Marketing For Small Business Owners

As a small business owner you need to know where to place your focus at any given moment. Marketing is no different.

I think one of the greatest challenges is knowing where to place your focus in your marketing. If you get this right then you will develop a marketing system that over time brings you a consistent reliable stream of new clients.

For many business owners though marketing (like many things) becomes overwhelming because of where they place their focus.

Having coached hundreds of small business owners over the last few years the biggest obstacle to building an effective marketing system is that we get seduced by the latest marketing idea of the month.

Doesn’t it seem like every month there is a new marketing must have tool that every one is raving about?

You know what I mean … one week we are being told that Social Media is the only way to market in the so called ‘New Economy’ and if you are not marketing using Social Media then you will be left behind. Well maybe that is true but only if your target market are there on mass.

The next week we are hearing that Video Marketing is the future and if you don’t start learning how to do video then you will not reach your market.

Every six months another expert is telling us that the only way to get new clients is to hunt them down on the phone and make 500 cold calls a week.

The next week somebody else is telling us that speaking is no longer an effective way to market and the only way to move forward is to join their Mastermind group … and on and on it goes.

I don’t know about you but I find it all quite exhausting just trying to keep up.

So who is right and who is wrong?

Who’s advice should you follow?

What must you do to develop an effective marketing system?

Here is a clue … before you go any further you will want to get this clear in your mind … all of these are tactics. Business owners who struggle with their marketing have a tendency to leap from one tactic to the next to the next and fail to understand how each tactic relates to their overall marketing strategy.

What is most important in developing the marketing in your business is the underlying strategy. You must get clear on the strategy first before deciding which tactics to implement to achieve that strategy.

Understanding which strategy is right for your business right now is really simple. First there are only three key areas to work on in developing your marketing strategy. These are:

1/ Attracting Leads – A successful marketing system starts with your ability to attract leads to you. This involves underdstanding WHO you want to attract and WHAT will make you attractive to them. The fastest way to attract leads that we have found is to make them an irresistible offer which is focused on helping them get a solution to their problem.

2/ Converting Leads To Clients – Once you have your lead generation system in place then the next step is to convert your leads into paying clients. It is important that you think of marketing as being a step by step SYSTEM rather than a one off event. Design your marketing funnel with a series of steps to lead your prospects through so that they arrive at their own conclusion which is they want to do business with you.

3/ Increasing Value Of Clients – The real profits in your business are what is known as the back end. This is where you look for strategies to increase the value of each client over time. There are many strategies you can use here including cross selling, ascension of products and services, product line extension, and turning your clients into referral sources.

So how do you decide which of these three areas to focus on right now?

Its simple …

If you have more clients than you can handle right now then focus on maximising
profitability by increasing the value of each client to your business.

If you have an abundance of leads but not enough clients then you need to focus on
developing your markeitng strategy to improve the conversion of leads to clients.

If you are not attracting enough leads to your business, which usually means you are also not getting enough clients, then you need to focus all of your
efforts on attracting more leads.

Usually what we find is that start up businesses need to focus 80% of their marketing efforts on attracting more leads and converting those leads to clients. More established businesses should focus 80% of their efforts on increasing the value of their clients to the business.

So first decide where you are in your business development.

Next decide what is most important for you at this stage of your development to focus on … is it attracting more leads, converting more leads into clients, or increasing the value of each client?

Then decide what is your strategy going to be for the area you are focusing on.

Then implement tactics to help you achieve your strategy.

Along the way do not allow yourself to be distracted by the latest marketing craze just because everyone else appears to be following it. Keep it simple and maintain your focus on what is most important for your business right now.

Click Here To Find Out How The Attraction Marketing System Can Help You

Popularity: 19% [?]

Roy West joins as an Attraction Marketing Associate and attracts his first $6,000 client within a week of starting.

Starting his working life in the food and wine industries, Roy developed a practical understanding of consumer needs and customer service early in his marketing career. This was all before taking advantage of his passion for tourism and travel, which led him to the Whitsundays and his first venture into small business ownership.

Owning a series of businesses all centred around the world of yachting, his path led him to a collision with business coaching. Roy met John in his role as a business coach, when John was brought in to provide his systems expertise to clients.

Within a week of joining as an Attraction Marketing Associate Roy already has his first $6,000 client. Listen in as Roy explains why he is so excited about the future as an Attraction Marketing Coach:

http://attractionmarketingassociates.com/more-info/

Popularity: 20% [?]

Attraction Marketing Associates are pleased to announce that John Bogiatzis of Universal Seminars has joined our team as our newest Attraction Marketing Associate

John Bogiatzis has an extensive background in corporate training, business coaching and adult education. Having run many personal development workshops and seminars over the years, John understands what it takes to create the winning mix in business and in life.

Having worked with many small business owners and employees alike, John’s focus is on creating a pragmatic and holistic learning experience. He is well renowned for his innovative teaching style and his ability to attain high-level results for his clients.

John is the Director of the personal development and corporate training company Universal Seminars. He also holds tertiary qualifications with a BA (Media and Communications) UNSW and a Cert IV in Training and Assessment.

Attraction Marketing Associates are a global newtork of independent Marketing Coaches. You can find out more about us at http://www.AttractionMarketingAssociates.com

Popularity: 17% [?]

As a start up or early stage business it can take some time to work out the best strategy for selling your product or service. Even many established businesses struggle with this basic concept.

Those businesses that go on to great success typically have worked out what is known as the ‘Optimal Selling Strategy’. They have usually done this with one lead product or service selling it as a front end product.

So what is an Optimal Selling Strategy?

An Optimal Selling Strategy is simply figuring out the most cost effective strategy for selling your lead product to a new customer. Its all about customer acquisition. You need to develop such a strategy in your business to acquire as many qualified customers as you can and do it fast.

To develop your Optimal Selling Strategy you need to firstly identify what will be your front end product. This is a product that will have maximum appeal to your target market and sell at a low entry price in order to attract the maximum number of new clients.

NOTE: The intention of this Front End product is not necessarily to make money from it. Instead its used as a magnet to attract the maximum number of new customers and clients into your business. Many businesses will happily lose money on this front end product just to establish the customer relationship.

When I looked at my target market of small business owners I quickly discovered that while most of them recognise the need to have a Marketing Plan less than 5% actually do. So I asked them why don’t you have a marketing plan. The response was that the usual approach was too long and complex. That is why I developed the One Page Marketing Plan and have used it as a front end product to great effect. It ATTRACTS lots of new customers.

So you need to look at your target market and ask yourself (and them) what is their one single greatest problem or challenge that they all have that you can provide a solution for?

When you have the answer to this question you then want to develop a product that helps your target market get a solution to their problem. This is going to be your front end product. You want to then develop your Optimal Selling Strategy to sell as much of this front end product as you can.

NOTE: The idea behind selling your front end product is to acquire more customers. Chances are good you will only break even on the front end. This means that the real money you will make in your business is in your back end products and services.

So how do you take your front end product and now develop an Optimal Selling Strategy around it?

There are a number of keys to consider including:

1/ Media – What is the best media to be able to reach your ideal customer or client? There is a range of media that you could market through including print media, radio, TV, direct mail, internet, social media, direct sales. What you need to decide is which of these media your target market are most likely to respond to. For instance if you are selling a hearing aid product to those in the 70 plus age group then chances are good social media is not your first choice of media. In this case you would be better off advertising in a magazine that targets this age group. So do some research to identify which form of media is most likely to reach your target market.

2/ Message – Next you need to decide what form of and style of message will be best received by your target market. What are they likely to respond to? What will get their interest? Are you going to deliver your sales message through the printed word, video or audio? Discovering the best format for delivering your message, and identifying what message will connect best with your target market is the next step for you.

3/ Process – Marketing and selling your front end product should be treated as a multi step process. You need to know what steps you want to lead them through from the moment they receive your message to the point where they say YES to your front end product. Design out the steps in the process.

4/ Numbers – Next you need to know the numbers involved in selling your front end product. So you will want to track the average cost to acquire a lead, and the cost to acquire each new customer. The key in developing your Optimal Selling Strategy is to be able to acquire a new customer and fulfill the product at a price point that enables you to break even. If you can do this then you continue to market your front end product. So you want to keep score of the numbers in marketing your front end product.

5/ Test & Measure – As you develop your Optimal Selling Strategy for your front end product you will want to test and measure every step of the process. You need to continue to refine your approach. This means you will need to keep tweaking different aspects of your Optimal Selling Strategy in order to optimise its overall performance.

Once you have developed your Optimal Selling Strategy you will want to focus all of your efforts and resources to making as many sales of your front end product as you possibly can. By doing so you will be acquiring a large database of customer and clients who will be more willing to invest in your highed dollar value products and services.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Most small business owners are constantly looking for ways to grow their inome.

One of the easiest ways to do this is to expand your product range. At least 20% of your past and existing clients would happily do further business with you if you just had something else to offer them.

A large number of the hundreds of small business owners I have coached have been very one dimensional in their product or service range. They have a very narrow view of what products or services their customers will purchase, or of what business they are really in. You could quickly grow your income by expanding your view.

Here are five ways to quickly expand your product range:

1/ Productise Your Service – If you have been busy delivering a service and then charging a fee for that service then you have a level of skills, and intellectual property that could be turned into a product. Information products are the easiest and fastest way to do this. Take what you do as a service and turn it into a range of products. Many of your clients currently paying for your services will happily invest in the products you develop.

2/ Add Services To Your Products – If your business is mostly product driven right now then consider adding a range of services as options or upsells. The car sales industry do this well. When you buy a new car they then sell you a range of services such as extended warranties etc. Think about the photocopier industry … they sell Service Contracts with the purchase of the new photocopier. What services can you wrap around your existing products?

3/ Product Ascension – Product ascension means having a range of products at various price points. This makes it easier for your customers, and you products to do business with you. By taking them through an ascension of products they get to build trust and confidence in your business. So you want to structure your product offerings from a low dollar value entry level product through to mid range products and then high dollar value products. When you structure this correctly you will find many clients will start at the low dollar value product and ascend through therefore increasing the overall life time value of a client.

4/ License Products – One of the fastest ways to expand your product range is through licensing products. Many products can be private labeled. I know one chap who had never been in business before and built a $70 million a year business by private labelling someone else’s product. Recently we have tripled our product range through licensing a range of products that are related and complimentary to what we do. So you could expand your product range overnight simply by licensing other peoples products.

5/ Expand Into Additional Businesses – If you have already done the four steps above then the next logical move for you might be to expand into additional businesses. There is a chain of Chiropractors in the USA who have recently added weight loss clinics to their practices. Same clients … expanded offerings. If you look at our business in Profit Minute where our clients are all small business owners and solo entrepreneurs it makes sense for us to expand from Attraction Marketing into areas such as productivity, time management, business mindest, entrepreneurial strategies, dealing with employee issues, information products, etc. What additional businesses can you add to your business that are a natural extension of what you do for your client base?

Implement just one of the ideas above and you will grow your income into your business. Implement several and you can get a huge boost to your 2010 income.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Testimonial From Nancy Robinson – Inner Circle Member

“What I like most about being an Inner Circle member is that it has opened my eyes to so many new marketing ideas and opportunities for both my business and my client’s too. Attraction Marketing is surely the ‘edge’ that is necessary to succeed in today’s economy and in the World Wide Web.”
- Nancy Robinson, Director

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The secret to marketing success is standing out through your unique point of difference, to attract the attention of your target market.

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We’ll take the time to figure out your primary message and exactly what needs to be combined with it to say it most effectively. Our services begin with generating a flow of marketing strategies and conceptual design ideas and end with developing the best into effective design solutions that generate results.

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As a special introduction we offer you a free Marketing & Design Meeting to help you gain specific and valuable information on how you could market your business more effectively. illume Director, Nancy Robinson will chat with you about your business goals and intentions. She will also offer to Mind Map your business as a way of discovering it’s full potential and finding out where your best opportunities lie.

Gain valuable information on how to grow your business effectively.
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Illume creative solutions.com.au will be launched very soon! To organize your introductory meeting, please contact Nancy Robinson on:
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Popularity: 11% [?]

What Business Are You Really In?

Often when I am speaking at events such as our recent ‘Attraction Marketing Seminars’ I will ask the audience what business do they think I am in. Few people are able to clearly identify the business that I am really in.

Many think that I am in the coaching business. While I do coach some clients that is not really the business I am in.

Others think I am in the speaking business. Sure I do seminars and other speaking engagements but I am definitely not in the speaking business.

A number of people have commented that they think I am in the promotion business having held a number of multi-speaker events last year. Nope … thats not the business I am in either.

I’ve been asked if I am in the education or training business. Well sure I provide educational material designed to help you market your business more effectively but again … thats not really the business I am in.

So what business am I really in?

McDonalds is a great example of the business behind the business principle.

So a question for you … what business do you think McDonalds is in?

The average punter might assume they are in the hamburger and fries business … obvious right?

Yes McDoanlds certainly do sell a lot of hamburgers and fries and its easy to assume that this is their end game.

A more intelligent and observant entrepreneur might argue that McDonalds are in the Franchising business. That their real business is to sell Franchises. Lets face it … they have certainly done well at selling franchises but I think there is more to their business than this. After all … there are only so many franchises they can sell right?

A closer look at their business model would reveal that they are in the supply chain business. Their focus is on owning the entire supply chain for all of the goods and services that go into making the burgers and fries. So they own the sugar mills, the cattle ranches for the beef, the flour production … basically they own the entire end to end supply chain for the products being sold by their franchises.

This is a smart business model when you think about it. They have funded their expansion into the supply chain business through the capital injection of each new franchise that opens.

But is this really the business they are in?

I think the real business that McDonalds is in is the REAL ESTATE BUSINESS. Think about it … they own most of the real estate locations where you will find a McDonalds store and they lease it back to the franchisee. They have funded their real estate investment business through the burgers and fries and built a substantial global real estate portfolio.

So what does this have to do with you and your business?

Well I guess the point is this … what business are you really in? The answer to this question, ie the way you define your business, will determine your view of how to run your business and therefore impact on your results.

Most small business owners think they are in the business of doing the thing that they do. So the bookkeeper thinks they are in the bookkeeping business and as a result they spend all of their time doing bookkeeping. The web designer thinks they are in the web design business and as a result they spend all day designing great looking websites.

Now if that is where your thinking is about your business right now thats okay … but know this … if you think you are in the business of doing the thing you do then you don’t really have a business you have a job. This limited view of your business will keep you stuck at a certain income level in your business for one reason … you eventually run out of time.

This type of thinking is often reflected in your marketing approach.

If your entire approach to marketing relies on your manual labour then I have news for you … you will never grow your business beyond your own time constraints.

To move your business to a higher level of success you are going to need to shift your thinking about what business you are really in.

Here is a good starting point from Dan Kennedy … ‘Move your thinking from being in the business of doing the thing you do to being in the business of marketing the thing you do’.

This one shift in how you view the business you are in will free your mind up so that you can start to focus on building a MARKETING SYSTEM that can be automated and leveraged and will continue to work attracting clients to you even when you are not working.

The problem with most small business owners approach to marketing is that the minute you stop with the manual labour of marketing (ie making calls and chasing prospects) your marketing comes to a roaring stop as well.

You can break through the normal growth constraints of business by shifting your thinking about what business you are in. The starting point is the development of your MARKETING SYSTEM. After all … if you had more bookkeeping clients than you can handle right now you could find another bookkeeper to employee to do the work right?

So what business am I really in?

More importantly … what business are you really in?

Popularity: 15% [?]

As a small business owner or entrepreneur you are probably always on the lookout for ways to make more money. If you aren’t you should be. After all … isn’t the reason you are in business in the first place to make more money.

If all you do this week is look for ways that you can implement these three ideas then I can assure you that you will be on your way to making more money in the future doing what you are already doing.

Popularity: 11% [?]

For a long time now I have been telling my clients and subscribers of the value of sending thank you cards. I will go into more detail on this shortly but for now I wanted to tell you the story of the Thank You Card I received from the Sheraton Hotel in Atlanta. (Pictured left).

It all started when I was in Atlanta last November for the Dan Kennedy Info-Marketing Summit. The venue was of course the Sheraton Hotel.

The experience I had staying at the Sheraton was nothing short of exceptional. The staff were brilliant, friendly and extremely helpful.

Well I mentioned them in an article in this newsletter and the article was published to my blog. See article here

Yesterday I received this Thank You card from them thanking me for mentioning them in my blog and get this … it is signed by all of the different managers in the various departments.

Now this is not some stock standard thank you card pre-printed that they are sending out. This has a personal message from at least eight of the various managers thanking me for mentioning them.

Do you think this got my attention? Do you think as a result I am likely to refer everyone I know to them?

Of course … in effect this article is my personal recommendation to thousands of people globally that if you are ever staying in Atlanta there is only one place to stay right?

(Sidenote: The obvious question that you should ask is ‘How did they find out about the Blog post in the first place?’ … While I am not entirely sure I would say it was through Google Alerts which is a great way to monitor what anyone is saying about you online)

Sending thank you cards is one of the most powerful ways to get attention, become memorable and to stimulate referrals.

As business becomes more competitive (due to lower barriers to entry combined with shifting consciousness) it will become more of a challenge to get and hold the ATTENTION of your target market. Sending out heartfelt thank you cards is one extremely powerful way to do this.

One of the key strategies that we teach in the Attraction Marketing System is that of TOMA … or Top Of Mind Awareness. The principle behind this is that the larger your network of contacts that you have TOMA with the more REFERRALS will start to flow to you. The key question though is how do you create TOMA without being an annoyance?

The most effective strategy we have come across is through sending heartfelt thank you cards, birthday cards, christmas cards, nice to meet you cards, thinking of you cards and so on.

In fact the most successful sales person of all time used the strategy of sending thank you cards and built such a hugely successful business that he wound up in the Guineas Book Of Records. This was before the days of technology and he employed a team of people to assist.

The strategy of sending heartfelt thank you cards though proved to be extremely effective as he started to gain TOMA with an ever increasing network of people who would refer him.

So my recommendation is to implement the power of thank you cards into your business today. Take the lead of the Sheraton Hotel in Atlanta and use this simple strategy to increase your business and attract more clients.

Oh and by the way … if you are ever in Atlanta make sure you stay at the Sheraton … highly recommended!

Resources:
—————

Watch the Referral Movie and learn about the SYSTEM we use to manage the process of sending thank you cards. Then trial the system here.

‘How To Create Endless Referrals’ DVD

For more information on how to use TOMA and the power of thank you cards to create an endless stream of referrals into your business we recommend the DVD ‘How To Create Endless Referrals’. This explains step-by-step the process of how any business can attract more referrals to them. Order a copy here

Popularity: 14% [?]

ATTRACT CLIENTS ONLINE <<< WEBINAR

Are you a Small Business owner frustrated by not getting enough new clients from your website?

If so then you will want to watch this WEBINAR on how to ‘Attract More Clients Online’. In it I show you my step-by-step BLUEPRINT on how to turn your website into a cash producing machine that brings you a stream of new clients.

You can access the webinar here:

http://www.AttractingClientsOnline.com

Popularity: 23% [?]