Small Business Marketing from Charlie Cook

A week ago, a friend of the family, Allen arrived at our home, here in Connecticut, with all his worldly possessions; his laptop, a few law books, and a couple of changes of clothes. He’d just completed his first week at Tulane Law School before being forced to leave his home in New Orleans in advance of Hurricane Katrina.

With the university closed, he’s trying to turn the disruption in his life into an opportunity to get more job experience. He was lucky, I know; so many have suffered and lost so much more. But helping him make a fresh start made me think about rebuilding careers and businesses.

If a storm or a fire ruined your business, what would it take to start attracting clients and generating a positive cash flow? You would want the following three essential elements of your marketing to get your business up and running and making money quickly.

1. Goals
You’d want a clear idea of which of your products or services you wanted to focus on. To get your business up and running as quickly as possible, you would focus your efforts on your most profitable ventures first. You’d want to set goals for the first three months and the next twelve months.

One of the biggest mistakes that business owners make is in not setting sales goals, even when they’re not faced with a disaster. Without a clear idea of the target you’re aiming at I can promise you you won’t reach it. If you set specific goals for your business and write them down you’ll be twenty times more likely to hit your revenue targets.

One of my clients doubled her sales simply by writing down her goals. Why does this make so much of a difference? Because each time you write down a goal, whether it’s for lead generation, web site traffic, response rates to mailings or monthly s.les, you have set yourself a target or a destination. Knowing where you want to go gets you halfway there.

Imagine if you had a road map for your business that told you how to get attention, get clients and increase your profits. Find your route to success.

2. Your Business Network
After a disaster you’d be short of cash and would need to ramp up sales quickly. You wouldn’t have time to spend months building your brand name. You’d want to tap your database of existing clients and prospects. Assuming you’d managed to bring your computer or at least your backup hard drive with you, you could be back in contact with your client base and prospects almost overnight.

One management consulting firm I worked with had dozens of satisfied clients and couldn’t understand why they were having such a hard time growing their business. They’d done work for hundreds of clients and been in touch with thousands of prospects over the years, but they lacked a centralized database and a way to stay in touch with these people on a regular basis. And in most cases, they’d lost touch with past clients and prospects.

Once I showed them how to organize their marketing communication, they started bringing in as much new business as they could handle. People buy from providers they know and trust. If you have a large database of people who know how you can help them, it’s easy to tap it to generate pr0fits.

Set up a lead generation system that builds a database of people who want to hear from you. When you want to jump start your sales, you’ll have qualified prospects that want to buy from you.

Discover how to create a small business marketing system that will generate the leads and sales you need to grow your business >>

3. A Reason For Your Prospects to Buy
Whether you’re restarting after a hurricane or you just want to get people lining up at your door for your products and services, they won’t buy from you unless they have a reason.

Sounds obvious. But many small business owners forget this basic marketing fact. Everyday I talk to entrepreneurs and even marketing professionals who are making the same mistake; despite having a great product or service, they are marketing their company name or a generic name for their services instead of the unique solution they provide.

You see this everywhere, from yellow page ads to web sites., Companies lead with information about themselves instead of zeroing in on the reason prospects should pay attention and buy from them. Which company would you choose, the one that is focused on their name and long-winded descriptions of their credentials, or the one that is focused on how they can help you get what you want?

Your prospects make decisions the same way. To attract lots of customers quickly, give your prospects a reason to buy.

If these three are the things you’d focus on after a disaster, aren’t they important now?

Discover how to build a network of prospects and how to give them a reason to buy so they become clients >>

Every day we make decisions based on hard information and numbers, but when it comes to marketing, most people ignore the research and go with their ‘gut’ or personal preferences. Are you making this small business marketing mistake?

I was on a conference call with a client and his brand new marketing coordinator reviewing their web site. Over the last few months I’d worked with this client to remove the Flash from their site and eliminate extraneous links. The result? Their lead generation went up by a factor of 6. Recently, I wrote new copy for the site, and they’d seen qualified leads increase even more, from 60 to 150 per week.

The success of the improvements I’d suggested were quantifiable. Even so, the first thing the new marketing coordinator said in our conference call was that the copy on the page was too long, and the words and phrases in bold type looked messy. He wanted shorter copy because it gave a cleaner look. Can he afford to dictate these changes and ignore the sales results?

What’s the best way to make decisions about your small business marketing?

You look at the numbers to make all kinds of purchasing decisions. You drive to the gas station that has the lowest prices or you pick a mutual fund that has the best track record. You use hard data to make important decisions. Shouldn’t you being do the same in marketing?

Want a tested and proven strategy for increasing web lead generation and sales? Discover how to create a web site that your best prospects will find nearly impossible to resist. Find out how to get a better response and more clients with your web site.

While I want my clients’ marketing materials to look nice my first priority is that their marketing message, ads or web site generate more leads and more sales. I regularly am asked to review marketing messages, brochure and web sites. Clients ask me, “How do you like them?”

My response is to ask is how many visitors they are getting to their site and how many leads and sales they are generating. My advice to clients is based not on what I personally like, but on what gets the best results.

If you’re serious about increasing your sales and growing your business don’t reinvent the wheel. For years marketing and advertising professionals have been accumulating data about what works and what doesn’t. This is research that you can use to guide your planning, writing and design of your marketing materials. Then you can test your specific ideas on the web to further improve the response you get.

For example, I don’t use an opening page with Flash on my web site because research shows that Flash openers send 80% or more of site visitors away. Testing and experience on the web have shown that effective web copy has more in common with direct mail than capabilities brochures, and that it should be personal and conversational. Other tests have shown that putting key sentences of web site copy in bold type helps the reader skim and scan quickly.

Find out which web site marketing strategies and techniques work to generate leads and sales and which techniques to avoid. You could be making ten times as much with your web site with these proven ideas. Find out how to improve your online profits

What do I mean by testing your ideas?

Before I settle on the wording of a marketing message for a client, for example, I give it a test run. I place Google Ads using the different options I’m considering. Then I watch the results for a few days to see which versions get the best response. Once I see a pattern, I tweak the most successful version of the marketing message to see if another word combination will get an even better response.

By the time I’m done, I know what prospects respond to. I have a clear winner; a marketing message that typically gets two to ten times the response of the one my client had started with.

You can test ad headlines, Flash elements, length of your copy, and even your use of bold type. Every element should be included or not based on whether it contributes to increasing response rates and profits.

You can improve the response you get to your marketing, increase your sales and grow your business. Test each element of your marketing, use that information to make your marketing decisions, and you’ll generate many more leads and sales.

If you’re ready to ‘really’ attract more clients and increase your sales, then do yourself a favor and find out more about ‘Creating Web Sites that Sell’. It’s packed full of reliable web site marketing ideas you can implement immediately to generate more profits. Get the 3 bonus chapters and sell more online.

Charlie,
I really enjoy your newsletters but I have concerns about whether your ideas will help my company’s marketing campaign. Tell me why I shouldn’t use a publicist to further my company’s profile, image and marketing cause instead of trying your ideas?
John – Tulsa, Oklahoma

Like John, you may be wondering where to focus your marketing and sales efforts. You have questions about where to put your resources to increase your sales. I had a query similar to John’s from Alan in Malibu, California. He wanted to know whether or not to allocate his marketing funds to search engine optimization.

Search engine placement and public relations are excellent ways to get your prospects’ attention, as are mass mailings and print or advertising. Together these are the marketing equivalent of a fleet of package delivery trucks. They take your marketing information and put it where your prospects can find it.

Getting your marketing package delivered to the right people at the right time is critical to your sales. You’ve probably got the audience, the timing and the delivery all worked out.

Like most owners of small businesses, you’ve taken great care in choosing your tagline, the information in your brochures and the design of your web site. You’ve worked hard on your marketing package, but no matter how much you spend on various delivery vehicles, your marketing isn’t generating as much new business as you’d like.

Let me clear up some confusion about small business marketing once and for all. The most critical element of your marketing is what you include in your marketing package and how you follow it up, not how you send it.

Discover a small business marketing strategy that can help you attract more prospects, generate more leads, and increase your sales. Find out what to include in your small business marketing materials and a marketing strategy to grow your business.

What you say about your services and the sequence of information you provide determines whether your top search engine placement, mailings or ads generate a trickle or a flood of new sales.

Regardless of the delivery vehicles you use for your marketing, you won’t get the response you deserve unless you discover how to:

– Stop your prospects in their tracks so they feel compelled to read your marketing materials,

– Convince them you can help them,

– Earn their trust,

– Get them to contact you and buy from you.

When you read a magazine, how many of the ads do you actually read? How many prompt you to place an order? When you sift through your mail at the end of the day, how often do you throw away sales letters without even opening them? When you surf the net, how many web sites do you give only a nano second of time and leave without contacting the company?

Your prospects are doing the same thing you are. They are sifting through all the information they see and hear each day, looking for the small handful of items that grab their attention because of their needs, interests or desires.

Don’t let your business get buried in obscurity. Discover how to grab your prospect’s attention and get their business with your web site marketing.

Your marketing either pulls your prospects in or pushes them away. Every element plays a role including;

– Where they first read or hear about your firm,

– The first sentence of your ad, your sales letter or your web site,

– The paragraphs that follow the headings,

– The layout of your marketing web site and your brochures,

– The offers you use and where you use them,

– The number of times your prospects hear from you,

– The sequence of information your prospects receive from you.

I highly recommend using a publicist, a search engine optimization firm, advertising, mass mailings and all the appropriate delivery vehicles you can afford. What too many business people forget is that before you can expect any of these vehicles to be effective, you need to find out what information to send. You need to discover the sequence of steps to take to get prospects to contact you and buy from you.

When your marketing materials are planned, written, designed and delivered correctly, your prospects will not only read them, they’ll feel compelled to respond. That translates into increased sales for you and your business.

My marketing manuals and consulting services are helping thousands of small business owners do just that. By focusing your small business marketing efforts on the information your prospects want, you’ll find it easy to attract new clients and increase your sales to existing clients.

Start getting all the business you’ve been missing. Discover how to use your web site marketing to stop prospects in their tracks and get them to contact you and buy from you.

Marketing a business is like any game. If you know the rules you are much more likely to win. Are you spending your limited time and money on advertising, networking, making calls, mailings, meeting with prospects, yet only achieving middling results?

The problem isn’t that you don’t know your business or provide high quality products and services, it’s that you don’t know the rules of the small business marketing game.

Think about it. Do you play bridge, golf, tennis or go bowling. How would you do if you didn’t understand the rules. You’d spend a lot of effort but you’d wouldn’t get the results you wanted. Sound familiar?

If you’re not winning at marketing, if you’re not attracting a steady stream of new clients, discover the rules to follow.

Marketing To Win
To win the marketing game, you need to know the rules. The key rules to getting the clients you want are:

1. Market Solutions
2. Target Your Market
3. Demonstrate Value
4. Build Your Network
5. Stay in Touch

Discover the fundamental rules to winning new clients and winning with your business. Use this link to get the marketing rules you need to generate a steady stream of sales.

1. Market Solutions
Most service professionals focus their marketing on their approach and the products and services they offer. While competence is a key to doing the work, most clients’ primary concern is getting problems solved and having their spoken and unspoken needs met. Instead of marketing your credentials, your processes and methodology, focus on your prospects’ problems, and market your knowledge – the solutions you provide.

Marketing is about making connections, specifically between a client’s unmet need and the solutions you provide. The best way to impress clients is to show them you understand the problems they are experiencing. If you want to leverage your credentials, mention past clients when you provide examples of how you solved similar problems.

2. Target Your Market
Are you getting a positive response to your marketing efforts? If not, then you may not have targeted your market and their specific needs and interests precisely enough. Independent professionals or small business owners often try to do the impossible and be everything to everybody. Instead define your niche market and get the attention of this group.

3. Demonstrate Value
Actions speak louder than words. If you want clients to be aware of the value of your products or services, you will need to give them a test drive. Open the door with newsletters, workshops, a free session or articles found on your web site. Over time demonstrating the value you provide will convince prospective clients of your ability to solve their problems and help position you as a trusted advisor.

Discover a winning marketing strategy to attract more prospects, generate more leads, and increase your sales. Use this link to win at your business.

4. Build Your Network
The objective is to know who is interested in your products and services. Networking is a good idea because people like to buy products from people they know and trust. If they’ve met you or been referred to you they are more likely to trust you.

Depending on the business you are in, you can build your network of prospects through conventional networking or through your web site and email. Either way the more qualified prospects you have in your network the better.

5. Stay in Touch
Memories are short. Once we hit middle age most of us can’t remember what we had for dinner two days ago, much less the host of services various firms provide. In most cases its safe to assume your target market has forgotten about the range of solutions you offer, if they remember you at all.

Stay in touch with your target market on a monthly or, at a minimum quarterly basis. When you contact people be clear about the action you want prospective, existing and past clients to take.

Become a Winner
Once you know the rules to marketing you’ll win over more prospects, more clients and more business.

Discover how to win at small business marketing with these fundamental marketing rules. Use this link to become a winner at business too.

This past weekend my good friend John and I went out for a sail on my boat in dubious weather conditions. Dubious because there really wasn’t any wind, and you need wind to move a sailboat. But John and I are stubborn, and the sun was shining for the first time in many days, so we raised the sails and more or less drifted out of the harbor into Long Island Sound.

We made steady progress, but it was slow going in the light breeze. We covered a couple of miles, then turned and headed home. On the way in, a fresh breeze picked up, scooting us shoreward. Our perseverance paid off with a delightful bit of late afternoon sailing. (Use this link to see my boat >>)

Of course the fact we both know our way around boats made all the difference. Without the skill to trim the sails well for the conditions, and the knowledge of how to make adjustments to move the boat in the light air, we could still be drifting aimlessly around the Sound.

Perseverance pays off in small business marketing too, but not unless you know how to adjust to the conditions. You may be even more stubborn than my wife tells me I am, but if you’re not doing the right things to get attention and grow your business, you’re going to be adrift, at the mercy of the tide.

Are you the persistent type, too? Find out how to profit from this trait and get results from your marketing. Use this link to get the details >>

Bob wrote me this week about his photography business. In his words, the response to his marketing has been, “next to nothing”. In fact, his recent mailing to 1300 prospects generated only one response and when he returned the call, that prospect had already selected another studio.

Bob included a copy of the postcard he’d used in his mailing to seniors. A photograph of his was reproduced on the front, and the back featured 3 items:

– 50% off his services
– $25 prepaid card for itunes
– chance to win a free ipod nano

Should Bob repeat this type of mailing and hope it will start working, or should he be trimming his sails and adjusting his marketing? You guessed it —he needs to change his marketing strategies.

People buy solutions to their problems and the benefits you provide. No problem, no solution, no sale!

Persistence can pay off if you’re doing the right thing. If you’re not getting results, it can bankrupt your business. This almost happened to Jose. Here’s what Jose emailed me last week. It had been a while since I’d worked with him, and he wanted to bring me up to date. Here’s the email he sent me.

“It’s funny how people who own a business sometimes won’t spend a single dime to invest on any materials that will double or even triple their income as we did. When I came to you, I was going broke and my brother couldn’t stand the thought of losing our business. With a few thousand dollars left, I invested in your marketing materials and in our conversation you gave me so many ideas.

This is the funny part. When I applied the ad you wrote for me and used the 15 Second Marketing material, you changed my life for the better. Charlie, I’ve enclosed a new picture of my family and me. I’m a little heavier, that’s because I can afford to eat more and here is my wife Rachel, my 5-year-old daughter Leah and our new puppy, a Shepherd, in front of our new home. (Notice how happy we look.)

You are the best…. I love you, man.

PS. I still read every single email you send me because you give out so many secrets. The picture of the dripping faucet below represented me when my old ad was not working for me. Each drip that fell was money being wasted even as I slept. NOT ANY MORE…YOU ENDED THAT OVER NIGHT!!”
Jose Lopez, Hartford, CT

Use the wrong ad and business marketing strategy over and over and you’ll go broke. Use the right ad and marketing approach over and over and you’ll be outrageously successful.

For perseverance to pay off, it needs to be coupled with knowledge, skill and the right tools. Ready to find out what tools Jose used to double or triple his income?
Use this link to get the details >>

John’s printing firm had just printed a $40,000 job for a client that came out perfectly except for one detail. The beautifully printed brochure only generated one inquiry for his client.

The reason for this was out of his control, but John was frustrated because the same thing had happened before. He called me looking for a solution. Of course, John’s firm is just implementing small business marketing concepts and designs they’ve been handed. They don’t have control over the response rate. Regardless, John wanted to find a way to help his clients get better results from the money they spend on marketing.

What is missing from the small business marketing pieces John’s firm prints? What’s the one thing every marketing piece, email, sales letter, web site, and ad should do?

John’s marketing pieces and every marketing piece should result in reaction by the reader, ideally the reaction you want, an email, a call or a sale.

Small Business marketing is like driving your car. Each time you take a specific action you get a specific result. When you put your foot on the accelerator, assuming the engine is running and you’ve got it in gear, your car will move forward. When you lift your foot off the gas and press on the brake, you’ll slow your car down.

The physics of this are explained by Newton’s third law of motion; “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

In a transaction, the action is the buyer, who gives you money, and you the seller’s reaction is to deliver the product or service they bought. In marketing the way it’s supposed to work is you give your prospects written or audio information and they react by giving you their attention and their interest.

Wish this happened more often with your marketing?

Ready to find out which actions result in more clients and more profits? Use this link to get the details >>

The marketing reaction you may think you want is to instantly generate a lead, interest and a sale. But that’s like asking someone to marry you on the first date. Once you’ve got their attention, you still need to earn their trust and develop a relationship. Then you can think about getting more of a commitment.

Whether you are dating or marketing, you take specific actions at each stage in a relationship to get a positive reaction. To get better results from your small business marketing, understand that your actions determine the reactions of your prospects and the response you’ll get.

If you want a different reaction to a sales letter, or a web site or a call, change the actions you’re currently taking. If your current marketing isn’t getting the response you want, your prospects aren’t going to start reacting differently all of a sudden.

Want to get a better response from your marketing? Discover what works to get prospects to take the actions you want. Use this link to get the details >>

Here are two ways to improve your marketing with Newton in mind;

1.Keep your marketing efforts focused to generate the desired response.

Many business owners and marketers make the mistake of thinking that one brand campaign or ad campaign or web site page can attract a lead, generate interest and complete the sale. It’s just not the case. Remember the couple on the first date?

Action and reaction; each element of your marketing, executed well, will generate one specific response. Your business card, your print pieces, your sales letters, and a web page, will each motivate one reaction, not a whole series of responses.

Make your marketing work by setting a specific objective for each element of your marketing. Then determine the action you need to take to reach that objective.

What do you want your prospects to do?

• Visit your web site?
• Ask for more information?
• Fill in a form on your web site?
• Trust you?
• Pick up the phone and call you?
• Not call you if they’re unqualified?
• Make a purchase?
• Understand the value of your products?

Be precise and realistic about the reaction you want.

2.The success of each marketing effort in generating the desired reaction by your prospects depends on the perceived value of your offer. This is true whether you’re trying to get people to visit your web site, email you, call you or sign up for your $50,000 services.

Make successful offers by identifying what your prospects want and need, and by giving it to them. I can hear what you’re thinking, “I’ll lose money if I give away too much.”

You’re right; you need to craft every offer carefully so that you make money. For example, I give away an eBook, hundreds of articles and ideas, and more, but I won’t give away one-one-one coaching time. That’s where I provide the most value and get the most in return.

Whether you’re printing your business card, editing your bio or putting together a $40,000 marketing campaign, get the response rate you want by first defining the reaction you want from your prospects. Then plan the action that will get that reaction.

You may have heard the quote, “If you don’t like the answer, ask a different question.” The same is true in marketing. If you want different results, take different marketing actions.

Of course going from generating a lead, to having a qualified prospect to a sale involves multiple marketing actions and prospect reactions and looks something like this:

Action1>Reaction1> Action2>Reaction2> Action3>Reaction3> Conclusion/Sale

Does this action / reaction concept make sense to you? It’s the foundation of the Marketing For Success tools I’ve put together to help you get all the clients you want.

Want better results? Discover the actions that result in more leads and sales. Use this link to get the details >>

At every gym there are the regulars in the weight room. These are the guys and, more and more, the women who work out 5 days a week, lifting heavier and heavier weights. You may have seen them. They’re ‘bulked up’ and their muscles bulge. Are they as powerful as they look?

Body builders may look like towers of power but few, if any, can play a sport. All that pumping iron builds muscle, but only a few people, such as NFL football players, are able to put to use more than 25% of the muscle they have. All that muscle looks impressive, but if all you can do with it is lift weights at the gym, what good is it?

It’s the same with your small business marketing plan. You may be spending a lot of time and money bulking up your marketing and advertising or your website, but is there any correlation between marketing activity and results?

You could send out 20,000 brochures, spend $15,000 a month on advertising, or spend $250,000 on a web site, as one client did. You could bulk up your marketing with a lot of effort and big budgets without improving your small business marketing results.

You could be pumping iron with your marketing, lots of activity but not enough sales

Discover how to get your marketing plan in shape so you make use of the time and money you’re putting into growing your business. Don’t just go for bulk, go for results.

Find out how to attract more clients and increase sales  >>

1. Set Goals for Your Business
The first question I ask people who call me about growing their business is what their goals are. I ask them how much revenue they want to generate in the next twelve months. Few have a specific number in mind. They just know that they want to make more m0ney.

Of course you want to make more. Who doesn’t? But in order to create a marketing plan that will get you where you want to go, you need a clear idea of your destination. Without a plan, you’re planning to fail.

Set your revenue goals, for the year, the month and the week. Write these numbers down post them prominently so you see them every morning. With your destination in mind you can determine the best way to get there.

2. Set Lead Generation Goals
To achieve your revenue goals you’re going to need to attract prospects, lots of them. Most businesses convert 1% to 10% of their prospects to clients and customers, even with excellent salespeople. You’ll need to attract 10 to 100 prospects for every sale you’d like to generate.

Based on your revenue goals, determine your monthly sales targets and, in turn, the number of qualified prospects you need to attract. That number is your monthly lead generation goal. Write this number down next to your revenue goals.

3. Create a Lead Generation System
Imagine your prospect is Donald Trump or Meg Whitman, the CEO of eBay. What’s your objective? You want these busy people who have a lot on their minds to contact you and buy from you.

It doesn’t matter what you are selling or to whom you are selling. To attract prospects, they have to be motivated to contact you. You need a lead generation system that prompts them to call you, email you or stop by your showroom.

The lack of a simple and reliable lead generation system is the number one barrier to growing most small businesses.

Find out how to attract more clients >>

4. Avoid Losing Potential sales
On average, businesses of all sizes miss 80% of potential sales due to lack of follow-up. Most companies lack the simple marketing systems they need to capture these sales.

Once a prospect contacts you, you need a system for converting them to clients. And once you’ve closed the first sale, you need a system for getting your first-time customers to buy again.

And it doesn’t stop there. People who have purchased your products and services are your best source for new clients. You also need a system for mining this resource to generate a flood of referrals.

Want your prospects to buy from you, the first time and again and again? Want them to refer a flood of new clients to you?

Attract more clients and see your sales surge using this marketing strategy >>

Don’t just “pump iron” with your marketing. Set your goals and establish small business marketing systems to generate more business than you can handle. When you have a reliable system for generating leads and converting prospects to clients, you’ll develop muscle where you want it, in your bank account.

When you put an ad in a magazine, send out a sales letter, or put up a web site, you want results. You want your prospects to contact you and to buy from you; you hope to get a flood of calls and sales.

If your strategic marketing isn’t generating the results you want, then it’s time to change your marketing strategy! Don’t expect to improve your results using the same strategy.

Here’s an example. A search engine positioning firm I work with was having trouble generating leads. Yes, in spite of their superior ability to put their site at the top of the search engine listings and do the same for their clients, they were hardly converting any of their site visitors into leads and then clients. They were getting well over a thousand visitors a week to their site and generating at best a single inquiry per week.

Think about this for a minute. Most people assume that getting your web site to the top of the search engine listings will solve all their web site marketing problems. The reality is that it doesn’t matter how many visitors you get to your web site (or how many sales letters you send or ads you place,) if you aren’t generating leads and converting them to sales.

Find out how to change your strategic marketing so that your ads, your sales letters and your web site get a huge response >>

The search engine positioning firm I was working with has many satisfied national clients, are highly skilled and great people to work with, but their marketing strategy was broken. Their website looked very similar to their competitors’ sites. In fact, with a lot of information about what they do and who they are, it read like a blend of the information found on websites of other firms who offer similar services.

Many small business owners look at their competitors’ marketing materials and cobble together the information for their own pieces based on what they see. The problem with this approach is that they are copying a strategy that isn’t working for someone else. Once they publish their materials, someone else copies the same stuff and tries to make it work.

Know anyone who has done this?

Nine times out of ten, marketing materials put together in this way lead with the company name and then list services or features. I can guarantee that if you are using this approach to marketing your business, you’re not happy. This marketing strategy doesn’t work.

Discover a small business marketing strategy that can help you attract more prospects, generate more leads, and increase your sales>>

Is your marketing working? Ask yourself the following questions:
– How many leads did my web site generate relative to the number of visitors it gets?

– How many leads did my ad generate relative to the cost and number of people who saw it?

– How many leads did my sales letter generate relative to the number of letters I sent out?

Then ask yourself:
– Given the number of leads generated, how many did I convert into sales?

– What was the dollar volume of sales generated from each lead?

It’s not a matter of time, either. If your marketing materials aren’t pulling in clients within a few days, they’re not going to do any better if you keep running them for months.

This client had the same problem with his marketing that my Dad has with his boat; he just couldn’t let go. After years of being dragged up and down a rocky beach, my Dad’s aluminum skiff has lost many of the rivets in the bottom.

Put it in the water and throttle up the outboard, and fine sprays of water push up through the small rivet holes as you pick up speed. Everyone in the boat gets an upside down shower. Wherever you’re going, you arrive damp.

Every year, the family tries to get Dad to replace his skiff, but he’s had it so long he can’t bring himself to part with it, even though its not doing the basic job of keeping water out.

Is your marketing like my Dad’s boat? You’ve used it for years but it’s not generating enough new business. If so, then it’s time for a change. It’s time to use a marketing strategy that puts you on top.

Want to discover the fastest way to jump start your sales?
With this one simple strategy you can generate more leads and sales in one month than you did in the last twelve.

Discover how to make your web site do what it’s supposed to do, generate a ton of leads and sales >>

Last week I got a call from Jose, who was looking for help improving his ads. He’d been running the same ad in four local papers for two months and only gotten one response. He was understandably frustrated. With more than a dozen very satisfied clients, he knows that the residential property management services he and his brother provide should interest more people, but he wasn’t having any success getting attention or generating leads for his small business .

Jose knew that to grow his business he’d need to do some marketing. He had a web site and was doing all the networking he could in addition to running his ads. Isn’t this what he should be doing to attract more clients? Aren’t advertising, web sites, mailings and networking what small business marketing is all about?

Webster’s dictionary thinks so; it defines marketing as, “an aggregate of functions involved in moving goods from producer to consumer”. In other words, small business marketing is a collection of activities. Is this how you think of it? Has approaching marketing with this mindset helped you increase your sales and profits?

Think about it. You started your business to provide products or services that help people. You work long and hard for your clients to ensure they get what they want. You know that the more helpful you are to your clients, the more likely they’ll be to hire you again and the more often they’ll recommend you.

Your products and services are aimed at meeting your prospects’ wants and needs. Focus your marketing on these wants and needs and use them to guide your marketing activities.

Small Business Marketing is Helping Your Prospects Get What They Want.

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Marketing is not about you. It is not building your brand name, (unless you’re a Fortune 500 company and have the advertising budget to match). It is not convincing people to buy your products and services. It is not a group of activities that move goods and services. It is about your customers and what they want.

Working with Jose, I had shown him how to refocus his marketing on what his prospects were looking for. A few days ago Jose called me back to tell me about his experience with trying out this helping model of marketing. During a recent visit to Home Depot, he struck up a conversation with a prospect, Bob, who asked what Jose did. Instead of going through the litany of services his company provides, Jose said, “We help landlords manage their properties more efficiently and make more money.”

That got Bob’s attention; he wanted to know how Jose helped landlords. Jose briefly explained his company’s services from the landlord’s point of view. Bob asked for Jose’s business card, so they could have a conversation about Jose managing Bob’s 56 rental properties.

Whether you are crafting your advertising copy, elevator speech, or the copy for your web or print brochure, your business marketing should focus on what your prospects want. When your prospects see you as helping them instead of just trying to sell them, they’ll be more likely to respond.

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Want to help your prospects get what they want so you can increase your sales and profits? Focus your marketing on helping by doing the following three things.

• Regularly ask your prospects what they want, what their goals are and how you can help them.

• Use this information to shape your marketing copy.

• Describe in brief and in detail your clients’ concerns and how you help them on everything from your business card to your sales letters to your ads and to your web site.

When you focus your small business marketing on helping your prospects get what they want, you’ll get what you want; more leads, more prospects and more clients.

When a company announces that they’ve lost a billion dollars in the first three months of the year, as General Motors did two weeks ago, it is a good indication that they are way, way off course. While Ford and Daimler/Chrysler weren’t in the hole for a billion dollars, their profits were down by 50% or more for the quarter. Their cars just aren’t selling.

Why are these companies having such a hard time selling their products and what does it have to do with your marketing?

According to Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie, these companies, “don’t tend to be good learning organizations which is something Toyota and Honda are superb at.” And in the New York Times, “General Motors and Ford have swerved off course for a far more basic reason: not enough people like their cars.”

All three companies have lost sight of the most important aspect of their business and their marketing; what their prospective customers want and need. Focused on shareholder profits, they’ve lost their vision of what their prospects are looking for.

There are two ways of thinking about making more money. You can ask yourself,

A. How can I maximize my profits?

Or you can ask yourself,

B. How can I give my customers what they want and need and maximize my profits?

Are you putting profits before prospects?

Whether you’re running a one-person firm or a hundred-person company, your compass should point to what prospects want and need. This is the direction to long-term success; your customers have the information you need to develop your products and services and map out your small business marketing strategy.

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Help your clients get what they want and need, and they’ll buy your products or services again and again and tell all their friends to do the same.

Do you know what your prospects want and need?

Here’s how to keep your business and your marketing pointed to profits:

1. Constantly Collect Information
You don’t need to hire a marketing research firm and spend tens of thousands of dollars to learn what your prospects want.  Yes, third party research can provide one more way of listening to what people want, but you can use many low- and no-cost ways of collecting information.

Use every prospect and client contact to find out more about what they want and need. Every time a prospect or client talks to you on the phone or visits your web site, use the opportunity to prompt them to tell you more about their needs. Get people to respond to your postcard, letter or your web site copy by offering them a free report in return for their input.

2. Ask Questions
Ask prospects and clients what they need and want. Ask clients how they used your product or service and what would make it even more useful.

3. Watch What Clients Do With Your Products and Services
One of the challenges of product development is getting prospects to identify a product they haven’t seen. Steve Maynard, a Vice President of Marketing at Wiremold in Connecticut understood this dilemma and had a simple solution.He regularly sent his employees out to watch how customers used his company’s products.

By watching customers install their wire and cable management products, they could identify any problems that occurred and come up with new or improved products. These insights into your customers’ needs and problems can also drive your marketing.

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4. Listen to the Questions Prospects and Clients Ask Everyday
Prospects and clients call me with lots of questions about how to improve their marketing. I get questions about cold calling, email marketing, closing sales, getting the boss to spend money on marketing, solving office politics etc. Each question is an indication of a need. When I evaluate which products to develop, which services to keep and which to add, I use this list of my own prospects’ needs to help set the course of my business.

My primary service is teaching people how to market their products and services, but I have had so many requests for help with copy writing that uses the successful approach I espouse that I am now offering copy writing as an added service.

5. Think About How You Want to Be Seen By Your Customers
Do you want your customers to think of you solely as a profit-driven service provider? Or do you want your clients to think of you as a professional who they know and trust to help them solve their problems?  The path you choose will determine how you approach your product development, delivery and marketing.

Want to ensure repeat orders and the continued growth of your business? Keep your business compass pointed to prospects’ needs and wants and you’ll stay on a course toward long term success and greater profits.