Interesting, I like the idea of postcards but you say they didn’t work. Do you think it was becuase of the mailing list you where sending to or was it the method?

@Pryde

Good article. If you spend too much time marketing you can’t concentrate on building a good product. Of course, if you don’t market at all nobody will know you, even if you produce something genius. My time right now is 80% improving my product (in this case, writing), and 20% on networking/marketing. There should be a balance, until you get so popular clients are beating down your door.

Cold calling is illegal in the European Union and to be honest I’m perfectly okay with that. There is no more annoying thing than somebody calling me without prior notice to offer things I usually don’t need.

My personal experience is that networking and recommendations have been the best source of new business. I had very little success with cold calling.

However, what works for one business does not necessarily work for another. All the methods are worth trying, but you must have the conviction to drop the ones that clearly do not work.

As you yourself have discovered, it wasn’t the marketing itself that was at fault but the implementation of it. It’s useless to market yourself to a group that’s not made up of your target clients (Ideal Client Profile, as you call it). The key is to identify your target clients, find out where they are, how they find people to hire and work with, and BE there.

Dear Martha,
many or most people misunderstand the concept of marketing. Marketing means EXCHANGING. Sales is an integral part of the Marketing activities, as promo, placing, pricing and all the other P’s you might probably remember from Marketing 101.

One shall not consider advertising or some promotional activity as Marketing itself, which is a far more complex subject. After 2 MBA’s and a MSc Degree I am still convinced that there is still so much to learn, specially if you are dealing with International Marketing (so common in the internet age).

no sale ever takes place without marketing.

cold calling? thats marketing.
proposal? thats marketing.

that brief moment when they give you an assignment and money is the sale. Everything prior is marketing. One could argue the actual job you are doing is marketing for the next, but I wont take it that far.

guys, it is all matter of time, luck and who needs your service then. There is not proven method. Try everything if you got the money and time. Most people have limited money to spend on advertising.
I also know lot of designers that cater to designers. Also times are tough for everyone. Just like your post mine is gloomy too. But hey spring is here and lets all have a bright outlook at our industry

Martha here with an answer to @Pryde:

The trouble with my carefully crafted postcard list was that it was made up of people who already knew me and knew about my services. And, alas, I learned the hard way that if you keep telling the same people about what you do, there will come a time when they start ignoring you. That’s the immunity problem that I mentioned up above.

Closely related to this problem was the “erosion of client base” problem. That’s just a fancy way of saying that some of my golden, long-term clients started (sob!) leaving me. And I was clueless as to how to go about replacing them. Ultimately, the answer turned out to be, “Martha, pick up the phone, call total strangers, and ask them for their business.”

But I only came to this realization after trying advertising, networking, and seeking publicity. None of which worked very well for my business.

Another thing I’d like to elaborate on: Escaping the perfection trap…

As mentioned in the article, we all know people who’ve spent weeks and months perfecting their marketing materials, searching for the right office space, poring over purchases large and small, while all sorts of business opportunities are flying by. And I confess to being one of those people.

The solution is to become like Jim Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Company. Shortly after the company started, Koch was talking with a relative who also was one of his investors. Koch was waxing ecstatic about the computer system that would track the company’s sales. The relative stopped him short with a simple question: Do you have any sales yet?

Ummm, no.

The relative, hoping to see a return on his investment, urged Koch to get out there and sell. So, Koch donned a business suit, went to a nearby bar, and struck up a conversation with an employee. And the employee didn’t understand English. The boss, seeing what was going on, decided to come over and talk to Koch. To the boss, Koch looked like the tax man.

Koch re-started his sales pitch and offered the boss a beer sample. Boss liked it so much that he ordered several cases. And that’s what started Boston Beer, the brewer of Samuel Adams, on its way to success.

Hope this helps!

That’s one of the reasons I love the internet. You can always go out and create stuff for yourself. Market yourself or products. It’s not that you have to defeat the world single handed. You can do all kinds of things that fall into the marketing categorie depending on your skills. If you are a graphic artists create t-shirt, poster or whatever and post them for sale.
If you are a writer write about a topic you love or a topic that generates sales and become an expert. If you are a photographer create stock images or whatever.
Marketing is actually pretty simple, be good at what you do and try to make some extra bucks with the stuff you would do for free. This will on the one hand take a load from your shoulders, every buck counts at the end of the month, and on the other hand gives you the chance to create products that others would pay for.
Sometimes it’s hard, but probably it’s easier for a lot people to simply work work work work instead of market, and you can sell your own stuff pretty easy from a technical standpoint. You can do that marketing for yourself. Just look at freelance switch. People who love what they do and earn “a few bucks” with it… Just look at the price for an advertisement spot.

Great article, I actually went through all the same steps with my business and still try to figure out a way to attract genuine business that perfectly fits my model. I’ll keep you posted on my progress but I tend to agree with CrazyWabbit since you need to find what works best for you. Some people simply don’t believe in cold calls even if statistics shows that still 70% of quality lead is generated through the phone, and some people only rely on referrals while others on SEO etc.

Bottom line is, we get to put ourselves out there and the medium we choose depend on our talent and aptitudes at making something extra-ordinary out of it… Just like an artist will choose the right medium of expression that best suit his aptitudes.

Cheers!

Maybe its because i cater for a niche market or I’ve been lucky to get all my work via word of mouth or the small credit I put on artwork or on a website.

But cold-calling, oh no, I dont think I can do that. Maybe I will have to one day – but how in the world do you sell yourself?

Me again. Here’s an answer to Omar’s question about cold calling:

When it comes to selling yourself on the phone, use a script. Dan Turner’s Freelance Workshops script is a good one to start with:

http://www.freelanceworkshops.com/appointments.htm

That covers the phone call. What happens if, in the midst of all those “no” answers and voice mail messages left and never returned, you get someone who’s interested in doing business with you? Well, Dan Turner’s got your back again. Use his sales presentation format:

http://www.freelanceworkshops.com/presentation.htm

And, one more thing about cold calling: It’s a numbers game. After you do it for a while, you’ll find yourself getting very detached. You’ll find yourself setting some pretty strange-sounding goals. Take, for example, me on the phone today. My goal is to get 10 “no” answers. I’m up to six, so I have more calls to make.

Fantastic article, and brings up a great point. Even as entrepreneurs, no one person can or should do everything. I have unique experience with this because I used to market other people’s sites as the main part of my business. And I found that I couldn’t put full focus on doing my work AND marketing my site. So I put together a plan of what I needed done and outsourced them as tasks. I’d say, find someone who has dealt with YOUR type of clientele before, hire them to break down what you need into a task list, and go find people who know how to do those tasks to do them for you.

Of course, still do some basic networking yourself, on and offline, but also supplement with advertising and having other people do the parts you don’t have time for.

Great article, and it’s all very true. It’s easy to get caught up in the marketing and forget that the whole point is to make a SALE!

@eightfivezero Just to reiterate Jack’s point, cold-calling is alright because you’re calling other businesses with services they most likely are in need of — much different than calling people personally to offer things they don’t need.

Most businesses don’t mind receiving these calls, and even if they aren’t interested at the moment, will usually let you sign them up for your email list or something.

Martha, thanks for being frank and pointing out that if something isn’t working you need to adjust. Even if you’re attached for some reason.

Whether you’re using cold-calling, cold-emailing, annoying your friends and acquaintances for leads or any number of other activities you hate, the point is you’re doing something positive to generate new business offline. The Internet (sadly) isn’t the be-all and end-all of marketing.

Very good article. I have attended far to many “networking” meetings myself with great disappointment. I have seen far to many of my clients fall prey to many things. Most recently one of them absolutely had to have a pay-per-click program. They were sure it was going to deliver boat loads of leads to them via their website and they didnt want to hear anything otherwise. Fine, we set them up a pay-per-click program and spent weeks tweaking it to a point they were getting tons of traffic to their site. The only problem was their website was extremely outdated and very very weak. so they drove tons of traffic to their website but never converted one lead into a sale. They eventually listened to what I had to say, we’ve redone the site and also properly optimized it for the search engines to a point where we have cut way back on the pay-per-click and are still generating leads for them.
The moral of the story here is many things need to be done in 2 steps. Leads are no good if you cannot convert them to sales, and you can be the best sales person in the world but if you cant generate the leads your still driving a sinking ship. Hope my little ramble here makes sense!

Refreshing. Thanks Martha.

Thanks Martha. It’s a problem we find some of our clients have, they’re still used to the “old” way to advertise with perfect mailings or tv ads that don’t produce clients for them, versus having a solid online presence that leads a steady stream of new business.

Obtaining a “Book of Lists” for your particular market is a useful took for finding industry leaders in your area. Once a year I go through the annual listing to find prospective clients.

Martha, this is an extremely inspirational essay. Your experiences mirror my own completely.

The problem with “marketing” activities is that processes – one example being the design and deployment of a direct mail campaign – absorb a lot of attention, energy and money. Another problem with “marketing” is that it has a negative “placebo effect” – it makes you feel like you’re “safe” and “covered” because you blew all of this time and money on XYZ – so you enter a “stasis” and you wait passively for results that may not come. A third problem is that it’s distracting from further development of your message – it’s sucking up your time. A fourth issue is that it’s “one way” knowledge transfer. If a direct mail or advertising campaign doesn’t work, you have NO idea why not. You can guess, but the sums of money and the time required to iterate through different direct mail pieces in a meaningful way are usually prohibitive. The point is, you spend all of this money on postage or advertising and you *just don’t know* why it didn’t produce.

Cold calling has an unduly sleazy image. People *want* to hear about well targeted offers from fellow professionals. The only kind of B2B cold calling that I receive that irks me are the *mindless* or scripted cold calls. IE, I’m on some person’s list to hit up about payroll processing (yeah, right, I got one paycheck a month I run) or I get called to buy expensive checkbooks (I order checks directly from Costco for a pittance.)

Too many of us fall for the routine of “ready, aim, aim, aim, fire” (this includes me). We SHOULD sell with “ready – fire, fire, fire, aim.”

Great post!

Excellent article! I myself have had similar conversations with numerous freelancers in the past couple of years – I think there is a general misunderstanding out there that hard work + marketing always equals new clients and profit. That’s simply not the case (or at least in my own experience). Earlier in my career I spent a ton of time doing the traditional marketing moves only to end up with clients that I really didn’t like working work (and their budgets always left me making compromises).

Then I learned the key – marketing is only the ice-breaker – cultivating relationships is what counts when building a business – especially one where return service and referrals make up the bulk of a sustainable income. Best of luck to you Martha!

Oh – ps – I think you’re spot-on about how marketing can become a trap (or at the very least, an expensive distraction). Pushing too hard on marketing doesn’t always yield awesome results, but not pushing at all is a dangerous proposition as well. For me, having a low-level marketing buzz happening all the time (via a blog, promo products, pro-bono gigs, contests, etc.) has kept a healthy stream of clients.

Yes Cold Callign still works – hard work – creates the fera of rejection.

In order to improve on your cold calling:
Start to call those companies that have visited your website.
The pages visited and other visit data gives you their interest.
By additionally investigating about their business (could hey be a buyer) you can qualify them as leads.
Result: less rejection
Required: a web service that reveals the companies visiting your website and gives information about their visit(s).

Great article. My own experience was that cold calling did not work for me. Maybe it’s just the market in which I work, but “who you knew” mattered much more than “what you do.” Once I tweaked into that, the doors blew open. Every once in a while I have a little shake-up where a long-term client either goes quiet (or dies) and then I worry about having to get out and do the hustle again. But by starting with the folks I know, and asking for their help in expanding my relationship circle, I always get a new project. The key has always been getting an introduction to the new person via someone you both know.

I also believe in karma, big time. Help others and the favour comes back.

Interesting! Now I know that postcards don’t work NOT only for me. Thanks, Martha!

Good article. Interesting comments as well. I think all salespeople, business owners, consultants have all had to deal with the question, do I market, do I get out there and sell, do I join a networking group? And which efforts are going to pay off?
I’d like to clear up a common misconception.
Selling should be defined as one-to-one.
Marketing is trying to sell one to many. It drives the sales process.
Many people think they are one in the same… the lines are blurred in smaller businesses but they are very different functions.
The most effective forms of direct marketing, via postcards, mailers, etc, shouldn’t really be materials that say, “Look At Me” type stuff. Unless you’re prospect is in the market for your product right now, it’s going to be ineffective. On the other hand, if you know, as you say, who you’re ideal client is, provide a marketing piece that gives valuable information that will make the prospect respond. If you’re selling Logo design, offer a free report entitled “5 Ideas to Make Your Logo Standout”, or something like “5 Logo Makeovers That Will Make Your Business Unforgettable.” You’re marketing efforts will be much more fruitful.
Networking shouldn’t be considered a take away prospecting effort. In order to have networking success, it takes a while to develop relationships, and the more you do for others will eventually come back.

Great post! While different methods work for different companies/people, I think we can all agree that the implementation of your marketing is of utmost importance. Just sending out postcards to anyone and sitting back isn’t very effective but sending out fewer postcards or letters to ideal clients and then following up with a phone call can me much more beneficial.

I belong to the group who will spend hours, days, weeks to perfect that marketing collaterals and ended up with great frustrations. I’m going to try the cold calling method but what should I send to my prospect after making the cold call? I will still need to prepare my marketing collateral isn’t it?