Guest post by Mark Goren, who blogs at PlantingSeeds.ca. All views in the post are the author’s alone. Feel free to submit relevant guest posts via email.
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A little over a week ago, over on this blog, a post titled, “Sustainability in Business: Naturopathic physician” told the story of Igor Schwartzman, a naturopathic physician, co-owner of the Whole Family Wellness Center health care clinic.
In the post, there was one section that caught my eye – and prompted Peter to ask me to be his guest here.
“…’sustainable’ means two things. First, to be sustainable is to have the capability to continue.” As a practitioner of natural medicine, he encourages people he sees to make better decisions about their health. With that, he believes, he is making a small difference in his community. More importantly, he is ‘”tarting a chain reaction, planting a seed.”
According to Igor, marketing is “an opportunity to create relationships, reaching the community, and educating about making positive choices.”
Perfect segue. Because his belief of what marketing is translates perfectly to what it means to plant seeds – online or offline.
For those of you only getting to know me now, I write the PlantingSeeds.ca blog. Over there, I describe the reason why you’d plant seeds online as follows:
“The more seeds you plant, the more chances you have to get noticed, build relationships and lead people back to your site. The more they get to know about you, the more they can come to trust, refer, talk about, and do business with you.”
Well, the same is true whether you’re planting seeds online or offline. And the parallel between Igor’s thinking and Planting Seeds analogy matches his answer above.
1. Relationships
It’s all in the relationships you build. The more personal and one-on-one the relationship, the more you’re able to speak to people on their terms. Marketing certainly isn’t about telling people what to do (at least not anymore!); it’s about connecting with people, listening to what they want or think, and delivering it to them in personalized terms.
2. Reaching the community
People aren’t running around looking for you, they’re busy doing their own thing, creating their own hubs and outposts. It’s up to you, as a marketer, to reach people on their turf and terms. Reach out beyond your four digital walls, meet people where they like to play and add value to their lives by becoming a valued resource – that’s how you develop trust. That trust, in turn, can translate into relationships and, ultimately, sales.
3. Educating people
When out there meeting people, the best way to stand out is to become a valued resource to them. So point people to valuable resources. Solve their problems. Points them to other like-minded people. Teach them and show them the way to something they don’t know. The more you’re able to do this, the more they’ll pay attention to you and be thankful for being connected to you.
Planting Seeds is all about these three points. The more you’re able to build on them and find a unique way to own these efforts, the more sustainable your relationships will be.
Igor has it right. Do you?
What are doing to plant seeds and develop sustainable relationships for your business?
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