What motivates you to market your business…the REAL
motivation? Is it fear of not having enough money?
Imagining the ripple effect of helping your clients live
more authentic, vibrant lives? Looking at the photograph of
an aunt who swore you'd never amount to anything?
All potent enough motivators, for sure.
What's interesting to notice is whether your motivation is
going toward or going away energy. That's because when we
are motivated away from something, the results we get tend
to be erratic; when we are motivated toward, we get
consistent, escalating results. Let me explain with two
examples:
Leandra Leandra doesn't like marketing and self-promotion,
but she has to bring in a certain amount of money each
month from her private therapeutic practice for teens. So
each month, she trudges off to networking meetings and puts
up a new article on her website. Some months, she gets a
lot of response; other months, nary a call.
This is an example of away-motivated marketing. Leandra
markets only to stave off the financial wolf at the door.
What gets forgotten in her marketing equation is how much
she LOVES counseling teens. She's marketing because she
needs the money. Imagine how different her results might be
if Leandra's marketing was going toward her passion for
working with teens.
Frank Frank has an accounting background; he started his
career in a large accounting firm and then worked for
several large corporations. He's now a coach who works with
self-employed people who aren't comfortable with finances.
It was a no-brainer, he thought, to leverage his experience
in accounting when defining his niche.
His first year as a coach was quite successful. But this
year, he's been putting off his marketing tasks. Seems like
everything is such a chore: organizing teleclasses, putting
out a consistent newsletter, following up leads. Naturally,
his business is not thriving; it's not down the drain, but
it pokes along rather than races, like it did his first
year.
The problem is that Frank really wants to be coaching
people considering leaving the corporate world to develop
work they find more meaningful. His marketing got great
results his first year out, because it was new and exciting
to be out on his own. But marketing to his self-employed
niche has become a "should"-one of the key signs of going
away motivation.
Finding yourself engaging in a "should" or "must" or "have
to" is a big clue that you may be engaging in the less
reliable going away motivation. Think about it…is it any
fun at all to do something because you "should?" Yuck!
A couple of other clues to going away motivation:
1. Using negations. I market my practice because I don't
want to lose clients. (What DO you want?)
2. Comparing. I market my practice because if I do, I'll
have more money and a better life. (This is a little
trickier. Notice that by comparing, the focus is on what
you don't have right now, not on what you want.)
Going toward motivation is all about getting clear on what
we want and then putting our marketing muscle behind that.
So…what do YOU want?
----------------------------------------------------
Linda Puig is a newsletter marketing expert, a writer with
nearly 30 years' professional experience and president of
Claire Communications, which provides high-quality,
low-cost articles to busy professionals who don't have the
time or inclination to write articles.
http://www.articlesforsale.net
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