I have some marketing friends and they know I love these types of things and sent me this. I thought I would share it and hopefully many of you can see how powerful it could be.
[B]The Attraction Marketing Challenge [/B]
The following challenge has been devised to test whether you have all the essential ingredients in place to build a successful, thriving service business or practice.
Please read the following 20 statements and note which ones are true of you and your business. (You may want to print this page and tick each statement - please click on the print icon at the top right hand corner of this article to print this page.)
[LIST=1]
[*]I specialise in solving a specific problem or situation
[*]I have a profile of my ideal client
[*]All my marketing is directed towards my ideal client
[*]I know exactly how and where to contact my ideal clients
[*]I give away quality information that is of value to my ideal clients
[*]I am building a list of subscribers or prospects who have given me permission to contact them regularly
[*]I contact my list at least once per month with articles, information and offers
[*]I use proven copywriting principles to craft my sales pieces including my website, sales letters, emails and brochures etc.
[*]I have a clear message and theme that runs through all of my marketing materials
[*]At least once per month I either publish an article or speak in front of a group of my ideal clients
[*]I know exactly which marketing strategies work for my business and I have a plan to implement them
[*]I have a schedule of specified marketing activities that I work through consistently
[*]I spend at least 5 hours each week on marketing activities
[*]I make time to learn about marketing and to improve my knowledge and skills OR I have a coach/mentor to help me accelerate my progress in marketing
[*]I follow up with every prospect
[*]I have a system for following up with contacts and prospects
[*]My website works extremely well at generating leads and enquiries
[*]There is a clear pathway through my website that I lead visitors down to get to my desired response (e.g. filling in an enquiry form, signing up for an ezine)
[*]My website shortens my sales cycle
[*]I win at least 80% of the business that I pitch for because my prospects are highly qualified.
[/LIST]
How many were you able to answer “yes” to? Here are some guidelines for interpreting your results:
If you answered “yes” to 15 or more:
Congratulations! You appear to have virtually everything in place for attracting your desired clientelle and you probably don’t struggle to get clients. If you’re not at 20 yeses yet, you may want to re-visit those areas where you had “no’s” and consider what you might do to improve. If you’re still not creating the lifestyle or business that you desire, despite scoring highly on this assessment, then you may be doing all of the right things, but in not quite the right way.
If you answered “yes” to between 10 and 14:
Well done - you’re doing a lot better than many independent professionals. Note the areas where you had “no’s” and resolve to learn more about how you can improve. You may be finding that your marketing is working just about “ok”, but you’re probably not attracting quite as much business as you’d like, and you may still be struggling to make sales, or even drifting into “hard sell” mode at times. If you’d prefer an easier life with less hard-selling, then I encourage you to implement strategies and activities to get yourself closer to 20 “yeses”.
If you answered “yes” to 9 or less:
Attracting clients and closing business may still be a bit of struggle or quite time and energy intensive for you. You may be finding that you have lots of business some of the time, and not enough at other times. This is probably because you haven’t taken control of the marketing process and used it in a way that delivers a consistent stream of enquiries and sales. If you would like your marketing to be easier and more effective, then I encourage you to learn more about what works to attract clients, and what you can implement in your business to improve your results.
