Ready for a couple of interesting statistics?

Around 50% of marriages fail.

Around 80% of businesses fail.

Now I’m not a marriage advisor, but I can tell you that pretty much all the business that fail, do so for one of two reasons:

1. Lack of marketing.
2. Lack of money.

And it stands to reason that if you don’t get the first one right, the second one is a dead cert! See, the world is full of technically-able people. There are great cake-makers, terrific life coaches, top accountants and lawyers, knowledgeable financial advisors and brilliant designers. However, if you can’t market yourself and what you do, you’ll always be scrambling with the crowd to get ahead.

Before every sale comes the marketing. Without it, you don’t get the people to sell to. You don’t create the opportunity to sell. You don’t source the prospects to sell to. Which, unless you are so good that people beat a path to your door, is a problem. You can’t get away from marketing. It’s the way you communicate to the world generally and to your target market in particular, the following three things:

1. You are open for business.
2. You are better than most at what you do.
3. People should choose you, above and beyond all of their other choices, when they need what you do.

It’s no good being the best kept secret in the world. And in today’s highly competitive world, it’s not good enough to be good enough! If you want to rise to the top of your field, and have all the benefits of wealth, status and opportunities that go with that, you need to be able to market yourself. When you get good at the marketing, the selling becomes a whole lot easier!

"The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose."

E. M. Gray

You can’t make partner in a law firm by simply being a good lawyer. You can’t rise to the top of your company be being simply efficient. You must be able so market yourself and your ideas. You must be able to communicate your vision and your opinions.

I see so many people who are so brilliant at their job, but struggle to make the impact they want to. When I work with people one to one on my personal coaching program, we focus on this self-marketing and reputation building so they get the opportunities they deserve. On purpose rather than by chance!

Make no mistake. When you get good at the marketing, the selling becomes a whole lot easier!