Staying Focused And Motivated In Your Marketing Efforts.

>>>QUESTION FROM A READER

I’ll admit that I’m getting a bit overwhelmed and frustrated. I’m getting pulled in a lot of different directions and having a hard time focusing on precisely what I need to be doing to get more new clients. When I sit down to actually do some marketing, I start to wonder if it’s worth it so I waste a lot of time with negative thinking. Am I hopeless? Name Withheld By Request

***MY COMMENTS

First of all let me answer the most important question…No, you are definitely not hopeless. Far from it. What you’re experiencing is very common and natural. But let’s shift the focus to what specifically you can do to 1) get you more clients, and 2) help you stay organized, motivated and focused. Here are some thoughts:

A tip I picked up from marketer Jimmy D. Brown a few years ago has helped me a lot in this regard. I set a goal for myself to do a minimum of just 3 things every single week to help me grow my business. That’s all. Just 3 things. If I’m motivated I can do more, but I set as a goal to make sure I do these 3 things. I do one of them on Monday. One on Wednesday, and the final one on Friday. Sometimes I’m ahead of schedule, but I commit to never shutting down business at the end of the week without making sure that all three things are done.

On Monday I spend 45 minutes on the forums or message boards. This is real important to do for a number of reasons. First, by regularly participating on the forums you become known as a serious player in your field. The key here is to interact to the questions that are posted that seem to be generating the most discussion. The key is to offer ideas and suggestions, not try to promote your services. When you sign up for a forum, they will allow you to create what’s called a signature box. That’s where you tell people what you do and provide a link to your website.

Finding forums is easy. Simply type into Google what you do and the word forum, message boards or discussion groups. So in my world I would type in Internet marketing forums, small business marketing discussion groups, ect. The first time around you’ll need to do a bit of exploring to find one that has a robust and active membership. (For those involved in marketing I’d highly recommend WarriorForum.com. If you have other suggestions I’d love to hear them.)

I like to visit the Forums first thing on Monday morning. Like many people I’m a bit lethargic on Monday (until the Mountain Dew kicks in) so it’s a fun way to get into my workweek. The other benefit of forums (aside from building your brand) is that you’ll pick up some great ideas and there will periodically be some interesting joint venture opportunities.

But a word of caution…reading and posting messages on the forums can be seductive. 45 minutes can turn into two hours if you’re not careful. So set a time limit (I use 45 minutes) and stick with that.

One final note on forums…if you’re a solo businesses person, isolation can be a real issue. I’m not suggesting that forums are a replacement for interaction with real live human beings, but they are helpful in making you feel that you are a member of a community. That’s important. It also will help you address some of the “lack of motivation” issues you mentioned.

On Wednesday I perform the 2nd task which is to write a short article and post it on Article Marketer. Remember that we’re talking about a SHORT article, which can be as little as 500 words. I’ve written over 650 words thus far in this message and I don't think anyone would say this is a long article.

The real benefit to writing articles is the cumulative effect. No one article is likely to get you a swarm of new prospects. However if you write a short article once a week, the results will be impressive.

Finally, don't forget to write a message a week to your subscribers. You can add the message that you write to your automated string of messages or send it out as a broadcast as I’m doing with you today.

Here’s a tip. Remember that blogs get re-indexed by Google when new content appears and that your blog backlinks (connects) to your main website. Thus putting your message on your blog serves the double purpose of increasing the Google page rank for your site, as well as enabling your readers to leave you comments and ideas. The more you can create a dialogue with your readers the better, and blogs are well suited for that task.

In fact this message to you today is a perfect “model” that many of you should consider implementing. The answering a question from a reader is an easy format for creating stay-in-touch messages. If you don't have a large readership that actually sends you messages, you can create one based on what you think is on the minds of those who have opted-in to get your free report.

The email you send out covers what the topic is so that those who are interested can click over to your blog to learn more. This is a simple method for making sure you’re in frequent contact with your readers.

One final thought

Although you didn’t mention this specifically, one of the biggest challenges in marketing is not getting off track and going in many different directions at once. As I’ve often said, if you approach marketing with a “building block” perspective it is easy and simple to get a highly effective marketing SYSTEM up and running quickly. The trick is to do it in small steps so that you don't get overwhelmed, frustrated and quit.

If you haven’t already I’d encourage you to watch the video HERE that describes a step-by-step video/email-coaching program that will walk you through the steps. If you like the approach, you might want to sign up for a FREE 30-day test drive to see if it is something that would be right for you.

Just a thought.

Hope this was helpful and I’ll talk with you soon
Mark

PS...I still have some space available at my free Gentle Rain seminar here in Atlanta on May 14th. Details are HERE