Hey everybody,
I'm back with another "Confessions of a Port Jeff Startup," where I'm sharing the experiences of my partner and I as we try to get Pollinate, our marketing company, up and running. You can check out our other posts here!
This week, we're tackling new clients.
So there we were, sitting in the lounge of the Fifth Season, not two months ago. Things were looking great. And they still are. But today's a new day and a new month and we're on to new things.
We did the paperwork, we designed and tweaked the website, and now we're officially off the starting block.
Now what?
Now we try to find clients. Now we have to shine.
Now, we do what we do best.
I'll admit, it's been difficult to find clients. A lot are confused about what exactly we do ("Are you web designers?" "No, we're marketers, we work on customer perception of your brand; sometimes, that includes redesigning your website."). A lot don't have the time or resources to invest in better marketing ("I'm too busy to deal with other things."). And a lot don't want to work with a new company ("Ohhhh, you're just starting out?").
The first issue is ours: we're getting better at positioning ourselves and educating the client about our services and what makes us different (every time we describe our business to someone new, I get a little bit better at it). We created a page on our website called "Pollinate In Exactly 150 Words," where we summarize exactly what it is we do. It's a problem every business faces, and we do it pretty well for others, but it's much more difficult to be introspective. That's why people need outside marketers in the first place!
The second issue takes convincing: it takes effort and involvement to get the process started (and you have to know that you want better marketing - something about a horse and water and drinking, right?), but we get that business owners are busy. They should be, they need to be focusing on pleasing their customers. It's understandable that they don't have time to market. We're here to help with that. We're here to make the process as easy as possible, without taking up all of their free time. And they tend to learn more about their own business through working with us.
The third issue is the most frustrating: Can't get clients without an extensive portfolio, can't build a portfolio without clients. But that's nothing new. So how do we overcome it? We put our heads down and work our way through it. We do pro-bono work and we put ourselves in front of as many prospective clients as we can. We go to conferences (like the recent 140 Conference Long Island at the Touro Law Center, or the Media Ideas Digital Advertising Summit this week). We have to keep putting ourselves out there, grasping any opportunities we can, and showing that we're willing to do what it takes to get Pollinate off the ground.
We have to have confidence in the work we're doing.
At the end of the day, if we don't have that, what's the point?
