3 Ways To Help You Overcome The Uneasiness, Anxiety And Discomfort Of Self Promotion.
Have you heard the saying it's not enough to be a (insert your profession / trade here) you also have to be a great self promoter of (insert your profession /trade here). Now for a lot of people the very idea of marketing themselves is uncomfortable, distasteful even, but it doesn't need to be that way. You can overcome the fear of self promotion, it's just like anything else, with the right tools, strategies, support and most importantly a shift in your mind set you can discover the fun in self promotion to where it even becomes effortless self promotion.
Perhaps the first thing you to do is to stop thinking of self-promotion as a project and start incorporating it into your daily business duties as a vital business generation task.
For example a "keep-in-touch strategy." This is easy if you use a an autoresponder service.
There are a range of autoresponder services to choose from, do your research and decide the one that best meets your needs.
Make it a habit of regularly sending your clients and potential clients emails, personal notes and informative articles.
It means: giving before you get building and nurturing relationships and honoring your promises.
Ultimately effortless self-promotion is about establishing:
- trust
- credibility
- respect, and
- creating a presence in the marketplace.
Three things you can start doing yourself today are:
(By the way if these ideas don't resonate with you, take a deep breath and just do it, you simply need to overcome the fear of self promotion and accept it, as just a necessary part of of success - in business, at work, home, school)
1. Set small daily self-promotion goals.
- dropping someone a line,
- joining a networking group,
- donating your service,
- writing an article,
- promoting a blog,
- or showing up at an networking event.
IT MAY TAKE MONTHS TO SEE THE END RESULT IN NEW CLIENTS, but it gets you into the habit.
Reality check - clients will come to you when it is right for them, not you, and you have to be available to serve them when that time comes.
You won't build your business / your career / you life without doing those little steps every day.
2. You need a website, but not just any website, a direct response based website that grabs your target prospects attention and compels them to give you their contact details.
3. Be proactive - follow up, follow up, follow up.
- Keep in touch with diplomacy.
- Thank them for choosing you and your service.
Even if they only buy from you annually make an effort to stay in contact.
Keep your potential customers up-to-date of your activities, send them your newsletter, specials etc.
Sometimes it's hard to stay in touch. People change jobs, move around have different needs, budgets and so forth.
The onus is on you.
When you get down to it marketing your service is about marketing YOU.
You need to sell your potential clients on you:
Your uniqueness, your brand, your value - what you have to make their lives better.
You will find it hard, even impossible to achieve greatness or sustained success without the commitment and ability to be a shameless self-promoter.
If you come at it with the right attitude you will discover the fun in self promotion
So go on, make it fun, enjoy it and promote yourself now!