As a small business marketing coach, I talk about my mistakes all the time since I made so many of them since I want people to learn from them.  This one mistake I’m thinking about was so big that it kept me exhausted and starving in my business!
Here it is—ready? I was speaking to people who weren’t the cheque signers (buyers) for what I was selling.
Exhausted
When I first started coaching years ago, I would focus my marketing to corporate managers and employees and try to sell them coaching to help their teams communicate more effectively.  I was doing a major professional association keynote almost every week and networking with corporate employees almost on a daily basis.
Freeloaders
People were definitely interested in how I could help them rise above petty team squabbles and get through better to their bosses but after conducting literally HUNDREDS of hours of free coaching, I discovered that no one was willing to pay out of their own pocket for their own career development.  They often ended up asking their department head for the budget and were always told to use existing in house resources.  I was frustrated, sad and hopeless.
No Help Coach
My coach at the time was of no help.  She had no expertise in how to help businesses determine the right niche target or product.  She was just teaching the same old same old that she’d used in her biz which had a totally different niche. That was another mistake I made, I didn’t do due diligence and check her references prior to hiring her.
Traction
I only started to get real traction when I developed a process to find a niche that worked for ME. Now, I use my 20 years of marketing background with this process to help entrepreneurs get new clients. Now,  every speech I deliver and every networking meeting I go to results in new clients.
So, don’t attack the marketplace with no niche and the wrong strategy like I did.  Instead, figure out first if people will PAY for what you’re selling and then get out there and ONLY speak to the cheque signers. You’ll see your business grow by leaps and bounds.
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