How to get your first paying customers or clients.

Being an expert in your discipline is only part of the picture. It's likely that although you're good at the service you want to provide, you're probably not so hot at getting business.

Nothing happens until you make a sale.

It's a myth that if you provide a 'good service' or a 'good coach' that you'll somehow magically become successful. But providing a good service, and running a lucrative business are not necessarily connected.

If you have no clients, it matters not a squit if you're the best in your field at dry cleaning hand-made mohair suits.

You have to wear multiple hats - be a marketer, and a technical expert in your chosen field.

You are not in the business of providing (eg.) a dry cleaning or business consulting practise, but you are in fact in the business of marketing a dry cleaning or business consulting practise, then you'll begin to see income.

That's a surprise to small mom & pop businesses, that you have to try and digest.

In starting up your business, you'll usually need to generate clients quickly in order to survive, give yourself that fillip of confidence that actually making sales gives you.

So we want quick, immediate results from our marketing efforts. Things like writing articles, internet marketing and networking are all perfectly fine for getting clients in the medium term, but don't put bread on the table for the wet-behind-the-ears business practitioner.

There are other tactics.

What do you do, when you sit down on Monday morning, and realise that you need a paying client by the following Monday?

[photo: http://www.girovisual.com/tours]