How to Make Your Services Essential

By Robert Middleton - Action Plan Marketing

I just interviewed Tim Kelley of "Know Your Purpose" for the Action Plan Marketing Club on the Topic of "How to Make Your Services Essential by Knowing Your Life Purpose." It was an amazing interview with many thought-provoking ideas.

I thought I'd reproduce some of it in today's eZine where we talked about zeroing in on your ultimate business purpose.

Tim: Many people are never as successful as they could be or their businesses go under because they're never actually able to successfully identify that ideal target market and that ideal service that they should be offering those people.

Robert: If they don't do that, what's the fallout of that?

Tim: Well, the fallout is everything we see around us, which is "business as usual." It's the sort of groping and trial and error of trying to figure out how to make the marketing message sing, trying to figure out which people to go after, trying to figure out exactly what to do with them, and constantly tweaking and honing and trying to see whether it's working or not, and it's just this general, ongoing, never-ending, groping process.

And that "business as usual," in this kind of economy we're facing now, can be a disaster for your business, because your message has no impact when it needs to get through more than ever.

Each and every person, and each and every company, is actually designed to serve a particular target audience, and designed to offer a particular service to that target audience, and designed to create very specific outcomes from that service.

The problem is that people are generally unconscious about the thing that they've been designed to do. So let me use a metaphor. Let's imagine that you are a hammer that had never seen a nail; you've spent your whole life driving screws.

Now, you actually can drive screws with a hammer. It'll work, right? They'll turn a little bit, and they'll kinda munge through the wood and whatnot, but it's a lot of work to drive those screws with that hammer.

The hammer doesn't know that it's supposed to be working with nails, but, boy, if someone said, "Dude! Let me tell you, these screws are not your target audience. You should be working with nails," and the hammer goes home and starts working with nails after years of working with screws, it's going to seem so easy.

They'd say, "Oh my god! This used to be so much work. This is so much fun! Three strikes and it's done. I used to spend half an hour at this thing. It's amazing!" Right? So that's the feeling people have when they find it. When they actually find the thing they're supposed to be doing and the people they're actually supposed to be doing it for; suddenly it becomes easy.

Suddenly they feel passionate and inspired about it. Suddenly they know exactly what to do; all these latent faculties turn on that have not been engaged because they were working with the wrong people or doing the wrong thing.

Robert: Why are we hammers so clueless about this?

Tim: Well, the issue is, by itself without a nail, a hammer can't actually tell that it's supposed to drive nails. Only if you've ever seen a hammer driving nails would you know how it's supposed to work.

So the fact that I'm designed to do a particular thing doesn't mean that I know I am. People have a specific process they're supposed to offer, a specific audience they're supposed to offer it to, and it's unconscious in them. It's buried somewhere, and they're not consciously aware of this fact.

Periodically, accidentally, they hit on those people and they hit on those processes and think, "Wow! That went really well with that client. I wish all my other clients were like that." But they don't actually know the specific qualities and characteristics that made that one sing. They try to figure it out, but they can never get it exactly right.

Robert: I've had that kind of conversation with clients where I say, "What kind of clients do you really love working with? Which clients do you produce the best results with? Which clients do you feel happy working with?" Sometimes, it's not that far away. I say, "Maybe you should really specialize in those clients." That's the beginning of it anyway. I know you go deeper than that.

Tim: The method that you articulated is the kind of method people usually use. So it's some combination of things like this. "When do you feel most passionate? What is the thing that you would do if no one were paying you to do it? Name 10 clients that you've done your absolute best work with and what's common among them?"

Those are the methods that people usually use to answer this question, but those are indirect methods for getting at these answers. And by "indirect," I mean that we're trying to play connect-the-dots. We're trying to do reverse engineering to figure out that answer from the available evidence.

And those kind of methods that you talked about are like that. "Well, let's see if we can figure out what your ideal target market is based on the available evidence."

The problem with that is the answer will always be an approximation, and it matters if you get it exactly right. If you really want it to sing, if you really want it to flow, you have to get it exactly right; you have to use direct methods.

You have to actually go probing into your psyche, looking for the answers to the questions which are already there buried somewhere in your unconscious and unearth this information called "What is it I've been designed to do? Who have I been designed to do it with? And what outcomes have I been designed to create with those people?"

The answers are already within you. You do not need to do a marketing study or interview your clients or do any of that stuff. The answers already exist inside of you. And under the right conditions, that information can become conscious, and it will change the entire game.

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The More Clients Bottom Line: According to Tim, we all have a purpose, a thing we were designed to do, but for the most part we are unaware of it. Until we become aware of it, our businesses are not as focused and as powerful as they can be.

To learn more about Tim's approach, click below to get a free chapter of Tim's new book: "True Purpose: 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference Your Are Meant to Make," and the audio of his popular teleclass, "Explode Your Practice!"

www.PurposefulCoach.com/marketingclub

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What impact have you seen in your business when you are very clear on your purpose (or perhaps when you're not so clear)? Please share on the More Clients Blog.

Comments

[Grace]

Robert,
Again you have given me the guidance at the exact moment I needed it. I have not understood the push and pull effect so well before. In the past I think I would sort of push, and then give a huge pull. And of course the result was minimal. I have a new campaign I am trying and hopefully I can use a true combination of push and pull, with much better results than in the past
Thanks!!
Grace

[Yvonne Finn]

Mr.Kelley,
Thank you for this validating and purposeful article.
I feel as if it was speaking directly to me.
As a new buisness owner, I have heard so many of the cliched catch phrases about marketing and promoting my services, however, I found that something was missing in serving my clients.

I was trying to adopt other peoples methods.
My way is to develop a relationship with my client and truly find out if they have a need for my service.
This takes time, but I feel better about the transaction.

So, I guess I am more of a counsellor than a sales person, that is my purpose and I truly enjoy that role.

Thanks again!
Yvonne Finn