How to Get Clients to Chase You, Instead of You Always Having to Sell Them on Your Value
The zero-budget marketing approach
My business partner and I both grew up in small towns. But when we started our consulting practice in 1992, we had big city dreams. We aspired to work with the best companies. However, the old guard that ran our city and industry let us know we’d have to wait our turn before we’d get a seat at the big table.
How long would that be? Maybe 10–20 years. No way were we waiting that long to do what we love. But outspending our well-established competitors was not an option. Nor could we compete with their little black book of connections or their extensive portfolio of glossy projects.
As a former marketing director of an established firm, I’m intimately familiar with the costs of building out a robust marketing program. The annual budget needed to fund the marketing department salaries, brochures, PR agencies, website designers, trade show booths, golf club memberships, and wining and dining can take a sizable bite out of revenues.
But this traditional marketing approach has an even bigger weakness: it’s a push strategy. And the best way for small firms and startups to outmaneuver the big, established companies is to develop a pull strategy.
