Category Archives for "Marketing"

The Power of Your Implicit Promise

This post sequence aims to encourage  in-depth relational marketing for coaches, consultants and freelancers.  It builds into a questionnaire to help them prepare their relational marketing strategy.  This third post builds on the first, about your vision or business purpose and second, about your market.  Elements of your promise are explicit but an implicit promise can be powerful.

Your Explicit and Implicit Promises

Your promise is at the very heart of marketing.  Whatever you say or do to promote your business or cause, it comes back to your promise.

Your explicit promise is sometimes called the benefit.  It is essential you understand the distinction between features and benefits and you must make sure your market understands your benefits.

Your implicit promise is not something you allude to directly.  It relates to your Vision and the psychographics of your market.  They see something in your vision and so trust you will deliver it.

Your implicit promise is: you will see it through and meet the unvoiced expectations of your customer.  This is why it is important coaches choose their customers carefully and listen to them.  Together you are weavers of dreams.

Your Promise

1. Consider one of your products or services. What is its explicit promise?
2. What is its implicit promise? Consider both emotional and intellectual aspects.
3. Does your promise need to be bigger, more specific, less specific?

Making Your Promise

Taken together, your vision, market and promise make up your identity as a business-owner.  Review your answers to the questions in this and the last two posts.  Decide on changes when you consider them together.

One valuable insight from the implicit promise is, it allows you space to over-deliver.  You may find you need to support your customer over periods of upset when their business does not go in the anticipated direction.  Consider: how far are you prepared to go?  Remember as you take on more customers, you have less time to devote to each of them.

Are there bonuses you can deliver, once they have signed up, that will begin to deliver your implicit promise with minimal effort from you?

This is the third in a post sequence to encourage coaches to reflect on relational marketing.  Sign up below to get a weekly round-up of my posts and a pdf about how to make sure you are charging what your business is worth.  Most weeks you will receive an email with useful news or pointers to how you can tackle these questions.

Use of Psychographics to Understand Your Prospects

This sequence encourages you to explore relational marketing in-depth.  The first post was about your vision or business purpose.  These posts build into a questionnaire to help coaches, consultants and freelancers prepare their relational marketing strategy.  If you want to understand your prospects, you need to understand your use of psychographics.

What are Psychographics?

We often think markets in terms of demographics, things like sex, age, race, location – all things most people are unable to do much about.  Perhaps these are more accurately described as your niche.  So, you may offer solutions to the problem of stress at work.  Your market is naturally those who experience stress but you can choose your niche based on sex or location, etc.

Psychographics are a better way to describe your market, it’s desires, frustrations and personalities.  There is a closer tie into your market through psychographics than demographics.  (When you follow the second link, please note I did not use the word psychographics, using demographics to cover both demographics and psychographics.  This is fairly common usage.)

Your Market

1. Describe your market in terms of their psychographics. Consider their desires, frustrations, hopes, personalities, dreams, interests, career, culture, education.
2. Do you use demographics, eg age, sex, location, etc to further niche your market? If so, why do this?  Remember this is not necessarily wrong but it should be intentional.
3. Prepare an avatar for your market. Focus on what they believe and why they believe it.

Finding Your Market

Be aware, often the best market is the one that finds you!  You can anticipate the kind of people likely to be interested in your offer.  You might decide to target business owners.  As you find customers, work out what they have in common.  Why have they chosen you?

Markets are in constant flux and people who choose you today may lose interest tomorrow.  However, if you find people who know like and trust you, they are likely to listen to what you say.  Be alert to changes among your followers and respond to them.

Never forget markets are communities.  Consider how you can encourage conversations between your followers.

This is the second in a post sequence to help businesses reflect on their relational marketing.  Sign up below to get a weekly round-up of posts and a pdf about how you can make sure you charge what your business is worth.  Most weeks you will receive an email with useful news or pointers to how you can tackle these questions.

What Will Your Coaching Business Change?

In this new sequence, I explore relational marketing in-depth.  The challenge is to build a new questionnaire to help coaches, consultants and freelancers work with their relational marketing strategy.  Today’s focus is: what will your coaching business change?

Each post is in three short sections.  A thought for the day, a few questions and a call to action.  Feel free to share thoughts and actions in the comments.

If You Act, You Change Things

Marketing leads to change.  If nothing changes as a result of marketing then you are not marketing and you do not have a business.

Change can be accidental and unintended.  Even with great planning, prepare for unintended consequences from your actions.  These can be positive or negative.

Good marketers look beyond their customers to the change they want to see in the wider world.  Their invitation to their customers is to join them in making that change.

Your Vision

1. What change are you seeking? This is your vision or business purpose.
2. What are the existing and likely outcomes of your current marketing campaign?
3. What could you change to align your vision with your marketing?

Finding Your Vision

Your vision does not necessarily come solely from your head.  It is better if you can build your vision from observations of the changes your business is making already.  This may be hard if you have a new business but take stock of the changes you see and build on them.

The word Vision implies things you see.  Even a ladder to the stars has to be secured to the ground.

This is the first post in a sequence to help businesses plan their relational marketing.  Sign up below to get a weekly round-up of my posts and a pdf about how you can make sure you are charging what your business is worth.  Most weeks you will receive an email with useful news or pointers to how you can tackle these questions.

How to Find Opportunities for Joint Ventures

Joint Ventures are among the most challenging business approaches.  There are other possibilities for marketing together.  Opportunities for Joint Ventures are not always high-end.

I shall use the Awareness Ladder (follow the link to remind yourself of the steps) to demonstrate collaboration throughout the marketing cycle.  Keep your eyes and ears open for other possibilities!

Assume collaboration between businesses with shared interests.  They could be competitors but competition is likely to obscure opportunities for collaboration.

Remember, the further down the Awareness Ladder, the more people there will be and the harder it is to move them up the ladder.  But if they move up the ladder there are more prospects for all the businesses involved.

Research into Potential Markets

Rung 0 is where prospects are unaware of their problem.  The aim is to get them to Rung 1, where they are aware.

Businesses need to campaign to increase awareness of the problem.  You need to know who your markets are, where they are found and the arguments or incentives they need to become aware of their problem.

Even with much competition, there is likely to be scope for collaboration.  Moving people to Rung 1 is most difficult and so pooled resources by businesses addressing the same problem, makes a lot of sense.

There will be more people aware of the problem and so more opportunities for all the partners.  Remember partners have a variety of offers and so the next challenge is to help prospects work out which offer suits them best.

Finding Pros and Cons

The move from Rung 1, awareness of the problem, to Rung 2, awareness of solutions, needs continued collaboration.  The aim is to promote the options available to people aware of the problem.

If people are unaware of solutions they will not take action.  Many people live with a problem for years because they believe there is no solution and so do not seek it.

Help them make a good first choice.  An outline of the pros and cons of each solution helps.  The temptation is to debunk your competitors; you could list all the solutions on the market and why they don’t work, apart from your own.  The problem is this is not true.

A better approach is to describe the best customer for each approach.  “Use this approach if you are … , don’t use it if you are …”.

This acts as a guide to the offers on the market and helps prospects make a good first choice.  When you meet them, you can ask why they chose your offer and so assess whether you are in fact best placed to help them.

Referrals

Now we move from Rung 2, a general awareness of solutions to Rung 3, awareness of one particular solution.  For the coach or consultant, this stage is where you arrange an enrolment meeting, an opportunity to work out whether there is a good fit between your offer and the prospect’s problem and context.

It may become clear there is no match on closer inspection; to make a deal would be a big mistake for one or both parties.

The ability to make a good referral is crucial.  If you have collaborated with competitors, making a good referral can strengthen relationships.  If it goes well, you will have a grateful competitor and their new client will be grateful too.  Ask how you can use this to your advantage.

Endorsements

Moving from awareness of your offer, Rung 3 to Rung 4, full understanding of and trust in your offer, should be easier so long as you have evidence in place.  You can show your prospect evidence, depending on what interests them, eg past projects, qualifications, testimonials, etc.  One powerful source of evidence is endorsements.

Usually, we think of celebrity endorsements and these can help some businesses.  But why not endorsements from competitors?  These could increase trust between partners as well as between you and your prospects.

If an endorsement can be backed with a promise that competing businesses will collaborate to support their partner businesses, when they are working with a client, this can strengthen the case you make to your prospect.

This collaboration falls short of a full Joint Venture but includes anything from offering you advice through to subcontracting elements of the deal to other businesses.

Joint Ventures

The final step from full understanding at Rung 4 to making a purchase, Rung 5, could be a Joint Venture.

You might share a high-end offer with another business.  If either business encounters someone who might benefit, they offer the JV offer.  You need to agree whether both need to be present.  The prospect may want to meet the other party before they commit.

There’s no reason this has to be a high-end offer.  You could experiment with low-end offers but income from them, divided between at least 2 parties, may mean there is a point where it is not worthwhile.

Conclusion

There is potential for collaboration between competitors at all stages of your marketing.

The attitude that competitors are the enemy is prevalent and may be hard to dislodge but the truth is they have shared interests and with collaboration there is potential for increased business for all.  Businesses with similar interests can collaborate for mutual benefit.

There are possibilities for collaboration between businesses, where they are not competing, so this post explores only one approach to collaboration.

Collaboration between competitors is likely to be fruitful if they agree a strategy.  Use the Awareness Ladder as a guide and agree at which rungs you wish to collaborate and how far you want to go.  As trust builds, you can do more together.  Whatever you agree, get it in writing so you can settle disputes and then focus on building trust.

In my email to subscribers this week, I shall write about building support with prospects.  To make sure you see everything, complete the form below to go on my mailing list.  You’ll get notice of future blog posts and receive my Thursday emails.

In these posts and emails I am forging a new approach to marketing.  Please comment and let me know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.

Why You Must Aim to Transform Your Business Environment

Your purpose is to transform your business environment and you need to be clear transformation always takes place in wider society when we work with clients and collaborate with other businesses.

The Inevitability of Transformation

Business causes transformation whatever the business owner’s intention.  Some don’t think about transformation or care what happens.  Businesses have unintended consequences, even though the business owner plans for transformation.  And sometimes businesses get it right!

Some people see profit as the purpose of business.  They may not appreciate the consequences of their actions on the world around them.  Not only will their business have direct consequences for their immediate environment but it contributes to the general attitude transformation is not the purpose of business.

We cannot afford that attitude today.  This is not only about asking businesses to take their responsibilities seriously but to go further and expect business owners to take a lead transforming things for the better.

An Invisible Hand?

It is interesting how Adam Smith’s concept of an invisible hand justifies neoliberalism today.  Smith uses the term “invisible hand” very few times and in his Wealth of Nations, he uses it to critique the approach we call neo-liberalism.  He argues self-interested business people will not trade abroad because their loyalty to the country draws them to business practices that benefit all, as if by an invisible hand.

The term is memorable and so over the years, everyone uses it to justify their economic beliefs.  The original idea was the rich, acting selfishly, benefit all because to produce their wealth and spend it, eg on servants, they redistribute their money to the benefit of all; a dubious idea, sometimes called “trickle down”.  At least, Smith intended money to stay in circulation.

Neo-liberalism uses the idea of a free market to justify practices that constrain the market.  Arguably, a market is free where money flows freely.  If the wealthy hoard money, then they are not contributing to a free market.  This is why regulation of free markets is crucial.

This problem stems from an old debate about whether businesses should aim for transformation.  Perhaps the most convincing argument against transformation through business is from externalities.

Externalities are the unintended consequences attendant upon any business activity, eg pollution.  The argument goes these will undermine any positive aim the business has and so an invisible hand is more effective than intention.

It Takes Time to Change Things

Transformation is an indirect result of actions taken by people.  In other words we cannot predict the outcomes of our actions because we don’t know how others will respond.  You can promise to deliver 100 widgets on time for a price and mostly you will deliver.  You cannot accurately predict the environmental impact of manufacturing the widgets or the impact their use will have.

Furthermore, the transformation we witness today may be completely different in 3 months, 6 months or 6 years.

Regulation mitigates the negative consequences of business activity but we must grow more confident understanding and owning the consequences of the actions we take.

For coaches, a business purpose helps their marketing because it is communicates values and shared values are important to the coaching relationship; working with people, trying things together, to find the most effective way forward.  Transformation is iterative, moves forward slowly, using trial and error.  This way businesses learn together.

The dilemma we face comes from those who deprive businesses of the means to effect change through withholding money from the economy.  Somehow the truth is twisted round to favour those who seek power through hoarding finance.

Businesses committed to a place, to enhancing lives in that place, are the heirs to the vision: a  vibrant marketplace at the heart of every community.

In my email to subscribers this week, I shall write about practical approaches to transformation.  To make sure you see everything, complete the form below to go on my mailing list.  You’ll get notice of future blog posts and receive my Thursday emails.

In these posts and emails, experience a new approach to marketing.  Please comment and let me know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.

How to Engage In-Person and Online Marketing

For years, I’ve said in my one minute elevator pitch : I help people engage their in-person and online marketing.  Few people have asked me about this.  It is a radical stance but many don’t see it that way.  Most people don’t appreciate the massive change the business world has experienced over the last few years.

Broadcast versus Intimacy

For most of my life, I’ve experienced broadcast marketing: advertising hoardings, newspaper and magazine adverts, television and radio commercials.  These were pretty much the all there was until the Internet.

Broadcast media is expensive.  You needed sales skills far more than marketing skills because unless you were good at sales, you did not have the resources to invest in marketing.

With the Internet you can get your message out to people at far lower costs.  You can do some marketing for free and the costs where there are charges are modest.  Broadcast marketing is still important for national or global markets but local marketing is particularly enhanced because we can combine in-person and online marketing.

Intimacy is another difference between broadcast and online marketing.  Modern marketing allows us to build relationships with people we never meet in person.  With mobile phones we link directly with people as they go about their daily business.  But it is also intimate in the sense, local marketing communicates both in-person and online.

Web Design is Dead

Allow me to use website design as an example.  In its early days, website design was difficult.  You needed to design a graphic image, slice it into bits and assemble it on the webpage, using tables.  You did this using html.

CSS simplified web design. It was still an acquired skill. If you wanted a website, it was usually more economic to hire a designer than to go on a course and learn to do it yourself.

Today, with platforms such as WordPress with hundreds of themes and plug-ins, you can do almost anything yourself.  There will be times when you need professional assistance.  You may hire someone because you don’t wish to devote your time to building a website.  But that is your choice.

The real issue is not graphic design or the layout of your site, it is the content.  What do you want your site to do?  It’s not the latest technology that matters so much as knowing what you need from your site.  If you don’t know what you need, no-one can honestly say to you: “we have the latest thing that exactly fits what you need to do.”

For someone to do that for you, you must open up about your vision, trust they keep it confidential and know enough to help you get what you need.

Systemic Marketing

Systemic marketing means marketing that takes into account the entirety of your business.  This means you are ill-advised to approach marketing by picking at bits of it.  “I need a website.”  How do you know that?  It isn’t good enough to say you need a website because your competitors have one.  You need to understand its purpose in your marketing plan and how to manage it so it achieves that purpose during your marketing campaign.

If you invest time and money in a website or anything else, how do you assess the return on your investment?  You could spend a lot on something that brings no return whatsoever.

One thing I learned early in my career as a community development worker, was copying ideas does not work.  Something may work brilliantly in one time and place.  It will not work in yours.  It worked the first time because someone got the measure of a place and tried the right thing.

Co-operatives and Franchises

By all means look at what others do for inspiration.  The retail co-operative movement is an example where copying worked well; it offered a model that worked pretty much all over the country.  I’ve never seen any figures showing how many co-ops failed.  Their approach worked in most places but we do not see records of false starts.  The co-ops were in effect an early franchise and in the business world we see many such enterprises.

Franchises are replicable businesses, not noted for innovation.  That criticism could be made of the retail co-ops.  There were many proposals for other forms of co-ops, primarily worker co-ops.  These never really worked in the UK, although successful worker co-op movements can be found in Southern Europe.

If you want a franchise, you get a lot of support including a decision whether the franchise will work in your place.  This does not encourage innovation and so this is where small businesses come into play.

Most businesses fail within a few years.  There are many reasons for this including poor management and marketing.  But where businesses are well-managed, many still fail because they are not viable.  They are in the wrong place and time.

Identify Viability Before You Invest

A systemic approach to marketing helps you find what is viable before you invest in something that will not work.  A successful franchise begins with a local trial, refining the approach until there is something replicable.  Few businesses set out to become franchises; they become possible depending on how a local business develops.

That’s the point.  As a business develops, new opportunities appear.  Your task is to see and take advantage of opportunities and for that you need to be familiar with your business, not just one aspect of it.

Next time I shall look at the transformations businesses are responsible for in wider society.

In these posts and emails I am forging a new approach to marketing.  Please comment and let me know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.

To make sure you see everything, complete the form below to go on my mailing list.  You’ll get notice of future blog posts and receive my Thursday emails.

Increased Business Growth by Slowed Marketing

In the last couple of posts, I’ve shown why it’s important to validate and upgrade your business.  These increase your confidence when talking about your business and set you up for the most crucial dimension to your marketing plan, campaign design.  This is where you put together a marketing plan for increased business growth.

The big mistake businesses make is to embark on campaign design without validation or upgrade.  This invites losses in time and money.  Without validation, how can you understand what marketing methods you need for your business?  Without upgrade, how can you know you are marketing the best possible version of your business?  What a waste, when you discover part way through your campaign, you could have made improvements before you started!

Campaign design with foundations in validation and upgrading, is more likely to be effective, easier and quicker to develop and faster bringing your business to those most likely to buy.

So, here are some advantages you have as you design your marketing campaign.

Confidence Closing the Deal

If you are not confident about closing deals, you are likely to avoid situations where you get close to closing the deal.  Obviously, this is a fatal problem for any business!

Most people who experience this problem seek help through training or coaching.  So, let’s assume you have done the coaching and understand closing.

If you have validated and upgraded your business, you are clearer about what you offer and so more likely to attract prospects.  And you are confident enough to make an offer.

You will know how to find those you can help and communicate your confidence to them.

Solving Problems

Validation and upgrading help you solve your clients’ problems and they help you solve your own marketing problems.

A big problem business owners face is they find they are marketing using a method they do not  enjoy.  You could argue the aim is to promote your business not enjoy marketing but if you enjoy marketing, you are more likely to do it and communicate your enthusiasm.

The question is: how do I find a method I enjoy and design a campaign that will work for my business?  Chances are the skills you already use delivering your offer can be used to market it.  This way your business is coherent across marketing, sales and delivery.

Handling Objections

Upgrading shows you where you need to go out on a limb.  You take an extreme position in your campaign and that attracts objections.

When you get objections, it shows you are making an impact.  You have confidence to respond to them positively.  Remember, your response should speak to your market.  The person who makes the objection may not be in your market.  They may not be able to see the point because it is not for them.  Turn this to your advantage.

Leadership

If you establish your own space as an expert, you draw a group of people around you.  You become a leader!  You build credibility and credibility means more work and more sales.

Leadership is something people fear but deep knowledge of your business means you can be confident your leadership is well-received.  Good will is valuable so long as you come up with the next step and keep on innovating.

Having a System

Campaign design is basically developing a system whereby you automate aspects of your business.  You can do this online and this is usually what people think about when they design a marketing campaign.

But they need a system that involves their customers, prospects and other contacts.  There are Customer Relationship Management (CRM) packages available online and one of these may be helpful.  But you need to clear what your CRM is for – what do you want your contacts to do for your business?  What incentives can you offer for them?

You need a system that works for the front end (outreach / targeting) and backend of your business (CRM).  A sales systems at both ends can be complex but saves time and energy if you get it right.

There is more to campaign design than many businesses offering marketing tools acknowledge.  The only person who can hold the complete picture is you – marketing companies cannot do this for you.  You need to work closely with those you hire to deliver your marketing strategy.  If you don’t know what you need, don’t expect anyone else to!

Next time, I’ll dig deeper into campaign design for local marketing.

In these posts and emails I am forging a new approach to marketing.  Please comment and let me know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.

To make sure you see everything, complete the form below to go on my mailing list.  You’ll get notice of future blog posts and receive my Thursday emails.

Leverage Your Marketing by Slowing Down

Increased clarity is one advantage of slow marketing but increased leverage is the main benefit.  Archimedes said: “’Give me but a firm spot on which to stand, and I shall move the earth.”

Most people argue you need a lever for leverage but Archimedes’ point was he needed a firm spot on which to stand too.

Your firm spot is your validated business.  When you know your business, you can find the lever you need to move it.  There are plenty of levers available but mostly they don’t work because they are not used from a firm spot!

First, you validate your business and then upgrade it – ask: can your business be improved?  In my last post I listed 5 elements for validation from the circuit questionnaire.

Take each element in turn and ask: how can I upgrade this, take it to a new level?  An upgrade to any one element is likely to improve the others too.  If asked to improve our business, we tend to focus on one element, our offer.  Upgrades of several elements are likely to strengthen your business far more than focusing solely on one.

Getting Your Message Across

Upgrading several elements helps you communicate your message.  Here are several possibilities. You can:

Standing on firm ground strengthens your business and you!  You find you can express yourself with clarity and conviction.  Your prospects see in you someone with credibility.

Speaking

This is crucial for public speaking.  You may need to learn how to overcome fear and some techniques to speak in public but your message is just as important.

Set yourself the challenge of speaking for 10 minutes every day in private!  Dream up new and challenging topics and practice speaking about them.  You will find you come out with new solutions.  Indeed answering the circuit questionnaire questions and seeking to upgrade will give you plenty of topics to keep you going for ages.

This will improve your performance in debates.  If you have a distinct approach to your coaching business that challenges established players, they will play down your contribution.  Be ready to fight for what you know is right!  And remember debating with others and tackling new objections is a fantastic way to sharpen your approach.

Websites and social media

Take the detail and reduce it to a few clear sentences that lead the reader to a decision.  It may be a decision to click on a link for more information, all the way through to making a purchase.

This skill is called copywriting and it takes time to learn it.  Use a variety of simple tools to capture  your market’s attention and encourage them to explore following you or working with you.

Writing

More general writing can be important.  Blog posts, emails, pdf downloads are all online and many of the copywriting rules apply.  But these all differ from websites and social media because they are opportunities to tackle a subject in more detail.

There is no limit to the length of the articles you write.  The rule of thumb is it should be no shorter than what you need to say and no longer than that!

But reading from a screen is harder than reading from paper.  Very long articles are less likely to be read in full.  If you can publish on paper, this will increase your credibility.  Or it may be possible to publish to e-readers.  This used to be called vanity publishing but the value is you make it easier for your prospects to find your writing.

Answering Objections

Your aim is to answer objections and enjoy them!  A firm spot helps you do this and is important for credibility.  However, you may object, a firm spot implies inflexibility.

It is possible to be inflexible and after all the validation work, you may find it irresistible.  Your firm spot is always a starting point.  Use it to explore new possibilities, confident you can return to it or move it as new ideas develop.

How do new ideas inform and develop your business?  Do they do so for the best?  Or do they detract from your business?  Your firm spot is your starting point for further exploration; you can be confident and at the same time willing to explore.

Confidence

Ultimately it boils down to confidence.  The next step in your marketing strategy is campaign design; choosing the tools you need to market your business.  These tools need to be learned; their technical aspects and how they can be used to greatest effect.  The latter can take many months.

Next time, I’ll show why slow marketing is faster because it helps you choose the right methods and use them to greatest effect.

In these posts and emails I am forging a new approach to marketing.  Please comment and let me know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.

Make sure you see everything.  Complete the form below to get access to my mailing list.  You’ll get notice of future blog posts and receive my Thursday emails.

Slow Down Your Marketing for Clarity

Clarity communicates and the first person to benefit from clarity is you!  If you are clear, then your message shall be clear to everyone who hears it.  This takes time and so I’ve devoted this and the next 2 posts to the benefits of slow marketing.

(This is the seventh of 12 posts based on my new website, Market Together.  Go there to find previous posts.)

Who else benefits from clarity?

What Do You Need Clarity About?

You need to be clear about your business and to do that you need to validate it.  Validation is where you systematically, review the main elements of your business.  The circuit questionnaire is one way to do this and helps to clarify 5 elements of all businesses.

Many business owners do not really think about their business as it is and embark upon marketing something they do not themselves understand.  Taking the time to really get to grips with your business “as-is” is valuable time spent; time often swallowed up with the day-to-day pressures of running a business.

It is likely you know more about your business than you realise.  To take time to think about your business systematically, will help you bring aspects of it to your conscious mind that otherwise pass unnoticed.

Using the Circuit Questionaire

The circuit questionnaire covers five elements:

If you are clear about all five, you have a viable business.  You may be able to improve on one or all of them.  You cannot improve on these aspects unless you know what they are now!  To improve one element is likely to improve the others.

You may be able to introduce improvements without validation but you are likely to add random bits on.  Bricolage is the word used for art created from whatever is to hand.  Without validation, you are likely to build a monstrous business that makes little sense to the onlooker.  With validation, your bricolage shall be more coherent and make sense to others.  There is virtue using what comes to hand but the key to success is being able to integrate new ideas into your business, not just add on another bit for the hell of it.

Clarity is empowering and so in my next post I shall explore what you can do with that clarity.

In these posts and emails I am forging a new approach to marketing.  Please comment and let me know what you think, whether you agree or disagree.

To make sure you see everything, complete the form below to go on my mailing list.  You’ll get notice of future blog posts and receive my Thursday emails.

Are Your Prospects Prepared to Take Action?

People on step 1 of the awareness ladder know they have a problem.  To move to step 2, they need to be aware of solutions to their problem.  Are your prospects ready to take action?  (This is a post from the circuit questionnaire sequence, fourth element – Problem.  I omitted this post from the problem sequence by oversight a few months ago.)

Preparedness to take action leads to an active search for solutions.  People need to know there is likely to be more than one solution to most problems.  They need education to avoid the dash to the first solution to hand.

A Case Study

Here’s a case study.  An organisation had a very poor website.  Based on old-fashioned technology, it looked dreadful and did not begin to market their services.

They knew they had a problem and acted out of ignorance.  They went to a website designer.  He was the person who serviced their IT systems and produced a technical solution.  Not interested in the organisation, he knew nothing of marketing.  Indeed he was actively sceptical of marketing.  They now have a website that looks superficially better.  It does not use the latest technology, it looks dreadful because it is poorly maintained and still does not effectively market their services.

The big difference is they have wasted several thousand pounds on a system that can never serve their needs.  They have learned nothing from their re-design and continued ignorant of how their website and the Internet can support their business.

This is not uncommon when it comes to websites.  Indeed, it is not uncommon when it comes to business in general.  You may be brilliant at delivering your service or product.  But you are wasting your time if you can’t sell it!

Anyone in business needs to learn how to market it.  Are they ready to take action?

Will They Pay to Solve the Problem?

If prospects are willing to pay, you have a market.  There don’t have to be many to make a viable market but there needs to be enough.

The big problem with marketing, including websites, is many people resist sales and marketing; they really don’t want to go down that road.

But it is the only road in town!  There are many options available to those who set out on that road.  Many people have set views about marketing and sales.  They don’t understand marketing as education or sales as communication.  They have an image of pushy sales people and don’t see their offers as their contribution to the world’s benefit.

The truth is there are solutions that don’t work this way; they need to be learned. Usually, to get the practice you need, some type of mentoring helps.  An initial outlay to get yourself orientated in the marketplace is worth every penny.  The alternative is random activities that can cost a lot more in time as well as money.  I tried many things before I found approaches that really helped.

Resistance like this is not restricted to marketing.  Dieting and exercise is not something that appeals to everyone who is overweight.  Indeed the idea of exercise used to put me off because I was so heavy.  Now I start to get twitchy if I don’t get out and walk!

Usually, if you have a problem, you need to own it and bring the solution into your routine.  Most people need help to do this.  More accomplished people recognise they need help and are willing to pay for it.  They know they can save a lot of time with the right support.

So, I know I have to pay for help with some problems and I can get by without help for others.  This puts me in some markets and not in others.

How Much Can You Charge?

There are many factors to consider:

Perhaps the most important thing to understand is you’re not offering information.  These days people find information online.  Your role is to curate information; that is organise and interpret it.  It is to support your clients as they experience using information and for accountability.

If you are known for doing these things well, you are likely to do well.

Let me know if you find this post helpful and where you would like more information.