Seven Strategies to Leverage the Recession
Would it surprise you to know that the recession is giving you a golden opportunity for growing your practice?
As you probably have seen, businesses are reining in the spending and for many, marketing was among the first to get trimmed. With so many businesses pulling back on their marketing efforts, that opens the door for tremendous exposure for you on what could be an almost empty playing field.
Here are seven ways you can leverage the recession to your advantage (plus an invitation to free teleclass at the end of this article).
Make a Personal Decision to Opt-Out of the Recession
I heard a friend of mine say back in January “I’m not participating in the recession”. Though I paused when I first heard it, I liked that approach. I decided to opt-out of the recession, too…and [firstname], so should you.
You can do this by changing your way of thinking. Stop watching all the doom and gloom news stories (do you really need up-to-the-minute information on the same song?). Don’t allow yourself to get involved in conversations stuck on the recession. There is no benefit to you in the clever repartee of dissecting who/what/how things disintegrated.
Get a Foothold in Your Niche
This recession is not going to last forever. They never do. When things do turn around and others start to market again, they will be playing catch-up from a really bad game of “out of sight, out of mind”.
You, on the other hand – as a smart marketer – are using this opportunity to establish a firm foothold in your niche. With your well-established position, when things start visibly turning around in a big way, you will already be in place for a rocket-launch.
Take Advantage of More Negotiable Advertising Prices
With so many businesses cutting their advertising budgets, many of the outlets that wouldn’t even talk with you before are now interested in not just talking but in negotiating better pricing. This goes from advertising vehicles (newspapers, post cards, radio, etc.) to services providers (copywriters, printers, etc.). This is a great time to plan and implement a campaign that might not have been affordable earlier. Plus, referrals, networking and word-of-mouth cost only your time to set-up.
Take Another Look At Your Service Offerings
Let’s face it, during the heydays, people bought easily without as much thought as they are giving it today. Clients were more willing to take a risk on your services. Now, people are really considering their return on investment in you. It means you have to re-examine what you are offering and how you are offering it so that you are focusing on what your clients want – not what you think they should have or what you think they need.
Part of focusing on what they want is looking at how you deliver. No longer can you say “we close at
5:00 p.m. and you’ll just have to use one of your precious vacation days to see us…and waste most of it sitting in my waiting room.”
Clients are a lot less tolerant of this kind of service and behavior and a lot more conscious of what it really costs them to do business with you.
Hone Your Marketing Skills
Casting a wide net – always a novice marketing move – is now just a waste of time and dollars. You need to be clear about your “who” (as in, “who” are you offering services to). Hone your marketing skills. You want to get really good at selecting the right tactics for reaching your market and promoting your services.
In other words, you want to develop the right marketing message and use the right marketing vehicle so that your message reaches – and resonates – with your potential clients, leading them to purchase your services.
Learn Better Closing Skills
With each opportunity more precious, when you’ve got a potential client right in front of you, you can’t afford to let the conversation stall-out at “let me think about it”.
If you want to keep the cash flowing in your practice, you will have to learn how to handle the conversation, the objections, potential objections and anything else that can get in the way of your closing the sale. Learning new skills will serve you well and it’s a lot better than getting surprised by “I’ll have to let you know”.
Keep Your Perspective
People are still spending money. They are simply making wiser purchase decisions to ensure they are getting a good return on their investment. Leverage this opportunity to hone your skills and you’ll find the recession having minimal impact on your practice.
As an added bonus, when things do start to turn around, you will be well-positioned for your practice to expand even more.
If you are excited about this opportunity to leverage the recession and start marketing your practice more effectively, but you don’t know quite where to start, register today for our free teleseminar:
7 Keys to Identify and Target Your Ideal Client
Free Teleclass – Tuesday, April 14th – 8:00 p.m. Eastern
5PM Pacific – 6PM Mountain – 7PM Central
If you believe that “everyone” is a potential client, then you are missing an opportunity to grow your practice the most effective way – through knowing your clients and targeting your marketing effort (services/products, price, promotion, etc.) specifically to your niche.
Designed for self-employed professionals who are re-evaluating where they are with their practice with a goal of getting more new clients, this is a lively, interactive session where you will discover why you aren’t getting the results you want and how to identify and target your best client.
- Why you might not be getting the results you want
- How to identify the market that’s right for your business
- How to target that market
To register, send an email to:
ideal-client-teleclass@privatepracticemarketingroundtable.com
If you have a question that you would like to get answered during the call, please include it in your email. I will be answering questions submitted by email during the call.