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Here’s a riddle for you:

How can you lose business to someone who has no background in your field and no real expertise … who does no marketing … who isn’t even in your business … and who has absolutely no interest in obtaining a single client?

As a matter of fact, what distinguishes this person is that they’ve demonstrated an inability to do the very thing you’re really good at helping people with.

And yet, they represent your most formidable competition.

How is this possible?

I took some much-needed time off recently and went to Charleston, SC for five days.

And while we usually stay in the heart of the city, I always like to get out to the beach, where I read and walk, watch the babies toddling in the surf, and snooze in my beach chair.

We were in Mount Pleasant on the way to Sullivan’s Island … a notoriously busy and congested road that narrows down to one lane for the bridge … when we saw this sign in front of somebody’s business.

“There’s never much traffic on the extra mile.”

The day is approaching.  You’re going to give a presentation. 

You know you need to practice, so you make sure to read through your script a few times and actually run through it out loud three or four times the day before. 

You’re ready to go, because, after all, if you need to, you can just wing it on any sections where you go blank, or use notes or your PowerPoint slides to cue you … or even just read from your script.  

Right?

Uh, that would be a big fat NO!

I don’t speak on the same subject everywhere I go, but in one of the speeches I give on how to build a business, I talk about the importance of serving your potential clients vs. selling them.

There are two ways to go about getting new business. You can use clever marketing strategies to entice people to give you a look. Then, with your foot in the door, you highlight the benefits of working with you. All that’s left is to close the deal.

I’ve resisted writing on this subject, even though a lot of you out there desperately need to hear what I have to say.

I hesitated to bring it up, because it might seem self-serving, but the issue has just come up too many times with too many people for me to ignore. 

It’s a BIG problem, causing a significant amount of underperformance from some of our best and brightest service providers out there … and I can’t just sit here and let it continue without speaking my mind.

There are two basic marketing strategies … what I call high touch and low touch. They complement each other.

High touch strategies involve direct, personal interaction with potential clients. Anything that gives them an immediate experience of you is a high touch strategy. You might give them this first-hand sense of who you are and what you have to offer by speaking to groups, doing radio and TV interviews, networking, conducting classes and demonstrations, or just sitting down with prospective clients over coffee.

Low touch strategies, by contrast, rely on indirect contact with people. These include everything from business cards, brochures, and websites to traditional advertising and signage. Twitter, Facebook, and blogging are somewhere between fully high touch and low touch.

Now, here’s a quiz question. Which brings in the business?

I just did a major program launch online. It involved a lot of writing, editing, and graphic design. Lots of logistics and technology. Lots of partnering. And I worked with a couple of coaches on the best way to go about everything. It wasn’t cheap to do this.

Here’s some basic advice that transcends the stuff of marketing strategies and gets to the very heart of what will make you as successful as you can imagine yourself being.

Start the clock.

Sure, you have to be good at what you do, but that alone is unlikely to make the big difference.

Which do you think is more important to manifesting the things you want in your life and business? Your emotional state … or the amount of work you do?

Notice I didn’t say one is important and the other isn’t. I asked which do you think is more important. This isn’t a rhetorical question. Go ahead and choose an answer.

One of my clients definitely DIDN’T take December off.

His mission: To make connections.

The numbers: He sent out 146 emails, each tailored to the individual recipient. Took him almost two and a half full days.

The results: He’s gotten 53 responses, has followed up with many of those folks by phone, and has 21 very live leads with some very big name companies. And it’s still early in the process.