PUSH Marketing Academy; You’re Invited!
The NEW PUSH Marketing Academy has Launched
Your invite to enrol for the Autumn Term 2010 (download this as a PDF)
Welcome!
Over the number of years I’ve been helping business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs I’ve learned that good marketing really is at the core of every successful business. More than this though, I’ve also learned that the owners/managers of strong and profitable businesses actually understand what effective marketing is all about.
While some business owners prefer to pass this responsibility on to others, the smart people out there have a good handle on how marketing can bring paying customers to their door, over and over again.
The strange thing is that so many people think good marketing is a mystery, or some sort of black art, when the truth is that good marketing – one that puts money back into the business and at a profit – is really very simple when you know how. To start with you just need someone with experience to show you the ropes and give you a proper plan to follow.
Let me ask…
- Do you sometimes feel confused about where to even start with your marketing?
- Are you ever anxious about the fact that you’ve not got a solid marketing plan to follow?
- Do you know what Return on Investment you’re currently getting from your marketing efforts?
- Do you wish you could find a practical way to get your marketing revved up for the months ahead?
- Are you conscious of the fact that SME marketing is changing rapidly… want to keep up?!
It’s in Your Hands!
At one of my Seminars earlier in the year I talked about the relationship between Business Knowledge, Focus and Systems. These three elements, when working in harmony, can create solid and profitable results. So you’ll understand me when I say that keeping up with your Business Knowledge is just like any other vocation; it’s something you need to invest in frequently to ensure you’re growing and moving forward. Remember; if you’re not growing, you’re falling behind the pack, as others (your competition) are forging ahead of you and probably stealing your customers.
I’ve also learned over time that trying to help improve the results of a business simply by adding some systems and a few new ideas rarely produces long-term gains. You see, the truth is that as business owners it’s all about us and our ability to grow, expand and APPLY our knowledge.
You don’t need to be a genius to be great at business, you don’t need to be the most creative, the most dynamic or even blessed with special entrepreneurial talents… you just need to UNDERSTAND how good business works and then focus on doing the right things every day!
This is why a year ago I planned to launch a new learning platform for business owners who wanted to gain practical knowledge that can be applied, in real-time, to their business. Yes, there are lots of opportunities to gain academic knowledge about marketing; you can walk away with nice certificates for your office wall and lots of folders to fill the bottom draw of your filing cabinet. I wanted to create something far more tangible than this and ensure that this learning opportunity was married to practical action, so you can see the results of your learning in the bottom-line of your business. I wanted learning to go hand-in-hand with a real plan for action.
The PUSH Marketing Academy is a new way to get the knowledge that will help propel your business forward. It’s not online, home-study or distance learning, it’s up-front, ‘live and unplugged’ if you like!
You’ll have the chance to attend a Course Study Day each month with a small group of like-minded peers and learn direct from my personal experience and knowledge. The Course Programme is centred on current and relevant information that’s been assembled to ensure you can apply it to your micro or SME business in real-time and watch the new results you’re getting.
There are some great academic courses out there on marketing, and you can learn all about how the big names apply strategic and brand marketing to capture large chunks of the global market; but I’m guessing you’re much more interested in knowing how you’re going to improve your own business, without massive budgets or a marketing team the size of Saatchi & Saatchi!
You’ll also be learning a Programme that has been drawn from real-world experience of over two-decades (and not just my own). I’ve got my hands dirty and built a strong reputation on getting results where it counts. With the greatest of respect, there are some self-professed business tutors and coaches out there who have never run a business in their lives, let alone worked with (hundreds) of others.
It’s a Roll Call!
For this Inaugural Term I’m looking for just 15 people who are really serious about expanding their business knowledge and want to put this to good use and see this produce better results for their business.
The Programme is drawn from over 22 years of my personal business experience and focuses on the strategy and tactics that I know actually work. If you’re new to business (or even just new to marketing) it will help you cut your learning curve down considerably – not to mention potentially saving you massive amounts of money wasted on marketing that just doesn’t work.
As this is a live Programme you’ll be exposed to the very latest cutting-edge marketing tactics that capitalise on the recent significant advances in technology; all helping to make your life easier and your business simpler. You’ll find out just how much marketing has changed in the past two years and why so many businesses today are seeing diminishing results from their old-style campaigns.
The Course lasts four months and you’ll attend a One-Day Study Session each month, learning from a specially tailored training Programme that’s been designed and recently updated to ensure the content is fresh, relevant and applicable. You’ll be following a plan and have study material to follow as you go along so you can park your learning and build upon this progressively.
You’ll also have 1-2-1 Tutor Time with me personally to make sure you’re keeping on track and advancing your learning, as well as applying it in your business each week. There will be informal Peer Group Meetings too where you can share ideas and experiences along the way with your fellow students, helping you to even better understand and apply this new knowledge.
This Course Programme includes:
- Building & Communicating a Business Proposition
- How to Identify your Current Marketing Assets
- Effective Brand Creation & Management
- How to ‘Buy’ more customers and make a Profit
- Creating Real Leverage in Your Marketing Strategy
- The Fundamentals of Permission-Based Marketing
- Setting your Marketing Plan & Campaign Schedules
- Creating & Managing Multiple Marketing Channels
- How to Integrate your Marketing and Sales Strategies
- Tactics for Social Media – A New Wealth of Opportunity
- Setting Realistic Marketing Budgets and Measuring ROI
- How to Write Killer Marketing Copy like a Professional
- Effective PR that you can do for Yourself
- Working in Collaboration with Others – the Power of Joint-Venture
Is this for you?!
You don’t have to be a post-graduate or possess any special academic skills to join this Programme; a modest working knowledge of verbal and written English is all that you require… and a serious thirst to learn about practical marketing.
I’ll walk you through the essential basics first, then introduce you to the exciting stuff and show you how other businesses are adopting new ways to successfully market their products and services. You’ll learn what’s most current in the world of marketing, not re-hashed material that was out of date ten years ago!
Above all, this is a chance to really get some focus on your business from a marketing perspective; and I’m firmly of the opinion that if you’ve got a good handle on your marketing you’re more than half-way on the road to business success.
There will be only 15 places available for this very first Term and I want you to have all the information you need to decide if this is right for you. There will also be a preferential rate for the first five delegates who sign up, so I’d like to encourage you now to request the full information pack to find out more (you’re not making any commitment at this stage).
To get this Prospectus Information, all you need to do is submit your name and email address below; this will ONLY be used by PUSH Marketing and not passed on to any third parties and you can unsubscribe at any time. The Prospectus is not on general release but on request only.
So… I’m going to leave you with a few very straight-forward questions that I think will help you decide if you’d like to be on this first Programme:
- How serious are you about ‘growing’ your business? If you’re happy with the way things are and really don’t think you can change your results then this Programme is clearly not for you. If you know things could be better, then read on…
- Do you feel that your knowledge of practical marketing may be lacking or perhaps just a little bit out of date? And more importantly, do you want to DO something about it now?
- Do you find that you learn best when you’ve got a proper tutor guiding you through structured lesson plans, with practical exercises and follow-up work to complete?
- Would you value the benefit of studying alongside like-minded individuals who also want to gain an advantage in their business? Do you like learning in small groups?
- Have you ever felt that you’ve previously missed out on a more formal academic business education but never really found a programme that makes sense in terms of time and money invested?
- If you could learn new ways to bring new customers and clients to your business and all this took was some knowledge, your focus and some support, would you go ahead?
- Are you ready to step up a gear, demonstrate your business commitment by investing in yourself and learning new skills that will repay you over and over again..?
If my message above has stirred something inside you and if you’re curious to find out more, I’m offering you a chance to get the new Academy Prospectus and apply for a place on the first term of this year.
Just email apply@pushmarketingacademy.co.uk and mention where you found out about the Academy; I’ll send you a PDF Prospectus by return.
If you just want to talk over your thoughts or ask me any questions, I’m here – unlike some, I don’t hide behind my website! Pick up the phone and call me for some personal time and attention – 0844 357 0230
I very much hope you’ll take the next step on your journey of learning and would love to welcome you to the New PUSH Marketing Academy this Autumn.
Sincerely
Nial Adams
Academy Principal
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The Devil is in the Detail
Over the past few weeks it’s really come home to me how vitally important it is to ensure that we all focus on the detail. I love to hear how some people tell me that they don’t want the detail; after all, they’re ‘big picture’, ‘top level’, ‘blue-sky’ kinda people who ‘leave the detail to others’… hmmm.
Well, here’s a newsflash guys; it’s all detail. Get over yourself!
No matter how big your project is, no matter what your plan might be for world-domination, the fact remains that every major achievement is made up of lots of detail that all works together. Try telling an Olympic athlete that it won’t really matter if their shoelaces snap five metres from the line, or tell the airline pilot that a few degrees North will still get him home. I mentioned to Nico Rosberg just the other day that he really ought to make sure all his wheelnuts were tightened properly before leaving the pit lane… but the message obviously didn’t get through!
So what’s this fascination with the ‘big picture’ and why are so many people still looking to find someone to pick up on the small details that will make their business work? Well, personally I think a lot of it has to do with focus. Focus requires energy, commitment, dedication, time, resources, and other things that we all seem to have in very short supply. Still, the fact remains that if you’ve got a handle on the detail in your business you’ll know what’s going on. If you want to be the Captain of your own ship then this sounds like a good idea. It doesn’t mean you need to become obsessed and it doesn’t mean that you’ve got to do it all yourself. It just means you need the right level of awareness of the detail that will make all the difference.
I also have a sneaking suspicion that too many of us also love the idea of having a grand view (from the top) of our business and believe that it’s beneath us to actually get our hands dirty. There are plenty of examples of top-level CEOs who have gone ‘back to the floor’ and have come away with a radically improved view of what their business is actually all about; what the rest of the team get to deal with every single day. The people at the top get paid the big bucks for several reasons, responsibility, experience, know-how but also because it’s their job to know what’s happening day to day. This means filtering the information then using it properly.
Likewise there are also some great examples of highly successful people who keep a very close eye on everything that matters. Finance must be one of the most important of these. Oprah Winfrey is renowned for keeping extreme control on the budgets in her organisation; she cuts out waste and knows where her money is being spent. Do you know what your business expense accounts are being used for today?!
So, my recommendation is to start with the detail. Yes, the big picture and the vision are all vitally important but never lose sight of the component parts that really make your business tick; that includes your people and of course your customers!
The Money’s in the List!
A phrase I often heard from one of my mentors; “Nial, remember, the money’s in the list!”. What he meant was that the list of contacts, prospects (or even ‘suspects’), customers and clients we have is where the real value is in our business and the same is true of just about every business.
Smart business people understand the value of data and place a great deal of importance in it. Some businesses are designed simply to harvest data and little more else. I remember someone saying to me just a couple of years ago “so what’s facebook all about then; how are they going to make any money out of it if it’s free?!”. We could all laugh now at that statement but it was a valid point back then. I often find business owners who have great ideas but have actually put very little thought into how they can monetise their business proposition. One element that every business should focus on is the value and integrity of their prospect/client data. This is essential.
In March of this year (2010) facebook was estimated to be worth something in the region of $11Billion. With over 400 million subscribers (and growing fast) it’s interesting to see that this value is based purely on advertising revenues; remember facebook doesn’t actually sell anything, other than advertising to its list (nor does it have any sales people!). You might also be surprised to know that this year facebook’s advertising revenue is estimated to peak at $1.1Billion. Not a bad business model eh?
What’s more, a value of $3.60 was placed on each facebook fan to the various commercial fan-pages that exist. So even before we’ve ever bought anything through facebook we’re already a statistic and a valuable asset to the advertisers and facebook alike.
So, it’s fine to throw around these large numbers and unless you’ve got the next facebook planned out the point could be lost in all the excitement. No matter how big or small your enterprise is I would strongly encourage you to ensure your business model has a focus on your client/subscriber data. If you’re not doing much or anything about it right now, stop and take note. There are some key reasons why you list will be vital to you as your business grows:
Re-sales and repeat orders are a significant profit driver in every good business. Unless you have a product that can only be sold once and once only, you need to ensure that your business has an element that creates repeat sales. As you’ll no doubt have heard; it’s six times easier to resell to an existing customer as it is to find a new one. Whether this statistic is accurate is not the point here but the theme is critical. Too many business owners focus on sales and marketing that is ONLY directed at finding new customers, while they leave existing potantial profits on the table. Worse than this, if you don’t service your customers, keep them happy and help them buy more from you, you’ll see your competitors take them away from you.
Create a customer for someone else. I’ll be writing more about the power of communities soon but here’s something for you to think about now. Every time you attract and retain a new customer they are joining your community. At the same time there will be other businesses out there who could sell to your community. These would be parallel but non-competing. For example; we sell marketing services but our clients may also need accounting help, or staff training. Just think of the value you could already have in your list. Of course you must follow the rules regarding the sale/transfer of data but think about how many other businesses could gain value from working with your community and importantly, vice versa!
A friend and professional colleague just said to me the other day “selling data is a bit like prostitution, you get to sell the same thing over and over again!”. As an entrepreneur who has created a business worth over £2million (within four years) I’d say he’s got a point!
So my point is simple; if you’re not currently focusing on the data in your business, remedy this immediately. If you need some help to understand how to do this effectively and appropriately; then get some help (contact me for a start).
And remember, the money’s in your list..!
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The New Email Marketing Revolution is here, will you be joining us?
Find out how every business can harness the power of EFFECTIVE Email Marketing… today!
A 60-minute presentation that lifts the lid and shows you how you can steal the advantage!
For too long email marketing has been ineffective and hard to measure accurately. Many businesses still see email as a way to just stay in touch; however, significant new advances in email marketing technology have changed all this. The smart business owners and managers are using this already, are you?!
“Since we’ve been using the new system we’re getting results that are 100-200% better than anything before”
Email marketing is still rated as the most cost-effective way to get your message right under the nose of your target audience. Even more than this, it can deliver a number of ways to accelerate your business.
Nial Adams, acclaimed marketing specialist and public speaker will be delivering this presentation and sharing his knowledge with you.
“This guy knows what he’s talking about and shares everything!” – Previous Seminar Delegate
Attend this presentation and find out how properly managed Email Marketing can help you:
- Sell more and increase your profit margins
- Reduce waste in your current marketing
- Refine and grow your prospect/client data
- Help you find out what your customers actually want
- Build your client community and relationships
- Ensure email is integrated with your other marketing
Email Marketing has been around for years and for many the perception is that it simply doesn’t generate results and can alienate potential customers. New ways of managing and distributing your email campaigns can significantly increase the results you get and help you build on this month after month. Best of all, you can be up and running, in control, with your new email campaigns in a matter of days, and with low start-up costs.
People tell us:
“I don’t want people to see us as spammers”
“How can I effectively measure my results?”
“I don’t know enough about it to be confident”
In this fast-paced sixty-minute presentation you’ll find out how the new PUSH Email Marketing System is generating controllable results, today, that significantly beat the competition.
You will see a live demonstration of how powerful systems can help you run a campaign in the morning and start making sales in the afternoon. You’ll also find out why most businesses that use email marketing currently are actually damaging their brand, losing out on simple ways to increase results and letting their profits end up in the pockets of their competition.
TO RESERVE YOUR SEAT PLEASE CALL - 0843 289 1590
OR EMAIL – briefing@pushemailmarketing.co.uk
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Does email marketing really work?!
Email Marketing – Scourge or Saviour?!
Today email has changed the face of modern communications. We have the ability not only to open and read our emails at our desk or on our laptop but with mobile technology, our email accounts (and we’re sure to have more than one) can live in our pockets. Smartphones and netbooks mean we can take our email wherever we go. And who knows what the new iPad from Apple will do for it!
So how has all this affected the power of email marketing? Well, firstly there has been a significant change in the way smart marketers are using email. Sadly, there will always be the spammers, happy to spew out millions of emails a week with completely non-relevant subjects to every possible address on the planet. However, new technology and greater access to it now allows everyone the opportunity to harness email as it should be used, following that well-worn marketing mantra of Right Message – Right Person – Right Time.
With a stronger move towards the powerful concept of Permission-Based Marketing, good marketers out there are looking for ways to get appropriate messages in front of potentially interested customers. More than this, we can learn about our customers too.
Email marketing, used properly, can become a cornerstone of a solid marketing strategy. It can be used to attract new customers, as well as maintain effective contact with existing ones. It allows us to deliver the right message in a timely way and, most importantly, to the right individual.
Other reasons why email marketing is still among the top tools for SMEs include:
Speed; there really is no other way (with the exception of SMS Marketing perhaps) of getting a campaign running faster. You can release a campaign in the morning and start making sales in the afternoon. You also get very fast (real-time) statistics that allow you to fine-tune your marketing campaign as you go.
Split-testing; I can’t believe there are still people out there who continue to run the same adverts week after week, month after month, with no plan to test them. This really is CRITICAL and split testing is the easiest way to achieve this. If you’re not aware of how to do this, FIND OUT and stop wasting your money.
Return on Investment; because email marketing can be so much cheaper than other forms of marketing, if you USE IT PROPERLY, you’ll see an amazing ROI. It’s no longer about ‘spray and pray’ it’s all about getting the mix right.
So what is the magic mix? Well, I’m going to give the game away at my next seminar on email marketing but here’s a sneak preview of the elements that I’ve found have a massive impact on results:
Get good data – This really is rule number 1. You will want to collect and source data in the right way and if you’re buying/renting data then use good suppliers, there are many out there.
Use a good email system – Forget about trying to manage your emails through standard applications like your Outlook account, you’re wasting your time and money. A proper email marketing tool will give you amazing power and control over your campaigns and help you to build progressively. Try this one!
Know how to play the game – Understand how email marketing works and what the ‘rules’ are. These are really quite simple (when you know them!) and will help you double, treble or more your campaign results.
Get strategic as well as tactical – Ensure that you build your email marketing into your overall sales and marketing plan. It will never work effectively for you if you just do it occasionally and with little thought or attention.
And lastly…
Always remember to use email to appropriately – It will help you to build your community and maintain contact with it. Stick to the guidelines and you’ll ensure your emails are seen as positive communication, not intrusive and annoying.
STOP PRESS: Watch this space… PUSH Marketing Partners will be running a competition and giving away 1 License for their new PUSH Email Marketing System and 1 years worth of free support and training, worth £1480..!
Building Your Business On A Solid Marketing Platform
Ask yourself these FOUR KEY QUESTIONS:
“How can I start seeing positive results from my marketing efforts and spend?”
“Do I feel that our current approach to marketing is delivering the results it should?”
“Who should I listen to when seeking practical advice on marketing?”
“Am I ready to do something positive to change the way our market works?”
A fast-paced, condensed, three-hour seminar presentation designed to get your marketing moving – we lift the lid on some of the best kept secrets in marketing that are cost-effective and key to business success, no matter what your size or budget. You’ll learn how to harness the latest technology that will make your marketing budget stretch futher and give you ‘more bang for your buck’..!
Delegates from our last event said:
“Nial’s presentation was inspiring and informative”
“He provided a clear overview of how to approach your marketing”
“Interesting, inspring and informative – 10 out of 10!”
“This event really gave me time and space to think about my marketing”
“A fun event that I’d recommend; helped me sort my head out”
“Helped to clarify principles I knew but didn’t know how to implement”
Business owners and those responsible for the ‘bottom line’ all know that getting results from marketing is critical to sales and creating profit. A core of any business, effective marketing is the front-end of the sales process and yet so many businesses struggle needlessly because they haven’t been given the best tools for the job, what’s more, they waste valuable resources; time and money, and are watching their profits go to their competitors.
If you missed the previous Seminar this is your chance to grab a FREE seat (worth £97) and attend ‘Make Your Marketing Work!’
21st June 2010
Holiday Inn – Norwich Airport
9am -12pm
Limited Seats
CALL OUR 24HR BOOKING HOTLINE TODAY – 0843 289 4082
[Just leave your name, email and return telephone and we'll confirm if you've been successfully allocated a FREE seat]
OR EMAIL – events@makemarketingwork.co.uk
I’ve noticed a change in people, have you?
With another Bank Holiday just gone and Spring in full swing, or should that be bloom, it’s a good time to remember that just about every business is impacted in some way by seasonal change and even the weather generally.
My father, who had the longest list of different jobs and careers you could ever expect to find, always told me to be aware of the seasons and what this means to each business. At first I was tempted to believe that this only really had an impact on businesses that were directly affected by the Great British weather. He was right though…
Certainly, if you have a business where the sunshine or rain has a direct effect, the changing weather will reflect in your takings. Running a coffee shop, for example, is great during the winter months when shoppers want to step inside to get warm again and enjoy a cup of freshly brewed coffee but when the weather warms up things change. The British public have fully embraced the ‘café culture’ of our continental friends and when the warm rays of sun shine we all want to be outside enjoying it and making the most of it, so a café with outside seating is essential these days.
However, I believe that the seasons have an even greater overall impact. The annual calendar does, without a doubt, affect various consumer conditions, even if this is only because of the impact of things like the start of a new tax year. We also keep that mental calendar in our heads for things holidays (especially if you have children) as well as things like birthdays and other important anniversaries. And even if our business doesn’t appear to have a seasonal element, perhaps the businesses of the people we serve do.
With a really enjoyable Spring following what has been one of the hardest Winters we have seen for some time, I’m sure you, like me, have noticed how the longer days and warmer sun has had a positive effect on the general mood and demeanour of the people around us. It’s noticeable how we respond to this and it translates into a change in attitudes, even if only slightly.
So, my point is this; have you stopped to think how the changing seasons have an impact on your business and , most importantly, your customers and clients. I often see businesses who plough on through the year with really very little consideration for the fact that seasonal change is something that should be taken into account. The retail market reacts to this with obvious changes to product range and offers but how aware are you that seasonal change can effect your business?
One very important element of marketing is also to be aware of topical influence and how we can keep our business fresh and topical simply by demonstrating our awareness of those things that influence others. I bet there will be a few bars offering a no-election night this week!
Most of all, enjoy the Spring, perhaps Summer is just around the corner!
Recommended Actions:
Look back over your trading figures and look for seasonal trends. Anticipate these ahead of time – it’s no good reacting too late. Consider how you can leverage seasonal change and trends and incorporate these into your marketing plan. Make sure your marketing messages are topical and connect at a personal level with your readers/viewers.
Why most businesses struggle with their marketing
And why your business should be boring and predictable!
For a little over twenty years now I’ve been looking at what makes a successful business tick and, more to the point, why it is that so many businesses struggle to get off the ground and stay aloft. For several years I was convinced that the only way to be sure my own business would be successful was to read every book, study every ‘guru’ and learn the hidden secrets that clearly eluded so many.
I also fell for the big lie; I now call this the M-myth… OK, Mr Gerber got there first but just as the ‘E-myth’ explains what holds back so many business owners (and it’s a must read!), my version, the M-myth, is a simple way to let you know that marketing really isn’t as difficult as you might imagine and much of what people believe about it just isn’t true.
Now, I know I’ll ruffle more than a few feathers when I say this but let me share something very important with you. Most of what you’ll read and hear about marketing, especially from the so-called marketing experts, is total bunkum. What a lot of marketing experts want you to believe is that marketing is actually a very difficult and complex subject and far too technical for the average business owner to understand.
The truth is very different. I believe (and have proved) that you can teach most business owners and managers the simple mechanics of good marketing practice and that these can be applied very quickly and easily. Above all, you don’t need to spend a small fortune. There’s no magic involved and there is a simple formula that can be learned and followed. You just need someone you can trust to show you how this works and how to apply it to your business.
Certainly, there is no getting away from the fact that a very large proportion of businesses, of all sizes and types, are wasting hard-earned profits, making unnecessary mistakes and losing out to the smarter, better informed competition. The big problem with marketing is that there are so many ways you can approach it and an almost endless list of marketing methods and approaches. This tends to be confusing for a lot of people; as a result they normally resort to doing one of two things:
1) Try to do what they THINK will work for them and spend time and money going around in circles never really getting the consistent results they want and never being really clear about what works and what doesn’t. Or…
2) Alternatively, they trust a marketing ‘expert’ who helps them spend money on feeling good about their business but still doesn’t really produce results that can be defined or, most importantly, replicated.
There are a couple of really vital things I’d like to make you aware of and can guarantee that if you start to apply this type of thinking to your marketing, and your business as a whole, you’ll begin to see better results and be able to build on this progressively. Both of these points were vital business components I learned from my mentor about ten years ago and I’ve proved since then how essential and valuable these really are.
RULE No. 1 First of all, make marketing the core of your business.
This radically changes the way many business owners think of their business. All too often marketing is an afterthought in many businesses. Let me paint you a picture; most of us go into business, in a particular field, because we have an interest, passion or in-depth knowledge of it. This is exactly what Gerber talks about in the E-myth. This is not wrong but what is vital is to understand that the core strength in your business is probably not going to be your knowledge of the given subject but rather your knowledge of business mechanics themselves. In other words; don’t focus on your expertise in making chocolates, selling insurance, designing IT solutions, or whatever it is you do; focus on your business skills first.
It’s shocking to consider that most people running their own business are doing so not because they know, have learned or have been taught about good business skills but rather because they are knowledgeable and have a passion for the subject of their business. Many business owners and managers actually know very little about how to run a business using proven and successful systems and processes.
Of all the business skills you need to learn about, one of the most essential (arguably THE most essential) is to know how to market what you have. If you cannot successfully market what you have, every other element of your business fails to have any purpose. It’s no good being the best salesperson if you can’t attract good prospects and potential customers. It’s no good being the best specialist in your field if you don’t have anyone to buy your products or services from you. It’s no good being adept at the management, financial control, etc. in your business if you don’t have a queue of people wanting to buy from you.
Many business owners will look at a way to outsource their marketing. If you make and sell widgets, or if you provide customers with a great service it seems obvious that this is where you need to focus your efforts but the fact is that everything in your business will flow from your marketing.
I’ve often come across business owners who tell me that they have such confidence in their brand and customer loyalty that they simply don’t need to promote or market what they have. Admittedly, a very few businesses are so famous, so unique, that they will always have a queue for their product/service, however this is very rare. It’s no coincidence that a large number of these other businesses have simply withered and perished during the last recession. You cannot, ever, be complacent about your ability to attract new customers, if you have no marketing platform, you put your business at serious risk.
My mentor shared with me a concept that your business should become a marketing business and in fact you should outsource everything else! That might sound a little too radical but I hope I make the point. Know how to successfully market what you have and you will always have a business that thrives and has the potential to be profitable. Invest in yourself and your business; learn how to market what you have properly and successfully, everything else will fall into place.
RULE No. 2. Business should be ’boring and predictable’
When one of my early mentors first told me this I was a little shocked and really rather disappointed; I wanted my business to be fun, exciting and a challenge that I could really get my teeth into. Then he explained more fully; your business should follow a proven system. Every business is a ‘system of systems’. You should know what happens in your business and learn that when you do something the result will be predictable. I’ve come to understand this philosophy and appreciate the simplistic beauty of it.
When you begin a marketing campaign you should have a resource of data and knowledge from your previous campaign and be able to build upon this. Each time you run a new campaign or exercise you can get a better result and continue to fine tune it. Just like a Formula 1 racing team, you don’t turn up at the next race and start making radical changes that you are uncertain about. You build on the experience you have and the business data that tells you what works and what doesn’t. This is something I’ve been applying over the past couple of years to email marketing; now my results are consistently 200-300% higher than the industry averages.
I know this concept works and I can prove it to you. Just about every successful business I’ve ever come across, worked with or engaged with as a consumer, has something in common; they have solid systems and processes that they follow every day. These aren’t guess work, they are supported by the evidence of success built up over time. So what about that new business that’s just starting out? Well, even better; if yours is a new business you have the chance to start as you mean to go on and build systems in your business that test and measure what you do and what results you get. Once you’ve got systems in place you can repeat these over and over again, continually fine tuning and refining your business. This will help you to ensure your business becomes ‘boring and predictable’ – and why do you want this?
- Your business should be systemised, then you can train others to run and manage the different components for you.
- You can actually take time off, step away from the day-to-day running of your business – do you have a business or a job?
- You can replicate and scale up your business when you have proven systems and processes – think of all the largest companies; from a coffee chain like Costa to airline like Virgin, a high-street bank and supermarket, they all share something in common, they have standard systems and operating procedures.
- You can build systems within your business that become part of the asset value and you can sell it!
KEY LEARNING POINTS:
- Don’t believe everything you hear or read in the marketing books – marketing doesn’t need to be complex!
- Accept that learning and understanding about business skills is often more important than the subject of your product or service
- There are lots of marketing methods and approached; you need to find the ones that work for you; you’ll need to test and measure to find this out.
- Don’t continually repeat marketing campaigns and exercises because you THINK they work; get the evidence from your results!
- Put solid marketing at the core of your business and build everything else around this, or outsource parts of the business that you don’t need to do.
- Don’t become reliant upon strong customer loyalty always have a marketing plan in place and use it.
- Build systems in your business, no mater how small it might be – scale up and replicate these for growth and capital value.
- Avoid radical changes and jumping around with ideas; follow a structure and build your business on it one step at a time.
And lastly…
Aim to have a business that’s boring and predictable - this way you’ll know what to expect, have control over your business and the ability to step away from it and enjoy it. Remember; you’re building a business, not giving yourself a job!
Resources; Michael Gerber on the E-myth.
Nial Adams