Operating without a fully immersive ergonomics marketing system can leave you vulnerable to businesses that are actively marketing their services. Without strong marketing, you’d have to operate based solely on the merits of your skillset to get referrals. But is your skillset alone enough to attract clients 24/7?

If you're not entirely satisfied, then making a marketing strategy should be your top priority. So in today's post, I'm going to discuss how important marketing your services are with a really surprising example: bike repair. This is the perfect example because it highlights that simply relying on your expertise in ergonomics isn't the only factor that will bring in clients to your business. 

As Ergonomics Professionals, we shouldn’t just limit our focus on executing excellent technical work but also make marketing our priority. Many consultants are leaving opportunities on the table by not marketing themselves. Without a good marketing system, your scope is extraordinarily limited, and your business cannot have a lasting impact. For this reason, I’m going to give you an example to show you the various components of what makes a good marketing campaign that will not only translate prospects into clients but generate repeat clients as well. 

Marketing vs. Skillset

In order to highlight how marketing increases your business’s overall potential, I’m going to use bike mechanics as an example. On one end of the spectrum, we have a bike mechanic who works for a sports department store. On the other end of the spectrum, we have an independent bike mechanic. 

Let's start on one side. The department store mechanic has more opportunities to get more clients. Since they're on the coattails of a department store, they have a huge reach. However, (generally speaking and based on my experience), there’s a very low amount of skill for that bike mechanic since there's it's affiliated with a department store. Another factor that goes into this is that this department store had a really good offer, and that is if you buy a bike from them, you get free maintenance for an entire year. It's an amazing offer. However, when I brought my bike to that bike mechanic to get it fixed, I received a very poor customer experience. They promised they would get my bike back to me in 24 hours. It was five days ago, and they haven't even started yet. So do you think I would go back to that department store even if they offer me free service for a year? Heck, no. That’s because on the exact same day, I also brought a bike to a different mechanic. 

So the other side of the spectrum is a really skilled bike technician who isn’t marketing their services. The only way I found out that this person existed was from a random referral I got, and I happen to remember this one person because they said they "were the best"... needless to say, that got my attention!

However, it was just by the circumstance that I learned about his services because the "expert" bike technician wasn't marketing himself whatsoever. This guy has an amazing skill set. I saw immediately that he knew what he was doing because it’s very reflective of what we do as ergonomics professionals when we’re pulling apart the various features of the chair and telling our clients how to properly adjust it. I received great customer service, which means that I’ll be coming back to this guy whenever I have to get my bike fixed. 

The lingering question for me was: How many Ergonomics Consultants are leaving their lead generation to circumstance too?

Why You Should Be Marketing Your Services

The example above brings up the question: how do you successfully market yourself? The skilled mechanic wasn't marketing at all, it was only because of circumstance that I ever learned about his skillset. This falls back to the idea of marketing and reach. Marketing delivers the message about your business. It allows you to reach out to your ideal clients and let them know of all the services you offer. And, perhaps the biggest reason to invest in marketing is that it makes the sale easier! 

The best way to reach out to your ideal clients is to be where they spend most of their time and then continuously interact with them. This is important because the more your ideal clients get to know about you, the more likely they are to follow your business. For instance, there's a local bike trail that I absolutely love going to with my kids. So if the skilled mechanic was able to market where biking enthusiasts like to spend their time, his message would reach his ideal clients!

Another important thing is your market offering. The thing with marketing is that you have freedom in how you want to present your services, meaning you can add some flash to grab attention. Do you remember that department store offer of free bike maintenance for a year? It would be nice if the skilled mechanic could also come up with a market offering that would keep his clients back for his services too.

So, the skilled mechanic is a great service provider in our city. However, he's not representing himself. This makes him more vulnerable to other businesses like the department store, whose poor service is covered up by creative marketing and flashy offers that get peoples’ attention. People might not actually like their service, but the marketing is enough to entice people to try it. However, I know that if the skilled mechanic would do even just a little bit of marketing, people will surely choose to go where the skill is to have their problems fixed because reputation matters.

If you want to reach your true potential in ergonomics in your area, it’s key to employ marketing so you can engage with your ideal clients and represent your skillset and experience. Not marketing your services is not only doing a disservice to yourself but also a disservice to your community that needs your specific skillset.

Your expertise alone isn’t enough to build a consistent client base and keep your business steady and growing. To move forward with your ideal and consequently gain success, then you have to consider doing the following:

• One of the best ways to grow your business is to make sure that you have a clear marketing message that grabs your ideal client’s attention. So what you want to do first is to clearly define your services. People are generally attracted to those they can relate to, so make sure that you reverse-engineer your messaging based on their pain points and do a thorough ideal client avatar research. Make sure that your services are aligned with what your clients want and need.
• The "rule of seven" says that in order for your audience to remember your message and your offer, they need to be exposed to it at least 7 times. So it’s important that you repeat your messaging.
• Once you have that person's attention, make them an active part of your business by regularly communicating with them. Do whatever is possible to get that person's email address, so you can continuously market to them. So whenever they have ergonomic concerns, whether it would be a complex worker's compensation case or they need help with return-to-work, you’ll be the first one they'll reach out to. 

And that’s it! Now that you realize how important marketing is to your business, what are you still waiting for? Start marketing your services, and start leading your consulting business to success.

Whether you’re a healthcare professional looking to add ergonomics services to what you're already doing, or you’re an ergonomics consultant looking to get more clients, my signature program, Accelerate: The Business of Ergonomics, shows you all the necessary steps to get started. We're opening the enrollment at the end of September 2021. Make sure to sign up to the waitlist so you’ll be notified when enrollment opens.