Where are your clients?

I just happened upon this post by Jeff Fisher, one of my creative buddies over at the HOW Forum, who speaks about the geographic boundaries often imposed by creatives upon themselves. In the post, he expresses surprise that so many creatives think they have to restrict themselves to their specific location:

Huh? I don't think I got the memo about the Federal government building walls around local communities to keep designers, writers, photographers and others trapped in their hometown environments.

Admittedly, when my initial Internet presence went live in 1998, my website was intended to primarily serve as a portfolio for a predominantly local clientele. I wasn't expecting email requests for information about my services from potential clients across the United States - and then from around the globe. Suddenly there were no restrictions to the target market for my business. In the decade since, 80-85% of my business has been for clients outside of the State of Oregon.

He makes a great point. I, too, have had great success with clients from around the country as a result of maintaining an active Web presence and being active on forums, e-mail lists and the like. But one thing I'll add is that, in my mind, there's a lot of good to be said for working with local clients. For one thing, it's often easier to make solid connections, since you get instant face-to-face contact. For another, I for one find that collaboration is much easier when you can get face time with a client - as wonderful as the Internet and cell phones are, it's just no match for being in a room with someone hashing out what needs to be done. And for yet another, I just happen to enjoy supporting my local economy.

All this said, I don't think that focusing on either is really the best choice. Currently, I'd guess my clients are about 50% local/50% non-local. The key, in my opinion, is not to rule either out, but to figure out who you want to attract, and then set up your communications to speak to those specific people - and then set out looking for those people.

How do you differentiate when "green" is no longer enough?

This week on the Co-Op America Business list, one of the members brought up the question of green going mainstream. How do smaller green businesses compete now that corporate America is riding the green train?

My question is: Is being green enough of a reason to convince people to use your company? Personally, as I've mentioned before, I don't think it is.

Last year, I decided to adapt the zen kitchen's business model to the rising trend in green design/marketing by making green a non-issue. My clients know I'm green, they know they're going to get the greenest product I can provide for them and that I *get* what they're trying to do. However, most of my clients come to me because I'm a great designer and I specialize in helping women entrepreneurs and green businesses create their brands. They're looking for my brain and my talent - the fact that I'm eco-friendly is just gravy.

In my mind, if the green movement is really going to gain momentum, it has to move from a conversation to an expectation. This doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about being green; but it should be an "also" rather than a sign of uniqueness. As such, green businesses need to stop trying to justify their decisions, or explain why it costs so much more to make a green product; instead, make it clear that you have a better product that works just as well if not better than the conventional product.

If there's one thing I've learned in three years of running the zen kitchen, it's that it's much more effective to treat the green thing as a given than it is to try to justify it to your clients. The moment you start justifying, it erodes consumer confidence because it seems like *you're* not confident in why they should choose you over the competition.

Another thing I'll mention is that competition doesn't just come from the big corporations who are just getting the hint that green is good. Every green business, no matter how small, has competition from other small businesses who sell very similar products and have a very similar mission. I'm certainly not the only designer in the world who works with women entrepreneurs or with green businesses - I've met and become friends with some who could be considered my direct competition. This is why differentiation beyond green is so important - you're not the only green company in the world, and even more rarely are you the only green company who sells XYZ.

The excuses we make

Recently at an event, I was chatting with someone in my network about marketing and strategizing. When I mentioned the importance of taking time to strategize and visualize the type of work you'd like to be doing, my conversation partner immediately said, "oh, I just don't have time for that kind of stuff. I know I should do it, but between kids and work and everything else, I'm lucky I have time to breathe!"

So many of us have an excuse list like this for anything that's really good for us. How often have you told yourself you don't have time to get to the gym? Eat right? Send out that marketing e-mail you've been meaning to? Yet, in my experience at least, the moment you move away from the excuses and just do the thing you're putting off, you realize that it wasn't that bad to begin with, and it actually helped you accomplish more.

Just as an example, for the first couple of years I was running the zen kitchen, I went from a daily yoga/meditation practice and regular walks in my neighborhood to making every excuse under the sun why I couldn't work out, citing a packed schedule, a poorly laid-out apartment, all sorts of stuff. As a result, I've gained 40 pounds in the last 2 years, and it was only until the last couple of months that I've been able to turn off the excuses and get to the gym that I started losing weight again. Now I'm down 8 pounds and counting - and I'm still able to get my work done.

Success in anything - whether it's losing weight or growing a business - depends on quieting the excuses. Instead of listing all the reasons why you CAN'T, you have to think about how you CAN. What needs to shift a bit in order to fit in a daily workout? Who do you need to negotiate with to get time to write that business plan, or visualize your ideal client? Who do you need to hire in order to take over the stuff you aren't interested in so you can focus on the fun stuff? How can you find a way to pay for that?

I invite you to take some time this week and think about all the excuses you make for yourself. Where do they come from? What would happen if you just forgot the excuses and did it anyway? You might be surprised at what you get done.

Marketing takes time

One of the more interesting comments I hear from entrepreneurs often involves some marketing effort that they undertook - whether it's a direct mailer, an advertisement in a magazine, or even a networking group that they belong to. Whenever they mention it, it's always in terms of results gained in a short period of time.

"I sent out a mailer last year and only got three calls from it. I'll never do that again."

"We placed an ad in this magazine and only got one call from it. We'll never do that again."

The challenge with any marketing activity - no matter what it is - is that it takes time and repetition to work. If you have a blog, you have to update it (no comments from the peanut gallery, please). If you do a mailing, you have to repeat it. If you run an ad, you have to run it again - and again - and again - to get the results you want. If you join a networking group, you have to go a few times; be noticed, be engaging.

This is one of the reasons that, as entrepreneurs with (sometimes) limited funds, techniques like blogging, e-mail newsletters and online/in-person networking can be so valuable. Any marketing activity has to be done again and again to work; but these techniques have the advantage of a significantly lower cash outlay - and often, they're significantly more effective.

Where are your referrals going?

Today I had the pleasure of coming across a terrific article by Biznik member Mark Silver (who, interestingly enough, calls himself a Business Tenderizer) about what he deems "the Bermuda Triangle of Business Referrals."

I'm sure you've experienced this - I certainly have. Your clients adore you, and send you this lovely e-mail about how they've referred so-and-so to your business because they think you're the bees' knees (really - do bees have knees? Am I spelling it wrong, or is that really how it's spelled? Anyhoo...), but nothing ever comes out of it. No calls. No e-mails. Or worse, the people who DO call or e-mail are The Wrong Sort - those folks who have a great idea, but not enough money to actually afford what you could do for them.

So what do you do? You make it easy for your clients to refer The Right Sort to you, and make it easy for The Right Sort to get over the fear, uncertainty, or other things that might be preventing them from actually calling.

My friend Joanna Scaparotti of My Solutions for Stress was a great example of this. She does Reiki and wellness coaching for busy professonials, and I'd been getting fairly frequent Reiki sessions with her for a few months, after which I got an e-mail titled: "Where can I find more people like YOU?"

The e-mail went on to not only tell me how fabulous I was as a client, but it also shared the specific traits that she was looking for in potential referrals, and gave me an easy way to get folks in contact with her so I could share referrals.

Even though this was an e-mail sent to multiple clients of hers and not just me, Joanna's tone in the e-mail was professional, it was personal, and it made me happy to offer her services to anyone I came across who fit her profile.

To read the full article, click here. To learn more about Joanna, click here.

As for me, yeah - I know I've been a bit lax on the blogging thing, and I promise that I'll get better soon. Fortunately, I've had a ton of work in, and I'm working on getting deadlines out the door for a while. But no worries - there's more in the pipe for the blog.