What’s Your Specialty? If You Aren’t Sure, Your Clients Won’t Be Either
If you can perform many different kinds of work in your field, is there any reason to specialize? When you have a wide range of professional skills, it's tempting to market yourself as someone who can do just about anything in the area of computers, writing, interior...
Don’t Let Your Client’s Urgency Become Your Emergency
Every self-employed professional who works on a project basis has had the experience of clients who need something "yesterday." The small business client doesn't contact her graphic designer about a flyer until a week before the trade show. Or, the taxpayer client...
Summertime, and the Marketing Ain’t Easy
Summer is here, but it seems many of your potential clients are not. When you get the response "I'll be on vacation until..." one too many times, it's easy to become discouraged about summertime marketing. But fear not, there's plenty you can do to build your business...
Entrepreneur on a Mission Part 3: Overcome Fear, Procrastination, and Self-Doubt
Business would be a lot easier if we didn't keep getting in our own way. But the reality is that the biggest obstacles to our business success are usually ourselves. We fear taking chances or being rejected, we procrastinate about doing what we know is needed, and we...
Entrepreneur on a Mission Part 2: What’s Your Business Model?
If you spend any amount of time hanging around with entrepreneurial innovators, visionaries, and reformers, you'll hear this question frequently. Entrepreneur #1 sketches out his or her brave new idea for making a living while changing the world, and Entrepreneur #2...
Entrepreneur on a Mission Part 1: Get Clear About Your Mission
Congratulations! You've discovered you're an entrepreneur on a mission. But when someone asks you to explain what your mission is, it no longer seems as clear as it did when the light bulb first went on in your head. One's mission can be a slippery thing, morphing...
Packaging Your Services as a Product
One of the biggest challenges in selling professional services is that what you are offering is intangible. Your product can't be seen, touched, or tasted. Until your prospective clients experience what you do, they have no way of knowing if it will turn out, whether...
Waking Up from Groundhog Day
Every spring in my household, we experience a period we have come to call Groundhog Day. I've always loved the Bill Murray movie of the same name, a sweet fable about an egocentric, mean-spirited newscaster doomed to live the same day over and over until he learns to...
New Year’s Revolution
No, that's not a typo in the title. Resolutions are easy; most of us make them at least once a year. A revolution, on the other hand, is something you may not have made since you started your business. Launching a new business is actually quite revolutionary. When you...
There’s More than One Way to Grow a Business
Every self-employed professional wants to earn more from his or her business. When you ask professionals how they plan to meet that goal, they usually talk about doing a better job at marketing or doing more of it. But in fact, there are many ways to go about growing...
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