Now What?
Marketing to Customers
Who Are Not Eager to Buy
Steven Skyles-Mulligan
Evoke Strategies
Everywhere I go these days, one question comes up: how is the economy affecting your business? The answer varies quite a lot, but very few people are saying "it's not." This nasty situation is hitting everyone -- even professionals who might previously have seemed immune to falling business cycles:
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Attorneys in most specialties are finding fewer clients walking in the door as people postpone dealing with non-essential matters.
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CPAs are noting that some of their clients are taking ever longer to pay, that other clients' lines of credit are being drastically decreased or cut off altogether, and even that some of their business clients are being forced to shut their doors.
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Financial advisors are observing that their sales cycle has increased, their "stickiness" factor has decreased and the overall mood of their clients is sour.
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Risk management specialists, who even in good times do a ton of work for free, are finding that the cost of coverage is increasingly the most significant factor in buy decisions.
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Even a friend of mine in a well established funeral business has hit an unexplained extended dry spell.
It's certainly tough out there, but if you are looking for one more pronouncement of "gloom and doom" or another chance to rub salt into your wounds, this isn't it.
Opportunity comes at all times
Most of us have had the experience of working so hard that our bodies finally will take no more and simply collapse, succumbing to the flu or some other illness. To get back on our feet, we have to do the things we should have been doing all along to take care of ourselves: eat well, rest, drink fluids. You know the drill. In many respects the economic meltdown provides an opportunity to build back up and do the things we ought to have been doing anyhow.
Marketing is one of those things -- and it's something that professionals seldom tackle because they don't want to and often don't need to. Well, now we all have to, at the very least just to show people that our doors are still open for business. At its core, marketing is simply a way to engage clients and prospects in conversations that may lead to deeper relationships and, eventually, to an engagement or "sale."
What really works?
Over the next few issues, I'll be offering some practical advice on strategies and tactics that professionals can use now to promote their firms (and themselves) no matter what is going on with the economy. We'll look at multimedia, social media, Internet strategies, public speaking, networking and a whole range of things that are cost effective and not terribly time-consuming. In the meantime, you might want to get started with my overview video on YouTube.
I started off by saying that very few people are saying "it's not" affecting them. There are some exceptions. Just this week, I was in touch with Tam St. Armand, who (among a ton of other things) is putting together an extraordinary invitation-only global network. Then I met up with Maxine Hartley, an amazing executive coach whose practice is thriving.
The economy isn't affecting their businesses because they aren't letting it. These two women are just as cheerful, creative and full of smart business ideas as they were six months ago. There may be a lesson there for all of us.
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Feel free to email with any questions or to ask for more information: steven@evokestrategies.com. I'll be glad to help in any way I can.
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