Did you know that your business growth is all about choices?

Some of you will understand that question, while others won’t.

Many of the choices made in our business mainly are up to the management or the owners. Sadly after a number of years in business, many owners get comfortable with their successes. Things are going along very good and they don’t want to rock the boat.

The key choice that all business owners make is whether to be innovative or stick doing the old ways. If you don’t want to rock the boat, you probably aren’t that innovative.

If you don’t want to be innovative, rest assured that some up Start-up Company is going to come into your area and market their service or product better and you are the one that will pay the price for your lack of improvement or innovation.

The choice is yours.

Is the image of your business sustainable?

Yes, is the image that your business portrays able to carry on as the business world changes? I believe that this is something that we need to keep in our minds at all times.

Remember the ad "When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen," this was the well-known slogan from the respected broker's ads in the 70’s and 80’s. After the stock market crash of 1987 and bad press along with the E.F. Hutton’s deep debt many people had stopped listening to what they were promoting.

Could this happen to your business, of course? If a very large broker can disappear from view - you can to. So how are you going to make your business sustainable? This is only going to happen if you become more innovative. This will be covered in my next blog.

Will a Social Media campaign work for your business?

Social Media campaigns based on a flawed understanding of your potential clients will never work. I state that because if you don’t understand what media your potential clients are reading or viewing or listening to, you could be spending an excessive amount of time and money on a media that is not getting to those who may buy what you offer.

For example; social media doesn’t work by itself. Before you enter the social media area of marketing you need to research. So, will social media work for your business? The difficulty with this type of question is you first have to decide what you want social media to do for you. Social media is great for raising your profile, improving the visibility for your business, attracting an audience and even doing some market research.

I don’t believe that it is effective at making direct sales pitches. I’ve read that the percentage of social media visitors that will buy anything is ridiculously small. Social media is a great source of traffic for a few days, but the traffic will eventually fade away unless you can keep publishing new content that draws readers.

Although social media traffic is typically very short-term, there are some powerful long-term results if you have a solid plan. I mentioned earlier that you need to use the media that your potential buyers use. In order to achieve this you’ll need a broader plan than just using social media. Don’t ignore other priorities like building a search engine friendly website. If you do go to a web-site make sure it is actively changing site not a cob-web site. Remember social media is just one aspect of a complete marketing plan.

Are you using ‘just in time’ marketing regarding the Royal Wedding?

This is part of an article from the ‘Canadian’ Globe and Mail Published Saturday, Apr. 23, 2011.

It stated that “Business has also been brisk for Leith, the 24-year-old illustrator who has moved more than 5,000 of her limited-edition hand-screen printed barf bags at £3 each since February. The Carlisle, England native says that she came up with the idea after friends bemoaned the excessive media coverage of William and Middleton back in November, when their engagement was announced. “Throne up,” the bags read. “Sick Bag. Keep this handy on April 29th 2011.”

Depending on who you are this is either tacky or enjoyable. I am not going to express my opinion, although I will say this marketing has great timing.

Is there a way you can time the marketing of a new product or service you offer to coincide with a prominent event?

Are you dating material for your prospective clients?

I hope the title of this blog got your attention. In my opinion we all need to examine how we connect with our prospective clients. Let me use dating to give you a few examples;

• Are you needy and desperate? If you are why would anyone want to become your client? They probably think that you are not that confident enough in your product or service to fulfill their needs or wants.
• When you are asked an opinion, do you have trouble giving an answer? If you do that you are giving the impression that you would accept anything in order to make the sale.
• Do you talk about past relationships? If so, this is not the way to start a new business relationship. If you talk about past clients and the trouble they have given you, the prospect may be thinking that there is nothing to stop you from complaining about them?
• Are speaking openly about your good qualities?  By doing that you have forgot that you have two ears and one mouth – use them in proportion.
• Are you into dropping everything in your life in order to be with this special person? If you constantly re-arrange your schedule to fit in this one client you are asking for trouble. This is because business is a two-way street it is all about give and take on both sides. If this isn’t happening the potential client will realize that they can use you for information and then spit you out.

It is very important to examine the above examples; after all you want the relationship to be a long-term one don’t you? The reason I say that is because as it takes less money to keep a client happy that to get a new one. This is what marketing is all about.