The Marketing Mentor Podcast

Do you know how to respond to a Request for Proposal? Recently, I joined Jim Blasingame to discuss: How to prepare for a request for proposal (RFP) How to know when to not respond  How your proposal can have a long shelf-life  Listen to this interview on the Marketing Mentor Podcast. If you're working on a proposal now, and you'd like 11 actual proposals to use as models (+more) check out  The Pro...

If you know you need a target market—but don’t know where to start, this interview will help. Often, your market is right there in front of you, where you can see a need. Usually, it comes from your past experience. This is where I found my target market (creative professionals) in 1988. Last week, I shared the story of how I got started with Anderson Smith, who interviewed me on his radio show, 1...

Daniel Pelavin  is entering his 5th decade as a typographic designer and illustrator. I had the pleasure of meeting him at the Graphic Artists Guild’s Reboot (http://newyork.gag.org/RRR_Conference/schedule.html) conference. He was pointed out as being “the king of self-promotion,” and of course, I had to find out more.  Daniel agreed to an interview so I asked him to elaborate on his reference to...

Recently, I talked with Jim Blasingame, of Small Business Advocate , about proposals. Though we have a slightly different approach (he says don’t miss an opportunity, I say deliver only when you have a real chance of getting the job) we can both agree on this: Whenever possible, present the proposal personally. This is, hands down, the best way to ensure that you have a chance to negotiate and con...

Just 5 months into her new career as a freelance food writer, Bryn Mooth is already getting a lot of publicity and great projects. ( Follow her journey here .) But as a lot of new freelancers do—Bryn is finding pricing to be a challenge. Why? She’s calculated an hourly rate, refined an estimating sheet, and learned to price by the project—but the problem is—she’s really fast. With 20 years of expe...

If you’re hesitant to focus on a target market, listen to this interview with Jennifer Neal, Owner of K9 Design Co. – I bet it will change your mind. In a nutshell: in 2008, K9 was a busy family-owned design business that was almost completely referral-based. They need more control over the flow of work, so they decided to commit to and invest in their marketing—and before long, they started to gr...

I recently interviewed Stacey King Gordon about her transition from being a freelancer known as “Night Writer Communications” to running her newly named content strategy firm, “ Suite Seven ,” which has 2 employees and more coming soon.   In a nutshell: Stacey always had “stars in her eyes” about owning her own business and started as a moonlighter in 1998. After 10 years, in 2008, she leapt to fu...

Neil Brown of Brown Advertising ( http://www.brownadvertising.com/ ) in Winston-Salem North Carolina recently faced a bit of a business crisis. His biggest client restructured and disappeared. One month later I called to see how things were going. To my delight (and a bit of surprise), Neil said, “Business has been really good.” When I asked him what he was doing, he said one word: Networking. Tha...

I grabbed a few minutes with PhotoShelter 's Vice President of Marketing, Andrew Fingerman, to talk about a particularly sticky issue - when and how to directly ask your clients about their budget while pitching for new business. Here's an excerpt:  Are we a good fit? The primary reason to bring up the budget issue is to identify early on if the pitch is even worth making. Many photographers waste...

It’s 3 months into Bryn Mooth’s career as a freelance food writer , and I’ve been interviewing her along the way. (See our previous interviews: Asking Questions = Looking Stupid and The First Week as a Freelancer .) In today’s interview, we talked about the importance of tuning into what’s around you. Bryn says,  “Once you start thinking about something that’s next, or something that’s possible, t...

Not following up with a contact you meet—is like not watering a seed that would otherwise sprout into an apple tree. Whether you’re back from CFC and still haven’t gotten to that stack of cards (you know who you are), or you network often but follow up spottily, these interviews are for you. I joined Jim Blasingame to discuss follow up. The interviews are available on his site, Small Business Advo...

Not following up with a contact you meet—is like not watering a seed that would otherwise sprout into an apple tree. Whether you’re back from CFC and still haven’t gotten to that stack of cards (you know who you are), or you network often but follow up spottily, these interviews are for you. I joined Jim Blasingame to discuss follow up. The interviews are available on his site, Small Business Advo...

Ann Siegle, President of Tria Marketing ( http://www.triadesignfirm.com/ ) in Lansing, MI. has recently separated from her partners to embark on her own. She’s enjoying the transition, and in this interview, she shares with us the new vision she has for her business—and how she’s using marketing to make it a reality. With a target market of entrepreneurs and associations, Ann began focusing on tho...

If you’ve been following along with our story about Bryn Mooth , who left her 20-year publishing career to pursue a career as a freelance writer, you’ll remember our interview a month ago when she was in the glow of Week 1 of self-employment.   I interviewed her again in Week 5 to see how she’s coming along. One especially interesting topic that came up in our conversation was how asking the right...

Vivienne Scholl, from San Francisco-based Avenue 4 Design , commented recently on a Marketing Mix post about progress payments. She said: We've started doing monthly billing with our clients. Billing is now tied to a date, not a milestone. It's so much better for cash flow. Anyone else doing this? Since getting paid is always an issue, I asked Vivienne if she would share her process. Here’s what s...

Bryn Mooth recently left 20-year career in publishing, and she’s embarking on her own as a freelance writer. Her blog at Writes4Food.com started as a way to spark her own creativity, and has turned into a business where she writes on food, cooking, nutrition, and healthy living topics. In the beginning of Bryn’s 2nd week as a self-employed person, I interviewed her to see what the first week was l...

I’ve been talking to clients lately to get a view inside the evolution of their business. A big signpost in the evolution journey is raising rates, but often, the creatives I work with are afraid their clients will disappear if they do it. In a recent interview with Megan Coleman , freelance web designer, she says, “I charged less in the beginning because I didn’t know how much to charge. The more...

"A lot of the jobs I was doing were one-off jobs,” said Stephen Hadley, owner of Houston-based  Inkwell Media , a creative firm that produces employee newsletters and magazines for the oil and gas industry. In business over 5 years, Stephen recently completed the  Beginner Marketing Group , which he joined because, in his words, “I didn’t have enough of a focus.”  The group helped him to define hi...

At last year’s Creative Freelancer Conference, there was an attendee named Lauren Hybinette. She was employed by a company at the time, but she had an epiphany that made her decide, then and there, that she wanted to be self-employed.   Where is Lauren one year later? Find out. Read this blog post from Bryn Mooth on the HOW Design Blog: http://blog.howdesign.com/how-conference/catching-up-with-a-c...

Designer (and Creative Freelancer Conference veteran), Charlene Tiedemann, was getting bits and pieces of work, but struggling with how to get more clients and how to become the boss. She didn’t know who the clients were, where they were, or how to get to them. Six months later, she said, “Meeting people and having a strategy to meet people were my biggest challenges. I had no idea how to get clie...

Direct outreach works. Here’s proof. Eric Koby from fatrabbit CREATIVE talked about his direct outreach efforts (on his Advanced Marketing Group phone call), and he's given us permission to share it. Listen here...

Now that most of my clients have chosen target markets, things are starting to happen. Some of them are thrilled to have finally found a market that is responding positively. Others are still struggling, especially because they just aren’t “excited” about their target market. What to do? I spoke last week with Dianne Rohkohl , a freelance designer in Arizona, who is struggling with her focus on th...

Ilise recently did an interview with QRCA, Qualitative Research Consultants Association, about talking price without alienating customers. Listen in...

Heather Parlato from Parlato Design talks about how she made the transition from a full-time job to full-time freelancing. In the interview, she addresses:   Shifting from the employee mindset Flat rates vs. hourly rates How to treat your clients, and how much authority to give them Her qualifying process Saying no, red flags, and finding the right fit in potential clients Plus, she answers the qu...

Lisa Smith Youngdahl joined the Beginner Marketing Group in September 2009. In the past year and a half, she has made great strides in her business. Learn the tools she uses, how she uses them, and the results she's achieved within her target market: healthcare.   Listen in...