Three Lessons for Marketing Your Business
Common mistakes I see business owners make are valuable lessons for the rest of us. Here are the most common mistakes I see all of the time.
No follow-up mechanisms. Most business people know they need to relationship build and network. They go out and network and/or speak to groups. They take business cards, enjoy a few conversations, find some prospects, and then what? About 75% of the time they return to the office and fail to follow-up. Do you realize that is like throwing money away. Creating opportunities and failure to follow-up is the same as walking to the nearest trashcan and tossing money in. Always make sure you have a follow-up system whether it's a pledge to email or call the person right after the meeting.
Spending money on marketing tools and then not using them. Is your signage being used? Are your information sheets being passed out? Are your brochures given out? Do you hand out business cards or leave them in your pocket, wallet or purse? Do you have a newsletter template and service you never use but pay for anyway? If you've answered yes to any of these questions you wasted a lot of money to have these items created and then never used. Again, throwing money away and (even more important) not effectively marketing your company.
Flying by the seat of your pants and failure to prepare. Many busy people are on the go. They perhaps have a speaking opportunity, but they're so busy right up to the event then when it's time to do it, they just fly from work to the event. They often don't find time to organize and properly prepare. It's common for working parents and entrepreneurs with so many responsibilities to not fully prepare and leverage their opportunities due to lack of time for proper preparation. It's an understandable problem, but there are solutions.
Everything I've just described are common business problems. Solutions can be done to resolve these issues and make your business investment pay off at its highest dividends. If I were to consult with you, here are the recommendations I would make based on these issues:
No follow-up mechanisms. Most business people know they need to relationship build and network. They go out and network and/or speak to groups. They take business cards, enjoy a few conversations, find some prospects, and then what? About 75% of the time they return to the office and fail to follow-up. Do you realize that is like throwing money away. Creating opportunities and failure to follow-up is the same as walking to the nearest trashcan and tossing money in. Always make sure you have a follow-up system whether it's a pledge to email or call the person right after the meeting.
Spending money on marketing tools and then not using them. Is your signage being used? Are your information sheets being passed out? Are your brochures given out? Do you hand out business cards or leave them in your pocket, wallet or purse? Do you have a newsletter template and service you never use but pay for anyway? If you've answered yes to any of these questions you wasted a lot of money to have these items created and then never used. Again, throwing money away and (even more important) not effectively marketing your company.
Flying by the seat of your pants and failure to prepare. Many busy people are on the go. They perhaps have a speaking opportunity, but they're so busy right up to the event then when it's time to do it, they just fly from work to the event. They often don't find time to organize and properly prepare. It's common for working parents and entrepreneurs with so many responsibilities to not fully prepare and leverage their opportunities due to lack of time for proper preparation. It's an understandable problem, but there are solutions.
Everything I've just described are common business problems. Solutions can be done to resolve these issues and make your business investment pay off at its highest dividends. If I were to consult with you, here are the recommendations I would make based on these issues:
- Procure a follow-up system (Send-Out Cards is good)
- Place on your calendar a daily, weekly time to focus only on follow-up
- Use a networking checklist so you have all of your marketing tools with you
- Pre-build marketing packets for networking so you can grab and go
- Pre-build speaker's kits so you can grab and go
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