The Best Kept Secret of Successful Marketing
March 1, 2010
The Best Kept Secret of Successful MarketingYou’ve been in bu
siness a while. You’ve been buying advertising, tweaking your website, spending a fortune on yellow pages and attending all kinds of networking groups. Yet your pipeline is empty; you don’t know from where your next job, project or sale is going to come– or even if it will come. You have no idea how you are going to pay next month’s invoices, salaries and rent. What do you do? If you’re like most small business owners you do the only thing you know how; you buy more advertising and other marketing tactical stuff and hope this time will be different.
But have you really thought about this “strategy”? Why would you dump more money into more advertising, more website tweaks, more yellow page ads, more postcards and more networking that aren’t working? Are you hoping this time will be different? Hoping you’ll find the Holy Grail, that Secret Sauce of advertising?
So many small business owners keep spending on the Marketing tactics hoping that one of these days, they’ll “get it right”. Albert Einstein defined insanity as: “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”. Isn’t it time to stop the insanity?
What’s the secret to successful marketing? The only way to “get it right” is to stop the insanity; take a step back and do some basic groundwork – develop a Marketing strategy first. Here is what a Marketing strategy can do for you:
- Help you figure out who in the world is most likely to buy what you are selling and where to reach them. For example, as the owner of a high-end hair salon – the lady who loves her $8 mall haircut is NEVER going to come to your salon- so why market to her? Just because she has hair doesn’t mean she deserves for your valuable marketing dollar.
- Spend less money and get more qualified leads. If you know who is most likely to buy you can stop wasting money chasing people who will never buy.
- Make you stand out in the marketplace. Do you know how you are different from your competitors? If you say “Service” or “Fair Price” you’re missing the mark. Who doesn’t offer great service and fair prices? Developing a marketing strategy will help you find out what that difference is – and how to use it to attract the right customers for your business.
- Get a greater ROI (Return on Investment) for your Marketing tactics. Imagine doing some of the “stuff” I mentioned above and actually seeing results? A Marketing strategy can do that for you. Knowing a few basics about your business and putting a little strategy behind your Marketing spend will do wonders for your ROI.
- Put a system behind your marketing so you can consistently work prospects down the funnel and into your pipeline. A Marketing strategy will help you build a process that continuously feeds prospects and leads into your funnel; when business is slow – and even when it’s busy. A Marketing strategy will help you avoid an empty pipeline.
Investing in a Marketing Strategy for your small business is the best investment you will ever make. It could save you thousands in the long run- and make you money too. Really- stop the insanity, try something different.
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Small Business: 7 Signs it Might be Time to ask for Help
February 21, 2010
Small Business: 7 Signs it Might be Time to ask for Help-
Whatever you’ve been doing isn’t working. Newspaper ads, yellow pages, direct mail, magazines, and networking. You’re doing it all, yet you still don’t have all the business you want or need and your pipeline is empty. Maybe it’s time to get some outside help.
Photo Credit BigStockPhoto.com
- You want to take responsibility for the growth of your company. You know you’re capable of anything when you have the tools and the resources. Sure, you can most likely grow your small business you just don’t know where to begin. Hiring a marketing specialist to guide you will help you take responsibility for the growth of your company.
- You need accountability. You’ve read a few marketing books, attended seminars, and maybe even had some coaching in the past. You know the basics of marketing you just haven’t committed the time and energy into creating a cohesive system to make it work. You know you need help: someone who can give you direction and hold you accountable. Having someone to gently nudge you, someone to answer to will force you to do the things you know need to be done to take your business to the next level.
- You want objective feedback. Your friends and colleagues have been great for stroking your ego. But you know all your ideas aren’t that great. If they were, you’d be a millionaire. You need someone who is going to be objective. Someone who will constructively lead you in the right direction and offer a fresh perspective to your ideas. This objectivity will nudge you out of your rut and point out the areas you can improve upon; in all aspects of your business.
- You don’t have time to do all the marketing research and reading on your own. You are an expert in your industry. You can’t possibly be a marketing expert too; you don’t have time to master the things you need to take your business to the next level. You value your time and know it’s better spent on other aspects of your business where you can reap a higher return.
- You don’t have a marketing plan. You’ve been doing your marketing kind of haphazardly. Doing a little here and there with no cohesive plan or strategy in place. It’s not working. You know that in order to make it work there has to be some consistency and process behind it. A marketing coach can help you develop a system for your marketing – and stick to it.
- You don’t have $10,000 – $50,000 to hire a consultant. Yes, it would be nice to hire someone to do it all for you, but you don’t have that kind of money lying around. You can hire a coach for considerably less and still get a lot of the benefits you get with a consultant. Besides, you’re the DIY type anyway.
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Small Business: Are you a Winner or are you Happy to Just be on the Team?
February 7, 2010
Small Business: Are you a Winner or are you Happy to Just be on the Team?In honor of Super Bowl XLIV I want to write about what it takes to be a winner. Whether it’s sports, business or life there are a few things that separate the winners from the losers.
- The desire to win. This may seem really obvious. But stop. Really think about it a minute: The desire to WIN. Do you really have a desire to WIN or do you simply have a desire to be there? Are you happy just to show up every Sunday and play or do you want to be the best and make it to the Big Game? As a business owner, did you set out to create something that earns you recognition (in the form of lots of customers) and renders the fulfillment of a dream and a lifestyle? Or did you start your business just to show up to a job every day that didn’t require taking orders from someone else? So, is your goal to win- or just to be on the team?
- The belief that you can win. If you go into any endeavor or wake up each morning thinking “I can’t” – you won’t. The key to being a success is believing that you can do anything you put your mind to and putting all of your energy and efforts into making it happen. I doubt a single Super Bowl winner went into the Big Game – or the NFL for that matter – thinking they couldn’t win. There are no pessimists in the winner’s circle. If you think your business isn’t meant for big things, you won’t ever achieve big things. If you think “I can’t {sell, market, grow, find the time…}” – Then guess what, you won’t. If Peyton Manning had said, “There is no way I’ll be the NFL MVP 4 times in my career”, he wouldn’t have been. No matter what, believe that you can – and you will.
- Hard work and commitment. No one ever achieved anything by just sitting around and waiting for good things to happen. Luck doesn’t make winners; hard work, commitment and perseverance do. If you want something you have to go out and get it. You have to work hard, you have to learn and practice and push yourself beyond your comfort zones. Jerry Rice didn’t get to the Hall of Fame by keeping his workouts and training comfortable and easy; he pushed himself -each and every day – to do better than he did the previous day. And Peyton Manning didn’t make it to his 2nd Super Bowl by resting on his laurels after his first Super Bowl win or by giving up when he didn’t win the next one. Success is hard work. Success is a commitment. It’s completely up to you. Do you simply want to play… or do you want to win?
What It Takes To Be a Winner
What are you doing in your business to push yourself beyond your comfort zone to take your game to the next level; to make it to the big time? And for fun, who are you rooting for today and why? Leave your comments by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the next page.
