Twelve Marketing Mistakes Creative Entrepreneurs Make Part 4
Twelve Marketing Mistakes Creative Entrepreneurs Make – Part 4
In this series on marketing mistakes I have been sharing what stops creative entrepreneurs from reaching their financial goals and what stops them from creating an effective marketing plan. Marketing does not have to be overwhelming or take up all your time. When you have a clear marketing plan, marketing can be fun and it can be done in just 30 minutes a day. You will find links to the first three parts of this series at the bottom of this post.
Marketing Mistake #10: Creative entrepreneurs like to play it safe.
This mistake goes along with getting it right rather than getting it going. It’s more important to get it right so we play it safe. Does this sound like you? “I’m going to stand back until I have all the pieces in place instead of jumping out into that scary unknown and shamelessly marketing myself.” I hear this from my clients over and over again, they don’t know what to say or how to say it so they don’t say anything.
I cannot tell you how many times I have tried to implement different tactics or make offers to my specific audience and have fallen flat on my face. Over and over again, I have tried new tactics, titles, offers, webinars. Each time I put something out there and don’t get the response I wanted, I learned something new about what my audience did or did not want. This allowed me to offer something different that did get a great response! This is the infamous ‘fail early and often’ concept.
When you are not afraid to fail, you will stay in motion and gain valuable insights along the way. I love Thomas Edison’s famous story about how he perfected the light bulb. Edison failed to perfect the light bulb (one of the few creations he merely refined but did not invent) so many times it took him 10,000 attempts to perfect. However rather than accepting failure 9,999 times he is quoted as answering questions on his failures as rather: ‘I have not failed. I have just found 9,999 ways that do not work’.
Being scared of making mistakes forces you to play it safe instead of just jumping out there and making an offer. Woody Allen said that, “Ninety percent of success is just showing up.” Creative entrepreneurs don’t show up because they want to get it right. They play it safe, stay in the background and never grow their businesses. I’m encouraging you to get over that play it safe model. Stop living in the safe zone, just do it.
Idea Box: Many women play it safe because on some level they are afraid of success or of what they may lose if they start to play a bigger role in their community or the world at large. I invite you now to have a heartfelt dialogue with the concept of success. Imagine that success is sitting across the table from you, enjoying a cup of tea. Take out your journal and answer the following questions from the perspective of success:
“How do you like living in my world?”
“How can I help you?”
“How can you help me?”
“Who do you wish that I was more like?”
“How can I improve our relationship?”
“What would you like to do for me, that I’m not letting you do?”
“What beliefs do you wish I would change?”
“What can I do to spend more (or less) time with you?”
“How can I attract more (or less) of you?”
“What do you wish I understood about you?”
“What do you wish you understood about me?”
Marketing Mistake #11: Showing Desperation.
Creative entrepreneurs often struggle to make ends meet in their business because of many of the mistakes I have outlined so far. There’s no money coming in, they can’t pay their bills and they are feeling scared and desperate. Their marketing becomes calling people on the phone or standing up at a networking event and asking, “Do you need me? Do you need me today? I think I can help you today. Do you need me?” They become a sales-based marketer instead of an attraction-based marketer. They are pushing themselves on people and you can feel it.
I received a phone call recently from someone who I did business with asking me if I would renew his service early because he needed to pay his rent. Do you think this gave me confidence in his service? I don’t know about you, but I’m never that compelled by someone who is desperate. I don’t want to work with people who need me more than I need them. I want to work with somebody who is sought after in their industry and even difficult to get access to. It makes me ask, “What have they got going on? I want some of that, whatever it is!”
One of the ways you may be creating this aura of desperation that you may not even be aware of is by undercharging for your products or services, offering deep discounts or even giving away time and products for free to try to get clients in the door. You are much more compelling to someone who needs help if you are the type of person who has enough business already to support you or at least market yourself that way even if you are struggling for money. If you are the type who needs my business in order to survive, you are really not someone I want to do business with. I hope you hear that, it may sound harsh but it’s another major mindset shift. Be careful of the language you are using to promote your products and services, as well as the tone in which you say it.
Marketing Mistake #12: Failure to systemize your marketing approach and automate your lead generation.
Because creative entrepreneurs tend to struggle with systems, fixing this mistake seems particularly daunting. This is true especially if you are a creative genius at what you do but feel completely overwhelmed by technology and contemporary modes of marketing like social media, blogging, webinars and other online tools. I want to help you get your marketing working for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Creative entrepreneurs are passionate about their lifestyle. I know you value freedom and flexibility. I know you long for more creative time. Automating your marketing is one of the quickest ways to increase your exposure and create more time for play.
I will be sharing more about how to automate your lead generation in future posts.
Links to other posts:
If you are reading this post and thinking it’s going to be a challenge to shift your mindset around marketing, then I want to invite you to join me for a 3 day live workshop in December where we will be focusing on money, marketing and mindset as we create our business plans for 2016. It’s called The Path to Profit: Design Your Roadmap to Success. You can get all of the details here: www.PathtoProfit.net
Minette,
Your point about desperation was precious. I too, shy away from someone who appears too hungry. Not only is that sales style off-putting, but, like you, I get very concerned about someone who claims to have a viable business yet can’t make ends meet.
Another big red flag for me these days is prepay. Seems any time a new vendor has demanded this with the justification they’ve been burned in the past, I find there’s generally good reason relative to what they provide (or don’t).