Your Marketing Commitment for 2022

As someone who has made most of my life decisions by default, not only do I know recognize the importance of commitment as an essential element of all important decisions.

And like all converts to a new belief or cause, I’m a bit of a zealot when it comes to commitment. Kind of like being committed to commitment: if commitment is important, strategic commitment is essential!

By way of brief explanation, here is what I mean.

Decisions by default, also known as default decisions, are those decisions we make for reasons other than to achieve specific desired outcomes.

These decisions are made to please someone else … or because we believe these are the decisions that we are expected to make … or we don’t know what we want so any decision is better than no decision … or whatever excuse we offer any lack of success.

From bitter experience, I now recognize that default decisions do little me than ease some short-term pain, but seriously limit long-term gain.

A commitment is an agreement or a pledge to do something specific in the future.

It’s all about setting goals and figuring out how to achieve those goals.

Unfortunately, making decisions is a whole lot easier than putting the time and effort into the process of planning and setting goals.?But the outcome is a whole lot less rewarding.

In a nutshell, strategic commitment is all about doing whatever it takes to achieve the results you want.?

If you have ever pursued and achieved one or more cherished goals, you know how awesome that feels.

With introduction to the concept of commitment, let’s take a look at how it applies to marketing professional services.

Marketing Is Important–Authentic Marketing Is Best

In the early stages of my marketing journey, a very experienced marketing consultant told me that marketing is the most important of all business functions.

It is after all, marketing that generates the new business that all business organizations need to survive, grow and thrive.

New clients, who represent one of only two sources of new business, are attracted by marketing communications of one form or another.?

The other source of new business, returning clients, is also generated by some form of marketing, if only the simple memory of welcome help received in the past.

However, many consumers, including your potentially ideal clients, are cynical about marketing.

They often perceive it as little more than false advertising, overly hyped promotions and aggressive pushy sales pitches.

For your marketing messages to generate the results you want, it’s important to distinguish your marketing from promotions marked by exaggerated benefits and outright lies.

Consumers, including our own potentially ideal clients, tend to see most marketing as little more than false advertising, overly hyped promotions and aggressive, pushy sales pitches.

For our marketing to generate the results we want, we must somehow distinguish our marketing from the promotions marked by exaggerated benefits, and blatant lies.

The best, most authentic marketing is based on building and maintaining trusting relationships, not aggressively pitching products or services.

If we consistently ensure that our marketing is truly authentic … in other words, aligned with our personal values and beliefs … we can distinguish ourselves from false advertising & overly hyped promotions.

With authentic marketing, you can also expect to generate more business for your business.

The Authentic Marketing Wheel

For a variety of reasons, Authentic Marketing offers a good model for adding commitment to the process of generating more new business.

The Authentic Marketing Wheel graphic illustrates the essential elements of Authentic Marketing.

The Authentic You

As is the case in life itself, the authentic you represents the core or nucleus of the Authentic Marketing Wheel.

Three inter-related elements comprise this nucleus: your physical, emotional and spiritual being.

Your Physical Being

Obviously the stronger your physical, emotional and spiritual health, the better positioned you will be to respond effectively to whatever challenges come your way.

From the marketing perspective, physical challenges might include travel to and attendance at in-person events such as networking, personal appearances or one-on-one meetings.

Examples of your physical elements: Endurance, Stamina, Overall Good Physical Health, Freedom from limiting disease and/or physical condition

Your Emotional Being

Similarly, if you are emotionally strong, you can keep problems in perspective and bounce back from setbacks.

This priceless resource will help you stay the course and keep going long after more emotionally vulnerable people have given up.

People who are emotionally healthy can control their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

They can cope with life's challenges, keep problems in perspective and bounce back from setbacks.

From being ignored in the marketplace, to being outright rejected, to low conversion rates marketing is a never-ending flow of threats to one’s emotional well-being.

Notwithstanding these threats, emotionally strong people continue to feel good about themselves and their work.

Examples of your emotional elements: ?Authentic, Conscientious, Diligent, Friendly, Patient, Tolerant,?(See More )

Your Spiritual Being

Spiritual well-being is all about living a life with meaning and purpose.

When we live our lives on purpose, we are doing what truly matters to us in alignment with our personal values and beliefs.

Along with supporting our personal journeys to true happiness, living a meaningful and purposeful life includes making strong genuine connections with others who share similar values and beliefs.?

As enjoyable as living a spiritual life can be, what’s even better is that from a business perspective many of these like-minded people also represent potentially ideal clients and referral sources.

Examples of your spiritual strengths: Altruistic, Compassionate, Joyful, Loving, Meaningful, Purposeful

Personal Attributes And Characteristics

The middle ring represents that unique combination of personality, skills, training and experience that allows you to serve and satisfy clients in your own way, unlike anyone else.

Those personal attributes and characteristics influence your personal interactions from how to how you meet and greet strangers top how you serve and satisfy clients.

Examples of Your Personality Strengths:

·????????Wisdom and Knowledge: creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective, innovation.

·????????Courage: bravery, persistence, integrity, vitality, zest.

·????????Humanity: love, kindness, social intelligence.

·????????Justice: citizenship, fairness, leadership.

Also included in this category is the professional training and experience that allows you to help clients the way you do.?

This is the type of credentialing information that typically shows up on resumes, CVS, websites and social media profiles.

Marketing Elements

The outer ring represents the marketing-focused elements of generating more new business.

Starting with services, in the upper right-hand quadrant, this is what we sell to generate revenue.

Clients are those wonderful people who are prepared to pay us for what we sell.

Our brand is what distinguishes us from competitors who provide similar kinds of services to clients like ours.

Your story is all about how you and your services help clients.?Its purpose is two-fold.

First, it will help strangers, including potentially ideal clients and network contacts understand how you help clients.

And second, but equally important, it will also remind contacts and clients of your help.

And the final marketing-focused actions include all those many marketing strategies that bring into play to connect with potentially ideal clients and continue to generate more new business for your service business.

Your Authentic Marketing Commitment

All things considered, a generic Authentic Marketing commitment would be something like:

to doing whatever it takes to generate more new business authentically.

But that’s too vague to be meaningful, let alone inspirational or measurable.

A better version might be something like:

I will try to make the most of my authentic marketing elements to achieve optimal results.

That’s better, but still not good enough.

The best version might be:

I am committed to make the most of my strongest authentic marketing elements

to generate at least $100,000 worth of new business over the next 12 months.

What makes this version the best is the three is that it meets the criteria for SMART goals:

·????????Specific: “…make the most of my strongest authentic marketing elements…”

·????????Measurable: “…at least $100,000 worth of new business…”

·????????Achievable: ?(rate: $100/hour) X (21 billable hours/week) X (50 weeks/year)

·????????Realistic: (rate: $100/hour) X (21 billable hours/week) X (50 weeks/year)

·????????Time-based: 12 months

(The above numbers are intended for illustration purposes only.?Feel free to use your own numbers to come up with your own statement.)

As attractive as this version may appear, there is a downside.

It’s going to take some serious work to identify your strongest authentic elements and also to figure out how to apply them. That’s where your commitment comes into play.

If you are not ready to make the commitment to achieving your desired income level, you have another choice.

You can default to doing what you’ve always done…which will generate results that you have always achieved.

To learn how to identify your strongest Authentic Marketing strengths and leverage these strengths, check out Leverage Your Strengths and Grow Your Business .