Marketing for the Solopreneur

Working as a solopreneur is difficult, and getting help is often difficult. Finding out how an assistant (virtual assisstant or otherwise) can help you is instrumental in keeping your business successful. Delegation is the handing of a task over to another person; in order to do this, you should understand the few key points below:

1. Clarify the assignment with clear, unambiguous instructions

When you delegate, you need to be very specific about what you expect, and how you expect it to be done. The more specific you are about what you want, the better the chances are that your assignment will be done the way you desire.

2. Ensure the person has the necessary skills

You wouldn't hire a woodworker to fix your toilet leak, would you? The same goes for your assistant, with one caveat. IF (and, that's a big if) you're willing to train a person in a specific skill (such as music notation), then have at it. But, if you don't want to invest the time and energy into teaching someone every nuance of your trade - then you need to make sure you find someone with at least a little knowledge of your profession.

3. Specify how much responsibility the person has over the assignment

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PR: The art of creating interest in you, your company, and your product/service by convincing others (namely media outlets such as print, TV, and radio) to report about who you are, what you do, and why it's important to the world at large.

Sounds pretty simple, doesn't it? PR is perhaps a little deceiving in definition. PR involves a lot of hard work and dedication. There are several things you must do (and do well) in order for the media outlets to recognize your expertise and your business.

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The impossible clients are lurking; we know they're out there. I can almost see them around the corner with their impossible time-frames, unnatural expectations, and general grumpiness - just waiting to catch me off guard and into their netting.

The netting is the worst part. When you realize these people are just like yourself - just impossible for you to work with. I'm sure I'm an impossible client to somebody, but I shouldn't have to deal with them.

We don't have to. It's called selectivity. Use it.

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Predatory salespeople are everywhere -from the department stores to car sales. Time and time again we've seen these salespeople hunt like hounds trying to get their next sale, the next big commission. "Sell at all costs!" "Don't let them say no!"

No wonder we're afraid of selling. We don't want to hunt people down, we don't want to take their money without consent, and we don't want to sell them something they don't need.

You Don't Have to Do That!

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In my experience, there are two kinds of small business owners: one that knows whom their market niche is and utilize it, and another who tends to waiver or not want to "set in stone" their target market. With the latter group, I always probe for more information: Why don't you want to choose a specific target for your product/service? Time and again, the response is the same "I don't want to limit my profits by only catering to a few."

In all reality, you're not limiting any profits at all! When playing horseshoes, you have one horseshoe with one stake. Try playing horseshoes with 5 stakes and one LARGE horseshoe - how successful do you think you'll be then? My guess is not very. The same is true with marketing: the more stakes you're trying to 'ring' the more difficult it is to accomplish that goal. By clarifying which stake you're going after, your success rate is going to be that much higher; and because you're targeting a specific group of people you can speak to them using their own words and make yourself an expert in their field!

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