I had a very unusual experience on Thursday. I had agreed to a meeting with a contact a couple of weeks ago and they arrived at my office for coffee at 11 am. What I hadn't realised was what they wanted to speak about.
When she sat down and we had got the usual pleasantries out of the way I was asked what their business could do to break into the local market place as they didn't have any clients locally.
I asked whether they had defined their ideal client and their target market, and spoke about how Crowther Beard identified the property and construction, agricultural, transport and engineering industries, and the medical profession as target markets and had a definition of an ideal client too.
I then moved forward to discuss where we find those clients, joining clubs where they go and how we are setting about creating a following through the Crowther Beard Community on LinkedIn amongst other areas. But the main things that I said that were needed was a plan, commitment and hard work.
We spoke for over an hour about how our marketing was beginning to reap its rewards as I have always believed in the Accounting Profession that it takes at least 12 months for marketing to be effective. I spoke about attending only the networking events that we thought would be beneficial to us because our targets would be there and how we planned each year setting some big targets and then reviewed the plan on a regular basis to ensure that we kept on track towards our goals.
At the end of the meeting my contact was generous enough to thank me for my time and for the advice that I had given.
However I later thought that what I had done was also very important in a marketing plan. Most of the greatest leaders in the business world will give things, their time to worthy causes or just to explain what they have done and how they achieved their goals. That is what I had just done. It is the giving that is important, something of value to others.
That will raise your profile.
