If you’ve bookmarked this blog, you probably never stopped to wonder why I never talked about my personal life outside of what I did when I was accounting and auditing. Mostly it was because I didn’t think it was appropriate to fill what is basically a blog about marketing with inane and hokey comments about unrelated topics.

I remember how turned off I was when a marketer I had looked to as an internet mentor began filling up his messages with blow by blow descriptions of his wife’s latest health issues in a poor attempt to humanize himself. Having her health problems inserted in the midst of a “buy your ticket to my latest seminar” message just turned me off and I promised myself I wouldn’t do that.

Today I’m going to break that promise, because this past weekend I learned a valuable lesson I wish I had learned years ago. A lesson about networking and referrals.

And my speech was a doozey. Or so I thought. But, when I finished, there were only two people awake in the room. The chairman of the activities committee, and me.

Writing a speech takes a special skill. And, there are very few guides to writing your own. It’s such a hard skill, over at Instant Practice Builder I have one person dedicated to speechwriting the free speeches that members get. I wouldn’t even think of doing it myself.

I was just checking in and reading Margaret Grisdela’s blog at the Rainmaking Club, and she was discussing how strong rainmakers don’t experience a downturn, despite the condition of the economy.

As Margaret so aptly put it, it’s much easier to build your business in a growing economy, than it is in a downturn. Yet many skilled rainmakers continue to bring in new business despite the economic conditions.

Why? The main reason is that even in a downturn economy, some people are still looking to retain professionals.

So you want to be an independent bookkeeper and accountant? You’re tired of working for “Da Man” and you want to strike out on your own. Hooray for you!

First of all, congratulations! There is nothing more rewarding than being your own boss. Not being the top executive, the lead partner or the chairman of the partners executive committee of a big whatever the number is now firm.

Okay, enough about how great it is. It also has some downers, like “What do I do now? I’m all alone.”

Fear not, Uncle Kirk is here with all the answers. Or, if not all the answers, then a list of marketing guru’s who will have the answer somewhere in the middle of their files, and will be glad to help.

If you are serious about building your practice, you could take a few lessons from the internet marketing gurus, who took a few lessons from direct marketers, who are the kings of marketing as far as I am concerned.

Almost any internet marketing guru can talk to you about the marketing funnel. Dedicated outside sales reps will talk about filling their funnel. what do they mean?

Hot dang. You’re at a big networking get together at the local pub, handing out your cards and introducing yourself. Getting cards from everyone you meet, and promising them faithfully that you’ll be sharing referrals and leads with them.

Yeah, that’s really going to happen. Like when pigs fly.

In the news recently I was reminded of how varied niches can be for your practice and for your practice building arsenal when I stumbled across the story about Mantyhose and their introduction into the United states.

I guess most men didn’t know they needed a male version of pantyhose. They probably have trouble picturing themselves wearing a lovely dove-gray pair of Mantyhose under their jeans.

But, it’s here, whether we like it or not, and it highlights how unique and specific the particular niche you select can be. Your biggest hurdle is going to be deciding if there are enough potential fees to be generated in the market you want to serve.

Yesterday in my post about What Do You Write Abut Part #2, I talked about a preacher by the name of Chuck Warnock at a small church in Chatham, Virginia., and his blog post “It’s Like Herding Pigs.”

In his post, Doug talks about a lady by the name of Mary Haugh who actually needed to herd pigs after her husband had suffered debilitating heart attacks and was no longer able to herd them into the barn.

Mary’s husband was a pig farmer, and like many other pig farmers, he used a “longboard” to squeeze the pigs in to the barn. Longboards were typically used by farmers in their neighborhood because pigs, being ornery and interested only in their self interests, didn’t react positively to things like cattle prods and other forms of aggressive manipulation.

If you haven’t read yesterday’s post What Do You Write About? Part #1, then click here and read it first. We’ll be continuing from the point where that post ended.

Meaning, you’ll now have a listing of results that show all the blogs Google thinks you want to know about, who have recently written on the subject you entered in the search box. Your next step is to start going through them one by one and scanning them to see what is being written on your topic.

Article, report and whitepaper writing continue to lead the pack as things you can write to generate interest in your practice and establish your credentials as an authority figure. What is always hard is developing a list of topics to write on developing those ideas into a topic.

In either an earlier post or an email to the members of the Instant Practice Builder (http://instantpracticebuilder.com), I mentioned that one of the best ways to develop subject matter is to make a note of the question a client has when they call you and find an angle to turn that question and your answer into an article or report.