Had a terrific marketing mentor call with a new client who has made MILES of progress in the short time since we started working together.
During our last conversation, I praised his action-orientation, and the great progress he’s made in recent weeks. He acknowledged how much better he felt about his marketing, positioning, and programs.
But then he asked me a powerful question - “David, if I’ve made this much progress, why am I not making more money?”
I gave him my initial responses (it's still early in the game, not enough prospecting activity, no consistent sales process) but since then I’ve developed many more reasons that speakers, authors, coaches, and consultants aren’t making the money that they know they could and SHOULD be making.
Here are the top 17 reasons YOU might not be making the money you want and deserve. Do a quick self-check with the ones that resonate the most with YOU:
- You’re great at delivering your product or service but you’re terrible at marketing and sales
- You’re not getting the right kind of marketing or sales help in time – or at all!
- You’re not delegating or hiring part-time help to take care of the “intelligent gruntwork.”
- You don’t have a business plan/goal/vision/destination in mind, including failure to plan for failure!
- You have no differentiation – you’re trying to market me too, “Same-o Lame-o” boring stuff
- You don’t take yourself seriously (indicated by homemade business cards, freebie website, trying to cut every corner, etc.)
- You over-invest in these same things – fancy business cards, $25,000 website, overly expensive and overly broad advertising, and you think that’s enough
- You lack obvious expertise and you ignore thought leadership in your marketing mix
- You’re a mass generalist not an expert specialist – you try to be all things to all people
- You don’t develop alliances – Stop trying to succeed alone. Joint venture, build alliances, or use strategic partners
- You’re not connecting with prospects on their most relevant, urgent, and expensive issues
- You don’t have a defined sales process and find yourself winging it almost every time
- Your proactive outbound prospecting plan consists of sitting by the phone waiting for it to ring. (Not good!)
- You’re forgetting that we live in the Attention Economy - first you must earn your prospects’ attention and only THEN will you have a chance to earn their money
- You’re relying too much on one marketing channel (email, social media, direct mail, networking) and your prospects are starting to see you as an annoying pest, not a welcome guest
- You’re not adding enough tangible sources of excellence to your marketing mix - in other words, you’re failing to create marketing materials that are too good to throw away!
- You underestimate the amount of time and/or money it will take to grow your business successfully. Remember, not all things are going to work the first time. Or the tenth. Plan for experimentation, testing, and thousands of small adjustments along the way
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p.s. Want to make sure your business is focused on what matters most to maximize your influence AND income?
Download your copy of the Do It! Marketing Manifesto for free right here.
