Ready For Business Blog

What do you mean by two businesses? I can’t even keep up with one. Relax, I don’t literally mean two separate businesses, but you do have two businesses in one.

The first thing that I do when I sit down with a new client is to ask them to describe the operation of their business. They generally give me a very detailed description of their products and services, operations, and customer service follow up. Rarely do they ever mention marketing in terms of the operation of their business. The main reason that they have become a client is that they are not attracting enough clients of their own. Their description of business operations is the very root of the problem. What I mean is that they do not recognize that they really have two businesses: one is product or service delivery and the other is the business of marketing their products and services. In order to succeed one must realize that both of these businesses must be fully functional. In fact, if the marketing side of the business is not working, then there will not be much use for delivery.

The next thing that we discuss is their history and experience in developing the expertise in their product or service area. They describe to me in great depth the years of training, experience and success they have had with their main products and services before going into their own business. In fact, most of them would never have considered starting their business without that extensive background and experience. What most business owners and independent professionals do not have any or much experience in is in the business of marketing. What is interesting is that despite their depth of experience, training, and knowledge in their core business, they rarely have invested the time, effort, or money to gain the knowledge and experience in marketing. If one accepts the premise that marketing is a business you must be in, then why is it that we don’t see the need to have the same level of knowledge, experience, and expertise in marketing?

Why is it that I am harping on this? The reason is that I want all business owners and independent professionals to take immediate action to obtain the training, experience and expertise necessary to attract all of the clients they want. This will not happen without recognition that you must master the business of marketing in the same manner that you have mastered your core business. Without this acknowledgment and action you will continue to get similar results despite any effort that you put out there. Many business owners and independent professionals are already frustrated because they are working incredible amounts of hours for very little results. The answer as far as marketing is concerned is not in more work but in understanding how to put together and execute an effective, fully integrated marketing system. Much of this system should be automated and based on the principle of marketing “to many at one time” while maintaining marketing intimacy.

Here are some suggestions how to immediately begin to get the training and experience you need to market your business effectively:

1. Read several books on modern marketing. Do not read books from “marketing gurus” that teach outdated marketing tactics! What I mean is that reading books on outdated push techniques such as cold calling techniques, untargeted direct mail, and prospecting strategies will be a complete waste of time. We are in an era of the whole marketing and you must learn and master these strategies and tactics.

2. Take a course to learn an effective pull marketing system. There are many outstanding coaches and trainers who have great systems and processes for learning are to market your business more effectively in a 21st-century manner. Spend some time reading through their free material, learning about the trainer, and attend free tele-classes before signing up for the paid program. Investing in the proper program is just as important, if not more than the investment in time, energy and money that you have made learning your core business over many years.

3. Join a mastermind or membership oriented marketing group where you receive ongoing training, construction, interaction, and accountability. You must approach your marketing with the same discipline and accountability that you operate your core business under. Since it is so easy to let this area slip, membership in one of these types of groups can pay untold dividends.

4. Let me repeat one more time, how critical it is to recognize your second business of marketing. This is a mindset and mentality that you must develop if you want to attract clients more consistently and effortlessly than ever before. I encourage you not to hesitate for one moment to make an investment in both time and money in as quickly as possible developing the side of your business.

Make a commitment today to get started and you will remember this day as the turning point in the success of your business!

What is the key to most successful businesses? Marketing. After all, you can have the best product in the world, but if no one hears about it, it is not going to matter. Unfortunately, not everyone can afford to put a 30 second spot on the Super Bowl. That is where commercial color printing comes in to play.

A brand is a business’s identity. It establishes credibility, and a quick walk through the supermarket will confirm that people are willing to pay more for brands. The first step in developing a brand for your business is to know who you are. Are you an upscale restaurant or a dollar store?

When you pick a name the two things to look at are how memorable it is and how easy it is to spell. Some companies pay up to $35 000 to research the correct name. Choose wisely–remember that this name is going to be on everything from business cards to radio ads.

Next, you are going to want a logo, something simple and memorable. Think of a popular restaurant and odds are the first thing that pops into your head is the logo. If you see two golden arches, you assume that a McDonalds is there.

So, you have a name and a logo, now you’re going to want to decide which colors to use. There are different advantages to each color and you should not pick your favorites. For example, red and orange are both known to stimulate appetite. How many fast food restaurants do you know that have at least one of those colors? Almost every single one. That is not a coincidence, nor should your use of color be.

When you are building a new business one of the keys to survival is knowing your competition. Many would-be successful businesses take this too lightly. You should know everything you can about anyone in the area who provides anything remotely similar to what your business does. You need to know about more than their product though. You should know what they are doing for advertising, how long they have been in business, what worked for them when they were starting out–essentially anything, you can find.

Building a business is not easy, and it never will be. Most businesses fail, usually because someone looked over a small detail. Maybe the market was poorly evaluated, maybe the product was rushed–do not let those be your excuses. Understand your market, and use the information you have gathered to attack it. That is the key to building a business.

Many people don’t recognize the fax machine as a marketing tool but, with the wide spread of dislike for telemarketers, many smaller businesses and home-based companies are making use of a technology they most likely already have in their office or house. Flyers, newsletters, advertisements and business cards are being pushed and passed around and thrown out every day, why not try something a little different that customers won’t be so likely to drop into the trash without so much of a glance.

Before starting a fax machine marketing plan, keep in mind that fax broadcasting is indeed legal and try to follow these rules to keep your fax marketing campaign legitimate:

1) Do You Have A Business Relationship?

Were you were given the fax number you’re advertising to voluntarily? This includes anything, such as through your website, a business card or an email or letter with a fax number on it. If so, you have the right to send that business whatever kind of information you’d like, including advertisements.

2) Is The Number Publicly Advertised?

If a business publishes their fax number in a directory, advertisement or on a website, then they have made that number available for public use and you are free to send their machine your advertisements and unsolicited faxes.

3) Are You Providing A Cost Free Removal Request?

Just like an email, it is your responsibility to provide a cost free way for businesses to opt out of receiving your faxes. You may want to provide a toll free fax or phone number for those who do not want to be contacted by you or even an email address used specifically for removal requests.

Before you start faxing your message, you need to create the perfect pitch to get potential customers interested in your products or services. Ask yourself how your product/service can benefit a customer and why they would buy from you. You can create any number of fliers filled with different information and you can send as many as you like. Send fliers announcing a special or sale you’re having, offering a list of services or products you supply or a flier announcing a grand opening. Let customers know about an event you are hosting, a new product or service or just send out a letter of introduction to your business. The possibilities are endless.

Make your fax all one page and don’t go overboard on images. Make it short and sweet and get right to the point because, like yourself, most business owners don’t have a lot of time to read faxes. Don’t send a fax more than once a month, you don’t want to irritate potential customers and turn them off to your service. Don’t use fancy fonts or pictures, a fax needs to be readable in case some of the original color is lost in the translation. The majority of businesses own a fax machine, so if you’re not fax marketing already, go ahead and get started. You’ll have an edge over the competition and will be able to focus your advertisements on companies you know will be interested in your service.

With a little capital you can easily open this carpet cleaning business. Others open their business and started with less than a few thousand dollars capital. They even start up with no marketing plans. They think charging the customer the cheaper price they will get lots of customers. They only compete with the price.

You can easily beat your competitors by advertising. It is your advantage if your competitor’s lack of education on advertising and no marketing strategy. It will be easy to beat them. First thing you will do is analyze why your carpet cleaning service is needed in the market place. Is your business has a selling proposition to attract customers? If you are just another carpet cleaner who is just competing with price, you better quit and get a real job. You must have aim in running your carpet cleaning service in your community.

There are different kinds of services you can render on carpet cleaning service. You can either have specialty like removing pet odor in the carpet, or you can offer the steam cleaning and fast drying, and high level service. Think any service cleaning about carpet that no other carpet cleaner offers. Make sure you give the customer’s satisfaction in every service you render. If you mean high level of service, you should give it to your customers. Good and quality service you render with the customers will promote your business.

If you choose to be pet odor specialist on carpet, make some ads about pet odor. Make flyers regarding on how wonderful life can be with pets. At the same time promote your carpet cleaning service. Consumer usually prefers something unique. If you want your business to succeed think of something different that appeals your prospective clients. Try to be different with other carpet cleaner.

You could either pick up the carpet from your customers. Give them a free promotional discount or for every 2 carpet you clean they will receive 1 small bottle of perfume for their pets. Or any free accessories for their pets. Surely they will like your promotion and freebies.

Giving your customer with high quality of service, they will become your regular and loyal customer to your carpet cleaning service. You can also consider the pricing for every carpet. Carpet comes from different size and shapes. Make some listing on the pricing depending on carpet sizes and what kind of service do your customers want.

You also add flavoring scent for the carpet cleaning. Ask the customer want kind of scent he/she prefers. Some customer may like the idea but other may not, if they have allergy. But the good thing is that your customer can choose what kind of service they want. Your service will be different from other carpet cleaner. The more customers who are satisfied with your service, the more profit you will gain.

Building relationships is the key that will throw open the doors to marketing success as quickly and as widely as possible in a tough economy. When marketing is a challenge it’s tempting to throw money at the problem (if you have the money to spend). I mean, haven’t we all heard that the last thing to cut back on is marketing when times get tough? But persistent, persuasive, and/or assertive marketing just won’t prompt enough people into action during times of financial uncertainty. Spending lots of money isn’t the key to marketing success.

It might even be tempting to “ride it out” - to do nothing until things turn around. This passive approach yields passive results. Nothing will happen while you’re waiting and when things do turn around, the business will go to the people who’ve been doing something all along. The people who will get the lion’s share of the business - both now and in the future - are the ones who work to build relationship.

So exactly how does someone “build relationships”? Building relationships does not mean becoming “best friends” with everyone. It doesn’t require taking people out to lunch or coffee. It isn’t about sending gifts to people. For the most part, building relationship is about being attractive and adding value. By “being attractive”, I mean being likeable, having integrity, being a good communicator, and being passionate. (These are all important topics, but we’ll cover them in another article.) Let’s instead, spend some time talking about “adding value”.

Specifically, let’s discuss how to add value to and create connection with prospective and existing clients. A real key to accomplishing this is to give without expecting something in return. The act of helping or giving without getting creates a very powerful dynamic. It establishes you as someone who cares about others. It shows you’re not just focused on yourself. It demonstrates an abundance mentality. It makes you even more likeable and respected. And last, but not least, it creates a feeling of obligation on the part of your prospects and existing clients.

Here’s a starter list of things you can do to add value to and to create connection with prospective and existing clients. Use it as a starting point for your relationship building efforts. Be creative with relationship building approaches which reflect your personality.

* Create and send out a useful, timely report. (make sure it’s not self-serving, though)

* Offer ideas and information that are fun, useful, and/or interesting (most of them will not be related to your business, although some could be)

* Have conversations with prospects and clients to get to know them (people love to be heard)

* Send specific things of interest to specific prospects and clients (it shows you were listening to them and that you care)

* Offer free workshops of interest (but remember, no selling or pitching!)

* Send out personal letters (handwritten is best, but definitely hand signed)

* Personally call to say Hi! or Thank You! (dropping by in person is even better)

Especially when things are tough, it’s more important than ever to build relationships as the cornerstone of your marketing strategy. It will cause people to act sooner and will cause more success to flow to you as things turn around. And besides that, it’s just plain fun.

Do you think you could increase your profits if you had very little - or no competition? Would you like to get the jump on your competitors? Would you like to stay a step ahead of your competition? If your answers to the above questions is no, you’re either Bill Gates or you should seriously consider seeing a psychiatrist.

If your answer to the questions is yes, you should take the short quiz at the end of this article to find out where you stand “nichewise.” The minutes spent will be worth their weight in gold to your financial future.

There have been tons of articles, books, and seminars touting the importance of having a niche.

With the huge numbers of look-a-like products and services, it’s vital that you target an unfilled gap in your market.

If you fail to do this you risk getting lost in the crowd. Especially, if you’re a small business with limited capital (which is why it’s called a small business).

This article is for those who already have a product or service, but would like to make their niche stronger. I call this niche maintenance.

To my surprise I see businesses develop a product or service, enjoy a burst of success then allow sales to go flat. They often wonder what happened. They’ll usually blame it on the competition, the economy, or limited capital.

When in most cases they failed to do simple niche maintenance on their product or service. In most cases they don’t have a money, sales or profit problem, they have a niche problem. More specifically a weak niche, and I promise you my friend a weak niche= weak sales.

Every successful product or service from apples to zebras has a strong niche position; a specific benefit or advantage that no one in their market is providing at all - or as well.

But even the best niches, weaken, become outdated or obsolete. That’s why you need to perform regular niche maintenance on your business, product, or service, just like you would perform maintenance on you car. Whether it’s your car, your body, or your niche, regular maintenance helps to keep it working strong for you..

I’m sure you’ve seen many successful businesses fail after a burst of success, it’s usually because they failed to do niche maintenance. Don’t let it happen to you. Keep reading.

I’ve included an exclusive “Niche Maintenance Checklist” that will keep your product or service strong and will help to give it longevity. I suggest you go through this maintenance checklist at least one a month, or each week for maximum benefit.

Niche Maintenance Checklist for Products and Services: Give yourself 1 point for each yes answer. Your goal should be to maintain a score of 10.

1. Do I know what my competitive advantages are?

2. Do I have them written down? And do I constantly try to add to them?

3. Name at least one new problem my target customers are facing that I can solve through my product or service this week or month?

4. What extra service can I provide that my competition can’t provide?

5. What ways can I speed up service to my customers without sacrificing quality?

6. What ways can I get my satisfied customers to recommend me to others?

7. Do I aggressively solicit comments, complaints or questions from my customers?

8. Do I know my competitors latest competitive advantages over my product or service?

9. Do I avoid getting complacent or satisfied? Do I aggressively seek how to improve …DAILY?

10. Do I aggressively seek and test new ideas while holding on to what works?

By reviewing the above questions and scoring at least a 10 each week you are insuring yourself of maintaining a strong, profit generating niche. Ignore it and you could allow competition (or failure) to sneak up on you.

If you are an entrepreneur looking to start your own business, you have probably already read quite a bit of material on the subject. You have probably been told that the best way to find a successful business venture is to focus on something you are passionate about. But what is the point of doing something you are passionate about when it isn’t profitable? So how do you go about determining whether there is a profitable market for your business?

First, a profitable market has to be a hungry market. In other words, there must be sufficient demand for the product in place. The difficult thing about demand is that it is influenced by a number of different factors. Initially, you need to examine the following:

The size of the customer base. Collect information about total annual sales made in your product category. Have total sales increased from year to year? If not, you may be looking at a declining or saturated market.

Customer income. Who are your target customers? Survey the average income of your target customers and ask yourself how much purchasing power they have.

Prices. Look around and see what the current price levels for your product category are. A general rule of thumb is that if there is a growing demand for a product, the price levels should stay elevated.

Second, the less competition there is in a market, the more profitable it is. You may be up for quite a battle if there are many competitors in your market, especially if they are large and established competitors. Also, remember that competition is made up of direct competition and indirect competition. Your direct competition sells the exact same product as you while your indirect competition sells a similar product that competes for the same customers. Focus on the following:

Identify your direct and indirect competition. Who are they and how many of them are out there?

Strengths and weaknesses. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each competitor and what implications would that have on your business?

Uniqueness. Is there any reason why customers would purchase your product instead of one from a competitor? Are you giving them enough of a reason to?

Mind you, analysing the profitability of a market is a relatively complex process. The factors listed above should only be used as a preliminary approach. If upon examination of these factors, you end up with some favourable results, it means that you should proceed with a more careful assessment of the viability of your business. A complete feasibility study would have to be done.

For more information on starting a business, have a look at my article “Why You Need a Unique Selling Point”.

Do you automatically assume your business will follow the flow if your local economy was going through a recession? Do you lack ideas on how to keep your company slugging through rough times?

How would you like to be able to free your company up out of any sticky recession your local economy might be in?

Let’s take a closer look at how your marketing team functions during recessions. Your marketing team is your lead generation tool, right? How can a seasoned marketer help you during recession?

Traditional Marketing Outlook In A Recession

Generally speaking, during a recession most offline marketers get their budgets cut. This appears to limit their choice of actions. Marketing life can seem pretty gloomy without the budgets companies become accustomed to.

But this will not deter the seasoned offline marketer. He will look for and find creative solutions he can implement on a decreasing budget. The seasoned offline marketer will learn to manage, if his company and products have staying power. And if this is not his first recession to ride through, he will have prepared for hard times.

Creativity is part of the key. Traditional marketers have to lift their heads up and look out at the whole world to try to find their solutions. Communication is live.

They have the upward and outward outlook. They might lack the tools or opportunities they desire in-house and will naturally look outwards to find them.

Online Marketing Outlook In A Recession

During a recession the online marketers will naturally look to increase their conversion rates. They will want to get even more out of the money they have. Good online marketers often still have weapons up them sleeve to get better conversion rates. Recession stimulates them into action.

But this leads the online marketer down one narrow road, totally fixated with numbers, and testing, concentrating on the math and science of online sales conversion.

His vision is totally focused, and can be narrow in scope during a recession. Increased conversion rates can help during a recession.

Fly Above The Crowd

The pressures of survival on low budgets can narrow your vision.

What happens when you get a marketer with both online and offline experience marketing during times of recession? What would he come up with?

Probably a solution that will give your company a big boost, taking you out of the whole recession arena.

A little creativity with focus…and the low-cost friend, the internet. What will you see if you were to look upward and outwards with focus?

* There are other countries which are not operating under the same economic constraints as you are.

Creativity?

In a recession, dare yourself to find or create a product to sell further afield. Any company can. It just takes a little bit of imagination. Let the traditional marketer help you.

Powered Focus?

In a recession, dare yourself to find those clients fast. Of course, you can. Let the online marketer help you.

Recession proof your business by getting more foreign clients.

Flying above the crowds is a mindset, don’t let your mindset get caught in your local economy.

Developing clients further afield will help your company expand in the long term.

In a recession? Use both Traditional Marketing and Online Marketing skills to give you the power you need to get up and out of any local recession your company may be in.

“Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly at first.” So says my Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) mentor, Tim Hallbom. Everyone always chuckles when he says it, but taken to heart, it can be one of the most encouraging statements you’ll ever hear. Besides writing web copy, I also consult with independent entrepreneurs on how to make money with their online marketing strategies. And the biggest obstacle my clients (and I’ll venture a guess, you too) face is in their own minds.

It’s a desire to have everything be perfect BEFORE you get into action. You (and I say “you,” but I’ll admit I still fall prey to this same syndrome at times) are so worried about making a mistake in your marketing that you end up not moving forward.

You get stalled in developing your website because you want to find the “perfect” designer. You hold off on printing business cards while you obsess over coming up with the “ideal” business name and tagline. You embark on a never-ending search for a “foolproof” marketing approach.

Once you’ve got those in place, you tell yourself, then you can start marketing your business.

The irony is that this has the same effect -or worse- as trying something that doesn’t work well.

So, I’m going to give you permission -right here and now- to be less than perfect. (If you look closely you can see me waving a magic wand over your head.)

The field of NLP has a set of wonderful presuppositions about the world that can guide you toward a positive outcome in any situation. One of my favorites is right in line with what we’re talking about here.

“There’s no such thing as failure, only feedback.”

In marketing, like in life, there are very few absolutes. There are many, many variables that can come into play (the service you’re offering, your Core Audience, the timing, societal conditions, and on and on).

What bombs miserably in one context may reap grand rewards in another. What sounds fabulous on paper may flop when put into practice. What works today may stop working tomorrow. The point is, you can’t know until you try.

Personally, this need for experimentation and flexibility is what makes marketing my business fun. It means I get to try new things and see what happens. And then I get to learn from the experience - take what worked and improve on it, and discard the rest.

Because it’s all perfect, and it’s all just feedback (not evidence of my incompetence). The entrepreneur who isn’t experimenting with (and learning from) their marketing is the entrepreneur whose business is stalled.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Don’t be afraid of making a mistake. It’s called testing.