Marketing in the Storm

Since ending a long-term contract after Thanksgiving last year, I've been methodically working on getting my business act together, especially marketing. Sometimes it's chicken and sometimes it's feathers in the work world and we're definitely eating our share of feathers lately, so I did not know what to expect from my marketing efforts. But as the old Greek saying goes: "If the wind does not serve, take to the oars."

Results so far are pretty good. I have a total of 7 IT jobs (and 1 basement remodel) in the pipeline. I've started on one IT contract and I outsourced another. I'm not going to get rich off these jobs, but the one I'm working on now ought to pay some of the bills.

I turned down one potentially nice contract because I didn't have the skills required. However, my marketing led me to the opportunity. I've since plugged that loss-of-business hole, as I'll discuss at the end.

The other job possibilities on my list are just that: possibilities. By the way, these jobs are all low-stress, offsite, programming jobs I can do with my slippers on, with laughing maidens in the background, and with the sun streaming through my open office window. Just like in the guru.com ads.

Was it luck? Heck, maybe. Look, I don't try to represent myself as a marketing guru but hey, something is working here, so let's rewind a bit and analyze what's going on in the hopes that maybe you can find some nugget that will work for you. I suspect this general approach will work no matter what kind of work you are looking for - W2 or 1099. Individual results may vary, and in fact only 3 of my 8 current opportunities resulted from the following approach - so far. The rest are from good old networking.

SECRETS OF DECEMBER
In December few companies are doing new projects, everybody just wants to stay home, eat, hibernate, or go visit family. But one thing December does offer is time to get your business systems and approach together for the coming year. Here's what took place at my shop:

(1) I happened to stumble across a moderately life altering book: Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen that really helped organize my time. I'm not a neat-nut or a believer in 'systems', so my office was in pretty bad shape organizationally. David's book helped me clear all my inboxes and put in place methods of operating much more efficiently. The main benefit to me is a large increase in mental and emotional energy. That's because I know I'm effortlessly trapping and dealing with everything that is coming in so that I don't have to try and remember it all.

(2) Now that my work habits were tuned, I turned my attention to what I really wanted to do for work and who my potential customers would be. Since I'm a small shop, I realized that my best bet was targeting companies who might need outsourced talent instead of trying to go for customers who needed complete turnkey solutions. The distinction is subtle but crucial. You've really got to focus and build on your strengths. You must nail this down because all your subsequent marketing effort is based on knowing who you are and what you are offering.

(3) Next it was time to have some decent business cards printed. I'd been messing around with the ink-jet business cards from Office Depot but they don't really cut it; the ink runs and edges look ragged. I splurged on 3 color and ordered 1000 cards. The cost was over $150. The card states precisely what I do right on the face. I designed them myself.

(4) The fun part was creating the first marketing flyer for 2002. I had just finished the back-end of a pretty high-profile web project that also looked good (www.aspeneffect.com). After getting permission from the other players on the project, I did a screen capture of one of the web pages and incorporated it into a marketing blurb. Then I designed a high quality color flyer and printed 100 at 59 cents each. The tool I used for designing both the business cards and the flyer was Microsoft Publisher 2000 as they have some templates that look pretty good, to start the design process.

(5) Next up was figuring out whom to send the flyers to. I wanted to know the names of the top individuals in my target companies. The problem is that lists with contact information are expensive - on the order of $1200 and up. This is great if you're a large company and can afford it but that seemed too high to me. So I brokered a deal with the list holder and using the Internet found 75 others who also wanted such a list. Together we got the list for $39 bucks each.

(6) Once I had the list in hand, I imported the companies I wanted to target into MS Outlook. I set a goal of 100 target companies, as more than that is too hard to manage on a recurring basis. I carefully examined each companies profile and visited their website to see if they made sense to target. I weeded out at least 60 percent from my original list.

I also used the website www.superpages.com to locate companies in my area to add to my top 100 list. And now that the new phone books are out, I'll locate more companies that have slipped through the cracks. I'm up to about 80 companies toward my target now. All 80 CEO's have received my first flyer that also included my business card.

This, of course, is just the first of many follow-up marketing pieces scheduled for this year. At some point, I'll probably make phone calls to each company once I reckon they know who I am.

DID IT WORK?
Sometime in January I got two calls in one week from flyer recipients. One turned into actual work and led to a referral that garnered more work; the other I turned down because it was outside my skill set. After turning down work in this economy I realized I still had some work to do in my systems. As I said earlier, I plugged that hole.

The way I did that was to start forming working affiliations with other small shops like mine that have the skills I lack. While this is still fleshing out in real life, in a nutshell the concept is that each company markets themselves as usual but silently (i.e., the job is billed through the finding company) refers contracts outside their specialty to an affiliate for a percentage of the gross billings.

The obvious advantage of this approach is that now, as a small company you can expand your marketing message to include types of work you would not normally have gone after. Each company now has other companies out there marketing their skill sets to an entire new set of customers. Of course you have to trust and verify your affiliates skills and get certain contractual stuff in place between each one.

This is not new by the way; large companies have been doing this sort of thing for a long time. Maybe it makes sense again in the current climate for small companies to do this as well. We'll take this up in another piece.

Good luck in your own hunt for work. May your oars prove light.

Regards,

Clint Lewis
CI Editor