You’d be surprised how often my clients and students ask me to help them find a surefire sales letter or phone script that they can copy to use for their own selling. Or maybe you wouldn’t. Perhaps you, too, have been misled into thinking that there is such a thing. Read more (members only)

We’re an impatient society these days. The blazing speed of transmission we experience daily for news and communications has raised our expectations for how fast everything should happen. So when someone tells us our marketing will take time to pay off, we don’t have a lot of patience for it. Read more (members only)

In order to get booked as a speaker, an essential tool is a one-page description of your speaking topic, and a capsule bio describing your expertise. The example below will give you a model to follow. Read more (members only)

If you’ve ever wondered why more people don’t respond to your sales attempts and marketing messages, the first question to ask may be — are you selling something that people are willing to spend money on? Read more (members only)

C.J. Hayden speaks to a live audience of career services professionals, including coaches, counselors, and resume writers. Does it seem like your marketing gets “stuck” somewhere and doesn’t produce the results you think it should? Here’s what you’ll learn Read more (members only)

In any professional services business, you typically begin by serving clients one-to-one. As you improve your skills at marketing yourself and begin filling your practice, eventually you discover there are only so many hours in the day. You want to keep growing your business, but you have no more time available for additional clients. What can you do? Read more (members only)

Sometimes you may just have to prospect. While it’s true that networking, referrals, and other relationship-oriented marketing strategies are superior ways to build a professional services business in the long run, the problem can lie in that word “long.” It takes time to build a network and generate referrals. Read more (members only)

Recently a client asked me what to do when he received referrals he was unable to take, either because he was too busy or they weren’t quite on target. Here are some suggestions I gave him that you may find helpful when you’re in the same situation. Read more (members only)

What made you decide to go into business for yourself? Did you want to make more money, gain more freedom, enjoy yourself more, or make more of an impact on the world? For many independent professionals, the desire to help others as well as themselves plays a significant role Read more (members only)

The end of each quarter is the perfect time to review what you’ve accomplished so far this year, what you have learned, and where you would like to go next. Set aside some time each quarter to conduct a review of your life, career, or business with this thoughtful exercise. Read more (members only)