Marketing Yourself

Selling your services is mostly about selling yourself. That means selling the idea that your prospect needs your service in the first place, AND convincing them that you're the best person to provide it.

Let's assume that the service you're trying to sell is marketing-related. You write sales letters, brochures, business to business letters or web copy. You may even specialise in writing small ads.

Your problem is that every prospective client you approach has had his or her fingers burnt by marketing that didn't work. They had a marketing department, but it was so costly they closed it down or reduced it to a bare minimum, or they had a marketing budget that was grossly disproportionate to results.

Not surprisingly, they seriously doubt whether you can do any better, and they certainly don't want to shell out any more silly money for no return on their investment.

Even if they do hire you, they want to beat your price down so it's barely worth your while taking the job. You could try elsewhere, or you could accept minimal fees, 'just this once' in order to gain a client.

Stop.

If your service is worth having, it's worth paying for. If your skills are valuable you should be rewarded accordingly. More to the point for the prospective client, when your marketing actually works, anything they've paid you was an investment, not a cost.

That's the message you must get across when you market your services. Explain to them how the marketing you propose will be at lower cost, even counting your generous fees, because it will bring a higher return. In fact, if you feel confident enough to guarantee it (and you really should be that confident), you can even tell them that the more they pay you, the more return they are guaranteed.

Just don't take on any lame ducks where such returns are really impossible, or any client whose marketing is already top-notch, so that you're unlikely to improve on their results.

Frankly, though, there aren't that many top-notch marketers whose business won't grow by at least several times your fees in the next twelve months, so your guarantee should be safe.

The benefit for you, in 'positioning' terms, is that you can present yourself as exclusive and difficult to access (ie, in demand and desirable), merely because you warn prospective clients that you may have to turn them down.

Sometimes, it's just a question of holding your nerve.

Roy