Two of the most common mistakes self employed professionals make when they first go to sell their services are the following:

1)     Moving to sell something to a prospect too early in the relationship.

It goes like this:  You meet at a networking event, introduce yourself, say what you do, and secretly expect at least one person who you just met 30 seconds ago to say:

“Oh my goodness, I’m looking for exactly that!  Here’s a check to get the ball rolling and let’s start tomorrow!  No I can’t wait until tomorrow, let’s start now!”

Or at least they’ll say:

“I’ll call you” (and really do it).

Now, maybe there’s something wrong with me, but my experience (and that of my clients), is that this simply does not happen.

Never?

Never.

So if you go in with that secret expectation you are going to be disappointed and possibly angry – at yourself, at the world, at the event.

Even if the prospect’s first impression was really great and they are “wowed”, when you move to sell before trust is established you will waste that “wow”.

The same thing is true if someone comes to your web site, hears you speak, or reads an article.  It’s too early to expect them to become your client.  The most that you can hope for is that they become fans of and consumers of your information.

2)     Having no strategy or follow up scheduled.

You meet people who are impressed or interested in what you do, you might even prepare a whole talk or presentation and really “wow” your audience but you have nothing in place to capture or convert the leads, so:

the “wow” is wasted.

If there is no follow up action – even though you did the thing you were supposed to do to build your business (network, speak, write etc.) you did not create any new business.

Even if you have the best content in the world, the most amazing revelation in your field ever, if you do not follow up, if you do not put time in your schedule or hire someone and systematize follow up, there will be insufficient new business generated from the activity and the “wow” will be wasted.

The erroneous conclusions from these mistakes

People often think if they just join a networking group, put up a web site, write some articles or speak in public they will get clients.  That’s partially true – any action will get you more than no action, but to create more of the right kind of clients consistently, you also must know how to de-code where a prospect is in a marketing and sales cycle, at any time, what to say to build trust and strengthen the relationship, and how to have appropriate offerings at each place.  And you have to have the self esteem to follow up.

It’s easy to feel that you’ve done a lot to market your business, because you’ve taken action and “networked”, but if you don’t plan systematic follow up you may have little to show for your effort.  The common mistake is then to conclude things like “marketing doesn’t work”, or “I am not good at business/marketing”.

In actuality what you just tried to do is impossible.  No wonder it didn’t work.  It would be like walking up to a stranger at a bar and asking for marriage instead of “Can I buy you a drink?”

The underlying issue

The two mistakes mentioned above ( either moving to sell too early in a relationship or not following up) stem from a personal limitation, a lack of self confidence, combined with simple lack of marketing know how.  And many, many people do both at the same time to varying degrees, especially when starting out.

In both cases the personal limitation is usually underlying self doubt (low self esteem), which (when you dig down) might be articulated as: “nobody wants my service (because I am at bottom worthless)”.  In the first case (rushing to sell) they don’t have the confidence that they can create multiple points of contact with a prospect or that it might be better to walk away from a non-ideal prospect.  The person has so much fear running that they try to brazen it out through appearing over confident.  In the second case (no follow-up) they are not having the self esteem to initiate the next step or the confidence to hire someone who will.  The fear of rejection or failure overwhelms them and they do nothing.  In both of the above scenarios the person will not create any business and thus will have the dubious pleasure of proving their belief about themselves and their worthlessness “right”.

Often a person with this belief set is only conscious of the belief “marketing/networking does not work”.  Or better yet, “marketing does not work for me/my service…  I am/my service is special and different and none of these techniques works to market it.”

Period.

It’s much easier to be conscious about that, because it’s externalized, than it is to be conscious of an underlying belief like “I am worthless”.  But most of us have this underlying belief to some degree.

The secret is to know what small step is appropriate to “close” on and to follow up on just that step.  If you are only trying to create a connection,that’s a lot easier and less threatening to your self confidence than trying to sell on the first contact (it also has the possibility of working).  Still, being able to do that may involve working with a qualified professional very explicitly on your beliefs both about yourself and about how the  world works.  Issues around worth and self esteem are common topics in my office.  The best way I have found is to not remain alone – to create support structures and positive peer pressure to unlock yourself from a vicious cycle into a positive one.

“Start with the close in mind” just means to think through ahead of time what is appropriate to close on at that stage of the game.

“Start with the close in mind” means to set yourself up for success by learning to believe in yourself.

If you just create support structures to continuously monitor and when appropriate update your beliefs your success becomes limitless.