Do It! Marketing Blog: Marketing for Smart People™

As a speaker, consultant, thought-leading executive or entrepreneur, you may have heard about the importance of building an audience for your work... Sounds great. 

Here are 17 vital differences between a market and an audience.

You can spend YEARS attracting and serving an audience that is NOT your market. And that's just sad, painful, and frustrating. 

These are as pernicious as they are deceptive. 

WHICH of these has been holding you back - confusing you - or set you to wondering how come you're not making more money?

Let's go down the list... 

1. An audience listens - A market pays attention
2. An audience wants entertainment - A market wants to solve problems
3. An audience values an experience - A market values expertise
4. An audience wants to watch - A market wants to act
5. An audience wants information - A market wants implementation
6. An audience reacts - A market responds
7. An audience wants their questions answered - A market wants their answers questioned
8. An audience wants you to be popular - A market wants you to be right
9. An audience asks “What can you do?” - A market asks “What’s next?” and “What else?”
10. An audience says, “Great show!” - A market says, “Great job!”
11. An audience tells their friends - A market tells their boss
12. An audience buys your book - A market reads your book
13. An audience likes your ideas - A market implements your ideas
14. An audience wants your autograph - A market wants to give you their signature
15. An audience applauds - A market refers
16. An audience says, “Thank you” - A market says, “Thank goodness!”

and finally - most important of all - read this next one as often as you need to...

17. An audience will HEAR you - A market will PAY you (well, often, and gladly)

Expert marketers not only build an audience - they develop a market for their value, ideas, products, services, and programs.

Want to apply for your Speaker Strategy Call to see how you can IMPLEMENT some of these concepts right away? Apply for your call here.

The ad above first appeared in Business Week in 1958 – 56 years ago!

The moral of the ad’s story was relevant then and it is even more relevant today: establish expertise and build relationships before you try to sell.

The good news is that experts win on value and generalists die on price. 

The bad news is that we live in far more cynical times than the sellers of the 1950’s; but more good news is that YOU have so many more tools available to help you address the problem.

If you're investing in "Expert Marketing" (it goes by several other names like inbound marketing, thought-leadership marketing, and content marketing)... then you've probably asked yourself: 

How (and when) will this generate a sale?

And that is completely the WRONG question.

By the time you're done reading this article/ rant/ manifesto, you'll see exactly why - AND you'll be able to ask (and answer) much better questions for your business right away. 

Asking when expert marketing will lead to a sale is like filling up your car's gas tank and asking, "Why aren't we there yet?" 

Answer: Because filling your car with gas is a NECESSARY but NOT SUFFICIENT step to getting you to your destination (a new customer or client).

Do you have a chance of arriving now that your gas tank is full? You bet.

Did you have a chance of getting there with your tank on empty? No way. 

Let's move on... 

Insight #1 You need to sell the same way that YOU buy.

Look at your email spam or bulk email folder. Yes, you. Yes, right now. I'll wait... 

tap... tap... tap... tap... You're back. Excellent.

Did you see that spam email from the toner cartridge company? Did you catch the pitch from the SEO firm that filled out your website's "contact us" form? Did you respond to that great deal on vacation cruises? NO? 

OK now pop over to your paper mail pile on your desk. Did you check out the latest "triple play" offer from Comcast (or whatever hellacious Cable Satan runs in your neck of the woods)? How about that compelling cell phone offer from Verizon? The Wall Street Journal subscription offer under that postcard? Or how about that postcard - you know, the one from the home heating oil company? NO? 

When's the last time you gave your credit card number over to a cold caller who interrupted your family dinner? NEVER??

I'm shocked...

Because you seem pretty excited about YOUR cold calls - and sending out YOUR spam - YOUR offers - YOUR postcards - YOUR sales messages.

The problem with doing it this way? In four words...

Zero. Value. For. Prospects.

And hello? YOU don't BUY this way. What in the world makes you think your prospects DO?

Look once more at the ad above - and answer one simple question: 

Question #1: What VALUE have I ADDED to my prospect's world in order to EARN the RIGHT to INVITE them to a conversation and OFFER my solutions to their urgent, pervasive, expensive problems?

Insight #2 Referrals are great - but they are neither deaf, dumb, nor blind

Next, you'll say that you don't NEED "expert marketing" because 99% of your business is repeat and referral business and it's always been that way and you don't see how this "newfangled marketing" is going to move the needle in closing more sales.

Do you seriously think that referrals don't check you out online before picking up the phone?

What messages are you sending to your valued referrals with...

a. Your outdated website (articles from 2008 are outdated, friends. And from 2003 even more so. And design aesthetic from 1997 most of all.)

b. Your sporadically updated blog that you leave dormant for 2 (or 4 or 6) months at a clip.

c. Your abandoned Twitter account you set up because someone said "you had to" and that now has 37 followers while your competitors have 3,000 (or a whole lot more.) 

d. Your sketchy, bare bones LinkedIn profile that has 300 connections but only 2 recommendations (From 2005. From people with the same last name as you.)

e. Your "glory days" articles and TV clips and PR placements from 20 (yes I'm serious), 10, or even 5 years ago. Nothing screams "has-been" like old media.  

Make no mistake: Getting repeat and referral business is great. But don't kid yourself that this absolves you from having a top-notch web presence, social media platform, and body of knowledge that is ultra-current, super-relevant, and obviously abundant.

In fact, you are leaving yourself open for EMBARRASSMENT if your advocates hear back from their referrals and find themselves in the awkward position of having to DEFEND you to them because your web presence has fallen behind and now casts your professional expertise into doubt.

Question #2: Does my overall web presence REASSURE and REINFORCE the referrals I earn with the most current, credible and relevant expert marketing messages, positioning, content, resources, and value that will make my advocates LOOK BETTER - not worse - for referring me? 

Insight #3 Expert Marketing is a 4-layer enchilada (aka You don't get to eat the delicious golden-brown cheese without first layering on the meat!!)

The first layer - at the core of the matter - is your Reputation. Your work. Your track record. If you stop there, you'll have a VERY hard time attracting NEW leads and prospects to your doorstep. "My work should speak for itself" is what a lot of very smart people say - smart people who have a hard time making their mortgage payments.  

The second layer is Amplification. Ways to make your "expert signal" stronger. Enter social media marketing, niche PR, article marketing, blogging, keyword research and search engine optimization. This is the key to spreading your ideas and broadcasting your expertise.

The third layer is Leverage. This is where you begin to capitalize on your "expert marketing" assets such as articles, blogs, videos, podcasts, interviews, white papers, special reports, book excerpts, and other value-first marketing tools. You can now reach out to high-probability prospects both individually (on LinkedIn for example) and collectively (on your blog for example). This is where your job becomes putting the right bait on the right hooks in the right lakes to catch the right fish.  

The fourth layer is Gravity. Just like Jim Collins talks about the "flywheel" concept in Good to Great (it takes a long time to get it spinning but then is very hard to stop because of the power of momentum) - this is where you start to see payoffs. More leads, better prospects, bigger opportunities, more conversations, higher profile alliances, more invitations to speak, publish, guest post, contribute, teach, and (drum roll please...) more invitations to do great work at premium fees for great clients who NOW know you, like you, and trust you enough to hand over 5- and 6-figure checks because their level of confidence in your expertise is pretty damn close to 100%.

Question #3: Do you want to make more sales to strangers? (Good luck with that). Or do you really want more people to recognize, respect, and request YOU by name when they have a need, project, or problem that they instantly see has "your name written all over it"? If that's your goal, then expert marketing is for you. 

Re-read the McGraw-Hill ad above and let's do a 21st century spin on it together...

• I don't know who you are.
• I don't read your blog. 
• I don't subscribe to your newsletter.
• I don't see your name in my industry's publications.
• I don't hear my peers spreading your ideas.
• I don't come across your content in Google searches.
• I don't connect your solutions to my problems. 
• I don't feel the gravity of your credibility or credentials.
• I don't have any tangible way to gauge your expertise or experience.
• Now -- what was it you wanted to sell me? 

So here's the ultimate (and most important) question for YOU: 

How can you realistically expect to SELL anything by NOT setting the necessary pre-conditions for ANY sale with Expert Marketing?

The answer is as simple as it is obvious: you can't. Just like you can't drive your car from Denver to Sheboygan just by filling up your gas tank. You need to get behind the wheel, plan your route, use your GPS, add more fuel along the way (and probably some beef jerky and Sno-Balls and root beer) AND put in the hours and the miles to get you to your destination.  

Nobody -- and I mean N-O-B-O-D-Y -- hires speakers, consultants or professional services firms sight unseen. You wouldn't. I wouldn't either.

And the facts prove out that today's buyers are just like YOU and ME. 

Expert marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. And as any marathoner will tell you - the best (and only) way to run a marathon is one mile at a time. 

What do you think? Please post YOUR COMMENTS below and... 

There are four things that you need to focus on in your professional service marketing, four levels if you will.

1. We can't do them all.
2. We can't even prioritize or figure out how to start to think about them.
3. We can't even distinguish which is what and why and how it might work for us.

So let's unpack this for your business...

Let's talk about level one, strategy.

A strategy is a big picture area of your business.

It could be a marketing-focused strategy. It could be a sales-focused strategy. It could be a financial strategy.

Let’s say you come across someone who tells you Twitter is an amazing marketing platform and you’re really missing out if your business is not on Twitter.

He's using it and it fits his business beautifully, of course and you respect this person and you admire their successful business. And now you’re thinking, "Oh man, it's all about Twitter Twitter, Twitter. This guy built his business on Twitter, so I can probably build my business on Twitter."

Well, all right, let's back that up and analyze that as far as the four levels of marketing.

Internet marketing is the strategy. Internet marketing is the big umbrella over Twitter. So you ask yourself, to what extent am I going to use an Internet marketing strategy in the sales and marketing and business development aspect of my business?

Internet marketing is the strategy.

The set of tactics under that would be social media. There's a lot going on via the internet, folks, that's not social media.

For example, search engine optimization, your website, the structure of your web presence, blogging, email marketing, dozens of internet marketing strategies. Social media happens to be one bucket under that, so social media is the tactic.

An initiative would be "I'm going to start using Twitter." This is level three now.

I'm going to start using Twitter. I'm going to start understanding it. I might read a book. I might go to some websites, I’m going to grab a copy of Twitter 101 or Using Twitter for business, all those fabulous resources that are out there for free. I'm going to become educated on that -- on that initiative.

Now, the action step - here's level four, the action step always takes the form of verb, noun, date.

• Set up my Twitter account by Wednesday.
• Load my first 30 tweets in Hootsuite by Friday.
• Find 100 influential people to follow in my industry by Monday.

Those are action steps. And the action step can also go on your calendar.

So this approach really takes it down to "What am I doing today?"

What's on my priority to-do list today? Not what's on my to-do list because your to-do list could be 50 things, but what are my top three most important things that I need to do based on the strategies I've selected, based on the tactics that I’ve chosen, based on the initiatives that I've designed, what are the action steps to put on my calendar and get it done?

So let’s follow this through with a complete example -- let's say I'm in the insurance business. (I'm not but let's say YOU are!)

You're selling into the insurance marketplace, insurance companies and insurance agents, general agents, insurance associations, insurance publications, and you’re looking to become a dominant resource in that world.

Your action step would be "I want to follow 300 insurance industry folks on Twitter by April 13th." That's your action step.

Does that fit into an initiative? Yes. The initiative is aggressively grow my Twitter following targeted to the insurance industry.

Does that fall in to a tactic? Yes, it does. It falls in to the social media tactic or set of tactics.

Does that fall under a strategy that I decided to use? Yes, it falls in to my internet marketing strategy.

So right there, just unpacking those four levels, you've got some "A-ha" moments, some insights you can use to start to filter and sort all of your old ideas, old notes, all of those conference sessions that you may have gone to, all of those tactics and tools and light bulb moments, all those nuggets and sound bites that you may have swirling around in your head or on your “someday, maybe list.”

If you start to sort them in to these four levels; strategy, tactic, initiative and action step – you’ll get a much clearer blueprint for ALL your marketing going forward this month, next month and next year!

Are you a DO IT freak? Welcome to the club!! Please use the social media buttons at the top of this post to share it with your network. YOU are a rock star!

Guest post by Ford R. Myers
President, Career Potential, LLC

People who are seriously considering engaging the services of a professional coach or consultant usually ask many questions about what the advisor “will do or should do” in order to make the coaching relationship work for the client. This is certainly reasonable and understandable.

However, there are also several “prerequisites” or standards that the client must meet for the engagement to produce optimum results.

Unfortunately, these criteria are rarely discussed during the “contracting process” between consultant and client.

There are at least six behaviors and attitudes which clients need to embrace to help make any coaching engagement successful:

1. Treat the consulting relationship as a real priority in your life (fully-invested; not an “afterthought” or a distraction)
2. Be coachable (open-minded, trusting, non-defensive, willing to go a bit outside of your comfort zone, flexible, committed to the process)
3. Show-up for appointments (in-person, via phone, on Skype)
4. Do your “homework” promptly (written exercises, reading, research)
5. Be 100% honest with your coach (candid, vulnerable, “real,” sincere, direct, unguarded)
6. Hold to your commitments and be “self-accountable” (with the support and structure of your coach)

In my work as an Executive Career Coach, I make it clear (either explicitly or implicitly) to prospective clients that “this is a two-way street.” Of course, I commit 100% to doing my part to the best of my ability.

But the client also has a vital role to play in the consulting relationship, with important commitments and responsibilities (listed above).

Discussing these items candidly before getting started in a new coaching engagement has proven to be a productive exercise, and it has been mutually beneficial.

Such a conversation “screens out” prospective clients who are not a good fit for my programs; it empowers clients to take full responsibility for their part of the work; it sets clear expectations and eliminates incorrect assumptions; and it allows me to hold my clients accountable when they inevitably experience resistance or avoidance during the coaching process. In other words, this dialogue clears the way for clients to achieve their goals more efficiently and productively – which makes everybody happy!

What do you think? Leave a comment below and...

Welcome to our carefully chosen list of thought leadership marketing tools. We use these tools here at Do It! Marketing World HQ and highly recommend them to our clients and partners.

Good news: Many of these tools are free. A few are not. Almost all come with a risk-free "try before you buy" option to make sure you love them as much as we do. Please note that if you decide to make a purchase, I may (and probably will) receive a small commission. This commission is at no extra cost to you, and in fact, MOST of these links contain special discounts, free trials, or bonuses only available through these links.

With that said, please dig in and take full advantage of these hand-selected resources. They will help your business thrive, scale and grow -- just as they have helped ours!

Email Marketing: ConstantContact | Aweber | PopupDomination

Shopping Cart: KickstartCart | Infusionsoft

Social Media: Tweetadder

Online Audio/E-learning: AudioAcrobat | JigsawBox | Ruzuku

Graphics: Pixabay | ReciteThis | PicMonkey | MyECoverMaker

Webinar/Screen Sharing: Screenr | StealthSeminar | AnyMeeting

Ecommerce: PayPal | Clickbank | Infusionsoft

Landing Pages: LeadPages | Unbounce | LaunchRock

Website Builder: Strikingly

As you may know, a wonderful team of small business experts and I are organizing the inaugural America Talks Business Conference coming up on July 25. (Conference info is here and you can still register with early bird savings here.)

One of our media partners is Entrepreneur Magazine. When I shared this news with my friend Dan Janal of PRLeads and PressReleaseSender.com, his first comment was, "Looks good. Congrats on getting Entrepreneur magazine. You are one well-connected guy!" 

I sent Dan back a note that said, "Not well-connected. Just fearless in asking."

And he closed out our email conversation with this brilliant observation: "Same thing, I guess!"

YES!!!

It is the same thing indeed.

So here are some questions for YOU: 

1. Who do YOU need to be well-connected to?

2. Who do you need to fearlessly ask for help?

3. What's stopping you from asking? 

4. What's the worst that could happen? 

5. What's the best that could happen? 

6. How much do you care about #4? 

7. How much do you want #5?

8. Is it time for YOU to do some fearless asking? 

p.s. The June 17 deadline is coming up for Entrepreneur Magazine's Entrepreneur of 2013 competition. You can't win if you don't enter. They are accepting applications for Entrepreneur of 2013, Emerging Entrepreneur of 2013 and College Entrepreneur of 2013. See if you qualify to join the ranks of other inspiring entrepreneurs: http://www.entrepreneur.com/e2013 

As you may know, my loyal Labrador Retriever, Woofie, works part-time as marketing dog here at Do It! Marketing HQ. 

Her website attracts a LOT of traffic and she gets some very nice inbound traction via email (at least for a dog!) 

Here are nine secrets to Woofie's online success - and perhaps some good ideas for YOU, too:

1. Post regularly. She posts updates annually on her birthday (4/29) but the point is that her audience has come to EXPECT that. You should post more often - but with the same dogged consistency.
2. Don't ask for much. Woofie shares her updates with enthusiasm and authenticity. She never sells. She never begs. She never whines. How about you?
3. Be cute and relax. Woofie's main job with her web marketing is to be herself. Share what's interesting and important to her and her like-minded followers. Bacon. Cheese. Wagging. Tennis balls. 
4. Let people come up to you first. Woofie has lots of ways to interact with her on her website. You can email her. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn. She makes herself approachable and then lets her fans be in charge of getting in touch. 
5. Photos - visuals sell. Her website is 80% photos and 20% text. As my pal Jay Baer, author of the great new book Youtility, likes to say, "Text is going away. Everything online is moving to photos and video."
6. Let other people help you. Since Woofie has no opposable thumbs, she needs people to answer her email for her. That's where I come in. Folks email her. I respond, pointing out the fact that I'm responding on her behalf because of the whole thumbs problem. Generally, you'll do much better in business if you FLOP (Feature and Leverage Other People.)
7. Make people feel better about themselves after engaging with you. 'Nuf said. 
8. It's OK to be silly. Especially if you're a Labrador Retriever! And it's OK to be funny, human, and kind if you happen to be funny, human, or kind. 
9. 10 kisses, one bark - keep it positive. Nobody like growling, barking and whining. Not from a dog. And not from a blog. And certainly not from an online expert, thought-leading professional, or entrepreneur like YOU.

What do YOU think? Please use the COMMENTS area below to share your advice, insights and recommendations on this topic and join the conversation... 

As a consultant, author or thought-leading professional, have you considered building long-term recurring revenue into your business model with licensing and certification programs?

Obviously, this is a huge topic but I wanted to at least get you started thinking about it in this post because the potential is so great. This is your ticket to breaking free of the time-for-money trap once and for all.

Imagine a handful of certified consultants delivering your programs for clients large and small all across the country – or even across the world.

Now imagine a dozen of them. And then imagine two dozen. And then imagine a hundred of them. You can see where this is going… pretty exciting for most of us to consider.

If your empire is based on “Responsible Leadership” – you could have a small army of “Responsible Leadership-Certified” Consultants. This is exactly what my friend John Jantsch did with Duct Tape Marketing – what John Maxwell did with his “John Maxwell Team” and what dozens of training firms – who are now multi-million dollar corporations – have done, like Dale Carnegie, Franklin Covey, AchieveGlobal and many others.

But my point is that it started with the first licensee. The first certified consultant. And even before that, it started with things YOU can start to put in place tomorrow – the first subcontractor. The first remote coach. The first on-demand consultant who goes out to your client to deliver your program under your brand.

And who makes you money that is suddenly NOT connected to your personal time, attention and presence.

There are two steps to this piece of your entrepreneurial puzzle – productizing and systematizing. You have to have all your consulting products buttoned down. Training manuals, consultant toolkits, leader’s guides, audios, videos, whatever is part of your flagship package.

And then you need to document all the processes, delivery systems, timelines, backoffice operations, and client-facing experiences that need to happen to deliver the consulting results you are promising to deliver.

Does this take a fairly significant up-front effort? You bet.

Does it pay off handsomely if you are committed to seeing it through? Definitely. 

NOTE: Join us for the "Consulting Revenue Roadmap" teleseminar on Wed. May 8th to get a whole slew of ideas for boosting your consulting success. Register right now so you don't miss out. 

As a marketing speaker and marketing coach, I'm often asked "How can I pump out content the way you do?" or "How can I be as prolific as David Newman?" [Thank you to Julie Cohen for the question!]

Here are several ideas to get you started:

1. Pay attention. You have great ideas all the time. It's just a matter of capturing them for future reference and writing enough down "in the moment" so you can revisit and flesh the ideas out later. (See Blogging 101: 7 Ways to Capture Ideas Like a Ninja)

2. Repurpose. If you are a speaker, coach, author, or independent professional, your clients are asking you for your best content all the time. Whether it's audience questions, client challenges, questions you answer by email, or advice that you give to folks you coach or mentor, it's all there to be repurposed and redeployed as part of YOUR content empire. 

3. Repackage. Got a book? You have 50-100 blogs. Got a great presentation or training seminar? There are 20 articles hiding in there. Do you write a column? Each column read out loud with some verve and energy could probably make for an awesome podcast. Got smart friends? Boom - there's your video interview series. Content repackaged from one medium into another takes ZERO development time and just some intentional repackaging time. 

4. Ask. Use your social media accounts like Twitter or Facebook (or even better - simple survey tools like SurveyMonkey) to ask members of your target market what they are hungry to learn. What answers are they seeking? What advice are they hungry for? What problems are they wrestling with? 

5. Riff. In all the newsletters you receive, blogs you read or videos you watch - there are seeds of content that you can riff on, respond to, share an opinion about, or take in a whole new direction. What books are on your nightstand? What industry publications are in your mailbox? What conferences do you attend? Take those ideas and wax, wane, agree, disagree, rant, rave, and otherwise opine with YOUR best advice, insights and recommendations. 

What do you think? Use the COMMENTS area below to share your own experiences with becoming prolific and creating and posting top-notch content to share with YOUR followers, fans, prospects and subscribers... 

Guest post by Scott Plum

Last week I made a visit to my neighborhood mobile phone carrier’s retail store and noticed a ‘No Solicitors’ sign in the window.  This gave me pause before entering.  I thought – “I’m a Solicitor, what’s wrong with me.  Why don’t they want me to come in?”

I peered through the glass like a school boy at a peep show, wondering what is going on inside that I was forbidden to see.  Others inside the store began to look at me and I finally mustered up the guts to pull the door open and walk in...

Read the rest of the story here...