Marketing Your Consulting Services.pdf - epiheirimatikotita.gr

A friend of mine who had never served stuffed turkey put the unstuffed bird in
the oven to bake. While the turkey baked, he made the stuffing and baked it in a
separate dish. He then stuffed the baked stuffing into the bird and continued baking
until his guests arrived. His guests claimed that it was the best turkey and dressing
they had ever had. It wasn’t until cleaning up that guests discovered the extra
dish he had used to bake the stuffing. And that’s when he learned that his turkey
baking process had been accomplished in an unconventional sequence of steps.
Prudential Insurance asked whether there was a better sequence for paying life
insurance benefits. Typically people must die before receiving their benefits. What
about those suffering a terminal illness? What if they received their death benefits
before they died? Prudential asked this question and devised the living benefit life
insurance. It pays death benefits when people who have a terminal illness need
them, before they die. While this insurance has been with us for a while, it was a
revolutionary idea in its time because the sequence was different.
How can this translate to marketing? What if you got information from potential
clients before you made your first cold call? What if you marketed first and developed
a marketing plan last? What if you sold something to your clients first and
marketed to them last?
Your Challenge Think about the sequence that you are using for developing your
marketing plan. Is there something that you might want to move up earlier or back
later? What would change? What might be better? What might be the drawback?
7. Visit Other Places
Sometimes our physical surroundings may inhibit our creative ideas from flowing
freely. Is your office conducive to creative thinking? Do you work in a busy office
with the phone ringing constantly, interrupting your train of thought? Or perhaps
the stimulation induces creative ideas?
You may want to determine what enhances your creativity. Does the noise level
inhibit your creative thought process? Or does the activity stimulate it? Does a window
in your office open you to new ideas? Or is it distracting? Does music disrupt
your flow of ideas? Or does it enrich the ideas?
Get in touch with what makes you feel creative. What sights (picture of a lake,
a tree waving in the breeze, vacation souvenirs); what sounds (jazz music, silence,
ocean waves); what scents (spices, flowers, candles); what tastes (jasmine tea,
chocolate, pretzels); or what feelings (autumn breeze, comfortable sweats, warm
Marketing: Can It Be Fun? 231