A new client had a major epiphany in our first session.
“I realise we haven’t spent any real effort on marketing and that has to change. Rather than be technical suppliers who are great at delivering, in an increasingly competitive market the only way we will grow market share is to become effective marketers of what we do.”
Kudos to her. It’s not often that someone “gets it” immediately.
There are two fundamental skills which will ensure your survival and success in any economic circumstances.
They are marketing and selling.
I’m sure you have a great product or service. One you know would benefit your customers. Improve their lives, help them save more time or money.
You love what you do. You’re good at it. So you want to spend the majority of your time producing and delivering. It’s normal. Why would you have got into this business otherwise?
So you spend the whole time doing the “technical work”, fighting fires, sorting out delivery, worrying about staff. The list goes on.
But who’s bringing in the clients?
The big trap is thinking that if you’re great at what you do be it accounting, legal, engineering, plumbing, manufacturing or retailing, prospects “should” recognise your expertise and beat a path to your door.
They won’t. Primarily because they have no idea you exist and could solve their problems.
Therefore you must have a predictable system to attract and convert quality leads into good, long term clients.
So your number one job should be working on marketing systems to bring in a steady stream of new business.
And all of your marketing efforts must be designed to do one thing only…
MOTIVATE QUALIFIED PROSPECTS TO CALL YOU!
And when they do, have a sales process which converts them into loyal, long term clients.
Moving from a “technical” to a “marketing” orientation can be a major mindset shift. But it’s a one that is critical to your prosperity.
Yes, you have to be able to deliver. But nothing happens until something is sold.
Ironically though, when times are tough, marketing often gets ditched. “It’s too expensive – we need to save money” is a common refrain.
If this is you, resist with every fibre of your body!
No matter what the state of the economy people will buy things they really want.
And your job is to get them to choose you!
But that will only happen if you actively market and sell.
Want proof? Check out the studies on this page which show companies who increased marketing spend in difficult times had major boosts to their market share and profitability both during and after the economy improved. Companies who didn’t often didn’t survive.
Over the next few articles I’ll detail the structure we have successfully used for years and taught our clients to collectively sell millions of dollars’ worth of products and services.
In the meantime if you’d like to accelerate your business growth and profitability, check out our Business Profit Accelerator program. With a focus on effective marketing and selling you will rapidly improve your bottom line results. We’ve proved it time and time again with our clients and it will work for you.
Click here for more information and then call us on 0414-913334.
