Sum of Its Parts

“Saltwater taffy, for example, does not taste good. Seagulls are not pleasant birds. Most people look better in clothes a lot of clothes. But it works. The beach is the ultimate triumph in setting.” from the article, Sea and Be Seen

What does this have to do with marketing professional services? A lot. Just like saltwater taffy, seagulls, and under clothed people, any one thing done in isolation to market your professional services wont work.

When you take the sum of its parts, marketing works.

Lets take an easy example: networking. Done in a vacuum, networking is just a “part.” Without ways to sustain a new contacts attention, build their trust, or keep in touch the other “parts” of your whole you spend far more time and energy drumming up business than if you had other aspects of your marketing “machine” doing a lot of the work for you.

Lets get specific. The biggest mistake I see is when people go out, network (or make cold calls, or send direct mail pieces), is that they simultaneously scare prospects off with an anemic poorly-messaged website, no value- adding resources to build your prospects...