Focus on problems, not solutions, to self-source new projects

If you hang out with me for any length of time you'll hear me talk about Sales Conversations and Marketing Conversations.

In essence Marketing Conversations are dialogues between a consultant and a client, the desired outcome of which is to uncover a worthwhile project to work on.

And Sales Conversations follow these dialogues, but only once a project is identified.

Why is this important?

Because many consulting growth gurus talk about content marketing (not Marketing Conversations) as being the critical tool for inbound leads. Just get your positioning, value proposition, and thought leadership right and they'll be a hungry crowd beating its way to your door. Yet, in reality most new projects and clients come from existing relationships, and referrals from those existing relationships.

Surely, it makes more sense to start with these?
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So, back to our Marketing Conversations the deliberately sought out face-to-face meetings that help you self-source a growth pipeline.

I'm not alone in this opinion, this 3 minutes of goodness from Jen Allen-Knuth (ex CEB and Challenger) explains why self-sourcing is a good idea. She also offers some high-level guidance on how to do it too:

1. Take personal responsibility for your own success.Step into your clients world and find out where they learn about the issues they face.
2. Use problem-focused content not solution pitches to get attention, include the challenges and mistakes you've seen
3. Notice there is nothing here about a service or product pitch. Just a dialogue about the issues clients have, and a unique point-of-view about those.

Having this type of client-centric conversation builds trust and allows them to pull you in (as a partner), rather than feeling like you are desperately pushing them to buy (like a vendor).

Mini-mission

• Use your various interactions with contacts (networking, emails, meetings) to find out where they educate themselves about the challenges they face.
• Adopt a 'problem hypothesis' mindset for existing clients. Make a conscious effort to prepare 'talking points' to discuss with them and widen conversations beyond business-as-usual.
• How about a conversation with Marketing about focusing content marketing on target customers' most common problems and questions, rather than promoting solutions.