Chief Marketing Officer: Solopreneur Insights, Vol. 6
First, a preface: In my business, I never once engaged in any form of traditional outreach or marketing campaigns. No cold-calling. No cold emails. No ads. No email list. I didn’t even participate in social media. I simply didn’t need to. I did, however, help dozens of businesses build and use marketing effectively to gain millions of dollars. The following is built around the model I developed for them. I’ve tailored it for the modern day Solopreneur who wants to land high-quality clients.
If you’ve studied marketing at all, you’ll be told something like this: Marketing communicates your benefits while framing perceptions that persuade someone to ultimately spend money with you.
This is basically true.
Yet, as usual, the way it works for us Solopreneurs is not how it works for the mega-corps. Let’s get straight to it.
First, we’ll start the three key ingredients of effective Marketing:
Company
Customer
Competition
I’ve used a system I call “The 3 Cs” for over a decade with my corporate clients. We must get crystal clear on these three categories before we can establish powerful Marketing. Here’s how it works when applied to the Solopreneur:
Your Company
The sum of all of the items below.
What service(s) and/or product(s) you provide
Your experience
Your quality level
Your price points
Your style of delivering your value
Who you’ve served in the past
Your operations for product/service delivery
What it means to work with you
Your Customer
The people who are qualified to buy from you.
Their pain point(s)
Their desired outcome
Their budget
Their style of working
Their perception of your service
Their daily tasks and challenges
Their industry
Your Competition
Anyone or anything competing against you to keep your Customers or prospects from you.
Companies competing against you (use the items in your Company list to assess them)
Fear
Insufficient information
Lack of clarity
Budgetary constraints
Assumptions
Your first step is to get crystal clear on each item above. Put the work in. Write out detailed descriptions of each item above. You’ll gain a clear picture of where you stand in your marketplace right now. What do we call this clear picture? Positioning.
Positioning
Think of Positioning as the foundation that gets your ideal customer to simultaneously understand you, your relevance to them, and your competitive advantage. Nothing else matters if the foundation is weak. Get this right, and everything else becomes easier.
Once you have your Positioning dialed in, you need to communicate it. You do this by leveraging:
Communication Channels
Marketing Materials
Marketing Strategy
Let’s start with the Communication Channels. These set the context for all Marketing Materials. After all, no one receives information in a vacuum. Examples of Communication Channels:
When someone they trust refers you to them
When they read quality testimonials from people they respect
When they visit your professional website
When they read something you wrote on social media
When they view your work examples/case studies/client stories
When they’re introduced to you through a relevant community
When they read content from you in an article or email
When you reach out to them
All of these moments result in the prospect forming an impression of you. If you got your Positioning right, they will take the next crucial step: They will seek information that validates their impression of you. This is where the Marketing Materials come in. Your two most important materials and the ones they look at first?
Your social media presence
Your website
Now, I need you to understand something. This moment of validation is critical for your business. It’s not just that it determines how many clients you might get. Frankly, I’m not worried about that. If you’re getting after it every day, getting any ol’ client isn’t terribly difficult.
I’m concerned with something much more important: What type of clients you’re going to get.
Crappy, lowest-common-denominator marketing is going to land you crappy, lowest-common-denominator clients. It will NEVER attract high-quality clients.
If you’re truly putting in the work to provide excellent products and services to your customers, then you need to leverage great marketing that brings you high-quality customers on autopilot.
This is the difference between building a prison and building a legitimate business that sets you free.
So, let’s look at the right way to build your Marketing Materials so that your ideal clients can begin throwing handfuls of cash at you. It’s really not that complicated.
Your primary Marketing Materials, in order of priority:
A strong product or service.
Happy clients will always be your best marketing. Constantly solicit feedback and improve your products and services.
Strong content
Demonstrate your expertise and commitment to solving your clients’ problems. Dedicated thought leadership and intense study of your customers’ markets goes a long way.
Networking
Get involved in the communities your clients care about. Cultivating strong relationships with powerful people is like a cheat code for the Solopreneur.
A strong client list
Working with well-respected people sends a strong signal to other well-respected people that you can be trusted. Pair this with clear testimonials, and high-quality prospects will reach out to you constantly.
A professional website
A website is powerful tool that communicates your level of seriousness in your business. It doesn’t have to be complex. It simply needs to be professional. The standard “scroll forever” landing page isn’t going to cut it in the professional world.
Case studies/client stories
A concise story that shows how you transformed a client’s condition will help the prospect understand what transformation for them might look like. It can inspire them and help establish you as the guide to get them there.
Great design and photography
At this point, there’s simply no excuse to not have great design and photography. There are template sites everywhere that will help you look professional enough. Even photography is easy to access. If you don’t know anyone who can take a series of professional photos for you, there are countless videos on YouTube that teach you how to take good-enough photos of yourself. You’re a Solopreneur. People need to see you. Of course, if it's in your budget, hire a designer to handle this for you. There's a reason why every legit company spends tons of money on looking good.
You don’t NEED all of these.
But, make no mistake: the better these are, the better clients you will attract. Use the information above to form a Marketing Strategy. Then, review the previous email I sent regarding tactics for approaching customers. Once combined, it’s only a matter of time before you have more high-quality customers than you know what to do with.
Here’s my breakdown for acting as Chief Marketing Officer in my business:
Yearly: 2 days / 365 days
When I first set up my website, it took a couple days. From there, I simply set aside half a day each quarter to update it with a couple new projects.
However, I don’t think a day went by that I wasn’t doing at least something to improve my services and research my clients’ industries. This contributed to the daily interactions that kept my clients happy.
– Torrey
Follow me: Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn
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