I am a programmer not a marketer
It doesn’t matter if you are a freelancer or have a business. You can double your growth in no time. Yeah, thats true. I so wish If I knew this when I started 9 years ago. I believe for that to happen, you have to understand 2 important things, they are Marketing and Sales.
Now I do consulting on blogs, SEO & sometimes small business. Yesterday, I did consultation with a software guy. He’s great programmer I know. But carrying over to marketing or sales for him is tough. He told me “I am a programmer, not a marketer”.
That is so true for all programmers out there. He understand most of the internet marketing techniques, like ppc, direct sales yet there was something missing. When I sat down to write this post, it came to my mind. This topic can help so many programmers.
So In this post I am going to give fast track overview of my consultation. This consultation was about his product which sells at $29 – $49. Again though he knows marketing techniques the issue was implementing them in his sales offer.
So here are the things I suggested to him.
1 . Sleep with your Customer: Now now, I don’t mean you to go out and follow this advice to the T. What I meant is to find out everything there is to know about your customer. Find out your customer profile. Find out how old they are? Find out what kind of job they have? Find out where they meet? etc etc…
My main aim for him to understand which market he should target for. He cannot be everything to everybody. My metaphor was “If you are a boxer, you just cannot throw your punches all over the place, you need to target key points like chin, ribs and abdomen to get a KO”.
Now this is important point to consider. You have to have target focussed about this. Now this was important for him. Because his product can actually be used by anyone who owns a website.
2. Differentiate or Die : If I remember correctly this a tittle of a book by Jack Trout. Well its all about differentiating yourself from your competitor. How can you differentiate yourself? Its hard to come up with… but this is worth spending your efforts into.
This is like defining your USP (Unique selling proposition) which can differentiate you from other programmers. Think about :
Why others should work with you?
What you can provide that others cannot?
How you can help in a way that others cannot?
Listen, you don’t have to be VERY unique. Just unique enough to get that first advantage after that you can build on your success. For example, If you are website designer but can also provide direct sales you can easily differentiate yourself from tons of other designers.
Now if you are a designer, who not only understand direct sales but also understand SEO. you are becoming unique. Sometimes if you need to put some effort to become unique its worth it.
3. Promote Yourself Regularly : Now I know you are busy guy, but that doesn’t mean you should stop promoting yourself. Don’t mind even if you have to refuse a few clients. You don’t have to please everyone, remember that. In fact when you are refusing clients, you’ll get more clients wanting to work with you.
Its human tendency to want something they can’t. If I tell you to not touch that wet paint on bench, chances are you’ll touch test it yourself. Again, we just can’t resist that kind of thing.
Well that’s what I am going to share with you in this post Now of course I shared more than few ideas with him…
How to Get FREE Consultation with Varun worth $200
Now guys, I don’t spend lot of my time consulting as I have my own business to run. But What I am doing is I am giving out 20 minute consultation for free (worth $200). Its only limited to my ex-clients or referrers from my clients or readers of this blog.
Why its free?
Well there is no such thing as free lunch. So OF course there is a catch in it. Don’t worry, if its free, then it means exactly that… But what I’ll do is, I want to you to allow me to use your name and share the consultation with other clients. This way I can show them yours consultation as a case study.
Of course, I’ll get rid of all the personal and sensitive data. I only want to share how marketing principles can be applied to any business.
I am doing this to ensure that I give my time to only serious people. I can’t spend all my time giving free consultation can I?
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