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Actual for You - You Must Get Going If You Want To Get Growing
For the past ten-months, I tried every drug from the popular Vioxx, Celebrex and Aleve, to the long-standing Percocet, Ibruprofen 800, with some other fabulous ones like Fexeril, Ulltram, Naproxyn, and Antevert. (And, this is my short list).I hate drugs and I try very hard to keep them out of my body. For example, for five years I was either pregnant or nursing so I knew the whole “What class is this drug in?” drill.Unfortunately, there’s a time and place for everything. To help manage my physical and “mental” pain, I had to wean my baby right after my car accident, so I can try some of these "Wonder Drugs".[Note: My doctors prefer that I acknowledge my “neurological” pain. I developed an inner ear disorder (benign vertigo and post concussive syndrome)
Also, try to make it clear what action you want your audience to take - call, email, order, etc. Ever read through someone's material and then you have no clue what you should do next? I see it all the time. Your audience will appreciate it if you guide them a bit as to what action they should take.
4. Get known in your marketplace. This is where a majority of service businesses start. They immediately start joining networking groups and trying to spread the word that they're in business. But look at how much work we just did before now.
I'm not suggesting you need to complete all of steps one, two, and three before you start trying to get visibilit
Branding used to be a fancy business word, but it is becoming more and more used in everyday business meetings. Finally! For decades, big corporations have used in-house, very well paid brand managers - someone in charge of managing everything that relates to the brand, including design, package and partnerships. You've heard enthusiastic talks about branding, but you are still not sure if you should get a brand management plan going for your business.Do you need one? Any company with the intention and potential to become or to remain a top competitor in its field needs to develop a sound branding strategy. And that's where the brand agency comes in. If you have a small or medium size business, you may not be able to pay a high salary for a full-time brand manager.
For some, it might be that you don't really know what to do, so you're doing nothing. And that includes not taking any action to learn more and find out what to do. If you were a car, you'd be stuck in PARK.
For some, it's not that you don't know what to do, you just don't. Other things always seem to take precedence. You have to call those prospects back that never returned your call from twelve weeks ago. Maybe you have to re-index your collection of business cards. If you were a car, you'd be stuck in NEUTRAL.
Still for others, you're doing as much as you can to market your services, but you're just not getting the results you'd like to have. It gets frustrating, because each of your ideas cost time and money, but you're not seeing the payoff. If you were a car, you'd be stuck in the MUD!
If you want to get GROWING with your service business, then you must get GOING with your marketing. You need to have a plan and a system in place that will...
...get you unstuck,
...make yourself accountable for getting it done, and
...give you something actionable to follow so that you can be as productive as possible with your non-client time.
Above all, you must GET GOING to GET GROWING!
Here are five identifiable and essential steps for you to get going with your marketing.
1. Begin with Laser Focus. If you haven't established clarity and focus about where you are going with your business, then you might as well be driving around in the dark, blindfolded and without headlights.
Just by spending some time to clarify and write down what you are trying to do with your business, your vision for where you want to take the business, and five to ten specific and measurable goals you'd like to accomplish for the coming months and year -- you'll be ahead of most of the service businesses out there.
Spend some additional time to define a very specific target market you'd like to penetrate and what it is that uniquely differentiates you from other alternatives. The focus on a niche allows you to create greater connection to prospects in the target audience than if you market to everyone.
The half day to a day or so you spend thinking through and actually writing these things down will give you more clarity, focus and motivation to keep you moving forward than you can imagine.
2. Position your business for great success. There are a number of key components that once developed can and should exist throughout your marketing.
Start by developing an attention getting message that focuses on your target clients and the challenges you want to help them overcome. Don't try to get too fancy. What you need is a concise, powerful statement that says who you work with and what problems, issues or challenges you want to help them overcome.
Additional key components:
* Articulate specific results and benefits of your services.
* Compile evidences of success including case studies and testimonials.
* Determine what you can offer to lower your prospects risk of doing business with you.
With all these client-focused elements in hand, you'll position your business for success that others simply don't have.
3. Create better marketing materials. If you've completed steps one and two, then you've done most of the groundwork for your marketing materials. Notice how everything is about your clients and prospects, and not about you or your company.
Whether you work on a web site, special report, tip sheet, newsletter, etc., keep the focus on your clients and prospects and what you can do for them. Most of the material out there just goes on and on about whom you are and what you do. That just does not work. People want to know what's in it for them and how you can help them solve their problems.
Also, try to make it clear what action you want your audience to take - call, email, order, etc. Ever read through someone's material and then you have no clue what you should do next? I see it all the time. Your audience will appreciate it if you guide them a bit as to what action they should take.
4. Get known in your marketplace. This is where a majority of service businesses start. They immediately start joining networking groups and trying to spread the word that they're in business. But look at how much work we just did before now.
I'm not suggesting you need to complete all of steps one, two, and three before you start trying to get visibility
The following tips have come from a wide variety of sources; some from other successful businesses we know, some from our Home-Based and Small Business Support Group meetings and some we've developed by trial and error. Some of the ways to get clients are: contact previous employers; mailing lists; cold call your target market; attend group meetings and seminars for your target market (conventions for doctors, lawyers; computer seminars); attend local Chamber of Commerce meetings; join groups related to your target market; if your target market uses a specific system, for example accountants use the SafeGuard system, contact them and tell them that you are available to teach them how to use the system or you can do it for them. Knock on doors and call others in you
If you want to get GROWING with your service business, then you must get GOING with your marketing. You need to have a plan and a system in place that will...
...get you unstuck,
...make yourself accountable for getting it done, and
...give you something actionable to follow so that you can be as productive as possible with your non-client time.
Above all, you must GET GOING to GET GROWING!
Here are five identifiable and essential steps for you to get going with your marketing.
1. Begin with Laser Focus. If you haven't established clarity and focus about where you are going with your business, then you might as well be driving around in the dark, blindfolded and without headlights.
Just by spending some time to clarify and write down what you are trying to do with your business, your vision for where you want to take the business, and five to ten specific and measurable goals you'd like to accomplish for the coming months and year -- you'll be ahead of most of the service businesses out there.
Spend some additional time to define a very specific target market you'd like to penetrate and what it is that uniquely differentiates you from other alternatives. The focus on a niche allows you to create greater connection to prospects in the target audience than if you market to everyone.
The half day to a day or so you spend thinking through and actually writing these things down will give you more clarity, focus and motivation to keep you moving forward than you can imagine.
2. Position your business for great success. There are a number of key components that once developed can and should exist throughout your marketing.
Start by developing an attention getting message that focuses on your target clients and the challenges you want to help them overcome. Don't try to get too fancy. What you need is a concise, powerful statement that says who you work with and what problems, issues or challenges you want to help them overcome.
Additional key components:
* Articulate specific results and benefits of your services.
* Compile evidences of success including case studies and testimonials.
* Determine what you can offer to lower your prospects risk of doing business with you.
With all these client-focused elements in hand, you'll position your business for success that others simply don't have.
3. Create better marketing materials. If you've completed steps one and two, then you've done most of the groundwork for your marketing materials. Notice how everything is about your clients and prospects, and not about you or your company.
Whether you work on a web site, special report, tip sheet, newsletter, etc., keep the focus on your clients and prospects and what you can do for them. Most of the material out there just goes on and on about whom you are and what you do. That just does not work. People want to know what's in it for them and how you can help them solve their problems.
Also, try to make it clear what action you want your audience to take - call, email, order, etc. Ever read through someone's material and then you have no clue what you should do next? I see it all the time. Your audience will appreciate it if you guide them a bit as to what action they should take.
4. Get known in your marketplace. This is where a majority of service businesses start. They immediately start joining networking groups and trying to spread the word that they're in business. But look at how much work we just did before now.
I'm not suggesting you need to complete all of steps one, two, and three before you start trying to get visibilit
I’m going to start very quickly by asking you all a question: most of you are business owners, why did you get into business? What was the core reason that you went into business?Delegates give reasonsForced situations, to gain some improved lifestyle, to gain more financial independence those sorts of Reasons? To gain more control over your destiny and your time. Better quality of life, the link into lifestyle again. In my experience the key reasons, apart from forced situations, the key drivers are wanting financial independence, wanting control and also wanting some fulfilment that is not being achieved already through what you are already doing.Also in my experience, order to achieve those passions and visions of what you want to achieve for
Spend some additional time to define a very specific target market you'd like to penetrate and what it is that uniquely differentiates you from other alternatives. The focus on a niche allows you to create greater connection to prospects in the target audience than if you market to everyone.
The half day to a day or so you spend thinking through and actually writing these things down will give you more clarity, focus and motivation to keep you moving forward than you can imagine.
2. Position your business for great success. There are a number of key components that once developed can and should exist throughout your marketing.
Start by developing an attention getting message that focuses on your target clients and the challenges you want to help them overcome. Don't try to get too fancy. What you need is a concise, powerful statement that says who you work with and what problems, issues or challenges you want to help them overcome.
Additional key components:
* Articulate specific results and benefits of your services.
* Compile evidences of success including case studies and testimonials.
* Determine what you can offer to lower your prospects risk of doing business with you.
With all these client-focused elements in hand, you'll position your business for success that others simply don't have.
3. Create better marketing materials. If you've completed steps one and two, then you've done most of the groundwork for your marketing materials. Notice how everything is about your clients and prospects, and not about you or your company.
Whether you work on a web site, special report, tip sheet, newsletter, etc., keep the focus on your clients and prospects and what you can do for them. Most of the material out there just goes on and on about whom you are and what you do. That just does not work. People want to know what's in it for them and how you can help them solve their problems.
Also, try to make it clear what action you want your audience to take - call, email, order, etc. Ever read through someone's material and then you have no clue what you should do next? I see it all the time. Your audience will appreciate it if you guide them a bit as to what action they should take.
4. Get known in your marketplace. This is where a majority of service businesses start. They immediately start joining networking groups and trying to spread the word that they're in business. But look at how much work we just did before now.
I'm not suggesting you need to complete all of steps one, two, and three before you start trying to get visibilit
Whether your company holds one meeting a week or dozens of meetings a day it is essential that this time is used efficiently and effectively. Most meetings are less effective than they could be not because they are poorly managed, but because meeting managers spend all of their time focusing on the one or two hours when people will be gathered around the conference table or video screen. Smart meeting managers know that it is the actions you take during the three days immediately before the meeting which are much more important than the meeting itself.When Your Meeting Starts The key to making your meeting successful begins long before the scheduled start-time of your meeting. Just as any athlete knows the importance of stretching before exercising, t
Additional key components:
* Articulate specific results and benefits of your services.
* Compile evidences of success including case studies and testimonials.
* Determine what you can offer to lower your prospects risk of doing business with you.
With all these client-focused elements in hand, you'll position your business for success that others simply don't have.
3. Create better marketing materials. If you've completed steps one and two, then you've done most of the groundwork for your marketing materials. Notice how everything is about your clients and prospects, and not about you or your company.
Whether you work on a web site, special report, tip sheet, newsletter, etc., keep the focus on your clients and prospects and what you can do for them. Most of the material out there just goes on and on about whom you are and what you do. That just does not work. People want to know what's in it for them and how you can help them solve their problems.
Also, try to make it clear what action you want your audience to take - call, email, order, etc. Ever read through someone's material and then you have no clue what you should do next? I see it all the time. Your audience will appreciate it if you guide them a bit as to what action they should take.
4. Get known in your marketplace. This is where a majority of service businesses start. They immediately start joining networking groups and trying to spread the word that they're in business. But look at how much work we just did before now.
I'm not suggesting you need to complete all of steps one, two, and three before you start trying to get visibilit
Do you wish you had more time in your day? Doesn't it always seem that if we just had a few more minutes, we could finish a task or project? Welcome to the fast fifteen!Usually we think of fifteen minutes as negligible in view of the larger projects and tasks that surround us. Let's examine different ways that 15 minutes could be more productive.Are you a victim of other people's agendas? If we are in `reactive' mode, then our fifteen minutes may be something like this: on hold on the telephone, waiting in line, in a traffic jam, waiting to talk with a colleague in the office, waiting to use the fax machine or to make copies, waiting for fresh coffee at the office, or waiting for a signature. I'm sure your list could go on and on.What you do with your
Also, try to make it clear what action you want your audience to take - call, email, order, etc. Ever read through someone's material and then you have no clue what you should do next? I see it all the time. Your audience will appreciate it if you guide them a bit as to what action they should take.
4. Get known in your marketplace. This is where a majority of service businesses start. They immediately start joining networking groups and trying to spread the word that they're in business. But look at how much work we just did before now.
I'm not suggesting you need to complete all of steps one, two, and three before you start trying to get visibility for yourself, but just think of how well prepared you will be to make an impression and follow-up if you've spent time on each of these previous steps.
Now you can get actively involved in networking, set up one-on-one meetings with networking contacts to deepen relationships, and start looking for places to share your valuable information through speaking and writing opportunities.
You'll create visibility for yourself so people can start to feel like they know you, like you, trust you and want to do business with you.
5. Deploy marketing initiatives and begin a cycle of continuous improvement. Marketing is not a one time event. There is no end destination where you're finished, sit back and let the marketing start working for you.
You must continuously monitor what's working and what's not working. Test your messages, offers, target lists, etc. Think about what it could mean to your business if you could increase the effectiveness of one of your marketing tools by 2, 5, 10, or 20 times the response. That's the power of testing.
Consider scheduling regular time and begin working through these essential steps as best you can. I guarantee you won't be stuck in park, stuck in neutral, or stuck in the mud for long. Remember, you must get going to get growing and I just gave you a five step plan to do it.
(c) - Kevin Dervin, KPD Marketing
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