No doubt you're busy marketing your business and no doubt you believe that you've thought through your marketing plan clearly, logically and sensibly.

I'm willing to bet there're some things you're doing that are plain wrong. Have a read of what follows and be honest with yourself. Nobody else needs to know how you respond to the points below. As long as you know and do something about it - that's what counts.

I'm going to spread this material over two weeks. By way of creating a bit of a mix and giving your brain another way of looking at things, I thought it might be useful to look at some of the stuff people do (for whatever reason) that really doesn't move their business forwards.

Here goes:

1. Assuming the highest quality product wins

I am sure you focus a lot of effort on delivering the highest possible quality. I know I do. When I'm writing a book, or making a new video, I want that book and video to be the best possible. This is all well and good and if you're one of the many professional speakers that subscribe to this broadcast, then I'm sure that you'll focus on your performance being the best it can be.

This is good, and while it is certainly true that a poor quality performance will certainly fail, it's also true to say that the best performance (product or service) will not sell itself.

What's the learning point? If you're going to write a new book (produce a new video, create a new keynote) define a marketing plan specifically for that new item and associate a marketing budget with that plan. It ain't going to sell itself.

2. Relying on one way of getting new clients

There are lots of speakers and consultants that get new clients by referral. Some use Google pay-per-click adverts and some do lots of "showcase" presentations. All these methods are good methods. There isn't one of them that's clearly better than the others. However, relying on one of them is a big error - no matter how much business it's currently bringing you.

If you have one way of getting new clients which works very well, don't assume that other methods won't work. If method A brings you three new clients per month, method B might bring you another three. You've just doubled your turnover. Repeat that experience with method C and you've tripled your income.

Having multiple revenue generating streams will bring much greater certainty to your overall revenue stream and even out the feast or famine approach typifies many micro-businesses.

3. Not having enough stuff to sell to your clients

This is a very common problem with professional speakers and small business consulting organisations. A typical speaker will have his or her:

• Keynote presentation
• A couple of workshops
• Their book

This is not enough. I know that one can't be "all things to all men", however while staying within your expertise domain you could still offer multiple keynotes, multiple workshops, and have written more than one book. Additionally, you really ought to have digital products and services available via the internet. Doing this gives your micro-business instant global reach for almost negligible distribution costs. You can then expand the range of offerings by having very cheap (free) digital offerings, all the way through to webinars, teleseminars, etc, costing several hundred dollars/Euro.

More follows on this theme next week. Reflect on the above and then take action - and remember...

...take action within three days!

That's it folks for this week - as usual, your comments welcomed and appreciated, particularly with reference as to what you'd like to hear about. I do get quite a few e-mails by the way, and I read them all, so please don't feel shy about getting in contact.

Best wishes for the coming week.

Chris Davidson
Editor, Professional Speakers Journal
editor@professionalspeakersjournal.com