Marketing or Selling -- Which is more important?
A question I often get from clients and students goes something like this: "I've been collecting marketing ideas... and I have a drawer full! I also have a stack of promising leads I've accumulated. And I know it's important to stay visible, so I do a lot of networking, but then I just end up with more names in the stack. How do I prioritize all this?"
If you've ever wondered something similar, you may have lost sight of a very important truth -- the way to win the marketing game is not to collect the most leads; it's to make the most sales. Marketing activities that increase your number of sales are good, and activities that don't are bad, even if they bring in plenty of leads. If you don't follow up on the leads you gather, you are throwing away your time and money.
The main purpose of marketing strategies like public speaking, writing articles, getting publicity, networking, promotional events, and advertising is to gain visibility. (A secondary purpose of the first three strategies can be to gain credibility.) Why do you want to be visible? It's not just so people will know who you are and what you do, it's so they will do business with you.
If someone has already expressed interest in doing business, call them. Do it now. Memorize this rule -- following up on hot, or even warm, client leads is always more important than marketing for more visibility.
There is a simple diagnostic test you can take to see where you need to focus your marketing vs. selling efforts, which I call the Universal Marketing Cycle. Think of the marketing and sales process as a water system that begins by filling your pipeline with leads. The pipeline empties into your follow-up pool, which you are continually dipping into.
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