This piece is so simple but speaks to the heart of the matter. People often feel confused as to why they aren’t attracting enough clients. Well, Robert Middleton gives us the best and clearest answer I’ve ever heard.

You’re not attracting enough clients to your business for a very simple reason. You’re not doing the right things.

Not only are you not doing the rights things, you actually think you know the right things you ought to be doing. You most likely think you should be doing more networking, have a better web site, and do more speaking engagements. You think you need to “get out there more.”

But those are not the right things. After all, you’ve tried all of those things to some degree, haven’t you? If they really worked, how come you’re not doing them consistently? If they worked they would bring you all the new business you needed.

Right?

No, doing the right things first means understanding how the marketing and sales process actually works and then following a proven system for attracting new clients. Perhaps one of the best ways to look at this is through the game of baseball.

To win at baseball you need to do a lot of things. You need to throw the ball, hit the ball, catch the ball and run. Pretty simple, right? But consider this: I can take a bunch of people and put them on a baseball field and have them throw and hit and catch and run and you don’t necessarily have a baseball game going on. You just have a lot of activity that leads nowhere. You get some exercise but that’s about it.

And that’s how most Independent Professionals approach marketing! They get on the field of business and do some networking and calling and mailing but not a whole lot happens. They certainly aren’t playing the marketing game. Because if they were, they would be attracting more clients than they could handle. In baseball you’d never settle for those kind of results. Why would you settle for it in something that’s responsible for your livelihood?

Now interestingly, baseball is not only a good analogy to marketing your professional services, it’s an excellent model to use. If you want to win at “marketing ball” you need few things:

1. Knowledge of how the game is structured and what the rules are.
2. The skills to play the game.
3. An organized plan to play and win.

 

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