Not attracting enough clients to your existing small business?

When you aren’t attracting enough clients it can make you feel like you’re spinning your wheels. Setting up systems to help you market can be the smartest thing you do this year!

Many people come to me because even though they know what they should be doing to market their business, they don’t put the steps into practice. As a result, they don’t have a full pipeline of clients.

Why? Because they don’t have systems in place to consistently market their business.

The typical cycle with most small business owners is the “feast or famine” approach. When we have clients, we focus all our efforts on serving those clients. When we don’t, we focus all our efforts on marketing. Up and down. Up and down. Up and down.

The best way to rid yourself of this awful cycle is to get systematic about your marketing. This does not come naturally to a lot of people (myself included), which is why it’s even more important. Here’s how it’s done:

* Create a yearly marketing plan (include online and offline marketing, such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, articles, networking, postcard mailings, etc).

* Schedule everything! If you have an ezine, publish it on the same day each week (or month) and stick to that schedule. Same with your networking events and any other form of marketing you do.

* Create a daily and weekly task list and prioritize it from most important to least. Base this list off of your yearly plan.

* Don’t re-invent the wheel. Recycle your content, for instance, by taking your blog post and using several one-liner gems in there for Facebook and Twitter posts. Tweak it a bit and submit to an online article site or as a press release. Do this for all of your marketing content.

* Have a space set up in your office or home where you can focus on client attraction in uninterrupted blocks.

* Create blocks of time for marketing, client work, business development, and TIME OFF. Time off is very important. No one wants to work with a frazzled business owner. It’s client repellant. So be sure to refresh your body and mind at least one day a week and every so often take off for an entire week or two to just play!

Your Assignment:

Your turn. Are you spinning your wheels and going through the feast or famine cycles of a small business owner? Now is the time to change that and consistently keep your pipeline (and your bank account) full! Block off a few hours a day (or one whole day a week) for marketing and client attraction time and start tackling the above systems right away. Don’t try to do them all at once. Just tackle one at a time. Before you know it, you’ll have more clients chasing after you each day, and soon you will have to figure how to take things to the next level.