Chapter 4
The Journey
How to Market Your Value Rapidly and Profitably
Creating Gravity and Attraction
The Market Gravity™ Wheel is a representation of your options to attract people to you. The longer you’re in business, the more you should be:
- Attracting people because of your repute and expertise.
- Gaining business through referral business from clients.
- Gaining business through repeat business from clients.
That combination should amount to about 85 percent of your annual business. If you accompany that with my belief that you need to jettison the bottom 15 percent of your business every couple of years, then you can see that you’ll need to generate a modest amount of new business, but not that much.
Too many consultants are struggling well into their careers because they fail to implement this philosophy and strategy. They become immersed in the delivery of their work, don’t market, and then face the feast-or-famine syndrome: Either they have work that they’re being paid to deliver or they are desperately seeking such work.
They are neither ant nor grasshopper. They are road kill. Beware of the crows.
You should jettison the lower end of your client list because:
- The client is no longer profitable.
- You are bored with the work.
- The client is troublesome.
- The work is unpleasant.
Ironically, you’re doing the client a favor as well as yourself. Many clients you keep solely through inertia or a false sense of loyalty. But your passion and interests are not present, so you cheat ...
