“You must have mind share before you can have market share.” Christopher M. Knight

If you’re like me, you don’t like being sold to and there are many people who feel the same way.

So, what if your ideal clients don’t like being sold to?

How do you attract their business to build and develop life long, profitable relationships with them?

Here are 3 steps to get you started;

1. Get really clear about who your ideal clients are
2. Get really clear about what specific problems they have
3. Identify what your unique proposition is that can solve their problems.

It sounds easy and simple and it is. However, you have to really think about it. Are you starting from what you think or are you really seeing things from your ideal clients’ perspective?

The next step is to get the word out to places, online and offline, where your ideal clients hang out and begincreating a dialogue with them. Engage them on their terms in language and style that is familiar to them and let them know that their problems can be solved.

Listen and learn what your clients really want - on their terms

This is the start of a conversation which is 2 way.

“People don’t want to be “marketed TO”; they want to be “communicated WITH.” Flint McGlaughlin

So why does so much marketing not hit the spot? Here are some common reasons

• No consistent and constant system to engage with prospective clients
• No planning and thought about the why, what and how
• Ad hoc advertising – 1 off expensive adverts in non specific publications/locations
• Scatter gun approach – no targeted messages that are relevant and specific
• Confused messages – lack of clarity about on what and to whom you are speaking
• Selling a service not solving a problem – blowing your trumpet and going “blah blah blah” about how great you are rather than recognising a problem and showing you have the ideal solution i.e. being client centric not you centric
• Marketing materials that are boring, poorly thought out and don’t engage

By using an attraction approach to your marketing, you make a simple yet critical mind shift in how you think about your marketing.

As Charles Revson once said, “In the factory we make cosmetics; in the drugstore we sell hope.”

As an entrepreneurial leader and small business owner what are you “selling”?

Tell me in your own words, in simple language why should people engage with you? Leave a comment below and let’s start a real conversation