On Being Prematurely Excited About the Potential for Online Marketing for Your Business
I talk to a lot of people every day about their business and how and whether online marketing will help them solve their business growth, website and online marketing challenges.
Usually, I can determine whether I can help them or not before they can determine whether I can help them or not. (Read that sentence again.)
Sometimes, I get a little too excited about it. And that's a bad thing because really my job is to help people to buy, not sell them on what I think they can do. To help them buy, it's critical that they determine how I can help them. Not for me to just blurt it out. There certainly is the appropriate time in my conversations with a prospective client to demonstrate how I can help them solve their problems and achieve their goals. But, it's not in the beginning. And it's not until I am convinced I actually can help them and that they say they want the help.
For example, one of my clients, Darcy Cook, (cpr training genius) is probably the least literate computer person under 40 that I know. She's a people person. Put her in a room full of prospects and she'll walk out with 10 contracts. But, on the web, this stuff is intimidating for her. So, when she signed up, I simply established that I knew what her goals were and told her how much time and money she'd need to invest to get there. And that she'd need to be willing to spend the time. By the time I got there in the sales process, I had demonstrated my internet marketing expertise to Darcy and she trusted me to do the right thing for her business. So, Darcy said "let's get started". She's a month in now and about to launch her fully search engine optimized/lead-capture-ready website onto the web. Based on her specific situation, I expect her to generate more leads in her first month with her new site than she did all of last year from the web.
But, if I had blurted out how I could help her in the beginning of the conversation, I would have just overwhelmed her and she would have probably done nothing other than go to more networking events - in order to grow her business.
Now, she'll be out on the web and moving towards her goals of expanding her business beyond New England within the next few months. Something she couldn't have done if she just kept going to local networking events to generate leads.
So, if you're reading this and I sent this post to you, you should know that I think it's worth it for both of us to continue talking... because I can probably help you. Don't be discouraged that I haven't said it yet. Be patient if I haven't told you how yet. (I'm still trying to figure out how to best help you.) And if I'm overwhelming you with too much information, just tell me to go slower.