Mind your own business

Passive vs. active marketing

Recently, I’ve wanted to increase the number of clients I coach on a one to one basis. This has meant I’ve needed to increase my marketing to get things moving, especially what I call active marketing.

I believe that one of the reasons many small businesses struggle for work is because they are waiting for business to come to them. They may be sending out letters, attending networking meetings, and researching into opportunities, but these activities are passive-they don’t involve actually asking for business. Talking from experience, you wait a very long time for significant results, unless you’ve got a big enough budget to contact a very large number of people.

Active marketing on the other hand involves taking more risk. It’s person to person, direct requests for business. It’s following up letters with a phone call. It’s calling up people with an idea. It’s asking for recommendations and then calling them. The risk is rejection, which is why most people avoid it.

But here’s the thing. Who’s in control when you’re being passive? Not you. Who’s in control when you’re being active? You are, because you can simply move on and ask someone else.

By the way, if someone does happen to say ‘no’, it gives you a moment of power and you can ask for something else and, as long as it’s a smaller request, you’ll probably get it (called the ‘rejection-then-retreat technique’ in ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini).

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