How to be an Impresario and Promote Your Business
A lot depends on personal circumstance but the draw of doing what you enjoy (your job) is at the expense of running your business.
Your Job and Your Business
This is a common mishap for the self-employed. One reason you became self-employed is you enjoy doing something; you are a coach and you love coaching.
Perhaps you put on an event and as a result get 6 clients. Maybe that’s hard to imagine but bear with me.
You set to work. They pay your fees. For the next 6 months you live and breathe working with these clients. You are successful in every way, you have enhanced your reputation as a coach.
Then one day you wake up to find you have no clients and no money. You have done your job, as a coach but neglected your business. You need another event and it will take weeks to organise. Many businesses fail because they cannot recover from such a mistake.
You need a programme of events, to keep yourself in the public eye, so you continue to enrol clients. You may have problems managing new clients when still working with old ones but that is a different problem, one of capacity.
Let’s stay with the problem at hand. What can you do to remain in the public eye?
You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Till It’s Gone
- What do you create that people will miss it when it’s gone (and hope it comes back soon)?
- What could you create that offers a real incentive to tell my friends? That makes news? Who can get the word out in exchange for a share of attention?
- What would happen if your promotion didn’t work? What would happen if it did?
Impress an Impresario
Ok, a few definitions. A promotion is an event you put on either in real life or online. Real life promotions might be public speaking, a stall at a business fair, a workshop, training event, a network event over a meal, lunch and learn … Online promotions might be a blog post, social media campaign, webinar, online course. These need not necessarily be free events but usually they are fairly low-cost. Your aim is to find clients.
An impresario is someone who brings people together to work on and promote an event. You may be aware of impresarios in your own community. You could join in with what they do. If you spot a gap in what they are doing, perhaps you can step into the impresario role?
Next, do you need a schedule of promotions to keep you in the public eye? I find it is best to have a few regular promotions punctuated by occasional experimental promotions.
Can you build a team who work with you because it helps promote their businesses and strengthens their message? How you do this is flexible. You might have a team who consistently work with you. Alternatively, if you have a regular event, you can invite people to take part, perhaps as a keynote speaker or trainer.
Remember, the aim of marketing is to create change and so your events should aim to do just that. How do you promote change? By being remarkable! When people talk about your promotions, they are your audience.
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