Growing your business with marketing, week 37: Shutting up

This is Week 37 of a 52-week project/experiment in DIY marketing. Armed with nothing but a copy of the 2009 Grow Your Business Marketing Plan + Calendar and my bare wits, I’m applying the skills you need to grow a business in real time, day by day, and reporting on them week by week here, on the podcast, and at the Marketing Mix blog.

I’m currently reading a very slim but quite curious and decidedly interesting (to me) volume on becoming a better salesperson. Frankly, a lot of the stuff in there is just foreign to me: I’m not a big salesperson, and I’ve never been a natural one. This is probably a combination of training (very inside-the-lines, where the lines are dictated by nuns and other Persons of Authority), wiring (introvert) and experience (9-to-5 world of advertising, followed by the surprisingly 9-to-5 world of commercial acting, where, while you are technically self-employed, you still have Big Daddy Corporate Producer cutting your checks and Mr. Agent Man brokering your deals).

One thing I wish I’d learned earlier is the fine art of shutting the hell up. I can’t count the times I’ve lowballed myself into a corner or extra work or taking stuff on I shouldn’t at all because I don’t know how to keep my trap shut. I am that person who, when handed the rope, could do the cartoon-quick fashioning of it into a noose, hurl it over a rafter and hoist myself with the grace of an aerial acrobat.

This week, I noted two very different occasions where shutting the hell up was warranted.

The fine art of shutting the hell up, learned

The first was at a networking event I attend semi-regularly, and always enjoy, even if it hasn’t netted me work (yet). At this point, I’m outrageously relaxed at events in general (another benefit of regular attendance) and at this one in particular, so I’m perfectly happy to go into question mode and let other people run on at the mouth. Which, amazingly, some do to an extent that goes from amusing to surprising to jaw-dropping and on to amusing again. Some people can talk and talk and have it be fascinating, but most people’s favorite subject is themselves, which—PARADOX ALERT—means that most people who like to run on are usually running on about the wrong thing.

In this case, at least two people talked themselves right out of any referral I would ever, EVER consider throwing their way. And I’m not concerned about currying favor and getting the referral in return because—PARADOX ALERT—when someone is that bad at listening, there’s a non-zero chance they’re also going to be bad at sending my Right People to me.

And when I thought about it, this happens more often than not: people talk themselves out of more jobs they could ever possibly talk themselves into, because 90% of good communication (which is a foundational element of any sane and sound marketing plan) is listening.

The fine art of shutting the hell up, applied

Believe it or not, I don’t spend all of my time marketing, although I realize that sometimes, it seems that way. Sometimes, I have actual presentations to build or paid stuff to write or even (gasp) clients.

I’m relatively new to consulting, and even newer to coaching, so I don’t profess to know it even close to what looks like all with either. Coaching, especially, has always seemed sort of mysterious to me, so when I took on my first couple of clients, it was with the explicit proviso that they were getting me on the relative-cheap as part of a grand experiment I not only wasn’t sure would work out, but wasn’t sure I wanted to have worked out. Because I’m squirrely and private and the like.

The first several sessions, I talked…a lot. (Because hey, I’m the communicatrix, not the listenatrix.) And I’m sure I delivered some bang-up information. But at one point in the process, it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, part of my job as coach was this teach-a-man-to-fish thing, and part of that might just be shutting the hell up and letting them do a little casting. Or whatever it is those fisherman types do.

Amazingly (or not), my very smart client got everything just as quickly, if not more so, than listening to my big song and dance. Listening is as awesome in day-to-day business as it is  in selling—surprise, surprise.

Bonus-extra for tired marketeers (not a misspelling!): more listening significantly lessens drag on you, the marketeer. So there you go.

Marketing round-up for this week:

• 6 blog posts (five at the main blog, one here)
• September newsletter (you subscribe, right?)
• interviewed a supercool dude for next month’s actor-marketing column
• revised some marketing pages on my website
• networking event
• met with my genius friend, Jodi Womack, about various business plans we each have (and made a bonus-extra impromptu visit to the birthday party of a smart WordPress marketing type)
• met with my genius friend, Karen Kohlhaas, whose audition seminar I’m teaching today
• teaching that seminar for actors today!
• bazillion emails (still my main and preferred mode of communication)
• bazillion birthday greetings on Facebook/etc (what is UP with all the Virgos!)

And yes, Sunday is my birthday, so feel free to wish me a happy one!

xxx
c