Infographic about social media and blogging.

The common model for building an independent services practice is hardly individualized. Typical is the one-day-at-a-time entrepreneur who uses “special offer” or generic marketing, or no marketing at all. Marketing efforts are often minimal, since there’s little incentive to build relationships with clients who see the entrepreneur as identical to the rest of the pack in his or her industry. This route provides an income but little more.

Marketing the products you sell might seem logical, but your prospects do not make buying decisions based solely on logic. When it comes to close, people hire your services because they like you and relate to you, They have no relationship with your products or services, only the individual selling them. That’s why Personal Branding is so important.

After a post showing how the most common social media strategies are not always the most effective, David Wilson provided another interesting report on SMB owners and social media usage. More specifically, David pointed out an Ad-ology study called the Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010 that was published last month. The report interviewed 1,000 small business owners with fewer than 100 employees and asked them about their attitudes and marketing plans for the coming year.