Why don’t you mail me your head?

Did you ever hear the story about the young woman who asked the young man why he never wrote her letters when he was away? He answered that he wrote letters to her in his head every day. Her response was quite blunt. “Then why don’t you mail me your head?!”

If you’re anything like that young man you’re always writing letters in your head, but not often getting down to actually writing those letters. And every time you don’t write the letter, a little of you gets chipped away.

Of course I’m alluding to all the marketing stuff that’s kicking around in your head just like those unwritten letters. You know you should do it. You know it will make a difference.

But maybe you’ll get around to it later...

Sure you will.

If only you could find something to do RIGHT NOW that would make an immediate difference. Recently a woman told me she wanted a marketing plan that would bring in all the clients she could handle. The only conditions were that she didn’t want to do any work or spend any money!

A couple years ago an executive coach decided to do a brochure, but instead of just designing one, she thought it might be a good idea to get the feedback from the kind of people who would read the brochure: top executives.

She ended up interviewing about 125 executives. And then she compiled what they said they were looking for, put it in a professionally designed brochure, and sent it out to potential clients. It resulted in hoards of new business.

Now that’s so simple, it’s brilliant.

There’s really something to be said for the Independent Professional who isn’t a brilliant marketer but uses common sense and a little hard work to get those letters out of her head, onto paper and into the mail.

I worked with a client years ago who took six months to write a newsletter, but every time I met with him he had revised it again, trying to get it perfect. I don’t think he ever got it sent out.

Perfection is the enemy of good.

There isn’t a perfect plan or a perfect brochure or perfect newsletter or perfect letter. But there certainly are good ones. And how do you get a good one?

You do a lot of bad ones!

One of my favourite sayings to aspiring marketers: If anything’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly! Just start, make a stab at it, try it out. Then notice what works and doesn’t work and do some fine tuning and try again. Before too long it will be pretty damn good.

So what are you putting off? Getting that web site together, starting an eZine, doing more networking or creating a new service? Well guess what?

Today’s a good day to start!

Business Flashes on Write it down

• Trust your intuition.
  Some of the best marketing ideas my clients come up with are the things they think of themselves. I simply give them the encouragement to try it out.
• Connect your marketing to a passion.
  Right now I’m having fun fixing stuff in my new house because I’m a pretty good handyman. Likewise, find some area of marketing that’s fun for you and really get into it more deeply.
• Make a list.
  Letters, projects, and avoided tasks drive you even crazier if they stay inside your head. Grab a note pad, make a list and prioritise it. This is like priming the pump. You start seeing yourself doing it and you’re off and running.
• Visualise successful outcomes.
  A favourite pastime of many people is distasterising or worrying about the worst that could happen. Make a little more effort to imagine what might happen if your marketing activities actually bore fruit.
• Do a little.
  When we imagining a project the thought of all the work required can wear us out before we start. Make a deal with yourself that you’ll just make one call, work on only one page of the web site or work only fifteen minutes. Once you start, momentum often takes over and you’re on a roll.