Marketing is a waste of time and money if you are not attuned to the real world. Your clients and prospects are the real world.

Your clients and prospects are constantly being bombarded with special offers, cut-rate pricing, new products, new services and risk free offers everyday. So successful marketing can not happen in a vacuum.

It’s always an education to find out from your clients why they bought from you and the main benefits they received from dealing with you. Whenever I ask these questions, I know I am in for a surprise.

Recently I had the opportunity of speaking to graduates of my Rapid Growth Mentoring Program about why they bought from me. They didn’t fail me and once again the answers surprised me. Bear with me, this letter is not about my program.

One of the main themes that emerged was that they now felt much more confident in their ability to market and to build their business more rapidly. Their fear of marketing had vanished.

Although I know many people fear marketing, I was still surprised by the answers. It got me thinking; fear of marketing is real, it’s common and it’s destructive.

If you fear marketing, you may not realize how much it is hurting your business, but you probably know the symptoms:

  • not asking for referrals

  • avoiding prospecting activities such as cold calls

  • relying on networking as your sole marketing activity

  • not writing articles or speaking

  • seeing marketing as an expense and not an investment

  • you tried something once and were disappointed with the results so you won’t do it again

Almost everyone I know says “I know I should do more of these things, but I never seem to get around to it.” This is just procrastination. You know it, and you also know that the longer you put it off, the worse it becomes.

Whenever I speak to people who have built successful businesses about how they became successful, I find they have one thing in common; they spend 70%-80% of their time in marketing activities. They know there are no profits without sales, no sales without customers, and no customers without marketing. People who fear marketing typically spend less than 20% of their time marketing. They are very busy, but not always with the things that produce results. Without being too blunt, that’s why they get a lesser result.

So how do you overcome a fear of marketing?

In my experience there is only one way. You have to begin slowly and take a step by step approach and you have to change your beliefs. You need a process and it’s better if you have a guide. You learn by doing it step-by-step, that it’s never as difficult as it appears, and it’s never as bad an experience as you expect.

Let’s take referrals as an example. They are the cheapest most effective form of marketing and their close rate is 500% greater than leads from any other source.

Most people only ask occasionally and even fewer have a system for generating referrals.

Most people don’t ask for referrals because they think that customers might be reluctant to give them or that they are imposing or that they sound like they are begging for business. The truth is that most customers who are happy with your work are delighted to give referrals. But you have to begin to learn these new beliefs before you can move forward.

When you ask someone for a referral, particularly if you have a well thought out process and have scripted what you will say, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is. This will also help you change your beliefs. And it’s the same for every other aspect of marketing. You need to work on your beliefs, you need a process, you need to think it through beforehand and if you have a guide to help you it’s much easier than you can imagine. In fact this is a time tested approach to learning anything, and it seldom fails.

It’s the approach we use in the Rapid Growth Mentoring Program and it helps people overcome their fears of many aspects of marketing.

In my experience being a fearless marketer is one of the most powerful tools you can have in building your business. Make a commitment to yourself today to overcome your fears and build the kind of business you dream of.