I believe we are also looking for more depth, meaning and significance in our lives. Something more than 10-second sound bites and 30-second commercials that leave us feeling saturated, yet somehow hollow at same time.

So what does a Magic Key to marketing and more meaningful client relationships have in common?

I'm convinced that a sense of connection, even in business contacts we make, is what gives us deep, resounding satisfaction about how we spend our time and who we spend it with. And yes, I believe (or rather, I know) that a sense of connection and a sense of relationship with our clients bring us more business.

What I am about to share with you is not wild, exciting, or even amazing - but results are, and more!

The magic key to flooding your business with as many new customers as you want is consistency. Now please stay with me on this. Remember, I said it wasn't glamorous, but results will thrill you every week you are in business.

Consistency simply means cycling through specific ways to create and deepen your relationships with your clients/prospective clients. Sure, you can send out occasional article, call a prospective client back when you get time, or hand out business cards at a networking meeting. But that is not consistency. It's just potshot marketing, and results you get will be sporadic at best.

Consistency is built on understanding what keeps your client up at night. What is "rock in their shoe"? What are they trying to accomplish and can't seem to make much progress on? With that information, you can easily stay in touch, offer something of value and create a real working relationship that pays off for both of you.

Here are some simple, low or no-cost, creative ways to consistently stay in touch with your clients and prospective clients:

Asking about symptoms takes pressure off of you to sell. You are just engaging your almost-client in an in-depth conversation with one purpose in mind - to find out how bad problem is, and what happens if they don't fix it.

You don't have to spend hours engaged in this type of a conversation, even as few as 5 minutes can reap huge rewards. Precision questions make this easy. Now I realize that if you are a dyed-in-the-wool solution person this take a bit of awareness and practice.

Here are 2 reasons why adopting this practice is worth it: #1 You can help more people if they feel you understand their situation. And helping people is probably why you do what you do, isn't it?

#2 The greater problem is, less important money will be to your almost-client. Think about this for a moment - more important problem is, easier it is for an almost-client to find money to hire you. This means you have little-to-no-quibbling about your fee.