Professional Service Marketing

Instead of marketing your professional services to clients, do what you do best.

As a service professional, what you do best is engage with clients.

On the other hand, what you don’t do well…and probably don’t even like doing…is marketing yourself and promoting your services.

New Business Is Critical

Don’t get me wrong.

Marketing is important. In fact, marketing to generate new business is critical if you want to survive, let alone thrive, in your professional service business.

But marketing is not shouting “I’m the best! Hire me!” Nor is it mindlessly chasing leads or even aggressively pushing prospects to close.

In the simplest of terms, marketing is about attracting potentially ideal clients…not chasing any one and every one who can read your messages.

Attracting Clients

Attracting potentially ideal clients is like attracting friends. And so it should be…our relationships with ideal clients are like the relationships that we enjoy with friends.

There are two keys to attracting friends.

First and foremost, we must be likable. The likeability factor includes being interested in others, what they think and like.

Second, we must have something of value to offer our friends. At the very least, the value that we offer includes common values and interests.

From a marketing perspective, likeability includes understanding what they need, want and expect from services such as those that you offer. And the value that we offer includes the ability to satisfy these needs and wants.

Engaging In Conversation

The best way to build relationships with friends…as well as prospects…is to engage them in conversation. This helps convert acquaintances into friends…and prospects into clients.

As service professionals, most of us are really good at engaging our clients in conversation. That’s how we learn more about what they need and want from us.

If our expertise and know-how work help us serve our clients, there is no reason whatsoever, that they can’t help us attract clients.

Not only can we generate new business by engaging others in worthwhile conversations…we will attract more and better clients by taking this route.

For better marketing results, do what you do best…engage others in conversations.

As for the rest of the marketing stuff…leave that to others.