The greatest marketing skill any small business owner can commit to learning is how to gain Attention.
The ability to grab attention from your prospects or connections that can lead you to prospects is the first job of marketing.
Without attention, you might as well be invisible.
If you're not consistently attracting attention from enough new prospective clients, here's why.
You're going about it the wrong way.
And not only are you failing to grab attention, you might actually be pushing potential prospects away.
Sorry if that sounds harsh.
But, I've seen too many small businesses and independent professionals continuing to get it wrong.
You'll probably recognize the flawed approach that most small business owners take.
The marketing message is likely characterized by...

• Telling others all about who you are,
• Telling them all about what services you provide,
• Telling them how experienced you are, and
• Telling them how great your customer service is.
  

When you introduce yourself, do you use a label or give the name of the company? "I'm an accountant with 22 years of experience.
"Or, "I'm with XYZ Company, a leader in our industry.
" Do your brochures and advertisements use the name of your business as the headline and then list the various services you provide? You see those things don't grab attention from your target prospects consistently.
The greatest marketing skill any small business owner can commit to learning is how to gain Attention.
Prospects will pay attention if you're speaking to them about what's important to them.
For starters, think about discussing problems, issues and challenges that they can relate to.
That's the language of attention in marketing.
Now realize that you won't gain many new clients if all you do is continue to talk about problems, but it's a much better place to start.
Think about it for a minute.
In one case you're talking all about you and who you are and what your experience is, etc.
It's up to the prospect to figure out if it's relevant for them and if they care.
In the other case you're letting them know that you understand the common problems and challenges they have.
Now they're paying attention because there's a possibility that you're the one that can help them find solutions.
Once you have someone's attention, you really have an opportunity.
Don't waste the attention once you get it.
Have a plan for how to gain attention, but then also have a plan for what you're going to do with it.