Marketing Melancholy and Business Development Blues Got You Down?

Just three weeks into the new year, you’ve given up trying to forecast if recession talk is real and how it will affect your clients – and your billings – should it happen. Perhaps you hit 2023 motivated and ready to go, or maybe you’re wondering how you’ll hit your numbers, build your book, and find your marketing mojo. Perhaps you made some business development resolutions, and if so, maybe you’re struggling to stick to them.

If this describes you and your present mindset, you’re experiencing marketing melancholy and the business development blues.

Five Things You Can Do Right Now

Let’s get you out of your funk and back in the saddle. Put aside your annual business planning for now and commit to these five simple activities before the end of the month.

1. Identify any current clients or contacts who went cold last year.

Do you know how dormant clients become former clients? You forget about them. The same goes for once-promising contacts. Whether you use a fancy CRM or an old-school Rolodex, take the time to identify clients whose billings fell off in 2022. Once you have that list, call each one. On the phone. Not email. The phone.

Your one and only objective for that call or voicemail message is to show interest. Ask about the person’s family, hobby, or health. Let them know you were thinking of them and wanted to reach out. Do that, and you can give yourself an A. Ask them if they have work for you, and you’ll get an F.

2. Audit your organizations and association.

Are you involved in a bar association, professional group, charity, or nonprofit organization? What do you get from your participation? Answer honestly.

If you actively go to meetings, serve in or are on track to be in a leadership role, and use events to initiate relationships with others, great! Keep doing that and look for other opportunities to promote your brand, give a presentation, or write an article for their publications. If it’s a charity with a mission that speaks to you, continue to support the cause, even if you don’t think it will help you build your business.

Conversely, if your involvement is limited to writing a dues check or putting the organization on your bio or LinkedIn profile, you need to take a stark look at your future with that group. Shame on you for not taking advantage of opportunities, but you can cut ties if they have no opportunities that resonate with you.

3. Define what “thought leadership” means to you.

Simply by virtue of your practice and the matters you handle, you are a subject matter expert. Educating others, especially target audiences of prospective clients, is a powerful way for you to share your knowledge and be the first person they think of when they encounter an issue you can solve.

Writing articles for print publications and giving live talks and presentations used to be the primary forms of thought leadership. Today, the outlets for sharing your insights have increased exponentially with blogs, email alerts and newsletters, webinars and live-streaming, audio and video podcasts, and short- and long-form social media posts. If you can’t find a platform for your valuable content, you’re not looking. 

4. Be a good social media neighbor, at least on LinkedIn.

We can debate the merits of Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok, but for building an online presence, LinkedIn is a must.

Start with the basics on your profile: a professional picture, a custom URL, a headline that describes what you do and not just your title, and an up-to-date list of where you’ve worked, studied, and volunteered. Be sure to list the current organizations you belong to (see #2 above). Do these same things to your website bio, too.

Next, look at your “first connections,” the people whose invitations you accepted or who accepted yours. The updates that first connections share appear in your LinkedIn feed, the scrolling list of items that appear when you log in. Those people made an effort to write a post, however long, and attach a picture or a link to an article or website. By liking, commenting on, or reposting that update, you’re acknowledging that effort and showing them you took the time to read it. If you repost the post, you’ll broadcast it to all your connections, expanding the author’s reach; if you comment, you’ll also reach all the author’s connections. That’s the power of social media, so why not embrace it?

New to LinkedIn or don’t know what to write or how to comment? Start by watching others. Follow or connect with people you find influential and monitor what they do, then find your own style and cadence. Consider setting aside time (even 30 minutes) each week to peruse LinkedIn and generate interest by showing interest.

5. Eat well, exercise, and get in the right frame of mind.

About that weight-gain thing I mentioned… I recently read an article entitled “Top 10 Most Common New Year’s Resolutions and How to Follow Through on Them” that talked about how millions of individuals make New Year’s resolutions when aspiring to make positive change. The most common shouldn’t surprise you: exercise more, lose weight, get organized, learn a new skill or hobby, live life to the fullest, save more or spend less money, quit smoking, spend more time with family and friends, travel more, and read more. It sounds exhausting.

But the article did offer ten tangible actions to ensure you stay on track with a resolution or any good habit you want to develop and sustain:

1. Mentally prepare for change.
2. Set a goal that motivates you.
3. Limit resolutions to a manageable amount.
4. Be specific.
5. Break up big goals into smaller goals.
6. Write down your goals.
7. Share your resolutions with others.
8. Automate where possible.
9. Review your resolution regularly.
10. If you fall off track, get back on quickly.

Number 11 is optional – contact my Rain colleagues and me if we can do anything to help.