When John Steinbeck took his famous trip across the US he occasionally met someone who noticed his New York license plates. The dialogue, he reported in Travels with Charlie, usually went something like this:
Local man: “New York, huh.”
JS: “Yep.”
Local man: “I was there in nineteen thirty-eight– or was it thirty-nine? Alice, was it thirty-eight or thirty-nine we went to New York?”
Alice: “It was thirty-six. I remember because it was the year Alfred died.”
Local man: “Anyway, I hated it. Wouldn’t live there if you paid me.”
Well, I love New York. Manhattan, that is. The energy. The architecture and the buildings. The parks, large and small. And yes, even the subways. (Maybe because I don’t need to take them every day.)
As you may know, I just came back from a week + in New York during which I got to meet some clients, customers and subscribers for the first time.
I organized a handful of 1-1 and small group meetings at Barnes and Noble Union Square, my old favorite hideout, Starbucks, Nat Sherman and various cafes and restaurants.
Some of the wonderful people I got to meet included:
Brij Singh, a former global manager of technology for Pepsi, and his wife Jesse.
Charlie Green, co-author with David Maister of “The Trusted Advisor,” and his friend Mark Hurwich, a talented coach and consultant.
Pat Lefler, a former marine and now a pricing strategist whose manifesto is currently featured on ChangeThis.com
Ray Schmitz, founder of LeadPlace an interesting startup in the real estate industry.
Tom Dawson, a real estate agent operating in Manhattan rental market – an unusually tricky market, as I learned.
Eugene Farber, a content marketing expert and recent arrival to NY from… somwhere else.
Matthew Stillman, a fascinating guy. Every Friday he sets up a card table and two chairs in Union Square with a sign that says “Creative Approaches to What You Have Been Thinking About – Pay What You Like or Take What You Need.” As you can imagine, he’s got lots of good stories.
Bill Silverman, a talented business coach from New Jersey.
Will Schatz, who’s running his family’s 50 year old real estate business over in Westchester..
Joe Carvelli from Retail Ingenuity, who helps retailers earn more with less inventory.
Eugene Nayvelt, smart and ambitious, from the GiveMeService small business network in New Jersey.
Tom Zeeb, who teaches people how to replace their income with real estate investing. Tom and I met after more than a year of working over Skype. We each expected the other to be taller.
From the many conversations, I noticed again and again that there’s one question you must answer – or you’ll never have a simple marketing system that brings you a consistent flow of great clients.
Those who had the answer clear, were doing better. The others, more of a struggle. Because this question is so fundamental, that it influences and guides everything else you do.
If your answer is clear, your tactical steps will draw your ideal clients towards you. If murky, you’ll be stuck, frustrated and going in circles.
What is that question? It’s this:
What problem do you help solve?
A deceptively simple question. Easy to ask, hard to answer.
In my two main coaching programs “12 Weeks to A Consistent Flow of Clients” and the “Plenty of Customers” group program, we spend a lot of time to answer this question – and a few others – very clearly.
If you already have some clients, but you know you should be doing much better; you know you should be able to add $100,000 or more to your income in the coming 12 months, then apply now for one of the free “Consistent Flow of Customers” strategy sessions I’ll be giving away this month.
Apply here: http://dovgordon.net/freesession
Looking forward,
Dov
