Overcoming Your Perfection Paralysis in Marketing

Have you ever become a victim of your own perfection paralysis when it comes to marketing yourself? I talked to a few clients this week who have been toying with the idea of putting together a talk to promote their services for months but haven’t done anything about it. The problem is they’re waiting to have the talk written, finished, practiced, the flyer completed and have a list of marketing sources that are lined up to promote the thing before actually selecting a date and getting it done. NONSENSE!

If I’d waited to have all things perfectly settled before moving forward with a talk, I’d still have only 3 or 4 clients in my practice, and believe me, I wouldn’t be moving forward very quickly. Instead, I believe in scrapping this traditional route and going backwards. Ask any clients of mine and they’ll tell you I’m notorious for getting my clients to commit to a date 4 weeks from today (yes, we actually have them pull out their calendar and select the date right then and there) and book the space, time, and title of the talk, before anything else is done.

What are my clients’ reactions? Yup, you guessed it… “YIKES! I need to get my butt in gear and get things going! I’m giving a talk in 4 weeks!!!”

Magically, everything always gets done. The talk is written, finished, practiced, the flyer is completed and they have a list of marketing sources lined up to promote the thing, and always before the deadline. I call this being PULLED forward by your marketing, instead of being a victim of Perfection Paralysis.

When you set yourself up to stop procrastinating and to start working to make it happen, it works every time. In the past, I too have dragged my feet on picking a date for an event I wanted to give. ‘Should I have it in the summer, should I wait ‘til fall?’ Since nothing was happening, I pulled out my calendar, picked a date, gave my credit card number to reserve the space and then made it happen, and you can too! There’s nothing like setting a deadline and getting in gear to make it happen.

Your Client Attraction Assignment:

Your turn. Are you procrastinating putting together a seminar or big event to market your services and reach out to your prospective clients? End the questioning NOW and just pick a date. Commit and then everything will fall into place because you’ll HAVE to get it done. Now, that’s what I call being pulled by your future. Use your coach or a buddy as an accountability benchmark, and then send them an email with the date of your newly scheduled seminar or workshop. The most accountable thing you can do though is to pay for the space ahead of time. That’ll get you moving! :)