New Client? Sell Yourself First

One of the enduring thrills in marketing is when a new client comes on board, which means new revenue, new opportunities to connect their product with an audience, and a new chance to show them what excellent marketers we are.

Then we start looking into the client and her product and now we start to wonder. Maybe it’s not all it’s cracked up to be, or we wonder who’s going to want to buy this, and more to the point, how are we going to interest others?. Or, if it’s a service, we may go on Yelp and discover that the service isn’t really that popular, or people like the other one better, or the company has problems not related to the product exactly, but how you’re going to get paid.

Marketing is built on enthusiasm–that is, your enthusiasm must be transferred to others–and just like that, the potential problems with this account are taking the air out of the balloon.

Everyone Needs Marketing

Not to worry. We still want the account. There are problems with every product–otherwise, they wouldn’t need marketers. Even Apple needs marketing. Client seems a little rough around the edges? Well, he’s not a public relations pro, you are. He just builds electric motors and such. His mind is on that, and not on how to move product. You have studied thousands of marketing campaigns, so you not only know what’s out there, but more importantly why it’s there, and you can probably come up with the two or three approaches that might have been discarded to get to the one that aired.

So, faced with the new Magic Ball, the new Rubik’s cube, the new electric car, or the new online babysitting service, the best way to approach the selling of it is to sell it to yourself first. After all, you already know what you like. You do not necessarily know what potential buyers like, though you have market research. If you can figure out why you like (or don’t like) the product, or why you find the new client obnoxious, then you’re better equipped to sell to the world at large.

Can You Represent?

Of course, here we’ve raised the question of representing a product or client that appears to have major problems. Your inner free spirit says “just say no,” but there are families to feed and bills to be paid, and you could go broke waiting for the perfect product or client to come along.

In that case, try and sell yourself. You’ll find out just how good a salesperson you are. But, if you try and you conclude that this person, place or thing is just going to be a drag on your energy every time you look at it, maybe finding someone or something that’s more your speed is time better well spent.