By Marcia Yudkin

Marketing is a numbers game, some people claim. In this way of thinking, you put disembodied messages out into the world. A certain number of them hit the spot and provoke purchases. Your goal in marketing is to tweak your message and your target market until the conversion rate makes you the kind of money you want to earn.

I’d like to propose another way of thinking about getting business. If that paradigm feels disembodied, alienating and scary to you, you may feel more comfortable understanding marketing as a way of making genuine connections with people so that they are inspired to become your customer or client.

Recently I had a consultation with an alternative health care practitioner who has a lot of trepidation about marketing as it is usually presented to her. However, she said she is at her best face-to-face, one-on-one with prospective clients. In that situation, she easily and naturally demonstrates what she can do for the other person and gives them an experience that leads them to want more.

I invited her to think about marketing as the task of setting up situations precisely like that, where she could have a human connection with likely clients, one at a time. Then, if the need was there and the connection was right, both parties would want to turn that experience into a client-practitioner relationship. She loved this idea!

Together we brainstormed ways that she could arrange unintimidating situations where she could get face to face with potential clients. These included:

* At a wellness conference, wearing a lapel button offering a free session of her specialty

* With the facility’s permission, providing a free session at a health club, beauty salon or yoga center

* Being available for free trial appointments at a medical clinic one day a month

* Having a regular free drop-in time slot at her office every week or month

* Running a bring-a-friend special for existing clients where the friend would get a free session and the client would receive a gift for bringing the friend

All of these situations felt doable and even exciting to my client, and she couldn’t wait to get them going.

So what would the equivalent human-contact experience be for you?

Not long ago I heard a business consultant describe the one-on-one marketing he did while attending a large conference, and afterwards. During the conference he had many chats with other attendees, one at a time. He would simply smile at someone standing alone and say, ‘Hi, what do you do? How’s business?’ Then, based on what the other person said, he would give them some business advice. He added, ‘There’s probably more than we can go over later. Would you like to have a 20-minute conversation with me once the conference is over?’ Back home, he followed up with that conversation and signed many of those contacts as clients.

That sequence fits the alternate paradigm of marketing I described above: Face to face, make a genuine human connection. Provide an experience of what you have to offer. Let them get to know both you and your expertise. Those you talk to are people, not numbers. You are not a cog in some impersonal machine. You have a chance to show what you do best and those who appreciate that have the opportunity to step up to a client/practitioner relationship.

About the Author: A bookworm as a child, Marcia Yudkin is now author of more than a dozen books, including 6 Steps to Free Publicity and Persuading People to Buy. She mentors introverts so they discover their uniquely powerful branding and most comfortable marketing strategies:

yudkin.com/introverts.htm

Source:

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