Thanksgiving Point © Steve Smith

Top Ten Don’t List How not to attract more clients

Sign of the Times

We have been long time fans of Robert Middleton. I look forward to his weekly ezine called More Clients. In it, he shares tips and testimonials as well as inspiration all geared toward attracting new clients. His topics are diverse as much as they are interesting and this month we share one that particularly caught our attention. If you are into lists and laughter, as well how to attract more of the right clients check it out.

Have you ever googled yourself, or have you ever checked to see who might be using your written work without permission? Checkout copyscape.com where you can search to see who might be using your published work. It may surprise you! Never far behind with popular analysis, Google has a new offering where you can see keyword popularity ranked by city. Go on try it! You may be surprised to find out where your town ranks. We’re not sure if we should be surprised at what keywords our town Salt Lake City lays claim to. Yikes.

Home Grown Cover I trust your subscription to Lawn & Landscape is in the current category, as you would not want to have missed last months issue where Utah based Platinum Landscape & Design graces the cover. We photographed the principals of Platinum Landscape & Design for the cover and feature story. The story tracks how PL&D runs a lean & mean landscaping machine from Cedar Hills Utah. The weather was a little mean that morning chasing us inside the atrium at Thanksgiving Point.

HR Video Trains at VA

Smith Productions’ Steve Smith was hired as Director of Photography for a training video produced by the Department of Veteran Affairs in Salt Lake. The video facilitated training for the implementation of a new HR program. The crew and talent was local and was shot end edited at their facility near the University of Utah.

The Top 10 Ways NOT to Attract New Clients by Robert Middleton

They say marketing has a bad name. But I maintain that NOT marketing has a much worse name. If you're a self–employed professional service business owner interested in attracting new clients, are you still committing any of the 10 deadly sins listed below? Make sure nobody can really understand what business you’re in. Use buzz words and industry jargon. Never share the results of what you do or mention how you’ve helped your clients. Make people really work to figure out how you can help them. Talk only about features and processes in your marketing materials. Don’t include any benefits or case studies of successful clients you’ve worked with. Throw in lots of impressive industry jargon and don’t worry about professional design or paper. Using 20# copy paper is fine. Put up a quick–and–dirty website with most of the pages still under construction. Make sure to design it yourself and make it look as amateurish as possible. Of course, obscure navigation, huge graphics files and pages that lead nowhere will keep ‘em coming back. Read the rest of Robert’s Top 10 List...

This article is by Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing. Robert's web site is a comprehensive resource on marketing for Independent Professionals. For free marketing resources and valuable marketing tools visit www.actionplan.com

Smith Productions, LLC telephone: (801) 467-3995 steve smith: steve@smithproductions.net rick phillips: rpphillips@smithproductions.net website: www.smithproductions.net Copyright © 2006 Smith Productions, LLC All Rights Reserved