Distributing and marketing expertise is a challenge. Often you go looking for business in all the wrong places.
The market you are looking for is closer than you think!
Winston Marsh, a Thought Leader on marketing, has a great saying which he repeats often; "There is more business 5 minutes from where you live than you could ever need". And yet we all travel around looking for business in far off places.
I think this is true not only of business, but also ideas. Your next great idea is 5 degrees off what you are currently doing. We go through this convoluted process of identifying target markets and creating new ideas, when a slight adjustment in what you are currently doing may be all that's required.
Here are some examples:
- You are a chiropractor who wants to be a public speaker. Start offering bi-monthly seminars to existing patients and friends. Plus, offer an annual membership for the 6 seminars rather than individual tickets.
- You are a business coach who wants to leverage the one-on-one sessions so you can make more money. How about setting up a quarterly catch up? As people move on from one-on-one they can join a 90-day group forum - kind of like a catch-up club. This gives you client continuity and becomes a fabulous marketing tool to invite potential new clients to.
So, why don't we do this more?
Maybe 1: We don't find the above suggestions as exciting as something far off.
Maybe 2: We can't really procrastinate on any idea as easy to implement as the above two examples. We like to create bigger ones so we can claim to be working towards our goals but not actually having to realise any of them. (A bit dark I know, but it's amazing how clever we are.)
What do you think? Why don't we act on the easy ideas that sit in front of us?