way I provide references to my clients. So I thought I’d share what happened and my reactions and takeaways in the hopes that they might be helpful to you.
 
What Happened

I was considering hiring a company, let’s call them XMG, to provide an important, highly consultative service for my business.  I asked them for the name and contact information of people who had recently been through the process with them so I could get a reference.  They pointed me to a woman, let’s call her Sarah, and I connected with Sarah by phone shortly thereafter.

Sarah spoke very highly of XMG.  While she mentioned one thing that kept her from being 100% satisfied, she mostly heaped praise on XMG and strongly endorsed them for my project.  It was great to hear such a positive reference, but I hung up the phone disappointed – so much so, I ultimately decided not to hire XMG.  Here’s why:
 

What About a Weekly Budget Check-in?

We've been talking a lot lately about how creatives can do a better job dealing with the "money conversations" with clients. For my new book, I've been interviewing people on the client side to hear what they're looking for when it comes to talking money with creatives.

So last week, I interviewed Dana Manciagli, GM of a large division of Microsoft, who described to me her dream of how the money conversation would go with her ideal creative. She suggested creatives make it part of their process to talk money in every single conversation. Do a Budget Check in before hanging up. Just say, “By the way I want to let you know you’re on budget and there have been no changes since we talked last.” This shows a great deal of respect for the client and demonstrates your professionalism at the same time. (Plus it helps your client sleep.)

And if something has changed, that's the time to speak up right away and say, “That new section on the web site is out of scope so I’ll go get some new prices for you.” Then you formally re-quote, using the same language. “That extra section was out of scope and now we’re putting it in scope. Here’s the revised estimate.”

What do you think? Could you do this as a formal part of your process? Would it help?

Reading anything good?

We’ve added a few more helpful reads to our books page and we want to see if we’re missing anything. 

Have you read any books that have inspired you? Taught you something? Would be valuable to your fellow creative solopreneurs? If so, please let us know.

Growing your business with marketing, week 43: Odds & ends

This is Week 43 of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I'm applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week. See the Project Companion Blog, A Virgo's Guide to Marketing, for in-depth posts, additional links and other marketing-related goodness.

It was one of those chugging-along weeks for me.

I managed to get a lot done, when I looked back at things, but the week didn't feel particularly special. I guess what happens when you make marketing a conscious part of your daily life is that it does feel more natural and less weird. I'll still get a weird twinge when I have to put out a specific marketing message—I definitely enjoy the ongoing/building/organic style of marketing best—but overall, it's starting to feel as normal as brushing my teeth twice daily, and sometimes, as fun as a lunch out or a Netflix treat between jobs!

Visit the Virgo Guide to see the list of what went down, how I'm starting to deal with travel networking a bit better, and a few other odds and ends.

Bigger business vs. smaller business

Welcome to Week 42 of my adventure of following the Start Up Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and Week 5 as a member of the Marketing Plan Group. In my posts, I talk about my voyage down the road of self-employment as a website copywriter, my achievements and roadblocks along the way, and what I’m learning from my group experience.

I like working with smaller businesses. My group buddy does too. We’ve determined that with a smaller business, turnaround is quicker and you deal with less people.

We think larger corporations can take longer because there can be many different people who need to give input and approval on the project.

But we’ve also considered that maybe big businesses pay more.

What do you think? Do you get paid more when working with big businesses? Or does this even out because bigger business means bigger time commitment?

Do you have thoughts/experiences about working with bigger vs. smaller business?

How to get your work published

To celebrate the release of Designing for the Greater Good, co-authored by Peleg and Jonathan Cleveland of Cleveland Design, Peleg is hosting an L.A. area on Nov. 5th called, “How To Get Your Work Published.” It will show designers how to catapult their design work with the best free PR in the business -- getting international exposure in a high-end design book.

At this event, limited to 40 people, Peleg will talk with Nancy Heinonen, Publications Director of Crescent Hill Books.

During his interview with Nancy, you'll learn:

• What top editors and designers look for when selecting work for publication

• How anyone with a paying client can qualify for international exposur

• The easy steps you can take to streamline the submission process and maximize your chances for success

• How to develop and submit ideas for your own design book

• Plus: You'll have the opportunity to ask Peleg and Nancy your own questions in person.

Here are the details:

When: Thursday, November 5, 2009
7:00 pm: register & meet other LA creatives
7:30 pm - 8:30 pm: program followed by Q&A.
Where: The studio of our friends at Lime Twig Group, South Pasadena, CA 
Cost: $18.00- **advance registration required**

Click here to register and save your spot!

Free Event Tonight at NYPL

If you’re looking to learn and network -- don’t forget about libraries!

Whether it’s your local library or the New York Public Library, there are often wonderful, free events to attend. Or you can even offer to present an event.

Tonight I’ll be at the New York Public Library speaking about Self Promotion, On-line and Off. Join me. Here are the details:

Tonight, Tuesday, Oct 20, 2009 - 5:30 PM, NY, NY
NYPL Science, Business and Industry Library

Money is a minefield

In my latest Quick Tip, “Money is a minefield,” I talked about how many creatives don’t deal with money simply because they don’t know what to say.

We used scope creep as the perfect example. In a situation where the scope of the project is creeping outside of the budget you agreed on with your client, you may not be sure what to say, so you might not say anything at all. I asked what readers thought about speaking up, here are some of their responses:

Paul Chato of YourWebDepartment.com said:

NEVER tell the client that things have gone over budget or there has been scope creep as a prima facia comment. I always go into update meetings with choices. Make the client decide on the course of action that they themselves (unless it's your fault) put themselves in. I say, "Well, this is where we are. Do you want to stay within budget? Then I would suggest we do A. If you really want these things then I suggest we can do B. Alternatively, we can explore if this has changed the way you need the end product to work and we should try C. So, what do you think we should do?" This always works. It's respectful. The client likes choices and it shows you've put some effort into solving the problem.

Jamie Capozzi of Theory Associates said:

I love how Kit Hinrichs deals with scope creep in question form. It's very disarming and makes the client feel like they're more in control of their money. I will surely use that tip in the future.

Scope creep is such a major issue in the design business that I find that I have to really educate my clients through the process. I do this so they clearly understand when something they're requesting is outside of the agreed upon scope.

Before I started educating in my relationships I found that scope creep happened merely because our definitions for things were simply different. For example the term illustration can mean many different things to different people, and have many different costs depending of what's being requested. From the clients perspective something could be "no big deal" and from our stand point it's a very big deal that causes us to lose money, resent the client..., etc.

Now, I try and talk to my clients more that I did before. Face to face communication as much as possible where we have that  "how it all works" conversation. It's not that clients generally want something for nothing or look to take advantage of designers more than they just don't understand what it is we do. To a left brainer we're just making pretty pictures and getting paid way too much to do so. My goal is for them to see me as a highly effective marketer that uses design amongst many other tools to help them sell more and make more. Once I communicate that effectively money ceases to be a major issue.

And Ray told a little story about something relevant that happened just last week:

I was working on a photo set yesterday with a dog that would NOT cooperate. The producer made sure to put in a call to the booking agent during the middle of the shoot so she knew we were having problems at the time. We wound up getting a "usable" image, but it wasn't easy.

Now when we go to bill, negotiating a discount might be possible. After all, if we hadn't done our job, we wouldn't have gotten paid. But if we had not called at the time, the agent could have said, "nobody told me there was a problem.” 

Any other stories and ideas out there?