No. 1 Positioning

What are you selling? Who are you selling it to? More importantly why do they buy it from YOU? Can you describe this in clear and simple terms in such a way that it is obvious to your prospects?

If you can’t do this, either verbally or in written form, you’re facing an uphill struggle promoting your offering to a target audience. What is your Unique Selling Point? What is your Elevator pitch? Check out your competition, and see what they are saying about themselves. Does what you say really sound that different? I know from when I worked in the IT sector, almost ALL of our competitors’ marketing messages were exactly the same, just with slightly different colour schemes on their brochures. Why should prospects come to you for help rather than your competition?

Q. What do you do? (without mentioning service, reliability, quality or price)

No. 2 Packaging

Ok, so you’ve sorted out your USP or Key Marketing Message. You may even have a good grasp what what the problems, worries and frustrations of your clients are, and how to match these to your solutions. But how do you package this? How are you packaging your solutions to communicate the value that you offer, in a way that gives prospects confidence that you can solve their problems? How do you package yourself, your identity and your message?

Q. How do you attract attention, interest, desire and action from prospects?

No. 3 Promotion

How do prospects learn about you? Are you just sitting there looking wistfully at the phone, or taking steps to make it ring with people who want what you have to offer? Once you’re clear on what you offer, who buys it and why, the next step is to make sure people know about you. What methods are you using to prove to people your knowledge, skills and experience, so that you’re first on their list of people to ask for help? You need to become a familiar, trusted face with your target market. The more they see you, and the more they see you deliver, the more they will trust you.

Q. What are you doing to make qualified prospects call you?

No. 4 Persuasion

Converting qualified prospects into sales, convincing people that you are the right person to solve their problem. Most of this should be done by steps 2 and 3 above. At this stage you should be re-affirming what their problems are, that they have the authority, motivation and a realistic budget to address them, and they want to make a decision now. If your marketing system is working properly, your prospect has already decided you are the right person to help them by the time they call, and this stage is just about agreeing terms.

Q. How do you qualify your prospects and persuade them you are the right solution for them?

No. 5 Performance

Are you meeting your clients expectations? How do you know? What do you do if the client doesn’t keep up their side of the bargain? How do you hold them accountable? Do they understand exactly what is required of them in order for your relationship to be successful? Do you have a written agreement, with key performance indicators, milestones and deliverables agreed with your client from the start? Again, when I worked in IT, clients would very often change the specifications in the middle of the project, and then be surprised when things went awry. In my opinion, the supplier is very often at fault in that situation for not providing leadership to the client and getting things sorted out up front.

Q. How do you confirm your client’s perceptions and expectations, and ensure both you and the client are performing as expected?

Unsurprisingly, I made a lot of mistakes, had a lot of failures, and learned a lot of lessons.  Here are the 10 that would have saved me the most trouble, if I’d know then:

1. Your time is at least as valuable as your money. When I started out, I attended every networking event, trade show, supplier get together and whatever else I could think of.  After all, it’s networking, and it’s free, right?  I shudder to think how much that cost me in lost time when I could have been doing far more productive things (or having fun).
2. “Now and nearly right” beats “next month and perfect” every time. In the early days, misplaced perfectionism delayed my brochures, websites and telemarketing campaigns because “they weren’t quite right yet”, costing me tens of thousands in lost sales.  Most of the time your idea of perfect won’t work anyway.  You won’t know until you test.  Nowadays my rule is: launch quickly, improve continuously.
3. People don’t buy features and benefits. They buy pain relievers to get them through the day.  I took a long time to really understand what this meant, but nearly every purchase has an element of pain-avoidance to it.  You just need to dig a little deeper to find out why your customers really buy from you. (see point 7.)
4. Lead generation: Little and often works. To be successful, lead generation has to be a habit, not something done in panic bursts 5 times a year when you realise that your sales pipeline is empty.
5. People need proof that you are good as your claim. They need to see how other people like them have benefited from working with you.  That’s where testimonials come in. I used to feel awkward asking for them.  I’m not now.
6. Happy customers want to help your business grow. Make sure you go out of your way to make  them happy, then ask them for referrals!  As with testimonials, I spent a long time being shy about asking for these too, but I’ve grown out of it.
7. If you want people to buy from you, you’d better be able to say why your business is different. Without mentioning quality, reliability, service or price.  If you’re not sure what I mean, type “computer support services” into Google.  Can you tell the top 5 companies apart?
8. You can try all the tactics you want, but without an effective strategy to back them up, you’re doomed to hit and miss results. You need a plan which allows you to continuously measure and improve everything you do.
9. Don’t rely on just one form of marketing. Have a plan which involves several channels, measure what works, and cross-fertilize.  I used to try some cold calling, then some email, then some networking. The results were lumpy to say the least.
10. If you’re not truly passionate about what you do, stop right now. As a business grows, it’s easy to get distracted by things that seem appealing, often for financial reasons.  If you don’t stick to what you really get excited about, the world isn’t getting the best of you, and it shows.

What are your most valuable lessons so far?