"The purpose of a business is to convert strangers into clients." That's what Peter Drucker - the leading US business guru said. But that's a heck of lot easier to say than to do!
Most of us have more than enough technical skills - skills in whatever products and services we offer - to do the job. But very few of us have had formal marketing training. Consequently we spend most of our time on the technical stuff - which often has very little to do with our business success. Let me demonstrate:
You probably have Microsoft Windows installed on your PC right now. Yet there is a better operating system around - which does not seize up erratically at critical computing moments; which doesn't have 48,000 viruses attacking it because it was inadequately designed; which has been completely secure and password protected for the past 10 years; and which is FREE - but which is used by less than 5% of all PC users! The Linux operating system is superb, but is not well marketed - so the worst product wins. Bottom line, provided your product doesn't actually kill people - your success depends on your marketing, not your product quality! Scary, isn't it?
We little guys don't have the money, time or patience to invest in large campaigns - so we don't. But we don't do any other marketing either! And that's a real problem for most of us. If you disagree - then ask yourself if your sales remain consistently where you want them to be each month. If they don't, then chances are you have a marketing problem.
For 99% of us marketing is never an urgent activity. By the time it becomes urgent, it's probably already too late. But direct marketing will generate immediate sales. Within hours. And if that marketing is done via the Internet, it's almost for free. Forget about websites for the moment. Most of the sales I see via the Internet - as a little entrepreneur - don't happen via websites. They happen via email.
Marketing is that range of activities designed to get a prospect to knock on your door. It used to be expensive. Until last year most of our marketing was via faxes to 120,000 businesses. That used to cost R25,000 each month! In July last year we stopped all faxing, and concentrated on marketing only via the Internet through emails and the websites. Sales haven't changed, but our marketing costs are now below R1000/month! And it's not difficult.
I have been using direct marketing techniques since my first business effort 1984. I started out that way because I couldn't afford to do media advertising. Ever since then I have found that each rand spent on direct marketing generates as much business as each R500 spent on media advertising!
When our kids arrive on the employment scene they're going to eat our breakfast because they aren't bound by the same restrictions and traditions that tie us in knots. [We're so stuck on an older way of doing things that we struggle to break free. It's all in your own head!] Our children will have a clear unfettered vision of how to use the Internet to achieve their goals.
One of the biggest fears ever voiced about marketing is: "What if I am overwhelmed? What if there is so much business that I can't handle it?" If it helps, I have never seen it happen! But the Internet allows you to ensure that each prospect gets an immediate response - and I will show you how to do that as well. This buys you the time you need to sift through the responses to find the sales.
One last thing. Because marketing is never urgent, it usually never happens because we're never short of urgent stuff to fill any given day. You will need to spend a little time - about 1 hour per week - on maintaining the most effective marketing campaign you've ever designed. If you can't commit to that time, then I must suggest that you will soon be needing the CrashProofing strategies! Go well.
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