Is Lack of Promotion Blocking Your Success?

One thing you may not have realized when you started a business is that you are not just in the business of whatever it is you do. Nope. That is only one part of running a money generating business. You are also in the business of marketing and sales. In fact for most successful small business owners, this is what they spend at least 50% of their time planning and implementing.

I regularly see smart women with a high level of expertise and drive stymied by their lackluster income. And almost always, the reason is lack of promotion. So why would you hesitate to shout from the rooftops about the wonderful ways in which you can serve and help your clients?

Here are the most common reasons. Some of them are fear based and if you honestly assess what’s going on, you can certainly change it. In fact increasing your promotion may be the secret to unlocking your success.

1) You’re not sure what will work. You’ve tried some marketing ideas but they haven’t really paid off so you feel gun shy about trying more.

We’ve all tried something that has failed. It’s part of the entrepreneurial experience. But you simply need to learn from it and move on. The truth is that you may need to really master a marketing strategy that works, while also looking at why something hasn’t worked for you. Sometimes you have the right strategy but you’re just not reaching enough people. Sometimes you may reach lots of people but with the wrong product. If you haven’t worked with a successful coach or mentor you may be doing what I call random acts of marketing, but without a step by step proven system.

2) You don’t want to seem sleazy or pushy.

This is a common reason. As women we are taught to be nice, to be humble and accommodating. These are wonderful qualities and you don’t need to give them up to promote your business. You just have to keep them in balance. Promotion is simply about talking passionately about what you do and what you offer that gets results. You can do this through your blog, in social media, in emails or on your website, live or anywhere you find people in your target market. Promote by answering important questions your prospects have, offering free advice, providing good content that positions you as a go-to expert.

3) You’ve been taught that it’s rude to talk about yourself and you’re afraid of offending

For women particularly this is a serious issue. Many of us were brought up to be “nice girls”. We were taught to be modest, not brag, to be non-assertive, even passive. So we have bought into this subconscious but powerful belief that promotion is doing just that,  and it manifests as real fear and discomfort when it’s time to step into the spotlight, to ask people to follow us, listen to us, attend our teleclasses or webinars, subscribe to your list or buy from us.

This belief will leave you stuck making every excuse in the world for not promoting your business, which will leave you hiding your true gifts.

Bring awareness to this belief. Ask yourself if it’s really true that if you share your message you’re bragging or being aggressiveAffirm that you can only help more people if you share your message with as many people as possibleDo it even if it’s scary.

Next, create a well planned, multi-pronged promotional campaign for each product and service you offer. Just a few emails and tweets won’t get you great results.

It’s crucial that you take action and promote every week. When you skip weeks or months your business starts to dry up and fade away. I’m not talking about hammering people over the head with sales offers. That doesn’t work. But plan a series of educational events like tele-classes, online conferences, webinars, videos, blog posts and email series that build curiosity and interest in your product or programs while offering true value to your prospects or subscribers at the same time.

To get started,

 Create a marketing calendar. I use Google calendars. Plan one to two promotions each month. These could be with joint venture partners as well. Then add what you will do weekly to move more people from other sources such as social media onto your subscriber list and attract and engage with more social media followers.Work on building your social media following each week.

Try this for one month and you will start to see results. Won’t that feel great!

Logging In...