Take time out to work “on” rather than “in” your business

This is a great month to take stock of some of those perpetual issues relevant to all businesses – how best to position and market ourselves to the right target audiences!

Typical business owner marketing-related questions to self will include:

How can I sell more products?
How can I grow my business?
How can I make more money?
How can I tell more people about my business?
How can I manage all the things I have to do every day and make time for the above?!
Management consultants call the time spent thinking about these and related issues “working on your business” as opposed to “working in your business” (that preposition makes a big difference!)

If you do manage to get half an hour to yourself this month for some blue sky thinking (whatever colour the actual sky), it’s worth just grabbing a pencil and paper – or a lego whiteboard! – and making some notes about what you’re hoping to achieve with your business during the coming year. Mind maps are useful too.

Think about your customers

Think about your best customers. What is it about them that makes them the best? They’re probably the customers who give you their business on a continuing basis and recommend their friends to you too. Why do they do that? Do you know the answer? What are they like?

These are the customers on whom you’ll want to model your target market, all else being equal. So the question then becomes, how do you find more like them? And how do you turn those “suspects” into your “prospects” (when they’ve expressed an interest) and then into your customers?

What’s your Unique Perceived Benefit?

Think about what makes your business stand out from its competitors and what you can put forward as the stand out reason why your customers should do business with you rather than with them.

We’re now tending to use the term “Unique Perceived Benefit” rather than “Unique Selling Proposition” – because it makes you stop and think about things from the perspective of your customer rather than yourself. And that’s a really big point.

Then, make a date to take an hour out with us, and we’ll help you get your marketing on track.

FREE initial meeting of up to one hour

If you’re serious about marketing your business and are prepared to invest a little of your time, we’ll give you up to an hour of ours. Depending on your location and preference, this initial meeting can be in person, on the telephone or on skype.

During the meeting we’ll be taking note of your business objectives and issues and then applying our marketing experience and skills to raise some pertinent questions and suggestions.

What happens then?

If you like where we get to and decide to work with us, we’ll then agree a small charge to document the objectives and issues we’ve discussed and set up a framework plan as confirmation of where we’re heading.

Next step would then be to go into more depth to produce a marketing plan or focused communications plan which will concentrate on your target market, your messages and your media.

We can implement your communications plan on your behalf (many of our busy customers choose this route), or you can manage it yourself. Or you might opt for a bit of a halfway house – managing it yourself but touching base along the way with us to help you keep on track!

In fact, if you follow some simple processes, marketing can actually be fairly straightforward – and whilst you do need some marketing budget, smart marketing doesn’t have to cost a fortune.

Email or call us if you’d like to register your interest in a free meeting. We look forward to helping you get your marketing on track!