As a life-long dancer, I know a bit about the importance of good preparation before performance. Before a dancer is ready for the spotlight, she has to master the basics including alignment, strength, flexibility, balance, choreography, and artistry.
As an educated professional, your success is based on what you know, your education, your intelligence, and your creativity. Even if you're just starting out, you've achieved success just to get your many degrees and pass those licensing exams! Your clients return and refer because you apply your expertise and insight to guide them to appropriate answers for their unique situations.
Face it?you know you've got to do something to keep a steady stream of clients coming to your professional service firm. But when it comes to the m-word (marketing), you'd rather not.
CRM?strategic engine or just another technology tool? How would you answer this question about your company's CRM initiative? It depends on how honest you are in answering some other questions, including:Do your people have real decision-making power to provide great customer service?Do you have the right people with the right knowledge and skills?Are you including people across the board, not just in your customer service and call centers?The bottom line is that people skill sets need to be similar to the technology they are using -- information sharing needs to be fast, focused, integrated.Let's Start With the LeadersFor CRM to become the strategic engine, not just a tool that people opt to use when they choose, managers and leaders need to demonstrate the new vision through their day-to-day actions.
A provocation for the coming year, decade, century or millennium.By now, you've set a working direction for the year, established
clear-cut objectives.
Rest assured that no matter how smart you are, you do not know everything about marketing. You don't even know anything about marketing your product! You can't figure everything out yourself, or see all the angles, or provide every bit of critical thinking.
Last month we looked at what you need to do before you spend money on marketing brochures, a website, advertising or even go out to network. During Phase 1, it's all about crafting your message.
Sounds pretty harsh, doesn't it? Well, I can tell you from personal experience with both my own business and with my clients, "differentiate or die" is not an exaggeration. Whether you're a small one-person shop or a large government agency, solvency and the future of your business rely on you standing out in a competitive marketplace.
Are you looking for a natural way to market your professional services? What if you could exponentially multiply the number of motivated, pre-qualified prospects you reach in a fraction of the time that networking and referrals require?Now what if you could be the person in a crowed room with whom everyone wants to talk about your services? And no, they don't want to sell you something?they want to buy what you've got.Too good to be true? Not if you know how to leverage the knowledge you get paid for every day as a professional service provider.
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