If youre like most people in business for themselves, you market yourself in an ad hoc fashion: when you have time, when you think of it or only when a specific opportunity comes along. But wouldnt you agree with me that inconsistency in marketing creates inconsistency in new client flow? That seems to be the bain of existence for most self-employed people like us.

So, is there such a thing as being able to PREDICT how many new clients youll get next month or next year? I say YES!

You see, Im able to predict (with certain accuracy) that I have a full practice at most times; therefore, how much revenue comes in for each month of this year. For example, I know that Ill have a full practice in 6 months and then again a year later.

How can I be so sure? Because Ive created systems that keep me on track in my marketing, even a year ahead of time.

You may have heard me get on my soapbox about being systematic in your networking and in your marketing efforts, but lets take it just a bit further this time and get down to the details of what that actually looks like when you do it (like I do).

I recommend buying a year-at-a-glance calendar and plugging in your marketing efforts. For example, your weekly breakfast networking group goes onto the calendar for the entire year, same with your monthly association meetings, writing your articles, giving teleclasses, meeting with your referral partners, sending your newsletter, mailings, speaking engagements, etc.

That way, you never have a week where youre not doing ANYTHING to market yourself. That means you no longer have periods of feast or famine, or an inconsistent pipeline of curious prospects, ready to buy.

Client example: A recent client of mine, a real estate broker, decided to take this even one step further. Because much of her marketing depends on several mailings to specific buildings she covers in her territory, she wanted to keep track of them on this yearly at-a-glance wall calendar. On it, she designated a system for seeing what mailings would go to which buildings on what weeks. So it looked like this:

• Mailing 1 would go to Buildings A, B, and C on the first of every month.
• Mailing 1 would then go to Buildings D, E, and F on the second week of every month (and so on for the rest of the month).
• Then Mailing 2 goes out to the first set of buildings on the first week of the month, and so on.

Each week of the month, she now has a color-coded system for sending a mailing, staggered so that she doesnt get overwhelmed, but that will also keep her on track. That way, each month, each building receives a systematic mailing, thats 12 mailings per year. Best of all, she doesnt even do the mailings anymore! Her assistant does it for her, so that allows us to focus on other marketing even more. Well done!

At the end of the day, its a predictable, verifiable and autopilot way of marketing yourself, so that when done consistently and set up over a years worth of time, your client well never runs dry.

Your Assignment:

Get yourself a wall calendar (I use the Year-At-A-Glance laminated wall calendar, SKU: 558430) that is erasable and retails for about $18.99. Then, spend some time plotting out your marketing efforts for this month, then the next, until the end of the year (or 2007). Youll find that you have a birds eye view of your entire year, and now you just need to follow the simple system youve set up. So easy, and it will help you to market consistently, so you can almost predict how many clients youll have!

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