The Value Of A Good Rumor
Posted on December 18, 2007
Filed Under Uncategorized
When I first started in my business, the hardest skill to wrap my head around wasn’t writing. That I could do. No - the problem was marketing; I didn’t have the slightest idea how to get new work through the door, a serious skill failure for a guy selling himself as a marketer.
It was embarrassing. I tried damned near everything.. except, of course, the stuff that would work, the stuff that cost money. I hit up friends and family for leads. I cold called. I sent out a blizzard of emails. I joined up with all the online leads groups, wrote ezine articles, did all the other cheesy nonsense that wastes time and doesn’t produce much of a return. Eventually, I hit on a combination of direct mail and SEO that worked for me - but even then, getting work was a hit or miss proposition: no one ever seemed to be in a buying mood, and I always seemed to be a day ahead or a day behind the purchase.
That’s when I began to listen, not just to my prospects’ needs, but to rumors.
Rumors are powerful things for their subtlety. All human literature, dating back to the start of history, had its roots in gossip - stories, life lessons, sharp asides, loose talk. And when you’re out marketing your services, you don’t have the luxury of ignoring them. They provide intelligence on the ground, illuminating future decisions and mapping out how you should be approaching your markets. And they are everywhere.
Some of the valuable rumors I’ve heard over the last year or so:
1. A web design associate was planning to take a social business trip with a mutual client - a very good one. He mentioned it just in passing conversation, but it gave me the opportunity to discuss the client’s copywriting needs for the coming year - needs he later discussed with the client during the trip, ultimately turning into work for both of us.
2. A client specializing in corporate BP (business process) consulting hired me to ghostwrite a white paper, a project that included interviews with several subject matter experts in the field. One expert happened to mention offhandedly that, due to mass mergers and general market instability, companies in a particular (and highly lucrative) technical niche marketing segment - one that I’d never seriously considered before - tended to be badly disorganized internal wrecks.
Such companies tend to outsource a lot in my experience; after a few discreet inquiries in that particularly industry, I determined that those companies did indeed tend to be heavy outsourcers. That gave me a huge new - and relatively untapped - market segment to pitch my services to.
3. A corporate PR firm hired me to attend a local trade show. I was to interview the executive officers of a industrial firm that made nanoparticulate ceramic materials for the aerospace industry; I’d be writing an article about the firm’s coming partnership with a major European chemical company. After the interview, I made the rounds, chatting with sales reps and service engineers of a couple dozen material manufacturing firms. In only a few hours, I collected a wealth of industry intelligence that proved very useful later.
Opportunities are everywhere, but rarely do the good ones come banging on your door - and rarely can you go out and find them. You have to sneak up on them.
To get the good ones, you have to be a good listener, appreciating rumor whenever you can get it - and refining your ability to process and retain it. The smallest asides can easily develop into the best clients.. and the most lucrative jobs.
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So, If I haven’t had a huge amount of success yet, would it serve my purpose to hire a limo to take me to my book store gigs?
Hope you’re doing great.
~m