Monthly Archives: February 2017

0 Knowing Your Market and Its Values

This is the fourth post of five about a keynote talk I am preparing for a major business event later this year.  Last time I wrote about your business niche and today the focus moves to your market and its values.

In conversation this week, someone suggested values were missing from my keynote.  It is important to align your marketing with your offer.  This implies alignment with values because what I have in mind was the role of a coach or consultant.

Most coaches and consultants have a strong set of values that informs their work and so should inform their marketing.  I have experimented, since the conversation, by explicitly referring to values and it seems to be favourably received.  Indeed, I think there is a need for alignment of at least five elements: your

The wider outcomes may be through your clients’ clients or the wider impact of your work on communities.  If you know these wider outcomes, you can use them in your marketing but ideally you should see your values reflected in them.

Station 4: Why?

Knowing your market is essential to defining your niche. It is important you understand your market and its values as well as their problem your offer solves.

Here is what I wrote a few weeks ago:

So, Why? Is the third station.  You could ask the question: Why am I doing it?  Because I have this fantastic passion for doing x y and z.  OK.  But actually, the why is to do with your market; it is the people that you provide this service for.

Do you really know them?  Do you know who they are?  How do you understand their problem, the problem that you solve?  And you need to understand it in at least two ways.  You need to understand their problem as it is because very often people come to you with a solution when actually they don’t know what their problem is.  Or else they have a superficial way of describing their problem and haven’t really understood what it’s about.

There’s also the problem as they see it.  So, you see these two interact with one another.  So you need a degree of empathy when you work with your clients.

Sharpening the Message

Perhaps the biggest issue I have with this station is I have not yet found a clear lesson to teach about it.  However, I believe adding values into the mix helps get some clarity.

Their problem is only a part of what you need to know about your market.  You can further narrow your niche by defining your market’s values.  Let’s say you are a business coach and you help women business leaders turn around their businesses.  You might have feminist values and so may find you are most effective coaching clients who share these same values.  It is possible, if you coach clients who have the problem but don’t share the values, you will be less effective.

This may be over-simplistic.  There are other values that may equally impact the coaching relationship.  The client’s work ethic may be more important, for example.  There are likely to be several value systems at play in any client-coach relationship and any particular set of values may be more or less important to the success of the relationship.

A Dilemma?

Clarity about key values may be more important in marketing than it is in the coaching relationship.  This opens up something of a dilemma for the coach.  Does the coach market their business, referring to their feminist values upfront?  This may turn away valuable clients, who would be perfectly happy with this value system, even if they don’t fully share it.  However, if feminist values are important to the coach and they want to specialise in particular approaches to business that embody these values, then it may be helpful to market using them.

Your values may be non-negotiable and so use them to narrow your market because this can be a good thing.  Your prospects are looking for a coach who shares their values and so will be very enthusiastic.  Alternatively, you may choose not to insist on these values in your market and so do not use them to narrow your niche.

Do you use values to narrow your niche?  Have you consciously chosen not to insist on certain shared values?  Whatever your choice, how is it working out for you?

0 How to Practice Self-Motivation

Life as a freelance can be isolated.  This can be an advantage, with fewer distractions and freedom to get on with the work in your own time.  But it can be hard over the long haul and so today, I share some thoughts about three dimensions of self-motivation.

I live alone and I know that makes a big difference.  I find it hard to imagine the detailed practical issues someone faces working from home in a family setting.

Boundaries in those circumstances are likely to be harder to put in place and to maintain.  I can imagine opening my office door and finding three cats, a dog, a toddler and spouse, all waiting for my attention.  It would soon drive me crackers!

But even so, perhaps there are aspects of my experience, other freelancers may find helpful.

Self-Motivation

I know many people have problems with motivation and so it perhaps doesn’t help for me to claim I don’t share this problem.

One key to this is routine.  I know any time of the day or week what I should be doing.  This is not compulsive behaviour, I can vary it when I need to.  The value of routine is I don’t have to think about what I need to do next.

I divide the day into three parts.  Mornings when I follow-up desk work, afternoons when I walk and meet people informally and evenings are for more desk work and meetings.

I find walking really helpful and so I walk every day.  This is for health reasons but also it is an effective way to tackle complex problems.  Away from my desk, perspective can lead to a breakthrough for some problem or other.

I am enthusiastic about what I am doing.  Most days I can’t wait to set to work on whatever I am preparing.  If bored or uninspired by what you are doing, perhaps you need a change in direction?

Self-Validation

This is a tough issue because I depend on others’ validation.  When someone takes me on as a coach, they validate my work.  When they write a testimonial, they validate my work.

However, self-validation is also important.  One reason is I believe my chosen work is unique and as such it is my responsibility.  The hardest thing is explaining my vision.  This is a challenge all businesses face when marketing, finding the language that makes sense to their market.  It also needs to make sense to those who might refer you to prospects.

People are always keen to show you the error of your ways, to point to practitioners who are highly successful because they’re not using your approach.  It may take forever to prove your approach and no-one will do that for you.

Of course you can’t fully articulate it from the outset; it takes time to find the right keynote.  You need to validate your own results.  You need to decide whether you are still confident in your own approach.

Self-Reinforcement

So, it is important to be able to hold your position.  Not because you are necessarily right but you know your underlying perspective is not being heard.

I know that my developmental approach to marketing works.  I understand how it differs from other approaches to marketing.  The challenge I have is finding the words that make sense to others and so I need their reaction.  It has taken me a long time to get this far and I hope I have almost completed my journey.

During that journey I have received a lot of advice, some of it impatient.  I have heard all of it and noted it.  Some of it I will use at a later date.  Some I have concluded is not for me.  Use it or not, I am grateful because all of it helps me know what is essential and what I need to change.

How do you motivate, validate and reinforce your work as a freelance?