"I feel a little stuck," she shared in our last call. "Every time I try running another ad or sending another mailer, I only generate enough new work to make up for additional cost I've expended. I can't hire an additional employee until I get more work, but I can't seem to get more work. I really want to make more income for myself and my family and think I could do it if I could just get some of these new marketing strategies to work out."

My next question threw her -- "What are you selling?" "What do you mean? I'm selling cleaning services," she responded. "No, what are you REALLY selling? Or look at it this way, what are your clients buying?"

It took a couple more rounds before she understood what I meant. Many service business owners run out to marketplace without a clear understanding of what they are selling or what their clients are buying. After awhile, they start getting clients by shear fact that they've approached enough people to generate some interest. The problem comes once they've reached a plateau and can't seem to grow beyond it.

It's like golf. Anyone can learn to hit ball and, if given enough strokes, get it in hole. They can even become pretty good ... but only sometimes. The rest of time, they are hooking or slicing uncontrollably. They never play a consistent game. The key to success in golf is technique. If you do right things consistently, you’ll play a good game every time (well, almost!).

In business, it’s same thing – you need to do right things consistently. Almost anyone can learn how to make a sale. It might not be in record speed or at a profit, but they can make sale. The key is in being able to generate sales consistently up to and beyond your plateau.

“I am so busy these days, but I’m still not getting level of work I want,” Tracey told me. “I really want to get in with some bigger companies, but I’m always scrambling to get my current projects done.”

“When I first started my business, I just wanted to get some clients, any clients. Now, I have people calling me up to do jobs for them, but those aren’t jobs I want anymore. I mean, I need them, but I also want to start doing bigger projects for bigger clients.”

“All people calling me are small business owners I’ve met at networking meetings I attend. I know we talked before about fact that I’m not going to meet reps from big companies there, so I need to develop a different marketing strategy to reach them, but I just don’t have time. I keep thinking I’ll reach a point where I’ve got things under control, so I can start pursuing bigger guys, but I never get there.”

It was clear that Tracey was exhausted from going through same cycle over and over again, so I thought I would give her brain a reprieve by taking her back in time. “Do you remember when you told me about that guy that you met at a networking meeting last year? He was hounding you about making him a video, but you really didn’t see opportunity there. He didn’t seem to have any money budgeted for it and didn’t have a clear concept of why he needed it and what he would use it for. You just didn’t feel like he was a good prospect, so you told him that you were too busy to take on his project.”

“Yeah, what about him?”

“Well, there was a time when you would have seen him as a viable prospect. You would have set up a meeting, spent a few hours going to/from meeting, spent a few more writing up a proposal, placed numerous follow-up calls only to learn that there was ultimately no chance of getting a dime from this guy. Over time, you learned to qualify prospects, so you didn’t waste your time. By time you met that guy, you already knew how to spot a bad opportunity and had developed ability to say “no” to them.

“He was easy to turn down. He just didn’t have a clue. There was no way he would have ever turned into a paying client, so it wasn’t hard at all to tell him that I couldn’t help him out. But, I’m not talking about people like that. The people calling me are good prospects, but projects they need me to do are just small. I just want to start getting some bigger projects too.”

“Well, you say you’ve been trying to get around to marketing to bigger companies for past eight months, right? But yet, you continue to go round-and-round hoping that you’ll suddenly find perfect moment to work on your marketing strategy to reach bigger companies. It hasn’t happened yet so, just for a moment, let’s assume that this cycle will continue indefinitely. What do you think it will take to break it?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I keep waiting for right time when things slow down, so I guess cycle will end when things slow down enough for me to think about it. I was hoping summer would give me a break, but it didn’t. Maybe holidays?”