Marketing

I’ve always exercised a lot and thought I was in pretty decent physical condition. But a year ago, after a long recovery from a serious shoulder injury, I decided I needed expert help to prevent any more injuries. I started working out with Seth Forman, who specializes in sports-specific training,

After a year of Seth’s expert training and consistent practice on my part, I’ve achieved the results I wanted. I’m stronger, faster and I’ve got more stamina. I feel terrific and I’m enjoying the cycling, rollerblading, kayaking and especially skiing do on weekends and vacations.

To improve your small business marketing, you need to do the same thing you’d do if you wanted to become more successful at a sport, whether it’s skiing, golf, tennis or basketball. Get expert advice and put that advice into practice each and every week.

My weekly workouts have had a benefit for Seth, too. In between reps of single leg squats’ and ‘walking lunges’, I give him advice about business marketing. In the year since we began, he has doubled his sports training business.

To help you get your marketing in shape, I’ve outlined a Marketing Workout Program below.

Are you looking to get your marketing in shape so you can earn more with your business? I wrote these marketing tools to show you exactly what to do. Get the details >>

* Your Weekly Marketing Workout Program *

Set Your Fitness Goals

1. Grow your list of qualified prospects by 5% each month. If you can do it your cumulative growth would be at least 100% each year.

2. Get a better response with your ads, sales letters and web site.

3. Increase your conversion rate of prospects to clients.

4. Help more of your prospects get what they want.

5. Increase sales by 5% each month for a cumulative growth of at least 100% each year.

6. Be more successful and have more fun.

Track Your Progress

If you worked out with a fitness trainer, you’d keep track of the amount of weight you were lifting and how many repetitions. Each week you’d track your progress. The same is true with your marketing fitness. You need to track:

1. The total number of qualified prospects on your list. Bigger is better.

2. The number of new leads you added last week.

3. Your conversion rates: including ads seen to leads generated, leads to clients, new client to repeat client, dollar volume of sales per client, etc.

4. Your total income from sales.

5. Your net revenue.

Get your marketing in shape >>

Part I – Warm Up

• Clarify the actions you want prospects to take in response to each of your marketing efforts.

• Review what’s working and what’s not. Then identify the one area where you’d get the biggest benefit if you could get it in shape.

• Simplify your small business marketing effort to help prospects take the action you want them to take.

Part II – Strengthening

• Improve your marketing message. Fine tune existing copy and test alternative copy. With a compelling business marketing message, a simple web page can prompt 15 to 25% of site visitors to contact you.

• Replace weak marketing copy with effective copy that connects with prospects’ concerns. Tap your prospects’ curiosity and impart a sense of urgency.

• Revise ad and web page designs so the visual hierarchy and use of type, color and layout increases the effectiveness of your marketing.

• Use your advertising, mailings, web site and public relation efforts to reach more people each week.

• Build relationships with prospects and clients by sharing one idea or tip they can use every week or at least two times a month. Skip this one-step of your marketing conditioning and you risk losing the leads you’ve worked so hard to get.

• Improve your follow-up system. Each email you send and phone call you make can be improved to increase overall the response rate.

Get your marketing in shape >>

Part III – Cool Down

• Create your ‘To Do List’ of monthly and weekly marketing tasks.

• Delegate these tasks appropriately. Use your time to do tasks that only you can do. Delegate other tasks to qualified employees or to subcontractors. When you need expert advice, get it.

• Schedule your marketing sessions for the next week, even if you are just having a marketing meeting with yourself. Make the time for marketing.

Ready to get your marketing in shape so you can enjoy increased profits? Start working at it at least twice a week using proven strategies and you’ll see results. Week by week, your marketing and your business will improve.

You could keep marketing the way you have been and risk hurting your business or you could get help and discover how to get your marketing in shape. I wrote each of these to give you the tools you need to be successful.

Discover the strategies and techniques that will help you grow your business. Get the details >>

Is Your Small Business Marketing Telling The Whole Story?

Charlie Cook

My kids taught me a lot about marketing communication when they were teenagers. My son had me playing 20 questions. When I asked what he’d done at school or out with his friends the night before, I’d get one of two classic teenage responses; “Stuff” or “Nothing”. I’d have to pepper him with questions to learn any more.

With my daughter, I could hardly get a word in edgewise. She’s a great storyteller, but she wanted to tell me everything about everyone. Neither of them were really giving me what I wanted.

If these had been sales calls and I’d been a business prospect instead of a devoted parent, I’d have ended the conversation or walked away. I’d have thought, “Great people, but they don’t understand my point of view or my problems.”

Does your small business marketing turn prospects off with too little or too much information?

Do you approach your marketing from your customers’ point of view?

Is your small business marketing generating the leads you need to grow your business?

If a prospect asked you what you do, you’d never respond by just saying “Stuff”.

But what do you say? Do you tell them that you’re in advertising, or that you are a lawyer, accountant, designer, entrepreneur, franchise consultant, realtor, trainer, or software developer?

Statements like this don’t start a conversation fully explain what you do or how a prospect could benefit from your products or services. These one or two word answers are the equivalent of your teenager telling you they’ve been doing “Stuff”.

Don’t make your prospects play “20 Questions” with you to understand your business. Give them a clear, succinct marketing message that describes how you can help them and why they need you.

Once you’ve got their attention with your marketing message, follow it up with the information they need, a clarification of the problems you solve, the solutions you provide and a reason to contact you. Make it easy for your prospects to get what they want from your marketing materials, whether you use ads, brochures, a web site or other media.

• Define your prospects’ most common concerns and the problems they want resolved.

• Present the solutions your provide in the context of these problems.

• Explain why they need you, from their point of view.

• Anticipate and answer their questions

I was on the phone with Marilyn, who wanted to know what her firm could do to spread the word and get more clients. Last year they made over a million dollars, but so far this year they haven’t gotten the number of inquires they need to continue to grow the company. What’s getting in the way?

While I was talking with Marilyn, I typed her firm’s URL into my web browser to take a look at the way they are promoting themselves. I had two reactions when her site came up in my browser. One, it was very attractive and professionally done. Two, after looking at it for a few
minutes, I had no idea what the business actually did, who they helped or how.

There was a lot of information on the site, but it wasn’t telling me what I needed to know. It took me another ten minutes and a number of questions to find out what her small business software development and computer-networking firm did.

Your prospects don’t have the motivation of a parent talking to a teenager. If its hard for your prospects to figure out whether or not you can help them from your small business marketing materials, they’re gone. Don’t expect them to decipher unclear copy or hunt through your web site to find the information they need.

Generate more leads and sales by using a marketing message, supporting marketing copy and a coordinated marketing system that helps your prospects understand why they need you and how you can solve their problems.

Want more leads, more prospect relationships and more sales? If you want different results you’ll need to do something different with your marketing. Get the marketing tools and expertise you need to make a change and to grow your business faster >>

Why Small Business Marketing Is Like Rowing A Boat

Charlie Cook

Marketing for sales is like rowing a boat. When you know how the pointed bow moves smoothly forward through the water encountering the least amount of resistance. Rowing backwards, the square stern of the boat pushes against the water, requiring more effort and increases the risk of having a wave come over the transom (back) and swamping it. Yet most people market backwards, trying to grow their business while pushing against the greatest level of resistance.

Wouldn’t you like to market your business so that it moved easily forward?

What’s the first thing most people do to increase sales of their products, services? They put together a description of their credentials. Then they pick up the phone, run an ad campaign, send out a brochure and or build a web site and ask people to buy.

Do you know anyone who has used this approach?

Have you tried it yourself?

Were you happy with the number of new clients and customers you attracted?

Discover how to market forwards, attract more prospects, reduce resistance to sales, and have more clients and customers >>

It’s a common misconception that the fastest way to attract more clients and customers is to focus on asking people to buy. It looks like the obvious route, but in most cases it generates only a trickle of new clients for small business owners. It can work if you’re a large company with millions of dollars to spend building your brand. Why doesn’t this selling approach work for service professionals and small business owners?

A sale is the end point or one of the waypoints in your relationship with a client. Before they are ready to give you their money prospects need to be confident that you have what they want, and they trust your product or service will deliver on your promises.

When you lead with a focus on selling and your credentials you run into high levels of resistance. It is like trying to row a boat backwards. Marketing is about building relationships, one by one. Start by focusing on what your prospect wants, not on yourself.

Think about it. When you pick up the phone or encounter a friend, what’s one of the first things you say? Do you launch into a monologue about yourself? Most people usually start the conversation with a friendly questions or two and then find a topic of mutual interest. If you have information your friend is interested in, you share it. I frequently get calls from people who say they hate marketing their business. Why? Trying to convince people to buy feels pushy.

An alternative that is more effective – and more fun – is to focus instead on giving people what they want. Get your prospect’s attention by leading with a question or statement that succinctly gets them thinking about how you can solve a problem they have. This is your marketing message or elevator speech, not your sales pitch. Once you have their interest, give them something they want in order to prompt them to contact you. This could be a short report or article.

Does your business marketing plan give people what they want?

Does your elevator speech help start a conversation and a relationship?

Increase Your Business Opportunities and Sales in 15 Seconds. You’ll get more business with a BRILLIANT Marketing Message and Elevator Speech. Learn how to get your prospects’ attention by giving them what they want and you’ll attract more clients and be more successful.

Once a prospect gives you their contact information, go to work and make good on their trust by showing an interest in their needs and giving them a steady stream of useful tips. The more you give your prospects, the stronger your relationship will be.

Rowing a boat backwards is hard work and won’t get you very far. There is just too much resistance. To attract more clients and grow your business stop marketing backwards and pushing against high levels of resistance. Give your prospects what they want, build relationships and you’ll find more prospects buying the solutions you provide.