Marketing - Page 2

Quote: Take more chances than you dare. You'll make more sales than you expect. That's the formula. - Jeffrey Gitomer
Question: What chances are you taking in your prospecting?

Last week we discussed the importance of having a rolling three month prospecting plan. You might be tempted to jump right in and start your plan, but we've found it's helpful to first take a look at your resources. Having your resources in place will allow your prospecting plan to come together with ease and ensure that it is implemented and consistent.

Prospecting has a huge impact on any business. The problem in many businesses is that prospecting is not done consistently and is often done as a last moment reaction to a problem. A business realizes it needs more cash flow or sales to meet its goals and suddenly there is a mad dash to prospect. Unfortunately, most businesses prospecting activities don't go from Zero to Sixty easily. It's a process of building trust, feeding information, and slowly building a relationship that takes time.

This month we have been looking at planning and executing a successful marketing plan for a booth at an event or expo. We've followed Jon's story and have discussed the action that will help to mitigate those same results. You are not done yet. The event isn't truly over until you capture the gathered information and follow up on your promotional promise. Ideally, you will have already planned out how to ensure you finish the event strong!

 Jon’s planning for the event should not have stopped at pre-event activities. To be comfortable with the portrait Jon was painting of his business, Jon should have planned what would happen during the event. Granted, not every possibility can be planned for but Jon could have planned for what he has control over. This includes the Message, the Staff, and the Game.

The stage before an event is all about painting a picture. What is the purpose behind your company's involvement in the event? What is it that your company hopes to gain? It could be exposure to other suppliers, lead generation for your product or service, or it could be that having a presence at the event is worth more and does far less damage than not showing up at all. All are viable results. Are they your desired results? Your desired results should include:

Looking for an efficient way to advertise to clients when they are in your office/store? A great tip is to use a digital picture frame or even a TV that displays promotional materials for your business. Consider using a variety of slides that showcase:

 Have you ever found yourself standing in a book store or novelty shop looking at one of those pictures with an image hidden in the graphics? You stare, and stare, and stare at one point in the picture until the image shows itself. In today's small business climate, getting your business recognized can be like staring into that picture. Customers make thousands of choices everyday that decide the success or failure of small businesses and it is up to you to bring your business into focus. How do you make your business standout? What is different about what you do and how you do it that drives customers to your door? What are you doing to get the name of your business out to your potential customers?

As Michael Gerber pointed out in "The E-Myth Revisited," you have to know who your customers are and what they want from your business. In the following bullets, you will gain a high level view of how to get your business recognized by your customers, their friends and the surrounding community.

Lead generation is the continuous activity of sending the right messages to the right markets, through the right delivery channels to gain attention, elicit a response and earn you a qualified lead.  Count them - that's three rights: 

• The right message
• To the right prospects
• Through the right channels

Two rights and one wrong will not get you the lead generation results you need!  If any one of these three rights of lead generation aren't working, then you've lost the ability to motivate the right prospects to see your message, or if they see it, to have enough interest in your message to respond to it. 

As you engage in the annual ritual of reviewing the year that has passed and designing the year ahead, we at E-Myth Benchmark and the Benchmark Coaching Center encourage you to weave two words into your business strategies; consistent and persistent.  Marketing experts understand and advocate that companies be both consistent in their marketing message and persistent in their advertising activities.  They know by experience that inconsistent messages and scattered advertising initiatives will not yield the returns that consistent messaging and persistent advertising provide.