The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

A Reader's Question...

Here's a question from one of our readers, Elizabeth Rose.

"I have a new life challenge. I am a solo graphic designer, and recently found out that I'm pregnant.  While I am excited, I am also really struggling with how to approach my clients on this topic!  I need to let them know that I am expecting, and I need to figure out how to structure some sort of maternity leave without losing all my clients to other designers.  I'd love to know if anyone in the Marketing Mentor community has dealt with this, and what you would recommend on notifying clients and taking time off."

Any thoughts or experience to share?

2009 Can Make You Stronger

As we start 2009, I am thinking about the challenges ahead.

I've been hearing lately from many creative professionals who relied, during 2008 and before that, on word of mouth and a couple good clients. Now, not so suddenly, the pipeline is empty. So they're starting to put a business development foundation (i.e. a Marketing Machine) in place.

It's not too late, that's for sure. And if you already have one in place, you're ahead of the game. Early 2009 is going to be an important time to rev it up.

If you need business now, here's what to do: network your butt off and pick up the phone.

These two tools are the most proactive ones available and they will bring you into direct contact with people who may need your services.

When deciding who to call, start with everyone you know. The relationships you have already established will lead you more quickly to available work because you won't need to waste time introducing yourself and building trust from scratch.

I am convinced that this year has the potential to make a lot of us much stronger.

(And if you want help, check out our new 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and online and in person Marketing Mentor Groups to keep you accountable. They get started the week of January 19. Details here.)

How wrapping up a project can become a useful marketing tool

Completing a project for a client, big or small, is a perfect opportunity to engage in a marketing activity that can only make you stand out of the crowd. Ask for client feedback through a “project wrap up survey”. Whether your project went as smoothly as it could go, or had some bumps along the way, asking your client for feedback send a message that you are listening, you care and that your goal is to provide the best service possible. And that’s marketing. That will set you apart from your competitors.

The wrap up survey should be done fairly soon after the project is complete and delivered. The momentum is important. Don’t wait too long or small details may be forgotten. Ask open ended questions only, make it safe for your client to share. Here are a few examples of questions you can ask:

• Did we meet your expectations?
• Describe the experience of working with us on this project.
• How professional have you found our staff to be?
• How have you found the value of our services?
• How efficient did you find our team to be?
• What do you suggest we could have done differently?
• What areas could we improve in the future?

Your client will be happy to give you feedback if you allow for him to do so in a safe way. Sometimes building in this phase into your process can strengthen the relationship and lead to more work. Try it, your clients will thank you. I promise.

Thank you to Eddie Hofmeister, principal of Hofmeister Design, for asking the question that sparked this blog post. If you have any burning marketing, pricing or procedural questions about running your small creative business, please feel free to email us, or just leave them in the comments!

 

Holiday gifts for prospects?

I got a question this week from Jackson Foster of theID-entity.com. He writes:

Q: Is is appropriate to give a holiday gift (in this case a Starbucks $10 gift card) to potential clients; those I have called on but not actually received a project from yet?

A: It is definitely appropriate to give holiday gifts to prospects, especially if you really want to work with them. I'd say so in the card too. The holidays are a big-time marketing opportunity in my opinion.

Any other opinions out there?

When to reveal that office and home are one and the same

Karen Barranco is a graphic designer whose company, Special Modern Design, is based here in Los Angeles. Like many of us solopreneurs and small business types, Karen operates her business out of her home.

Her question? When—if ever—should you let your clients know this?

I have a home office and work by myself. I have been doing so successfully for 8 years. My question is, should I reveal that my office is based out of my home? I know it turns some clients off and they don’t call me back. They ask to come to my office and that’s when I tell them about the coffee shop where I meet clients. I don’t want to lie but it holds me back from getting the big budget jobs I want. Should I be upfront?

Like yourself, I'm not a fan of lying. For one, it's complicating—just the thought of keeping multiple truths straight gives me a headache.

But you don't have to lead with the information. There are plenty of times, as I'm sure you've noticed in your many years operating a business, it will never come up.

That said, if it does, there are clients for whom that may be a dealbreaker. If you really want to go after the kinds of old-school, biggity-big clients for whom dedicated office space is meaningful and you're not up for renting an entire office of your own, you might want to look into shared space. One great resource here in Los Angeles is KERNSPIRACY, the creative professionals' mailing list run by L.A.-based graphic designer, Spencer Cross. There's a staggering amount of collective knowledge on that list, and people are very willing to share.

Speaking of sharing, if you're reading this and have a helpful thought, could you share it with Karen and the class in the comments?

10-word blurb vs tagline

In the Bi-Weekly Marketing Plan Group (BTW next one starts week of March 9), one of the first issues we address is how you talk about what you do. As part of that process, participants have the opportunity to perfect both their 10-word blurb and their tagline.

But often, there is confusion between the two. I am often asked, "What's the difference between them?"

So here's my answer to the question:

The 10-word blurb is what you say when you meet someone, either in person or on the phone. Your objective with it is to say enough to pique the interest of the other person in order to engage them in a conversation. It can (and should) be tailored on the fly for each person you address. Here's a generic version of mine:

"I work with the creatively self-employed and I help them get the clients they want."

The tagline is a line that follows your company name -- a sub-title of sorts -- and is used on a web site, business card and anywhere your logo or identity would be found. Your objective with the tagline is to explain or elucidate what you do in a short, concise phrase or sentence. It has to be more general because you're not there to tailor it.

Here's our current tagline: Marketing Mentor: "Teaching the art of marketing and self promotion."

So they're obviously related, but they have different goals.

Any other good examples out there?

What's up with those leads groups?

One of the attendees of my latest Bi-Weekly Marketing Plan Group asked me this question as we were getting started last week:

Q: Do you think groups like Business Networking International are good venues for networking?

A: I think it's worth checking out because BNI (and many networking organizations like them) have multiple groups around the country and around the world. And every group is different. So the value of BNI depends in large part on who's in each group. (It also depends largely on how actively you contribute to the group.)

In general, the way to think about the question is, "Will I meet my prospects there?" or, in the case of a leads group like BNI, "Will the people in the group be good referral sources for me? Do they come into contact with my prospects?"

For this you have to have a chosen a market, which is the topic of the first in our webinar series, Grow Your Business From Your Desktop, this Thursday, Sept. 27. More info and sign up for Get Rich in a Niche here.

Does a client list on your website encourage client theft by your competitors?

Ilise sent out an edition of the newsletter this week about the importance of having a client list on your business website. (You can read it here and subscribe here.)

A reader emailed her with a question we thought was a good followup, so we decided to post the Q&A here on the blog.

THE QUESTION:

I have been told over and over to never have a client list. It allows your competitors to target your clients. Is this something to worry about? Is there a way around it?

ILISE'S ANSWER:

I think it's more important for your prospects to see who you've worked with than for your competitors not to see.

Plus, if your relationships are so flimsy that anyone finding a list of company names (we're not including actual contact names, mind you) can steal your clients, you've got bigger problems.

Make sense?

I agree with Ilise: far better to make things easy for prospective clients than to worry about whether someone might troll your site for client leads. Besides, if you have a portfolio site up (I'm talkin' to you, designers/illustrators/developers), they're going to see your clients anyway!

But I wonder if we're missing anything. Are there particular circumstances where it's a bad idea to share your client list? Industries where discretion need be exercised?

Or are there other valid reasons not to divulge your list? I'm really curious to hear what you wizards think.

How to grow your business

Last week's Coffee Break conference call, "Moving out of the Bedroom -- Growing Your Business," was chock-full of information for anyone who's got too much work but isn't sure whether or how or when it's time to get help. We'll have the transcript and mp3 available soon in the Marketing Mentor Store, but in the meantime, here are some highlights from the conversation with Pam Bryan of FutureResultsNow.com and Peleg Top:

1. One main takeaway was the idea, shared by Pam, that sometimes, in order to grow your business, you may have to shrink it first. If you're too busy to get everything done, hiring someone doesn't necessarily mean you'll be less busy. You'll just be doing other tasks, including managing other people. Shrinking your business may also mean firing clients who are draining you or abusing you or whose projects simply aren't lucrative. Once you pull back, you'll be able to take a breather and see more clearly in which direction you want to grow. And the one thing you must have in place in order to grow is a marketing plan.

2. Next, you must realize that growing the business means managing other people, whether they are independent contractors, interns or administrative assistants. So if you don't want to manage other people, then don't grow your business. It helps to have some kind of management bone in your body and not be a control freak (or at least be willing to work on that) because no one you hire will do the tasks the way you would. Focus not on how they do what they do but on the quality of the end result. That's all that matters. And you must make peace with the fact that by bringing on help you will not maintain the level of hands-on work you've done until that point.

3. How do you train someone when you don't have time to breathe? Peleg had a great strategy and told the story about his first intern. After explaining to her that first time how to do what needed to be done, he also instructed her to document everything she was doing. When she left 8 months later, she left behind what was essentially an office manual for administrative tasks. That way, the next intern or employee could use that as a resource.

Q&A: Selling yourself on the phone

QUESTION: What are some specific challenges inherent in "selling yourself" over the phone, as opposed to in writing or in person?

ANSWER: Selling yourself in writing is easy because it's just you and the blank page (or screen). And selling yourself in person is easy because you can see the other person and judge their non verbal communication. On the phone, however, all you have is your script and the other person's voice and a wide gap in between where many people insert all sorts of fantasies about what's happening on the other end. That's where the anxiety comes from. When we can't see the other person's facial expressions or body language, we are free to imagine, and many people imagine the worst.

On the phone, you may imagine you will become tongue-tied, stutter and your mind will go blank, all of which would supposedly be humiliating and intolerable, even though it's not such a big of a deal. If it happens, you hang up and move on to the next call. Or you may imagine that the recipient of your call screams, "Go to hell" into the phone. I have a client who keeps waiting for someone to say that to him and seems more than mildly disappointed that no one has yet. In fact, much to his surprise, most of the people he's reached are in fact interested in his services.