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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My Small Business Can Bench Press More Than Your Small Business
January 31, 2010
My Small Business Can Bench Press More Than Your Small Business
Photo Credit: BigStockPhoto.com (and yes, this was a fun search!)
I was standing in line at the grocery store the other day and overheard a conversation between a man and a woman that went something like this:
Big buff man (puffing out his chest just a little), “Yeah, I lift about 1000 pounds a week…”
The woman’s eyes got wide, “Oh wow, that’s a lot of weight,” but not wanting to be out-gymmed she non-chalantly professed, “I do 4 ½ miles on the elliptical 5 times a week… “
That conversation got me thinking. We love to talk about our accomplishments – some people even take it to the extreme and bore everyone with constant stories of self-aggrandizement; bragging endlessly about what they have or what they’ve done. But for most of us, we simply work hard to achieve our goals and it makes us feel good to share our success.
So yes, we as individuals - as human beings - like to brag a little now and then. But I rarely hear small business owners bragging about their professional achievements. I’d love to be in a networking group and hear a fellow solopreneur proclaim (with chest puffed out), “I got 10 new leads last week and converted 8 of them.” And another respond, “Oh yeah, well I have a 95% customer retention rate”. And a third, proudly assert, “My average sale increased 50% last year!”
Why don’t we hear and engage in conversations like these? I mean we are entrepreneurs for crying out loud! We should be loud and proud! We work our tails off, haven’t we earned bragging rights? Why don’t we talk about these things more? Could it be that we have nothing to brag about? Is it because we don’t set goals or measure results so we have no idea what we’re accomplishing – or even if we’re accomplishing anything ?
You see, the key to earning bragging rights as a small business owner is knowing where you started, where you are now, and where you want to go. Mr. Grocery Store Iron Man didn’t just walk in to the gym one week and start lifting 1000 lbs. And I know his companion didn’t do 4 ½ miles her first time on the elliptical. Without a starting point how can you know what success looks like? And if you don’t know what success looks like how can you share it with others? So start setting goals and tracking success. I want to hear you brag!!!
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