Helping people market their small business didn't come as a vocational calling. I don't even have a marketing degree. It was really out of frustration with our inability to keep the "pipeline" full of high-quality leads at my last employer that I became interested in marketing.

Let me back up for a minute. I've been a professional service provider myself since 1990. Yes, that is what I looked like back then with more hair.

<-- Kevin Dervin, circa 1990

The first 13 years of my career were spent as a business and technology consultant. I was providing professional consulting services to a variety of businesses across a range of industries. When people asked "what do you do?" I usually introduced myself as an "IT Consultant." Nobody ever understood what that meant - not even my own family.

So what does a business and technology consultant know about helping you market your small service business? It started out as a self-preservation strategy. If I was ever going to get promoted at the firm I worked for, I needed to be responsible for developing more business. But marketing was a challenge for all of us. We were great business and technology consultants, but what did we know about marketing?

Unfortunately, we weren't just bad at marketing... We were terrible at it. So I set out on a quest to find a better way.

Achieving A Marketing Breakthrough

When I achieved my own marketing breakthrough I realized that it really wasn't all that hard after all. I figured out most of the things we were doing wrong when we finally did get around to marketing. I knew I had solved a mystery on how to get better, more systematic marketing results for just about any kind of service-based business.

My marketing breakthrough also led me to a dramatic change! I realized that my true passion is for helping people solve problems and challenges. Technology was just my means of helping others, but it wasn't where the passion was coming from.

I realized that marketing was something I could get excited about helping small business owners with every day. If I could help other small business owners get past their own frustrations and challenges with how to consistently attract more clients it's something I could feel really good about. I'd feel like I was making the kind of difference I want to make.

So I left my job, created the ABCD Growth Marketing System, and launched KPD Marketing in June of 2003.

I'm constantly working to stretch the limits of my marketing knowledge and abilities. I write about marketing almost daily through articles, special reports, my eZine, my marketing blog, and materials that I'm creating for myself and my clients. I give presentations on marketing to several professional groups each year and teach a comprehensive marketing system through my Growth Marketing Power Groups and one-on-one coaching.

I also make it a regular habit to absorb as much material as I can find on marketing and selling services. I read books, purchase programs, and subscribe to marketing newsletters and blogs. I also attend other experts' marketing seminars, workshops and tele-classes. I love sharing the knowledge that I'm gaining and make it a practice to give away whatever I can.

You Can Be A Better Marketer

I know you can do it. I'm living proof that you don't have to be a genius or have a degree in marketing to get the results you deserve.

The vision for my business is to be viewed as a true resource that small, service-based business owners can turn to for help. When you're ready to stop struggling with marketing and start consistently generating more high-quality leads that you can convert into more great clients I hope you'll contact me so I can share what I've learned.

If you want to know more about me, then check into Kevin's Korner in my ezine. Every edition provides just a brief glimpse into things that are going on in my little corner of the world. You can subscribe on the FREE Stuff page.

>> Now that you know a little more about me, the next place to visit is the Marketing Toolbox or the FREE Stuff section.