Dumb? Obviously! Narrow-minded? Yes! Wrong? Absolutely! Unfair? No question! Want their business? Well ... yes. OK, then you're going to have to play game and beat them at it. Here's how to do it. It's a little sneaky, but hey, all's fair and they did start it.

INCORPORATE

First off, incorporate. Nothing screams "CORPORATE!" to our friend dumb, narrow-minded, wrong, unfair Potential Client as an LLC, Pty Ltd or PLC (depending on where you conduct business) on your letterhead and business card.

Not only does this appease Potential Client, there are some very good tax and other advantages to incorporation which are well worth modest cost. Talk to your attorney or accountant about this.

OFFICE ADDRESS

The next problem you have with Potential Client is that you don't want your home address to give you away. What do you think looks more professional in Potential Client's eyes: 123 Cherryblossom Way, Apt. 103, Suburbia or 123 Major Blvd, Level 37, Big City?

The answer is a serviced office. These don't have to cost a lot of money if you use them pretty much as a post office but they CAN give your business all big-city prestige your Potential Client is looking for.

An additional advantage is that you can use your serviced office to meet with Potential Client. After all, last thing you want is to have him coming to your REAL office! Heaven forbid! Most serviced offices will make meeting rooms available for a flat fee.

TELEPHONES

This is probably trickiest part of all. How do you know it's safe to answer phone in your home office even though sounds of your young children playing just outside your office door will be heard by caller? You simply don't.

There is a simple way of dealing with this. Only give your home office number to existing clients. They already know you are professional and competent and should therefore have no issue with fact that you work from home.

For anyone else, give out number of an answering service that will answer call in your company name and can tell callers that you're in a meeting with another client and take a message. Your serviced office will offer this service as well.

You can then return call at a time when you know tell-tale background noise won't give you away.

In fact, a trick some people who work from home use when returning calls is to run a tape of office background noise. This both gives impression you are working in a large office AND it masks any slight tell-tale household noises that may, despite your best efforts, give you away.

YOU HAVE VERY LITTLE COMPETITION

"Everyone wants to win on Sunday, but not everyone is willing to practice Monday through Friday." Vince Lombardi

If you asked all of your competitors whether they want to be successful, it's a fair bet that pretty much all of them would say "Yes, of course, who doesn't want to be successful?"

But if you asked your competitors if they were prepared to do what it takes to develop their businesses so they could ultimately become successful, to pay price in terms of effort, discipline, perseverence and patience, although most if not all would probably answer "yes, of course, whatever it takes", reality is that very few of them actually would.

Although everyone wants success, very few are prepared to pay price over long haul. Oh, they may give it a good go for a little while but when results don't come quickly, they decide their efforts aren't working and try something else.

The cold, hard reality is that success takes hard work, lots of it, and lots of time. Overnight successes are very rare. That's why successful people say there's always room at top. It's because most people quit before succeeding, even when success is literally just around next bend. This is why you have very little competition. Although you may think you have a lot of competition, in reality you're really competing against only ten percent or so because other ninety percent will drop out before they achieve success.

Think of your business as a garden. The first stage is to decide what you want to grow, second stage is to go get seeds and plant them, third stage is to tend your garden and fourth is to reap what you have sown. The greatest challenge for most people is to sustain themselves through third stage. This is where patience is essential because it may be some considerable time between planting and reaping. Tending your garden also requires, in addition to patience, creativity, self- motivation, self-discipline, perseverence and resilience (all better to bounce back with after disappointment, my dear).

The good news, though, is that ninety percent of your competitors can't or won't stick it out long enough to reach harvest stage. This is why you can be always be a success no matter how much competition you have. So, let's get to it.

DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO GROW

Before you can plant your seeds, you need to know what it is you want to grow.

"Communicating one on one is different. This requires listening, never taking your eyes off that person, conveying impression that this conversation is very important to you." Rick Pitino

The first step in communicating with anyone about your business is knowing with absolute clarity what it is you and your business are about. You must decide what it is that you offer and to whom. This means finding your niche. It is kiss of death to any business to try to be all things to all people. Accept fact that not everyone is a worthwhile prospect for your business and don't waste your energies targeting anyone who is not a worthwhile prospect.

For example, let's say your business is about web site optimization for search engines. You take your clients' web pages and you optimize them for each of engines, tailoring pages to rank well. You don't design web pages, you don't create them, you don't offer credit card merchant facilities or shopping carts. You optimize existing pages to rank well in search engines. Period. This is a very specific niche within broader market of those requiring help marketing their web-based businesses.

Although that broad market will include people interested in web page optimization, it will also include people interested in learning HTML, looking for shopping cart assistance, looking for website design services or information on successfully promoting affiliate programs. If you targeted this entire market, it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack identifying those people interested specifically in web page optimization.

Instead, narrow your focus to that niche of market that you have decided to target and target ONLY that market. Everything you do needs to be focused on web site optimization and nothing else. Every communication you make must be to that end and no other. Don't allow your message to be diluted by generalizing. Don't allow your business to become fragmented.