I didn’t hear a whole lot from our Basic Training Boot Camp winner this week. She was busy putting things into ACTION! A whole lot got done with regard to her marketing efforts and getting clients in the door ASAP. Here’s what Steffanie had to say about her second week in the trenches:
Throughout the process of starting my practice I am continually reminding myself that I need to get started and perfection hardly ever comes with a first attempt. When talking with Deb this week she reiterated this important concept when she said, “It just needs to be good enough.” Although I have been a psychologist for 7 years, I am currently experiencing a lot of firsts as I start my own practice. I don’t think I have had this many firsts in my life since grad school. Although it is exciting and fun, it also can be unnerving at times. I constantly have to fight the urge to perfect my marketing information and not get stuck in the “paralasis of analysis”, sometimes the marketing I do just needs to be good enough, which leaves me room to get better over time:)
Have you found that you too get caught up in the “thoughts” of what you need to do to build your practice; pouring over those brochures over and over again until you just chuck the whole thing out of frustration? As I told Steffanie this week, as mental health professionals we all tend to be somewhat perfectionistic and obsessive. Those are traits that make us really good at our craft.
Done to the extreme in our marketing efforts, however, those traits can really bog us down and lead to more and more procrastination over (what we claim are) our goals. Sometimes you need to settle for “good enough”.
That does not mean that you stop proofing your work. It doesn’t mean that you write the first thing that comes to mind. It just means that you remember the goal of all of your marketing efforts — to get noticed!!!
Here in Buffalo there is a liquor store that has been around forever. I can’t really tell you the name of the store, but I can tell you that I noticed it EACH and EVERY time I drove down that street. You see, the sign on that store — “LIQUOR” — was upside down. I noticed that sign; it made me laugh.
Now I’m certainly not suggesting that you write your ad copy upside down (unless you think it migh really get you noticed in a good way 🙂 ); I’m just encouraging you to remember the purpose of your marketing. You need to get noticed.
This is the thought behind choosing a target market and niche services. This is the thought behind getting your expertise out there in print. This should be the thought behind every moment and dime you invest in marketing your practice.
Seth Godin has a saying that helps me a lot when I get caught up in the paralasis of analysis that Steffanie referred to. Seth says (over and over and over again…) — SHIP IT! That means that nothing you do or say about your business means a thing until someone buys it. The only way they are going to buy it from YOU is to get noticed.
So… are you going to spend the next day/week/month/year/CAREER massaging what you want to say to people about how and why you are the answer to their questions? Or, are you gonna SHIP IT?
