5 New Years Resolutions for Small Business Owners
January 5, 2011
How was your 2010? If you’re like most people I know, it wasn’t exactly a banner year. to put it politely. So, what are you doing to make 2011 better? Have you reviewed, analyzed and tweaked your business or marketing plan? Have you committed to a new strategy?
If you don’t know where to start, here is a great article written by my friend and colleague, Kelly Weppler, Principal and Owner of WH & Associates called “5 Simple Marketing Resolutions“.
Now’s the time to make plans or resolutions for the New Year. Have you put down any plans or goals on paper—for you personally or for your professionally? Writing them down and making them tangible is the first step. Here is a list of 5 key marketing resolutions that you may want to think about as we move into the New Year.
1. Build a routine to market your business. Think of marketing as a system and build a routine to help yourself create some consistency in marketing your business. All too often small business owners look at marketing as a ne event rather than something they are doing on an on-going basis. Schedule regular appointments on your calendar to ensure that you’re working on marketing your business. And be sure not to cancel them–you wouldn’t cancel an appointment with a potential client, so why are cancelling an appointment to work on marketing your business?
2. Get better educated about what’s being said about you online. Create Google alerts to keep on top of what’s being communicated about you, your products and your business online. This is becoming more and more important to address any potential negative comments that might have been made. I also encourage my clients to create Google alerts on their competitors, the experts in their industry and some general terms that people looking for search on.
3. Create a marketing calendar. Think about a theme for each month or quarter of the year and then you do something surrounding that theme. No doubt this will help you better plan the year out and you’ll know exactly what you need to do ahead of time. Then your monthly newsletter will follow the theme and you’ll spend less time worrying about what kind of content you need to come up with.
4. Let your existing customers know you appreciate them. Send them an email, give them a call, just make a point of contacting them and thanking them for their business.
5. Send out 5 handwritten notes each month. This is a simple task that more often than not rekindles a business relationship with a past client and results in additional business or the past client referring you to someone else.
Just pick one of the above and implement and execute. Number 4 is very simple and anyone can implement this with a minimal amount of time and an extremely limited budget. Just doing this one thing and being consistent is what counts and produces results.
*Posted with permission by Kelly Weppler of WH & Associates to view the blog in its entirety, click here.
What New Years resolutions have you made for your small business??? Tell us!
Leave your comments here.
4 Steps to Finding Focus for Your Business
November 9, 2010
“What do you do for a living?” You get asked that all the time. How do you answer it? “I’m an electrician”, “an attorney”, “a dog groomer”? Are you and your business defined by your title or role – or are you known as the company that solves a specific problem for people?
Working with a client recently and taking her through the “finding focus” stage of developing a marketing system reminded me of that important question.
So many of us think we are the actions we perform – and not the problems we solve.
Your clients don’t hi
re you just because you’re an attorney, a dog groomer or an electrician – no matter how good you are. They hire you because they’re sick of dog hair all over the house, or because they’re afraid of getting raked over the coals in a divorce, or their power went out, the turkey is in the oven and they have 20 guests at their house.
When you understand why people really hire or buy from you you can begin to develop your marketing messaging and develop product and service packages that people want to buy! This process will also: 1) Help you stand apart from your competitors and 2) Help you communicate to potential customers in a way that can prompt them to buy.
So, what problem(s) do you solve for your clients? And does your company offer a product/services mix to solve their specific problems? If not, here is what I want you to do:
- Make a list of the different types of customers you work with; are they female, male, single, or married? Where do they live? How much do they earn? Etc….If you sell to businesses, is it a services based business? Retail? What type of business? How big? How long in business? This step will help you understand, first, who you serve best. Next we’ll look at the specific problems each segment has….
- List the specific problems they have before they hire you – Hint: they own a dog, need legal representation, or own a home with electricity aren’t enough… It needs to be a specific problem. Lots of people own dogs and never visit a groomer… so the mere fact of owning a dog is not a trigger to make someone a purchaser of grooming services. You need to dissect your client list and study them. When they call you, what problem do they say they need solved NOW?
- For each specific problem listed, think about the solution you provide – or can provide. For example: customer problem – “sick of having to vacuum my house every single day because my dog sheds so much… I don’t have time!” Solution: Create a service that reduces amount of dog hair around the house. So now, you are the service that reduces dog hair around the house, eliminates days of vacuuming and gives me more free time to do other things… see how that’s diffferent/better than, “I groom dogs”?
- Create product and/or service packages or bundles to solve the unique problems of each segment of your target market. Example: “We have mobile grooming packages that include: weekly cut, shampoo, and groom and at-home brushing services 3 times per week – guaranteed to reduce the number of days you vacuum from 7 to 1! Allowing you to spend less time cleaning and more time with your family! ”
Once you complete this exercise I guarantee you’ll have a better understanding of what you really sell, how to package, communicate, and sell it to your target market!
Marketing is NOT Letters, Emails and Postcards!
September 19, 2010
If I were to ask 100 people to define “Marketing” I’d probably get 100 different answers. The problem is “Marketing” has become a nice little euphemism for dirty words like “advertising”, “sales”, and “di
rect mail”.
I’ve also noticed that all a sudden everyone is a Marketer: I met a guy the other day who makes signs – he introduced himself as a “Marketer”. Then I met a woman who sells online ads, she also identified as a “Marketer”. Everywhere I go I run into people who at first- glance do what I do, but when I dig a little deeper I learn they’re really selling some marketing tool; not actually engaging in the bigger picture – or the process and planning of Marketing.
I’ve been able to forgive sellers of marketing tools for calling themselves Marketers – I mean, everyone is doing it. But then I read an article by the CEO of a very well-known company that is a provider of Marketing tools (they call themselves “Marketers” too). In his article he addressed the question, “Isn’t Marketing and Advertising the same thing?” His response was, “Well, not really. Let me explain the differences. Advertising includes: commercials, billboards, radio, and newspapers. Marketing includes: emails, letters, postcards, and fax.” WHAT??? (Ok, in all fairness, he wrote Marketing “includes” not marketing “is”, but still, he used this example to answer the question, “how are Marketing and Advertising different?”, which leads me to believe that’s the basis on which he differentiates them.)
OK – clearly there is a lot of confusion out there. Marketing and Advertising are NOT the same. Advertising is NOT Marketing. Post cards are NOT Marketing. Signs are NOT Marketing. Emails are NOT Marketing. These are tools used in the process of Marketing. They are NOT, in of themselves “Marketing”.
So then, what is Marketing?
Wikipedia - Marketing is the process by which companies create customer interest in goods or services. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business development.[1] It is an integrated process through which companies build strong customer relationships and create value for their customers and for themselves.[1]
American Marketing Association (AMA) – Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
Notice that neither of these definitions includes the words “email”, “advertising”, or “post cards”? That’s because those things are merely the tools used to create customer interest, engage them and get them to want to buy from us. Take a look at the AMA definition, they state that Marketing is more than the activity of marketing (i.e.: emailing) – it is the set of institutions and the processes for generating interest.
Education is Your Key to Success
I want you to be aware. We all know we need Marketing, but be smart; learn what that really means and don’t just trust any salesperson who calls themselves a marketer and walks into your shop selling the marketing idea of the week. Marketing is a process – it’s not a one-time deal. Buying an ad or a sign or an email campaign without an overall strategy or plan is simply a waste of time and money. Educate yourself – take the time to learn and invest in your business wisely.
Bottom line: Marketing is strategy. It’s an all-encompassing, planning, scheduling, studying, figuring-stuff-out, researching, testing, and practicing strategy. And I don’t mean a strategy for getting a 20% response rate on an email campaign, 100 coupons from a print ad, or 20 referrals from your referral group. Marketing is bigger than that – much bigger. And when done right it will give you bigger results than you’ve ever imagined!
For more information about Marketing and how to make it most effective visit: http://FortuneMarketingCompany.com
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+Carolyn Higgins, President of Fortune Marketing Company
- Carolyn Higgins, President of Fortune Marketing Company specializes in helping small to medium sized businesses get the customers they need to sell more, increase profits and achieve all of their business and personal goals. We do this by implementing and managing marketing systems based on data and strategy - there is no guess work. For more information visit us at: FortuneMarketingCompany.com. We'd be glad to help!
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