It just doesn’t feel right, to be pointing out what’s wrong.

Isn’t that negative?

Well, that certainly is one view.

Yet, very few of us go to the doctor because we’re feeling extraordinarily healthy!

Imagine.  You’re sitting on the examining table explaining your symptoms to the physician.

You tell him you’ve had a screaming sore throat for 5 days, you have chills and painful swollen glands, and your sinuses aren’t draining.

You hurt all over, and all you want to do is sleep.

But, all the gentle doctor wants to talk about is how shiny your hair is and what great oral hygiene you have.

If this went on for very long, how long would you sit there on the table?

You’d probably wonder whether the doctor was even listening to you, let alone whether he was competent enough to help you get well.  This would be your conclusion no matter how nice and gentle and positive he might be.

What I hope you get is that, as the solopreneur, sales professional, service provider or business person, you are naturally solution-oriented.

This is a good thing.

However, your prospective clients are absorbed — at least for the moment — in their problem.

Sure, they want it solved.

But, first they have to actually hear what you’re saying.  Then, they can be receptive to your solution-message.

Empathy is the biggest key to marketing.

The copywriter Robert Collier advises “Enter the conversation that’s already in their head.  Don’t try to create a new conversation.”

And, when you have a terrible cold that you just can’t shake on your own, that conversation likely is not about how great you look.

For one thing, it’s my mom’s birthday, and that’s not very scary

(Happy Birthday, Mom!)

This year, I spent a large portion of Halloween Day at Kinko’s (now called FedEx Office) working on a project.

Having taken the light rail, walked downtown, spent time at Kinko’s, and finally going to the grocery store before heading home, I realized that the way costumers were dressed for Halloween is basically what I see every day in this crazy “Keep Portland Weird” town I live in.

So, no, Halloween isn’t very scary.

Or, even as creative as other get-ups I see walking down the streets every day.

But, there are situations in which entrepreneurs & sales professions find themselves that are definitely scarier than Halloween:

You’re working hard, putting in lots of hours in your business and reaching out to prospects, but no one’s biting

You keep having to explain what it is you do, and still people aren’t getting why they or anyone else need what you offer

Sometimes you ‘get lucky’ and hit a hot streak, but it’s the inconsistency, feast-or-famine cycle that’s getting to you

You go to networking events or leads groups, but you aren’t getting any referrals

You’re thinking you might have to go out and get a “real” job if things don’t pick up soon

You’re feeling desperate because you’re running out of ideas of what to do next to get the cash register to ring

You’re trying to keep your cool, but you feel powerless to (completely) hide your frustration

Not very fun.

It definitely doesn’t feel very good.

And, you’re definitely not alone.

Join me this afternoon (Wednesday, November 2, 2011 at 3 pm PDT / 6 pm EDT) in an all-new teleclass I’ve createthat will help relieve the pressure you (or someone you know) have been experiencing.

My promise to you is to share the 5 Core reasons solopreneurs and sales professionals struggle or even fail in business, and how to finally break free from the madness to create more income and freedom.

Does that sound great?

Register at http://sellingwithspirit.com/?page_id=97 to join the call.

Next week, I promise to help you with even more valuable mindset shifts and actionable tools to help you get your leads, prospects, & clients to fall in love with you and buy what you’re selling.

When people start responding to your messaging, it will seem like magic.

Register for that telecall at http://sellingwithspirit.com/?page_id=94

Relief is in sight.  You CAN make a profit AND make a difference consistently in your life and in the lives of prospects and clients you are meant to serve.

And, you can leave the scariness of Halloween and your current business results back in the nightmares of yesteryear where they belong.

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image license credit:  Some rights reserved by Capture Queen ™

At every networking event he had attended in the last several months, he’d met at least one or two coaches or business consultants.

For the coaches and consultants in the room, this might’ve been a frustrating

experience.

How many times have you gone to a networking event and run into your professional twin?

At larger Business After Hours or Schmooze Events, it is not uncommon to run into 5 or 10 different massage thereapists, real estate agents, NLP practitioners, and yes, life coaches and business consultants.

There are referral-based organizations and leads groups that exist — the big names are BNI, LeTip, and in a few cities I Take the Lead — who try to head off this challenge by permitting only one professional from any one business category to be a member of the group at any given time.

The idea is that the other members will choose to work with and refer you before a nonmember who provides the same product or service.

Whether you belong to one of the exclusive membership leads groups or not, it may be interesting and even cute when we’re talking about literal twins, but it gets a little old when service professionals who sell the same thing are virtually indistinguishable the one from the other.

And, not just frustrating for the service professionals!

As what likely went through the mind of the man who kept running into business coaches and consultants at every networking event he attended, how does anyone know who/whether/which is a fit for you or someone you know?

The challenges are many that get people in this situation, but here are two of the biggest offenders:

1.  Most people define what they are and what they do by their professional title.  For example, you may call yourself a coach, massage therapist, acupuncturist, lawyer or window cleaner.

The problem is your title at most only vaguely explains what you do or who you do it for.

The second problem is when people hear your title, they have their own subjective idea of what you do, which is unlikely to be in your favor.

What’s more is that whatever it is they think is going on in their head where you are not privy to their internal conversation with themselves where they are also forming an instant  opinion of you.

“You’re a massage therapist?  Ewww! I don’t want anyone touching or rubbing scented oil on me!”

“Oh, so you’re a lawyer.  Mom told me never to trust a lawyer.”

See what I mean?

2.  Most people have difficulty articulating what they do in a clear, understandable, compelling way.

This manifests in one of two ways:

A.  Boring, me-too statements:

“I help people who are looking to buy or sell a home.”

(Well, what residential real estate agent isn’t?  If you’re saying stuff like this, it’s a clear sign why you and every would-be client of yours keeps seeing your professional twin everywhere)

Or

B. Those who hear your message have no idea what you do or why they or anyone else would buy what you’re selling:

“I help people get from where they are to where they want to be.”

(which, by the way, is also boring.)

What’s worse is when you see (or maybe you don’t!) that the eyes of the person with whom you are speaking are glazing over and you know you’ve lost them with whatever it is your saying, but you keep on talking anyway.

A Confused Mind Always Says ‘No’

It is little wonder, then, that people throw up their hands in frustration, exclaiming they can’t distinguish one professional business person from another.

Have you been guilty of mistakes?  Have you seen other professionals make them when talking with you?

What other mistakes have you seen entrepreneurs make that sets them up to keep running into their professional twin?

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“twins” image used under CC BY-SA license (http://flickr.com/people/e3000)

That evening, they had the NW Auctioneers competition, where the auctioneers competed against each other!

Have you ever been to an auction?

It was THRILLING (to say the least)!  Just thinking back on it gives me chills.

These professionals are amazing.  Each in their unique way create magical experiences with this fun, masterful method of selling.  This is where they shine.

My guess is that you also are masterful at your craft, whether that be as an auctioneer, a yoga instructor, a copywriter or whatever else is your skill set.

 This is why you do what you do:  you love doing it!

When we run into financial challenges, however, is when the lack of clients (or enough clients) prevents us from actively doing what we love (and are masterful at).

I shared with the auctioneers Sunday morning that one of the roadblocks to a thriving business is not the lack of skill in the craft, but rather not having a specialty (sometimes referred to as niche) and a target market or target audience.

Auctioneers usually have a head start on most business owners and sales professionals because they already know the wisdom of specialization.

For example, an auctioneer might choose to specialize in Real Estate Auctions or Car Auctions.  Maybe they prefer to develop expertise in Antiques and Collectibles or Heavy Equipment Auctions.  Still others concentrate on Storage Auctions or Benefit/Fundraising.

All of us can take a page from the auctioneer playbook on this one.

What is your specialty within your profession?

Can you answer this question solidly?

Sandy Schussel — a marketing coach who specializes in working with financial advisors and attorneys — wrote an article on why to Become an Expert.

In it, he shared that when he asked one of his clients (Her name is Carrie) whether she had thought about starting a college savings account for her daughter, she replied that she had just spoken to a specialist in college planning.

Sandy, who knew the firm where this “specialist” worked was surprised to hear this since “I knew there were no advisors in that company who were given any ‘special’ training.”

What prompted her to call this person a specialist?

Here’s the answer in Sandy’s own words:

Carrie told me that he had set up a college savings program for a friend of hers, who had then referred him along to her and Megan.  She boasted about how knowledgeable and well-read he seemed on a plethora of issues having to do with raising a child.

“We talked about an article in [the local] Parent’s Magazine and he offered to recommend a pediatric dentist for Megan’s teething problem,” she reported.

Carrie hired this advisor because he was a specialist.

The truth is, no one believes anyone is an expert in everything.

When your specialty is narrow, specific and focused, you can keep up with the latest trends, network and collaborate with others outside your industry who have the same or similar specialty (and cross-refer), and you become more valuable to your clients, leads, and prospects.

The other part of the equation is challenging for both auctioneers and other sales and business professionals, as well.  This is defining a target market.

Having a specialty in and of itself is certainly better than not having one.  In fact, many have built highly successful businesses highlighting their specialty all by itself.

For example, if you are the only pediatric physician in town, it’s likely — provided your town has babies! lol — you will not want for client-patients.

But, for the majority of service professionals, specialty alone is insufficient for business growth.

The fear that often comes up for people is that if they declare to the world who they specifically work with, it limits or excludes people they could otherwise serve.

On the surface, this appears logical.  However, a target market or markets opens up the best opportunities for you, rather than constricts them.

Rather than thinking you are limiting yourself, think of target marketing as focusing yourself.

With a specific market, it becomes crystal clear where to advertise or promote your messaging; what marketing media to use; what topics to blog, facebook, or tweet; and who to survey about their specific issues, wants and needs.

The shot-gun approach (where marketing efforts are scattered and haphazard) is hope-based marketing.  And, hope (in this context, at least) is not a strategy.

When your offer general solutions to people’s problems, they ignore you.  It’s what I call me-too marketing that is indistinguishable from the other service providers who do what you do.

There’s a saying “A confused mind always says no.”

In most cases, without a specialty and target market, the only solutions you can offer are mushy, general ones that — in the quest to speak to everyone — speak to no one.

The irony is, when you specialize and focus your marketing, people you are not targeting show up at your door or call you up, assuming that if you are an expert in one area, you must be an expert in others.

As Sandy Schussel observes, people would “rather have a specialist make an exception to work with them than have a mere commodity handle their case.”

(Of course, the conscious, ethical professional will work only with the people they can really help regardless of whether they are a member of their defined target market or not.)

So, what is your specialty?  If you already have one, do you see opportunities for establishing a specialty or expertise within that specialty?

Who can you best serve?  In other words, who makes up your target market or markets?

(Hint: pick 1 . . . or at MOST 2).

What are YOUR thoughts on this topic?

Post your comments below

When YOU say it, in most instances it comes off as either self-serving and therefore unbelievable, or the messaging is ignored because it just isn’t perceived as relevant to your audience.

Which, by the way, is why advertising as it is typically employed rarely works for the solo sales professional or service-based business owner.

So, how can you influence your audience to do the bragging for you?

Here are 3 powerful ways the brand DRY Soda proactively ignites the Word of Mouth Engine to get their customers and prospective customers singing their praises for them.

What can you do similarly in your business?

1.  Differentiate Yourself

DRY Soda is flavored carbonated water.

Whatever you want to call it — club soda, seltzer, sparkling water, soda water – it’s still about as exciting and ubiquitous as toilet paper.

That is the same reaction, by the way, people have when you tell them at a networking event the title of what you do.

Not only do they have their own presuppositions of what it is lawyer, business coach, or aerobics instructor does, the title itself tells them nothing about how you are different from every other lawyer, business coach, or aerobics instructor in the room.

How does DRY Soda differentiate?

In all their communications, they share that it’s the “better for you diet, low sugar, all natural soda . . .in 7 unique flavors,” each containing just 4 ingredients.

DRYSoda bills itself as the “re-imagining of what soda can be.”

Without resorting to maligning the competition, DRY Soda offers a refreshing way to differentiate itself.

Less Sugar.  Healthier.

What’s not to like about that?

2.  Engage with Your Audience

DRY Soda really shines in the Engagement Department.

Though DRY Soda is already sold in some Portland, Oregon (Where I live) restaurants and grocery outlets, last Monday the company hosted the Portland Launch Party at Hotel Lucia in Downtown Portland.

Marketing Director, Kate Thompson, mentioned to me that most of the attendees (including me) hadn’t heard of DRY Soda before but learned of the event on Facebook or Twitter.

(Are your potential customers or clients on social media?  Are YOU?)

DRY Soda hosted the venue, food, and cocktails with DRY Soda flavors as mixers.  (Free food and alcohol is always a draw! LOL)

All of the staff actively come up to initiate conversations with the attendees, including the fabulous founder and CEO of DRY Soda Co., Sharelle Klaus.

The DRY Soda van was a highlight for me, as we were given tastes of all of the natural flavors (made from extracts, the recipes of which are “proprietary information”….which basically means they aren’t spilling the beans!) by Hunter, the fabulous DRY Soda Sommelier and an education on the product.

How might you create your own “Launch Party,” inviting your clients and potential clients?

As a solo business professional myself, throwing a DRY Soda-style gala is a little out of the budget, but a few years ago, I threw a Virtual Open House Party, complete with guest speakers, music, and prizes.

At DRY Soda bus/van. it was also nice touch to have the event photographer ask us to take a photo, and I celebrated with the discovery that ”Cucumber” is my flavor.

Speaking of “my flavor,” that (and the photographs) is another brilliant engagement tool in the DRY Soda toolbox.

When I returned home from the event, I found DRY Soda Co.’s Facebook Page and was greeted with a landing page that asked “What’s Your Flavor?  Click a DRY Soda bottle to vote!”

Talk about engagement!  What a brilliant idea.

And the very next day, photos from the Launch Party PDX were uploaded, so of course, I went in to tag myself, my partner, and others who were in attendance.

(You can see pics of me by clicking on the DRY Soda photo album entitled Hello Portland! Launch Party at Hotel Lucia, July 25, 2011)

The DRY Soda bus/truck/van is on tour in Portland for the next 6 weeks, so naturally DRY Soda is engaging folks both on their Facebook Page and on Twitter (#DRYTour) so that all of us groupies can get our fix.

Are your wheels turning?

How might you emulate DRYSoda in your own engagement campaigns?

3. Find an “In” with your customers

Building Rapport is the first step in the stages every entrepreneur must go through before anyone is going to even think about doing business with you.

It’s human nature to soften and begin to have an affinity toward someone when we discover they have something in common with us, especially if that something is a source of price.

How could a Seattle-based company really tap into the heart strings of native Portlandia, when her people are often skeptical of what comes out of Seattle?

Well, Hunter (the DRY Soda truck guy) skillfully new what to say.  He mentioned in between tastings that DRY Soda is bottled right here in Portland.

Woah.  Well, that’s interesting.

And what’s more, he told me, the water that is used to produce DRY Soda is from the Bull Run watershed, located about 90 minutes east of Portland in Mt. Hood National Forest.

Now, THAT’S huge.

I immediately mentioned this both to the CEO Sharelle Klaus and the Marketing Director Kate Thompson.  Not only is DRYSoda created with only 4 very pronounceable ingredients, it’s got Portland stock in it!

In fact, when I tweeted these facts, it got the attention of the Portland Water Bureau, who asked DRY Soda for permission to brag about their use of Bull Run water.

Here’s DRY Soda’s response:

DRYSoda Jul 27, 11:48am via HootSuite

@tshombe @portlandwater Thanks for sharing the DRY love, Tshombe. We love that DRY is truly a PacNW business!

Wonderful example of being the best without actually screaming it from the mountaintops, don’t you think?

So, How might you creatively uncover what you have in common with your customers and prospects to create instant rapport and affinity?

You might say that we are prophets of sorts, in that we cause or influence to come into being what we foretell by our own expectations and attributions.

Similarly, we affect the world around us and the people in it. Our influence can be quite powerful, in fact.

Have you ever heard of the Pygmalion Effect?

It comes from the Greek Mythic character, Pygmalion, who — as the story goes — has no interest in women.  As a result, he decides to sculpt a statue of the “ideal woman”.

This he does, creating a beautiful woman out of ivory and naming her Galatea.

She was so beautiful that Pygmalion falls madly in love with her and prays to the goddess of beauty, fertility and love — the great Aphrodite — pleading that she bring the statue to life.

Aphrodite obliges, gives the statue life, and the pair live happily ever after.

A clear implication of this story is that we create others or create of others what we expect of them.  In this case, the statue was in a sense co-created by both Pygmalion and the goddess Aphrodite.

You may be more familiar with one of the many reinterpretations of the Pygmalion story, the most well-known of which is George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion” and its musical adaptation, “My Fair Lady.”

In the same way Pygmalion created Galatea, phonetics professor Henry Higgins’ great experiment was to refine the speech and manner of a Cockney flower girl, named Eliza, to create of her an English lady.

Henry Higgins had complete expectation he could pull this off.

If you know the story, you’ll remember his words to Eliza:

“Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf; you disgrace to the nobel architecture of these columns; you incarnate insult to the English language! I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba.”

And another famous line:

“By George, Eliza. The streets will be strewn with the bodies of men shooting themselves for your sake before I’ve done with you.”

And he was not kidding.  Professor Higgins was able to create a member of the genteel class out of humble Eliza Doolittle.

Of course, he had the full cooperation of Eliza.

Yet, her decision to become a lady was largely influenced by Professor Higgins’ expectation that she could become one.

What does this mean for us?

Well, we must use our power consciously to influence for good. This is an awesome responsibility.

Not only do we have the power to create our own inspirational reality by choosing to perceive it in that light, we also can and in fact do likewise influence others.

What do you think of that?

Let us expect the very best of ourselves and of/from others . . .

. . . including our leads, prospects, and clients.

That’s what magnetic marketing is all about:  keeping my mind open to the possibilities of reminding leads and prospects of the value and benefits of what I do in a way that catches their attention and matches my personality and my brand.

(Leveraging every marketing opportunity is also important, and how you are going to do that should be considered well before implementing any new marketing strategy.)

Back in the June 2008, Jim Cronin over at The Real Estate Tomato reported on the marketing genuis idea of one of their clients, realtor Michael Bergin of Alexandria, Virginia.

The goal was to increase subscriptions to his new blog, GWSleptHere.com (The GW reference is to the first president of the United States, George Washington.).

To that end (and with the GW branding in mind), Michael created a mailing that included an announcement of the new blog, a business card, and a dollar bill replica (George Washington’s face is on the dollar bill).  The promotion on the back of the dollar bill offered a $5 Starbucks giftcard to the first 50 subscribers to GWSleptHere.com.

They sent the mailing to at least 300 people on all of their lists, including clients, church members, and the neighborhood association, to name a few.  As Michael elaborates in the comments of The Real Estate Tomato’s article, he and his partner also used every free opportunity to hand out their dollar bills and announcements during their day-to-day activities.

From my rough calculations, their total investment in this promotion was just under $700 for the cost of printing, postage, and Starbucks gift cards.  This did not include the design work, which was traded in exchange for dinner.

Perhaps if Michael had gone to a local printer rather than Kinko’s and offered some sort of trade with a local coffee shop instead of Starbucks, he may have even further reduced the cost of this promotion.

Does this give you any ideas for promoting your blog, real estate or otherwise?

The goal, of course, is to drive quality traffic to your blog.  Your job, thereafter, is to provide a consistent stream of interesting and valuable content that keeps your new readers coming back for more (and referring others to your very cool blog).

As for Michael, the next thing he should’ve been thinking about (besides creating quality content) is how to leverage this great idea, capitalizing on the buzz he’s generated.

It’s one thing to create a creative splash that draws curiosity and traffic, and quite another to plan ahead so that you do not become another one-hit wonder.

If you were in Michael’s shoes, how else would you continue to add value to your potential clients?

What could he have done for those subscribers who were not among the 50 to receive a Starbucks card?

What would you do?

What makes you different?

Why should I choose you to represent my interests over another?

What’s your specialty?

Despite this advice, many people in business continue to resist because their product and service can help anyone and everyone.

How many real estate agents (for example), have you encountered that — when asked — say that their target market or ideal client is anyone who is buying or selling a home.

Anyone?

Unless you already have an unlimited bankroll, marketing to anyone and everyone is quite an expensive undertaking which ultimately amounts to severely diluting your efforts.

Seth Godin calls it The long slide to gone.

And that’s exactly where you’ll be — gone, out of the game — if you try to be all things to all people and compromise yourself, as a result.

It’s kinda funny to hear that.  It still is a little jarring.

Why would anyone be asking you how many hits you received today?  Is this a regular occurrence?

Then, I remember they are talking about visits to their website.

Sometimes I’m a little slow. LOL!

A perusal down memory lane on Seth Godin’s blog revealed in the archives an entertaining (as usual) and thought-provoking (equally “as usual”) post he titled “Silly Traffic.”

Silly because people seemed to be obsessed with getting it, regardless of where it comes from.

In fact, I just saw on a social networking site today an advertisement promising to get you more traffic in just 48 hours!

Now, if you’re simply hosting a personal web site or blog, traffic for traffic’s sake may be just fine.  But, if you’re showcasing your expertise and creating value in the form of content with the objective of getting more clients and creating more income, just any ol’ traffic — no matter how much it is — just doesn’t cut it if in the end no one’s connecting, inquiring or buying.

I know people who every second, it seems, are analyzing their traffic.  They practically have a nervous breakdown should it fall for one second.

And so, off they go, chasing every self-proclaimed guru promising a 300% increase in traffic in 30 days or your money back, and then employing every trick in and out of the book to get one more person to visit their site.

Madness.  No wonder Seth called it silly.

He offers a better way that’s more productive (and sanity-saving):

1. Engage your existing users far more deeply. Increase their participation, their devotion, their interconnection and their value.
2. Turn those existing users into ambassadors, charged with the idea of bring(ing) you traffic that is focused, traffic with intent.

Imagine that.  Traffic that creates meaningful relationships with people who “get” you, are magnetically attracted to you, and want to do business with you.

Many entrepreneurs are expressing a bit of frustration with their progress over the last half year, and may find it outside the realm of reality when I assert that there are people out there who already want what you sell.

The reality may be that people aren’t buying.  That’s what you see, and that’s what you affirm.

Makes sense.

However, in this video segment on Vibrational Marketing, Abraham-Hicks offers that the problem with the obsession with affirming what is is that ‘If you keep affirming (it), you can’t budge from that spot.’  In other words, even when people DO express interest in buying from you, you simply cannot see it because your mind is still affirming “what is.”

I know I don’t do it justice with this introduction, which is why I invite you to invest a little more than 17 minutes to watch and listen to Abraham and Esther Hicks addressed this subject.

You’ll find it inspiring, I promise you:

What do you think of the video?

How might you include Vibrational Marketing in attracting ideal clients?

(Sidenote:  It’s serendipitous that the main theme for the month of June is Realignment.  From time-to-time, everything needs a tune-up, right?  Check out the Shamanic Forecast for the month of June 2011 for an thorough discussion of the meaning of Realignment and how we can embrace the theme as a focal point to support our personal and professional growth and expansion.)