By the time you complete Module Four, maybe you'll be in a full-on, mad, passionate love affair not only with the idea of marketing and selling. I can only hope.
Just like any new love affair, you want to give yourself time to absorb the newness of it all. Don't let the multitude of strategies, techniques, and exercises in Module Four overwhelm you. Pick the strategies that are most aligned with your strengths and run with themāyou don't need to execute all of them. In fact, only three of the strategies are mandatory, whereas three of them are optional. Can you guess which are mandatory and which are optional?
The Book Yourself Solid Six Core Self-Promotion Strategies
- The Book Yourself Solid Networking Strategy
- The Book Yourself Solid Direct Outreach Strategy
- The Book Yourself Solid Referral Strategy
- The Book Yourself Solid Speaking Strategy
- The Book Yourself Solid Writing Strategy
- The Book Yourself Solid Web Strategy
Give yourself an A-plus if you guessed that the mandatory strategies are: Networking, Direct Outreach, and Referrals. You don't survive without using those basic strategies for creating awareness for what you offer.
You might have guessed that speaking and writing strategies are optional, but are you surprised to hear that the web strategy is also optional? Yes, having a professional website that effectively starts conversations with potential clients is necessary 99.9 percent of the time for service professionals, but beyond that, you need not learn or use all of the additional web marketing strategies. If you're not web or tech savvy and have absolutely no desire to become so, then you shouldn't worry about all the various bells and whistles the web offers. If you can outsource this, great. If you have the resources to hire people to run these efforts for you, then go for it. But, if you try to dive into the web with no real interest or aptitude, you're sure to become overwhelmed, and fast. I know this might sound blasphemous to an expert in search engine optimization or a Facebook ad strategist, but there are many service professionals who build their business offline and send what is called direct traffic to their site rather than drive traffic from other online sources. More on this in Chapter 16, but my point is that you can get booked solid with solid networking, direct outreach, and referral strategies alone.
Start with the strategies that speak to you first. The only possible mistake you can make is to try all of these strategies at once. You run the risk of watering down your efforts, becoming frustrated with the results, or worse, quitting before you see any results. I suggest that you use the three mandatory strategies, networking, direct outreach, and referrals, and pick one of the optional strategies, web, speaking, or writing, to start.
The mandatory strategies will ensure that you're creating awareness for the products and services you offer and the one optional strategy will supercharge your promotional efforts. Then, over time, as you get more and more proficient with the mandatory strategies, feel free to add in more of the optional strategies. In the process, do your best to enjoy, embrace, and profit from the Book Yourself Solid Six Core Self-Promotion Strategies.
Knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two very different things. For years, I've seen many a talented service professional struggle to get clients because, even though they understood what they were supposed to do, they just didn't do it. Watching others struggle so much hurt my heart, and solving this problem for the people I serve became an obsession, which hurt my head. Thankfully, for me, and fortunately, for you, I believe we've solved the problem.
Remember, the Book Yourself Solid system is supported by both practical and spiritual principles. From a spiritual perspective, I believe that if you have something to say, if you have a message to deliver, and if there are people you want to serve, then there are people in this world whom you are meant to serve. Not kinda, sorta, because they're in your target marketā¦but meant toāthat's the way the universe is set up if you're in the business of helping others.
From a practical perspective, there may be two simple reasons why you don't have as many clients as you'd like:
- Either you don't know what to do to attract and secure more clients; or
- You know what to do but you're not actually doing it.
The Book Yourself Solid system is designed to help you solve both of these problems. Module Four will show you what to do to attract and secure more clients. But these six core self-promotion strategies must be executed every day. Yes, every working day. You don't need me to tell you that your future rests on your ability to execute these strategies with daily discipline. However, you might need me to help you:
- Identify exactly what you need to do each day to book more business; and
- Definitely get it done, daily.
This module will show you exactly what do to daily. Most important, the concepts and action steps laid out in the following pages will help you create relentless demand for the services and products you offer so that you can energetically build a cadre of high value, high-paying, inspiring clients.
