Do You Have A Marketing Habit?

By Sara Holtz, 

Have you done any marketing yet this week? If not, that's probably because you haven't yet created a marketing habit.

It's a lot like exercising. People who start the day asking, "Is today a good day to exercise?" seldom lace up their running shoes. Consistent exercisers have a time and place for exercise. They exercise at 5:00 a.m., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or after work every night.

The same applies to marketing. To do it consistently, you need a system you can follow without thinking too much. Marketing systems are as varied as the individuals devising them, but they are systems nonetheless.

To develop your own marketing habit, consider the following systems that my clients have created. Then, select one to implement regularly over the next month.

1. Spend the first 15 minutes of the day on business development. That's enough time to arrange a lunch, send an e-mail about a recent development, write a short note and attach it to an article of interest, ask your librarian to look for articles about a new prospect, or list people to call during the next month. It's only 15 minutes, so you can make the time in your schedule every day--spending this time day in and day out will produce results.
2. Visit a client in his or her office once a month. One of my clients uses the time traveling for these visits as business development planning time and uses the plane trip home to map out her follow-up for the rest of the year with the client she has just visited.
3. Attend a networking event regularly. If you belong to networking organizations and enjoy networking, put those monthly meetings on your calendar and decide you'll attend them regularly. Then follow up with one person you see at each event.
4. Do lunch on a schedule. Go out to lunch every Wednesday with a client, prospect or internal referral source.
5. Connect by phone weekly. One of my clients calls her five major clients every Friday, starting at 3:00 p.m. She finds out how they're doing and if there's anything they need. She talks about personal stuff, as well. Her clients are so accustomed to the routine that if she fails to call on a Friday, they call her.
6. Use season tickets. Pick something you enjoy--the theater, a sporting event, or a lecture series, and commit to taking one client to each event (and do not let yourself get away with giving the tickets to your assistant or the associate down the hall).
7. Market when you travel. Have lunch or dinner with someone other than the person you are traveling to work with.
8. Schedule the time. Devote three hours each month to business development. Put it on your calendar as though it were a court date or client commitment.
9. Determine a set number of "stay in touch" phone calls to make each week. Don't go home on Friday until those calls have been made. (If you find that you never seem to meet your goal, make your goal less ambitious. One call a week is 50 contacts a year, which is definitely better than a few or none.)

Once you've decided what habit you'll develop, make sure your system can accommodate both your extra-busy and less-busy times. Break your commitment into smaller pieces, if necessary, so that you can fit in business development even when your schedule is completely packed.

At the end of the month, assess how you've done with your new habit. Did this system work for you or do you need to try something different? Once you've found a system that works, stick with it until it becomes automatic.

The key to making your marketing habits work for you is twofold:

1. Determine what you'll do to market yourself in advance; and
2. Schedule it on your calendar and approach it as seriously as you would time with a client.

Creating and keeping marketing habits is the key to marketing success, especially when you're busy. Take the time today to decide what your first marketing habit will be.

Sara Holtz is founder of ClientFocus, a coaching and training company that helps successful lawyers become successful rainmakers. Visit ClientFocus to learn about her coaching and workshops. She is also the founder of the Women Rainmakers Roundtable, a unique program that brings together successful women partners to build their books of business. Find out more about the program by reading her blog.

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