You can’t be a prophet in your own land

By on April 21st, 2008 In Advice

Wayne Gretzky always said he skated to where the puck was going to be. If you’re an agency or independent, however, in PR I think you need to go to the opposite of where the puck is. Skate where no one else is, and it can make developing your business a lot easier. I shared this with a friend over drinks recently, as she is striking out on her own in the consulting biz with her marketing skills. Focus on getting out-of-state clients, I told her. Forget the local prospects. Doesn’t matter where you live – if you help a client who lives somewhere else, you bring the “aura” of someone who has come from afar to help.

I freelanced for two periods of my life: 1991-1995, and 2001-2006. During that time, 95% of my clients were not based in Arizona. You can’t be a prophet in your own land. Think of all the examples where the state of Arizona has brought in out-of-town talent, from heading up ASU and Scottsdale Community College, to using out-of-state agencies for big accounts and out-of-state artists for designing pots along a freeway. It’s a curious aspect of human nature that we attribute exotic characteristics to things that aren’t in our own backyard. So leverage that. Stop focusing so much on clients within 25 miles and think out of the box. The best part is, you’ll never run into them unexpectedly at the supermarket while looking like a ferret that just rolled out of bed.

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