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Other Added - Sum of Its Parts
Can you see yourself running a small business? If so you can be helped here. Are you a person who can be a small business owner, if so you are an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are ordinary people with an idea that will be sold as a product or service to another ordinary person like you and I.You can be a small business owner from your own home with benefits. Being able to work from your office, your basement or even your garage. This is something that millions of people would love to be....their own BOSS. Small business need to have some organization in order to get it off on the right foot. There needs to be a de
* If you go to all of the time and effort to get booked as a speaker, then run around preparing for and delivering your talks, you’ll get nothing but a nice ego boost and applause unless you target the right audiences and hit them with "What in it for Me?" messages.
All of that time, money and energy wasted…but not if you pay attention to the sum of your parts!
To avoid wasting your reso
"People" is not just the name of a magazine, it is the subject of virtually every story published today. How people use a certain product. Why they behave the way they do. And what activity they're engaged in that is charming, disarming, or alarming. It's all about the people.Most business publications tell us about people we can never identify with, even though we love to read about them. They have seemingly unlimited resources, celebrity contacts, and brilliant well-connected friends. Fun to read but with very little direct relevance to us, except for the moral, legal, and ethical dilemmas and lessons each art
It was actually my mother who inspired this lesson, thanks to the following beachy quote she had on the refrigerator:
"Saltwater taffy, for example, does not taste good. Seagulls are not pleasant birds. Most people look better in clothes – a lot of clothes. But it works. The beach is the ultimate triumph in setting." –from the article, Sea and Be Seen
What does this have to do with marketing professional services? A lot. Just like saltwater taffy, seagulls, and under clothed people, any one thing done in isolation to market your professional services won’t work.
When you take the sum of its parts, marketing works.
Let’s take an easy example: networking. Done in a vacuum, networking is just a "part." Without ways to sustain a new contact’s attention, build their trust, or keep in touch – the other "parts" of your whole – you spend far more time and energy drumming up business than if you had other aspects of your marketing "machine" doing a lot of the work for you.
Let’s get specific. The biggest mistake I see is when people go out, network (or make cold calls, or send direct mail pieces), is that they simultaneously scare prospects off with an anemic poorly-messaged website, no value- adding resources to build your prospect’s confidence, and new contacts that vanish into thin air because there’s no systematic way to stay in front of them that’s affordable and effective.
The same "in isolation" principle applies to other marketing "parts."
* If you invest in telemarketing, but send new leads to a lousy website (even if you don’t send them there, they’ll look you up), you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
* If you’re a master at churning out brilliant weekly e-newsletters, but haven’t "packaged" your services into a range of ways potential clients can buy from you, you’re missing the point of using an e-zine as a smart promotional tool.
* If you go to all of the time and effort to get booked as a speaker, then run around preparing for and delivering your talks, you’ll get nothing but a nice ego boost and applause unless you target the right audiences and hit them with "What in it for Me?" messages.
All of that time, money and energy wasted…but not if you pay attention to the sum of your parts!
To avoid wasting your resou
That’s not you? Great! Bad habits are hard to break once the addiction gets hold of us. Been there. Gave up “smokes” long years ago but it took lots of willpower to kick the habit.FIRST THING IN THE MORNINGShould the question be asked? Is this YOUR best time of day or is ''night' your choice? Everyone has a different clock. Some of us like to sleep longer. Stay up later.Does it matter? You do whatever has to be done. Adjustments have to be made according to our work schedule. Kids going to school. Some of the little ones stay at home or go to day care. College students go to class. Som
What does this have to do with marketing professional services? A lot. Just like saltwater taffy, seagulls, and under clothed people, any one thing done in isolation to market your professional services won’t work.
When you take the sum of its parts, marketing works.
Let’s take an easy example: networking. Done in a vacuum, networking is just a "part." Without ways to sustain a new contact’s attention, build their trust, or keep in touch – the other "parts" of your whole – you spend far more time and energy drumming up business than if you had other aspects of your marketing "machine" doing a lot of the work for you.
Let’s get specific. The biggest mistake I see is when people go out, network (or make cold calls, or send direct mail pieces), is that they simultaneously scare prospects off with an anemic poorly-messaged website, no value- adding resources to build your prospect’s confidence, and new contacts that vanish into thin air because there’s no systematic way to stay in front of them that’s affordable and effective.
The same "in isolation" principle applies to other marketing "parts."
* If you invest in telemarketing, but send new leads to a lousy website (even if you don’t send them there, they’ll look you up), you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
* If you’re a master at churning out brilliant weekly e-newsletters, but haven’t "packaged" your services into a range of ways potential clients can buy from you, you’re missing the point of using an e-zine as a smart promotional tool.
* If you go to all of the time and effort to get booked as a speaker, then run around preparing for and delivering your talks, you’ll get nothing but a nice ego boost and applause unless you target the right audiences and hit them with "What in it for Me?" messages.
All of that time, money and energy wasted…but not if you pay attention to the sum of your parts!
To avoid wasting your reso
You’ve got a great product in fact better than most. In fact people really like what you have to sell. You’ve got excellent prices competitive and reasonable. Your web site is up and running and says the things people need to know about your product. You have a good marketing campaign that reaches the niche market you are targeting. You have learned about factoring and you are getting your money in a timely manner.Yet something is wrong. Your business is not growing, not profitable or both. However, when you try to approach your employees to discuss ideas and plans, they take evasive action (when they
Let’s get specific. The biggest mistake I see is when people go out, network (or make cold calls, or send direct mail pieces), is that they simultaneously scare prospects off with an anemic poorly-messaged website, no value- adding resources to build your prospect’s confidence, and new contacts that vanish into thin air because there’s no systematic way to stay in front of them that’s affordable and effective.
The same "in isolation" principle applies to other marketing "parts."
* If you invest in telemarketing, but send new leads to a lousy website (even if you don’t send them there, they’ll look you up), you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
* If you’re a master at churning out brilliant weekly e-newsletters, but haven’t "packaged" your services into a range of ways potential clients can buy from you, you’re missing the point of using an e-zine as a smart promotional tool.
* If you go to all of the time and effort to get booked as a speaker, then run around preparing for and delivering your talks, you’ll get nothing but a nice ego boost and applause unless you target the right audiences and hit them with "What in it for Me?" messages.
All of that time, money and energy wasted…but not if you pay attention to the sum of your parts!
To avoid wasting your reso
I was talking with a friend recently about Customer Service personnel and what makes a good person become great in the Customer Service field.I thought about it and narrowed it down to 3 basic things.Friendliness.Intelligence.Training.Then he asked me how would I attract a friendly, intelligent and trainable person. I told him I would write an ad, and then he could use it, if he wished.I then proceeded to read about oh, 1000 or so Customer Service ads on various job boards to see if there was one that I thought would work. I did not find many.Most were something like th
The same "in isolation" principle applies to other marketing "parts."
* If you invest in telemarketing, but send new leads to a lousy website (even if you don’t send them there, they’ll look you up), you’re shooting yourself in the foot.
* If you’re a master at churning out brilliant weekly e-newsletters, but haven’t "packaged" your services into a range of ways potential clients can buy from you, you’re missing the point of using an e-zine as a smart promotional tool.
* If you go to all of the time and effort to get booked as a speaker, then run around preparing for and delivering your talks, you’ll get nothing but a nice ego boost and applause unless you target the right audiences and hit them with "What in it for Me?" messages.
All of that time, money and energy wasted…but not if you pay attention to the sum of your parts!
To avoid wasting your reso
Creating a 'kick ass' Sonic Personality© for your business requires that your business have a personality in the first place. Of course every business has one, whether you are aware of it or not, and this is a real danger. Your customers' understanding of who you are, and what you do, as a business, may be very different from the vision you have of yourself. This can be a very serious problem for owner-managed businesses, where the personality of the entrepreneur oft times gets substituted for the personality of the business - big mistake! So what's the first step in crafting a marketable business perso
* If you go to all of the time and effort to get booked as a speaker, then run around preparing for and delivering your talks, you’ll get nothing but a nice ego boost and applause unless you target the right audiences and hit them with "What in it for Me?" messages.
All of that time, money and energy wasted…but not if you pay attention to the sum of your parts!
To avoid wasting your resources and to make the most of your individual marketing efforts, make sure you have all of these parts working together:
* Positioning that sets you apart from others offering a similar service. From your target audiences’ perspective, what makes you different? Why should they choose you?
* Packaging in the form of a value-packed website that you can send new contacts to, demonstrating your value (again, through their eyes) and building their confidence in you as a good solution to their problem.
* Promotion: An easy way to keep-in-touch with contacts and prospects, even if you’re using other high-touch tactics, such as follow- up calls and meetings. The point is that not every new contact is a ready-buyer when you first meet. You need to stay on their radar, at least monthly, so that when they’re ready to buy, you’re there. A monthly e-newsletter or e- zine is the perfect vehicle.
* Persuasion: You’ve got to turn contacts into prospects, prospects into clients, clients into referrers, and so on. Simply setting up sales calls and writing proposals won’t do it, though. As any successful sales person knows, there are many moving "parts" to master. You’ve got to know who the decision makers are, what they’re willing to spend, how buying decisions get made, how to stay in control of the selling conversation, and how to ask for referrals, to name a few.
* Performance is the one "part" most of us in professional services rely on most – it’s how we get referrals and maintain (or tarnish) our reputation in the marketplace. It’s the marketing part that keeps me on my toes the most, above any other marketing challenge I take on, including writing this e-newsletter, upgrading my website, closing a sale, or giving a public talk. Why? Because it’s all about managing and exceeding client expectations, two very tricky "parts" to master. If this doesn’t ring a bell with you, then take this quick quiz to find out what it really takes to master Performanc
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