Having run my own businesses for the past 7 years I have learnt a thing or two about marketing.  The first major breakthrough is to understand what marketing is.  Simply put, I believe that it is any activity that generates sales and awareness about your product or service.  In the past when I have been running the Life Coaching Handbook Diploma course with Curly Martin at the Achievement Specialists in Bournemouth www.achievementspecialists.co.uk I have enjoyed sharing my experience and expertise with delegates who are setting up their own businesses.  I often smiled when I asked the question "can somebody give me a definition of marketing?". I was always careful to check who I had in the room and asked any marketeers to keep me 'honest' throughout the module I was delivering.

When I worked in corporate life there was always a divide between the sales function and marketing function.  The marketing department proclaimed that they sold a 'dream' to the customer.  It was the salesman's job to deal with the reality!  As I used to work in a highly technical environment that theory was often tested to its' limits as solution selling was dependent upon giving the client an accurate description of what the product could or could not do.  If you are wondering what does all this have to do with me.......well, read on.

The truth is this, whether you are self employed or pay-rolled or if you are building new personal relationships, you need to market yourself.  People need to know what it is you are offering, what purpose it fulfils and how it will somehow make their life better.  Coaching and hypnotherapy are easy to market because I categorically believe that everybody I see experiences some kind of improvement in their lives.  I am all about improvement. 

In the New Year I am going to be running some specific marketing seminars for small businesses so that I can share a wealth of experience about what works and what gets you noticed and brings in results.  In the early days of building a business you need to do a lot of marketing.  It is exactly the same in a new job or when you are building a new relationship.  People need to; see you, hear from you and have an experience of you.  If you have no clients to start off with, you will need to spend a 100% of your time marketing your products or services.  As your business grows and develops that slides down to somewhere between 30 & 40% of your time.  The key message here though is this - you need to keep doing it!  It is not rocket science but often overlooked.  What are you doing on a regular basis to make sure that you, your job, your product or service is in full view?  Who needs to know about you who doesn't already?  How could you reach them?  What opportunities do you have to address as many people as possible?