Most of Momentum Club is focused on very practical things: strategies, tactics, tools and techniques to get you more clients.
Having said that, your mindset: the attitudes and beliefs you have about marketing and selling; can have a big impact on the way you do your marketing, how confident you are with it, and the results you get.
Put simply: the way you think influences the way you act.
In particular, there are some ways of thinking about marketing that are particularly helpful for consultants, coaches and other professionals who might otherwise be somewhat reticent about “being too salesy” or other negative stereotypes we often have about marketing and sales. Keep these ideas front of mind and you’ll always have a positive approach to your marketing and do the sort of marketing that strengthens your relationships with clients.
Here are the 6 Marketing Success Mindsets I’ve found to be the most helpful. Take a look at them and decide whether they resonate with you and whether these are mindsets you could adopt yourself. You don’t have to adopt all of them, but the more in tune you are with these mindsets the more successful you’re likely to be.
- Action Orientation. If you’re not a natural at marketing and sales and you find it uncomfortable it can be very easy to lapse into being passive with your marketing. If you find yourself thinking “If I do good work, people will hear about me”, “word of mouth is the best marketing” or “something will turn up, it always does” then the chances are you may be being too passive with your marketing. Instead, it’s important to take an active approach to your marketing. Choose action over hope. Make sure you’re actively working on your marketing week-in, week-out and that you make things happen rather than waiting for things to happen.
- Focus and Prioritisation. We’re overwhelmed with opportunities and information these days. Not least of which is the regular stream of people telling us they’re “crushing it” with webinars, events, product launches, direct mail etc. It’s incredibly easy to become distracted – to try to do everything and copy what seems to be working for other people. But we only really need to master a few approaches to succeed. The key is to figure out what you’re going to do then stick to your plan: keep focused. Don’t get distracted
- Simple Actions, Consistently Implemented. Many people are on the lookout for “silver bullets” in marketing. One big thing they can do that will have a huge impact on their success. The truth, of course, is there are no silver bullets. What works far better than searching for some magical marketing approach to hit a home run with is to do the little things that work regularly and repeatedly. Simple actions, consistently implemented deliver results.
- Systematize your Marketing. As professionals, we can be very focused and responsive to our client needs. As a result, it’s very easy for our marketing to get pushed aside as we do our best for our clients. That’s especially true if we’re having to “reinvent the wheel” every time with our marketing and constantly think about what to do next. Instead, we need to build a “marketing machine” that we don’t need to think about but can simply “turn the handle” and get it to happen according to what we’ve already planned. The more systematic your marketing is, the more it becomes a habit, the more likely it is to get done.
- Value in Advance. One of the most important resolutions you can make in your marketing is to always give value in advance. In other words to make sure that you’re helping your clients succeed even before they hire you. You can do this in the form of free reports, videos, “high value briefings” and other techniques we’ll review in the Blueprint. The key is that by giving Value in Advance you’re doing two things. Firstly, you’re demonstrating your capabilities and building trust so that it becomes more likely a client will hire you. And secondly, by being useful and helpful to potential clients with your marketing you actually feel good about it rather than feeling like the stereotypical pushy salesperson. And if you feel good about your marketing you’re much more likely to do it.
- “No” is an OK Answer. This is a particularly vital mindset for sales. Whenever you meet a potential client to discuss working together you must have in your mind that it’s absolutely OK if you or they decide not to proceed. Clients can tell subconsciously when you’re pushing for a sale. They can feel the desperation or the subtle manipulation as you try to get them to say yes. Instead, if you go into the meeting genuinely thinking that your job is to figure out if this is right for both of you, and not to “sell” them, they pick up that you’re thinking in their best interests and their barriers come down. They’re more open and they tell you what their real issues are. Paradoxically, by not pushing for the sale, you’ll sell more.
Adopting these 6 mindsets won’t bring you success on their own. You need to put in place the strategies and tactics covered in Momentum Club and do your day-in, day-out marketing work. But they will definitely help you and guide you to the right actions in any situation. Try them 🙂