From conversations I have had with a number of colleagues, I continue to believe that the best way to cultivate the kinds of clients who will sustain your business is to take the long view with your marketing. Identify the professional associations your clients belong to, and volunteer to serve on the board of directors or on a high-profile committee. Go to the local - or national - meetings that your clients attend for professional development. And, perhaps most importantly, listen and pay attention. When I ask a new acquaintance about his or her job, I will often identify a way that I can provide a service, even if my contact doesn't see the need yet.

By targeting prospective clients who currently rely on Google to provide them with the information they need, I can not only offer my prospects better-quality information but also ensure that they come back for more. Now, that's the pond I like fishing in!

January 2008: Your 2008 Marketing Plan

I had a wonderful conversation the other day with one of my info-entrepreneur coaching clients, who was working on her marketing plan for the year. It got me thinking about the characteristics of an effective marketing plan. Whether you're a new info-entrepreneur or in your second or third decade of business, having a written plan with measurable goals is a powerful tool for ensuring that your business grows in the ways that you'd like it to. Following are my thoughts on how to create your marketing plan for 2008.

• Review your financials for 2007. Use your accounting software to generate a profit and loss report, and go through it to determine who your three largest clients are, who your three most profitable clients are (not necessarily the same as the ones you invoice the most), who your best types of clients are (subcontracted work? PR firms? librarians?), whether you covered all your out-of-pocket expenses, and what your overhead expenses are.
  
• Write it down. I know, I know... you're gonna make more money, get more clients, and have more free time. Those are my goals too. But unless I commit my plans to paper with specific action steps, I'm not really serious about my intentions, and I am much less likely to take the steps necessary to achieve my goals.
  
• Make it specific. Write down exactly what your revenue goals are for the year. That might be just a percentage increase in your bottom line, or it may be more detailed -- build my income from existing clients by 15%, get at least 5 new clients, increase my subcontracting work by 20%, and so on. And focus on your profit, not just your revenue. It's great that you increase your sales by 50%, but if your expenses (subcontracted services, online fees, etc.) eat up most of that revenue, you're not getting ahead.
  
• Identify the activities that will enable you to meet your goals. That might mean volunteering for a member-facing position in an association your clients belong to, starting a client newsletter, setting up three speaking engagements for local groups of prospective clients, attending one networking event a month (see Marcy Phelps' Introverts Can Network blog  for ideas), sending out personal notes to your key clients and prospects every month, and so on. For each activity, write out exactly what its purpose is. If one of your activities is "attend the AIIP conference", figure out what the marketing purpose is. It might be to develop at least three contacts for possible subcontracting work, arrange to have four fellow-bloggers link to your blog, or promote your research specialization. The important thing is to know why a certain activity will be useful and to make sure it aligns with your goals for the year.
  
• Come up with both short-term and long-term marketing activities. In my experience, sending out a postcard to my clients always generates one or two phone calls from clients who just remembered that they needed me to research something. If your clients are nearby, another one of your short-term marketing activities could be to take one client to lunch every month. Longer-term marketing includes activities that build your reputation within your client groups, such as volunteering with an association, public speaking, and a monthly newsletter.

I have found over the years that writing down a very specific marketing plan is a tremendously powerful tool. Even without realizing it, you start making choices that will help you achieve your goals for the year. Try it yourself this year!

December 2007: Trolling For Researchers

At least once a month, I get an email from someone I don't know, asking me to send an estimate for a job. During my first few years of business, I diligently responded to every one, often putting in significant time and effort to scope out the job. When I sent queries back to the contact to clarify the request, I never received a response. And I never landed any of those jobs.

Since those days, I have obviously become jaded and cynical. I have found that most of these over-the-transom requests were the equivalent of spam. Yes, they are sent by real people, but these are people who got my name - along with 20 or 100 other names - from an online directory or from trolling the web. They have sent out the identical email to many other people; the only concern they have is to find the very lowest price, regardless of quality or qualifications.

On the other hand, I have gotten some queries from perfect strangers who have turned into good clients. How can I tell the difference when I get an unsolicited query from a potential client? The clues I use include:

• Seeing if this email addressed specifically to me, in the body of the email. Most spam research requests don't include any personalized text in the body of the text.
  
• Whether or not the requester mentions how he found my name. Someone making a legitimate query will usually say how he heard about me.
  
• Does the sender include his full name, company name and both phone and email contacts? If the sender isn't willing to share such basic information, then he clearly is not expecting to establish a business relationship yet.

I have had some coaching clients tell me that they want to bid on these kinds of queries, on the assumption that the project is worth it "just for the experience." My response is that it is virtually never a good idea to take on any job solely for the experience, if you aren't able to charge close to your full hourly fee. Doing so will get you:

• a client who has been trained to expect that you don't charge much for your work, and who will be reluctant to continue to use you once your rates return to their normal range.
  
• a client who has already demonstrated that he is willing to shop based on price, which means that you will always have to be cheaper than the next "hungry" info-entrepreneur.
  
• a client who is not likely to provide repeat business. Since his method of finding a researcher was to simply trawl for low-cost researchers, you can assume that he is not interested in establishing a long-term relationship with one researcher.

As tempting as it is to take on a job from someone who will pay you at least something for your time, I have found that the time could be better spent attracting high-quality clients who come directly to you rather than shop around. The goal is to spend your valuable time marketing to good, price-insensitive, repeat clients, not those who will never generate any additional revenue.

September 2007: Landing the Big Jobs

There has been a great discussion on the private email discussion list for members of the Association of Independent Information Professionals. One member asked how other members obtained larger projects, and the answers got me thinking about what techniques have worked best for attracting and landing large projects.

The following are a few of my thoughts on this topic.

• Listen carefully during the information needs assessment (otherwise known as the reference interview). Ask open-ended questions that will help you identify your client's unseen information needs. Will the research you provide be sufficient, or should you also offer a PowerPoint summary of the results and an analysis of your findings? Does your client want to limit the research to secondary sources, or would she be better served with some primary research as well? What is the context in which your client's question arises? What other information or analysis could your client use?
  
  
• Think collaboratively. You may be a one-person business, but you can bring in other info-entrepreneurs to expand your service offerings and provide your clients with types of research you cannot do yourself. Very few large-scale projects can be successfully handled entirely by one person.
  
  
• Think value-added. Included charts and graphs in your reports; make the information visually interesting; help your client data-mine the information you have found. (Note that I will be giving a half-day workshop on providing value-added deliverables at the 2008 annual conference of the Special Libraries Association.)
  
  
• Establish long-term relationships with your clients. A project from a repeat client costs you far less to land than one from a new client; it is usually the clients who are familiar with you who approach you with a larger or longer-term project. Stay in contact with your clients, and make sure they know the full range of information services you can provide.
  
  
• Create a positive attitude about yourself, your abilities, and the skill sets of your colleagues. I truly believe that I landed some of my large projects primarily because I didn't blink when I assessed the size of the project. Be prepared to discuss confidently a large-budget job with a client, even if you have never done one of that size before. Remind yourself of the quote from author Corra Harris -- "The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly."
  
  
• Know when to say "no". There are times when a project is simply too large for you to take on, because it is beyond the scope of your ability, it requires managing too many subcontractors, or it requires more time to manage than you have available.
  
  
• Always look like you are in business for keeps. I shake my head whenever I get a phone call from a colleague whose caller ID indicates that this is a home phone line, or when I receive an email from someone who doesn't use an email address with her business domain but rather have an address such as catfish725@my-local-ISP.net. If someone isn't willing to invest the minimal cost of a business phone line and a business email address, why would I want to use that person for a large strategic project?