Jason Cohen recently wrote about little companies trying to act like big companies.

It instantly brought back the humiliation I’ve experienced personally and vicariously when people try to present themselves as something they aren’t in their marketing efforts.

You know exactly what I mean when you visit a business website that’s trying to put on a “we’re a big company face”.  I ought to know about that one for sure my first website was worse than stinky feet.

From the home page to every other page linked to it you get a non-stop stream of what I call corporatese puke.  Evidently it sounds impressive to the business owner, but the reader is totally confused about what the heck you actually do.

Now that’s bad, real bad because if I can’t figure out what you do I’m gone forever.  I’m certainly not going to buy from you.  And I’m not going to have any interest in having any connection with you whatsoever.

You’ve experienced this at networking events too.  One stands out in my mind even today some 3 odd years after the fact.  This lady comes up to me in a very professional manner and introduces herself as an Executive Coach.  Okay, great.

When I asked, “So what exactly do you do?”  She replied, “We help people achieve their potential.”

Uh-em before I tell you what went through my head I have to confess I grew up one of five children three of which were boys.  My brothers never pulled any punches.  They always gave it to me straight up no sugar coating.  To their credit I learned some of the most valuable lessons in life from those none too kind brothers.

So I’m thinking, “What… you got a turd in your pocket?”  I mean you just told me you are an Executive Coach which is a one-on-one gig and then you proceed to speak about what you do in terms of “we”.  That doesn’t make sense.

Then you try to impress me by reciting some nonsense.  What the heck does achieve their potential mean?  Yeah, achieving your potential is important for any level of success BUT the way the line was used just didn’t feel real.  It felt like you were pretending to be something you weren’t.  It felt fake.

Since she didn’t give me anything I felt I could work with I tried another route.  I asked, “So what did you do before you were an Executive Coach?”  She proceeded to tell me she works as an administrative assistant for a Dentist until she has enough clients to quit.

Well, those were the first real words out of her mouth.  However, having been a corporate executive for over 15 years there’s no way I would have considered hiring an administrative assistant as my “Executive Coach”.  I mean, what could she possibly know about being an executive?

It’s too bad we don’t all have a “fakometer” built in so we could catch our own mistake.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being the only person in your business.  That’s honest that’s real.  Pretending you are a big organization so you can impress someone is fake.  It comes off fake.  It causes you to lose integrity.  And when you lose integrity with the other person you are DONE.

The Executive Coach had taken some training and gone through a certification process to coach executives.  She was trying to get her first client.  That’s a hard spot to be in.  Every business has to have their first client before they can move onto bigger and better clients.

She could have kept her integrity and gotten results if she had been forthright from the beginning.  So in retrospect when the Executive Coach introduced herself she could have simply said, “I’ve just completed certification to practice as an Executive Coach.”  No shame in that.

Then when I asked, “So what exactly does an Executive Coach do?”  She could have said, “Well, there are a lot of things Executive Coaches do to help executives improve I want to focus on improving the way they communicate with their peers and staff.”

I can relate to that one.  Ineffective communication is probably one of the biggest problems in the corporate world.  I also would have thought of several people I could immediately refer her to.

I might have said something like, “You mentioned you just completed certification have you worked with some executives yet.”  Then she could have responded, “Actually that’s my big challenge right now… meeting executives willing to give me a chance.”

Now come on, if someone said that to you wouldn’t you actually do something to help that person?  I sure would.  I would have told her I knew just who she needed as her first client and then I would have set up a meeting with both of them.

No matter where you are that spot is just fine and a great place to start marketing your small business effectively.

Can your business succeed?

Do you have a good business idea?

Will your business survive?

All good questions every business owner asks at some point.  Ideally you should ask and answer a lot of good questions before you ever start.  Chris Brogan developed a nice list of questions everyone thinking about starting a business should review and answer.

Presuming you have a good business that does good things for the people who buy your stuff.

Presuming people are willing to pay to get your stuff.

Presuming you are capable of making good on what your stuff is supposed to do.

There is one thing that will keep you from succeeding.  That one thing is an inability to promote your business to the people most likely to buy your stuff.

If no one knows about your business or your stuff your business is history.  You will fail before you ever get the opportunity to succeed. You are shining your lamp under a bushel basket.  No one will know you exist.

You must be able to respond “yes” to these questions:

• Can you explain in simple words why someone would want to buy your stuff?
• Can you explain in simple words why your stuff isn’t just another warmed over version of the same stuff they can get elsewhere?

This can be a real challenge especially when:

• you are too close to your business
• you haven’t defined a specific group of people willing to buy what you have

Yet, it’s entirely doable.  Let me show you how you can uncover your slice of the market even in a crowded competitive market.  There are literally millions of blogs.  There are lots of blogs about blogging.

However, in that crowded market there are bloggers who have carved out there slice by establishing blogs for bloggers about…

• how to write a better blog
• how to build a blog
• how to develop blog readers
• how to create blog membership sites

While the segmentation would be different in other industries the ability to create this type of segmentation exists in every industry.

photo credit: azrianna azmil

Many small service business owners miss the mark when it comes to marketing themselves.  The only reason to market your service business is to produce leads.  Once you have leads you have an opportunity to move them through your sales funnel and earn a customer.

Until or unless your marketing produces leads you’re just throwing your hard earned dollars away.  Unfortunately, ad space sellers have their best interest in mind and they only want to sell ad space.  Never ever waste your money on ads that do nothing more than “get your name out there”.

In fact, before you spend one cent on advertising of any kind make sure you have a message that attracts the attention and interest of your ideal clients.  There are two free or nearly free ways you can test your message before you spend any real money.  First, develop a core marketing message and test it in face-to-face encounters.  Second, draft a marketing campaign of at least 3 if not 5 touches with a clear call to respond in each message.

Don’t get scared when I say draft a marketing campaign.  Your campaign could be nothing more than a series of three letters that you write and send to no more than 30 people a week.  By the time your ideal clients get your last message you’ll know if you have something you can improve on, or if you need to start over.

When it comes to marketing practice my philosophy of “aim small miss small fail forward fast”.  Aim small means that you’ll have a small pool of test subjects that you’re focused on connecting with.  When you do that it means you can’t miss big you can only miss small.  Fail forward fast speaks to the fact that if a marketing communication doesn’t work once it isn’t going to work the next umpteen times, so you have to make improvements until you reveal the message that does work.

You can work on your core marketing message without any financial expenditures.  And you could test a small marketing campaign for the cost of postage for three post cards mailed to 30 people for three weeks in a row.  That will fit into any small business budge, and what you’ll learn will be priceless.