Small Business Coaching: Are You Image-Marketing?

By Allison Babb

If you're a bootstrapping solo entrepreneur, image-marketing should probably be pretty darned low on your list of priorities.

But before I offend too many people, let me say if your competition tends to be heavy corporate types or mega-company types, then you are probably competing with mega "image-marketing" as well and may need to do some level of that.

That said, here's why I'd ditch image-marketing any day in favor of these 3 types of marketing that are far more effective ...

A logo does not a dollar make

My confession is in my very first business, I lamented for weeks, going back and forth with my designer on creating the perfect logo. But let's think about this for a minute. Ask your raving fans and happy clients what your logo looks like. They probably won't have a clue.

Now I'm not saying you shouldn't have one. I got one quite by accident and very recently. Cost me $45 and literally 15 minutes one night while browsing a do-it-yourself design site. I got it to fill some blank space at the top of my web site as I was redesigning it. :-) Your logo may indeed make YOU feel good. But your business isn't about you, right? It's about your customers and their needs.

Other image-marketing distractions

A few other image things solopreneurs get overly focused on are fancy glossy brochures/flyers, designing the perfect business card, creating a multi-thousand dollar corporate-looking web site, spending time and space talking about awards, recognitions, certifications, sending press releases that say nothing more than "Hey, I'm here and my logo looks good." or "Hey, I just got an award. You should be impressed."

Again, I'm not totally against any of that, but there are so many major mistakes made with each of these so-called "marketing strategies" that it ends up being a waste of time and money. Here's how to think about your marketing to achieve what you really want - more clients and more cash:

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WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it: Allison Babb is an author, speaker and Small Business Coach to solo entrepreneurs. Allison publishes the "Small Business Success" weekly Ezine on how to create a steady stream of clients for your small business at: www.GreatSmallBusinessAdvice.com

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