Franklin Taggart's Unconventional Life Blog

If you're a solopreneur or freelancer and you don't like marketing or promoting your product, service, or business, could that be having a negative impact on people's perceptions of you? I think so. My family and a few close friends call me a curmudgeon and it's not being used affectionately, but even I can share excitement and enthusiasm about what I do. If I couldn't, I shouldn't be doing this work. The idea of the unique marketing modality came out of my experience of not enjoying marketing my businesses. I couldn't stand networking, I dreaded the weekly email, and I didn't look much forward to blogging or posting on social media. No wonder I had a hard time getting clients. When I stepped back and allowed myself a moment of honesty, I saw that there were really only a few ways that I completely enjoyed marketing and they had several things in common - centered on talking, usually in a one-to-one setting, in a reflective role, and sharing wisdom. When...

The impending snow in Colorado has me thinking about preparedness. I'm not. I can't say that preparedness is one of my strong suits unless you count being prepared to improvise.  If the plows get the roads cleared quickly enough I'll be giving an in-person talk at Desk Chair Workspace here in downtown Loveland. My topic is Marketing Lessons We All Learned In Kindergarten. It's a call to get back to simplicity and basics in the ways we bring our businesses and customers together. We feel a lot of pressure to show up everywhere all the time and we rapidly find that it's not a sustainable business model or lifestyle. I think we can learn a lot by remembering how easy it was to start friendships when we were young. The same steps are what we use to build relationships with customers - Attract, Introduce, Share Enthusiasm, Find Things In Common, Make Invitations, Play Together, Create Memories. It doesn't have to be more difficult than that. Let's get out of our ...

There are certain things about life that we have very little control over. The inevitability of death, the basic level of intelligence we're born with, our personalities, and physical limitations are just a few of the cards we're dealt and have to learn to play with.  Everyone's hand is unique from everyone else's so the strategy that works for anyone else will have to be adapted or scrapped according to the hand we're playing. The same is true in our businesses. They are as unique as our fingerprints, and while some of the activities are similar from business to business, there is a unique set of circumstances and traits that every business owner must learn to play with. That was my motivation in developing the concept and practice of Marketing Modalities. I've seen that people who leverage their innate strengths and preferences in the way they bring their business into the world have a greater likelihood of success than when they try to use another person'...

Solopreneurs, freelancers, and other small business owners often find themselves stretched thin when it comes to marketing. There are too many channels to choose from, the learning curve to gain new skills can be steep, and it's too expensive to hire an agency to handle it for you. You also may find that it's difficult to find enough time to adequately market your business and that is the beginning of the end for many small and one-person companies. For people in their first year or two of business, I usually recommend having a streamlined strategy for marketing so that your valuable resources can be used effectively and have a desirable return. A central part of this strategy is to identify and leverage your unique marketing modality. Your unique marketing modality is a combination of your strongest communication skills, your preferred relationship channels, your natural influence role, and your preferred venue. Lining these up can have a streamlining effect on your marketi...