Dialogue Marketing for Mediators: What Would the Dialogue Be About?

In Exercise 5.1.1 you considered the client demographic you’d most like to work with, their interests, daily rhythms and problems, and how to locate them. Now it’s time for another thought experiment.

Imagine that you’re in a beautiful garden. The temperature is perfect and the sun is shining, beautiful blooms surround you and make the air fragrant (if you have hay fever, there are no symptoms in this magic world I’m creating for you). The garden is large and airy, yet walled in to create privacy. Flowering vines cover the 10-foot-high stone walls. All your needs are taken care of, including your favorite foods and comfy lounge chairs for relaxing.

You are going to be locked in this garden for two days with a single person who is an absolutely perfect match for your ideal client demographic. You have the good fortune of knowing, in advance, that you’ll be in the garden for two days, so you have some planning time. You’re charged with emerging from the garden having marketed your services successfully to that person. But you may not sell, convince, or persuade in any way. You may only have a dialogue and, if and only if you’re asked for information, you may educate.

Exercise 4.2.2: What would you have a dialogue about and how?

Write out your answers to each of the following questions, keeping that ideal match person in your mind as you write:

• What would you most like to learn about and from them?
• What are the conflict-related problems they might most likely face?
• What are non-conflict problems for which they’d be interested in tips, strategies or information?
• What could you talk about that might catch their interest?
• What style of dialogue would you choose—formal, informal, downright chummy?
• How would you go about building a professional relationship with them that might last once you leave the garden?

If you can answer these questions with clarity and substance, you are extraordinarily well positioned as a dialogue marketer. If you can’t, then you either haven’t sufficiently focused your ideal client demographic or you don’t yet know enough about them to act. The good news in the latter circumstance is that, with dialogue marketing, you can use your good skills and a few other approaches I’ll discuss to gather that information.

Copyright © 2006 by Tammy Lenski. All rights reserved.