Can you believe it’s already been 4 weeks? Time has gone so quickly, and we’re finally at the end of the first Get Clients Now! 28 Day Marketing Program program!
I’m looking forward to seeing how everyone did. Overall, I’m very happy with my progress! I admit that it’s been difficult for me to get as many weekly and daily actions completed as I would have liked. Up until just last week, I was juggling both a full time job, as well as running this business on nights and weekends.
If you didn’t read my big announcement post, however – I finally took the freelance plunge last Friday!
I’m really looking forward to starting a second GCN program, because I will finally be able to devote the proper amount of time to my marketing efforts.
Success Ingredients – Week 4
Unfortunately, last week was such a whirlwind for me that I did not make a lot of progress on my Success Ingredients. Something that I will definitely be concentrating on the next round.
It is such a difficult habit to break, as far as pushing your own work behind that of clients. Something that I made big improvement on this last month, however I know I can still stand for much improvement here.
- Description of Services – Progress: 90%
by May 30, 2008
Missed deadline – Still In Progress
- Networking Venues – Progress: 60%
by June 6, 2008
Missed deadline – Still In Progress - Blog Concept / Topics – Progress: 50%
by June 13, 2008
Missed deadline – Still In Progress
I’ve done best with the Description of Services – I actually have everything written up, but still have to add my new services to my main business web site. There are also several changes that I want to make to the shopping cart – basically a re-organization of services and categories, etc. that will make the cart more user friendly.
All of this is on my schedule for the week, so Description of Services should NOT be one of the items on my Success Ingredient list for the next GCN program. This is my last ditch procrastination effort, LOL. Obviously it is an extremely important item – time to start putting myself first for a change, though, so I have several blocks of time set aside this week for completing this item.
As far as Blog Concepts and Networking Venues are concerned – I’ve done quite a bit here. I have a tentative blog schedule created for the next month. I gave myself such a low percentage score, however, because there were several blog posts that I had intended to write, and they are still sitting incomplete in my Drafts folder. Yet another example of putting your own marketing efforts last (which C.J. Hayden stresses in the book that you should always make marketing the First thing that you do!)
On the Networking Venues, I’ve joined several new social media outlets this month, including Plurk which is the “new Twitter” LOL. My goals for the next program include really taking a good look at all the services I’m setup with – narrowing down which ones I feel will be most beneficial to me, and really start using them to their full potential!
Daily / Weekly Actions – Week 4
My daily actions were about average this week – some good/ok days, and a couple poor days in there as well. Several of the higher scores were again to do with C.J. Hayden’s suggestion of giving yourself a Y for an item as long as it wasn’t on your to do list for that particular day.
Overall, throughout this program, I feel my daily/weekly scores could have been a bit higher. Definitely something to improve upon next time around!
- Total (# of 10)
8 – 5 – 7 – 7 – 6
Program Goal – Week 4
As for the most important part of the program – the final program goal numbers, I’d say Get Clients Now! definitely delivers! Throughout the entire program, I’ve been doing great with bringing in new prospects – in 4 weeks, I’ve received inquiries from 16 new people! If that doesn’t count as Filling the Pipeline, I don’t know what does!
As of last week, I didn’t think I’d reach my “new clients” goal, but some good Karma (no, not the Plurk kind, LOL) must have come back at me, because I signed 2 more clients last week, with a definite yes from a 3rd (just waiting for the final paperwork to come through to make it official – I’m counting it here, though, because all of the hard work of working with this potential client was done during my GCN program).
- Program Goal
10 new prospects / 2 new clients - My Progress
160% – 16 new prospects / 200% – 4 new clients
How Did Your GCN Program Go?
Now I want to know how YOU did? Did you enjoy the book? Was your first GCN program successful? Would you recommend it to other small business owners?
I definitely enjoy and recommend the book (look at my program goals above – numbers don’t lie, LOL).
If you’d like to give Get Clients Now! a shot, I’ll be starting a second program on Saturday. I’m actually on the fence as to whether I should do another Filling the Pipeline program, or if I should move onto Following Up. I think I could greatly benefit from a different stage of the Universal Marketing Cycle:
- Filling the Pipeline
- Following Up
- Getting Presentations
- Closing Sales
However, now that I will actually have TIME to market myself properly, I am very curious to see how the program will go for me if I spend the proper amount of time on my Daily / Weekly Action Items for the Filling the Pipeline program.
Needless to say, I’ll be reading up on the Following Up information, and will make my final decision by the end of the week. I hope you’ll join along!
Hi Selene! I enjoyed going through the program with you. Overall, I’d say it was successful. I think now that I have one under my belt, I will do better choosing my success ingredients and daily/weekly tasks. I did achieve 250% of my program goal on prospects but only made 1 sale 2 days after the program ended (my goal was 5). Actually, I feel good about that because I have only been in business for a couple months. 😀
I am torn on whether I should fill the pipeline again or work on closing sales just to see what that’s about. On the one hand, I hardly think about 35 people is a big prospect list, but at the same time maybe it would serve me well to practice closing sales with these 35 people and then fill the pipeline again with better tools in my back pocket.
Decisions, decisions. Either way, I’ll be joining you for another round starting Saturday!
@Nicole – Congrats on 250% of your prospect goal – that’s AMAZING! You’re right that the sale portion of your goal might be better suited to one of the other stages of the universal marketing cycle. Congrats on your sale, though – considering how new your business is, I think it’s a great start!
I was struggling with the decision myself, but decided to do another Filling the Pipeline program. I don’t think I have that big of a pipeline yet to truly be ready for Following Up. Also, with my new full time freelance status, I’m going to be able to dedicate so much more time to my marketing efforts this time, that I’m very curious to see what the program can do now that I can put my full attention to it.
I just posted the first post for the new program – I hope you’ll join in again. I’m very curious to see which phase of the marketing cycle you’ve decided to focus on this time around!
Hello Selene
Are you still working on this 28 program?
Meg