Don't fall into this trap

Watch my commentary in today's video HERE. ..

Some of the best advice I ever got…advice that actually produced results and kept me from getting discouraged was…Keep a Lot of Irons in the Fire.

Which when you think about it, makes a lot of sense.

If you are doing a lot of stuff, it doesn’t really matter if one thing doesn’t pan out.?

No big deal…lots of other things going on.

The problem is (and I’ve been guilty of this, so I know from where I speak), that it’s real easy to put all of our proverbial eggs in just one basket.

Case in point…

When I was starting out, I heard that most new business came from referrals, and that the best way to get referrals was to go to networking events.

So I did.

and did…

and did…

What they didn’t tell me was, that getting quality referrals takes time. It works…but you’ve got to go to a lot of events…meet a lot of people… before something tangible results.

They left that part out.

And since all I was doing was going to networking meetings…it got real discouraging. Made me feel that I wasn’t doing something right. After all everyone “said” they got all their clients from referrals & networking, but all I got was bupkis…nada…zilch…zero. So it must be something that sucked about me.

Wrong.

What I learned was that while referrals & networking are great, and do work…you want to do other things to supplement that one type of marketing.

And here’s something else I learned…

You want to have a lot of irons in the fire, not only because that’s how you increase your odds of getting more new affluent clients quickly…but the bigger benefit (at least for me) was psychological.

Ever heard that phrase “Hope springs eternal”? I’m sure you have. But here’s something you may not have considered…the opposite is devastating. No Hope sinks you into an abyss from which it’s really difficult to pull yourself out.

When you have a lot of irons in the fire-you have a lot of hope. Not “rose color glasses” hope, but a realization that you are playing the odds…doing everything in your power to leverage success in your favor.

The psychological benefit of that is tremendous.

Remember, we don’t fail because our product or service isn’t great.

We fail because we give up.

We get discouraged when that one thing we were counting on to bring us success…doesn’t work, or doesn’t work as quickly as we want.

And when we get discouraged for long enough…we quit.

And who can really blame us?

I can’t emphasized enough both the practical and psychological power of having “lots of irons in the fire.”

Which brings me to the next question.

What are the Irons?

The good news is that there are lots and lots of different ways to get the word out about your business, attract more affluent clients, build your brand and grow your business into any size you want. There’s pull marketing and push marketing…there’s online and off…there’s social media, not to mention good old direct mail…the list goes on and on.

Don’t let anyone tell you there’s only one way-cause there’s not.

But…this is really important.

You need to try a lot of stuff and see what works AND what you enjoy doing.

I like writing, so I do a lot of that. Others might hate writing-but that’s totally ok.

I loath networking events. Many of my most successful friends love them, and get lots of business as a result.

The point is, try a lot of things. Keep a lot of irons in the fire, until you find stuff that both works, and isn’t a total pain in the ass to actually do.

That was one of my motivations when I sat down to write the Affluent Marketing Blueprint. I wanted to give readers a lot of choices about marketing to the wealthy. And when I did the interviews, guess what I learned?

There are a lot of different approaches. Everyone I talked with had a handful that they used a lot. They didn’t just have one iron-they had several.

I cover what those are in my book, you should get a copy HERE

Talk soon

Mark