Some coaches and consultants mistakenly resist the practice of using agreements or contracts in their coaching or consulting engagements. Recently, a marketing consultant told me that the reason he doesn’t use agreements in his client engagements is that the agreement wouldn’t hold up in a court of law if there was an “issue”, so why bother.

The ability to enforce a signed agreement in a court of law doesn’t even make my top 8 reasons list of why every coach, consultant and independent professional should use written agreement in all their client engagements.

So why bother? [Read more...]

It’s not always easy for coaches, consultants or independent professionals to carve out a real difference from their peers.  What makes one fitness coach different than the next?  Are all marketing consultants built the same?

Here’s the problem if you’re not able to differentiate yourself in the marketplace. You end up in a sea of sameness ….motoring along like a ship without a rudder.  Your target market is unable to understand what makes you better, or different than your competitors, so one of three things occurs. [Read more...]

Your core difference doesn’t always need to be unique. Yes, I am a marketing guy and yes, I did state that your core difference doesn’t ALWAYS need to be unique.

Let me give you an example.

I’m  staying at a hotel in Kansas City, Missouri helping train a new group of Authorized Duct Tape Marketing consultants, [Read more...]

You not only CAN become a better marketer for whatever product or service you sell, you MUST become a better marketer in order to leverage your business development efforts to the fullest extent possible.

Here’s the good news ….  it is not as difficult as you might imagine.  It takes a change in mindset and then a bit of rolling up your sleeves to do the work and you will see improvement.

Drum roll please …… [Read more...]

When you hear the word “habit” most people think of all those bad habits …. The ones we are constantly trying to break. But, today, I want to discuss good habits and the importance of developing good marketing habits to build and grow your business. I believe developing good habits is probably the key to success not only in business but in life as well.

What exactly is a habit anyway? [Read more...]

I hear a ton of confusion out there from business owners about the differences between marketing and sales; what comes first, do you need both to build a successful business and so on.

I believe that if you spend more than a couple of minutes wringing your hands over the distinction between the two, then you’ve wasted time you can’t get back and you fail to focus on what is really important. In fact, I would suggest that you adopt the attitude espoused by Lefty (Al Pacino) in the movie Donnie Brasco . . . . “Forget About It”. [Read more...]

I believe that in order to have a fully-functioning business development strategy, you need a combination of inbound and outbound strategies.  Companies selling inbound services will try to convince you that outbound marketing tactics don’t work anymore, while the the outbound tactic people will tell you that inbound tactics aren’t as effective as the inbound people claim.

I think the key issue that seems to be lost in the discussion about Inbound vs. Outbound marketing conversations and is [Read more...]