Your Marketing Machine: Career Secrets converted to Your Marketing Machine

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Maybe it should be replaced by the 5 B’s of Marketing?

1. BE Real Your marketplace is crowded with competitors, and your prospects are
besieged with marketing messages. For your message to find its way through all this noise, it must be exactly on target. In any field, it’s not enough to simply describe what you do. You must be able to tell your prospects exactly how your work helps them solve problems and reach goals, and the benefits and results they can expect to see from it. What this targeted messaging requires is that you become very specific about not only who your offer is for, but what it will help them do, and why your solution is the right one for them.

2. Be Pulling vs. Pusing…In the classic marketing formula, the emphasis was on promotion — pushing your message out to the world at large. You need to pull toward you exactly those clients you want. Push-style marketing includes cold calling, unsolicited mail or email, paid advertising (online and off), promotional events like trade shows, and some forms of PR, like blasting out press releases. Pull marketing, on the other hand, is focused on building affinity and connections. To attract clients in your niche, you might develop referral partnerships, become visible at networking events, get booked as a public speaker, have articles published or build a content-rich website. You’ll find it much easier to make a sale when clients contact you as the result of hearing about you from someone else, or after sampling your expertise for free.

3. Be interesting…You must position your business in the mind of your prospective clients as the best possible choice for exactly what they need. Broadcasting a muddy or generic marketing message won’t be enough. Your clients need to understand “what’s in it for me?” Be the place they go when they need something. 4. Be there.. Clients are wary — and justifiably so — of committing to spendhundreds or thousands of dollars on something they haven’t been able to experience in advance. Without tangible evidence to go by, they base their decision on how much they trust you. A significant portion of your marketing activities should be aimedat increasing your credibility. But one of the best ways to build trust is also the simplest. Allow clients to get to know you, be part of their everyday life. Use of your website, services, ideas and advice that you can offer are all important mixes.

5. Be Fast… In today’s world, the most important. The key is hitting the right client at the right time with the right product in the right way – the first time, because you may not get a second time. You have to identify their need or problem, provide the solution, understand the resources needed and the decision process they will use. You have to have a process in place for doing this or the process itself will lead to slow and inaccurate decisions. Effective companies have processes that drive decisions, not delay them.

And this is all marketing!

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John posted this list several weeks ago in his blog and it is a good guide to review. You will hear about them all year, I promise..

John also said: “Social networks are something that I believe small business folks should tap. Some offer small businesses more than others, but you’ve got to get in there and find ways to use these growing resources. One of the ways to get started or more involved is to connect with people you know and trust. Here’s a list of the social networks that I use the most and links to each that will allow you to follow, friend and connect with what I’m doing on each. Check them out and connect with me if you wish.”

LinkedIn – Business networking
StumbleUpon – Web site sharing
Flikr – Photo sharing
Slideshare – Slide presentation sharing
delicious – Bookmark sharing
Facebook – Social networking
Twitter – Micro blogging
Workbench – Duct Tape Marketing community
YouTube – Video sharing
Digg – News sharing

These are some cool tools to play with. Review them all but my advice is to take one or two and stay with it.

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Social Networking with Jigsaw
John Jantsch is presenting a free webinar next week put together by the folks at Jigsaw – an online directory for business contact and company information built by members titled: “Getting Social – Leveraging New Media Tools in Marketing” on January30, 2008 at 10:00 am – 11:00 am PST. Register details here

I thought these 2 opportunities may be interesting, join us.

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I read a while ago that something like 60% of the people that visit your website was looking for it in the first place. That number may be even higher. If 60% of the people on your website are already looking for you make sure that you design your website based on taking care of them. I would think the number that may be more important is the number pages visited and the time spent on your website versus the number of visits.

Look at the content here..

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I always remembered Jack Trout writing in “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” that if you are not #1 or #2 in the Market, create a new market. Jack Welch just got out, he knew when to quit*. Where am I going with this? At the start of the new year, I think all of us need to re-think our position in the market place and

• Understand our target market?
• What we have to offer to them?
• Can we survive doing that?

Remember, John Edwards, may not survive at 30% market share!

*Knowing when to quit is expertly described in Seth Godin’s book The Dip

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Thursday, Jan. 3 2008
Staples Small-Business Survey Reveals People are Constantly Working, Even While They Sleep FRAMINGHAM, Mass., Jan 03, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE)–More small-business owners and managers are working harder than ever to make their business dreams come true… even while they sleep. According to the 2nd Annual Staples National Small-Business Survey (NASDAQ: SPLS), more than half of small-business professionals said that work has actually become part of their dreams. Fifty-one percent of those surveyed said that they “sleepwork” (i.e. dream about work), and nearly 70 percent of those “sleepworkers” report they wake up and put their “work dreams” to action. The survey also revealed that 98 percent of U.S. small-business owners and managers are working during their time off – including nights, weekends and vacations – and nearly 54 percent expect to work even harder in 2008. “Our customers often tell us there just aren’t enough hours in the day, so it’s understandable that business activity is invading sleep time,” said John Giusti, vice president of small business marketing at Staples. “At Staples, we work hard to make sure it is easy for small businesses to buy office products, helping them focus their time and energy on running their businesses – and hopefully to get a good night’s sleep.” Other interesting results include: –The car remains a favorite place to work, with 72 percent saying they make business calls while driving and nearly 40 percent saying they get their best ideas behind the wheel. –Slightly more than 38 percent cannot remember the last time they took a vacation. –If given a choice, nearly 52 percent said they would accept comparable business results in 2008 if they could have twice as much free time, while 48 percent said they would work even more hours if they could double their company’s sales. –More than 84 percent said they have not yet incorporated “new media” (blogs, podcasts, virtual meeting software or services) into their business activities. –Fifty-two percent make New Year’s resolutions for their business. Of those, 58 percent said they resolve to increase business, while only 21 percent said they want more time off. Thirty-five percent said they want to increase profits/eliminate debt. The Internet poll – which surveyed 300+ small businesses with no more than 20 employees – explored what is causing the insatiable need to work, as well as the obstacles preventing these hard-working Americans from enjoying their free time afforded by previous generations. The results revealed organization and teamwork are the top factors why owners and managers are working so many hours. Nearly 70 percent admitted they do not have a written business plan. Almost three-quarters consider themselves organized, but only 33 percent said they complete the tasks on their “to-do” list each day. Slightly more than two-thirds said they feel constantly challenged by not having enough time to get work done and nearly 44 percent said customer fulfillment takes up the majority of their time while at work.
Joe, Business901

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Most effective way to reduce cost is STOP DOING IT!: Really, just stop doing it! It is simply amazing how many things you may not need to do. If you think the process is unnecessary, skip it for 1 minute, 1 hour, 1 day, 1 week, 1 month and finally 1 year. You may find out parts of it can combine into other parts of the process but trying to only do part of something is very difficult. Try it on something simple and see what happens. If you do not think you can, how do you react to a person absence, a machine’s failure or missing paperwork? Try it! I am reminded of an observation by Peter Drucker in 1963: “There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all.”

Do cost reduction in an area where you have a competitive advantage. This will enable you to have the greatest impact and the most “bang” for your buck. If you make great strides in this area, it will in fact strengthen your advantage and may protect or even strengthen your long-term market share. Long-term market share is in fact the true measure of a company’s growth.

Spend an hour per day/week on each “impact area” of your business, and you will be astonished at how much you can accomplish. You must schedule time to be effective. Even with yourself. An old line that I have heard many times is “It is not a Matter of time but a matter of priorities.” If you cannot schedule time than cost, reduction is not a priority.

Use matrixes with low, high impact, low, high cost return, easy, hard to do to help decide what to do first. I typically use a 4-box matrix but on items that are more complicated a 6-box matrix should be used. Prioritizing this way can help you visualize the process so much better. It also can be used in defining the difficult/easy areas by department. Sometimes it is readily seen why it is easy for operations but difficult for finance or sales. The clearer the picture is for all, the easier it is to accomplish.

Most savings/expense is created in the design of the product/process. How many times have you told an engineer we are not designing a space shuttle? How many times do you come under budget? Anyone can do anything if he has all the money in the world. Do you wonder why our government is in the position it is? Cost effective and simple are not dirty words. They should be the words we reward.

Cost Half: The Method for Radical Cost Reduction by Toshio Suzue is a book that I offer on my website for cost reduction. However, I do not recommend for a Turnaround or a company in trouble. I do like it for the approach he takes for cost cutting activities. Base your goal for cost cutting on something big, 50%. People will not start with small incremental changes but approach it with a much broader perspective. Be radical; accomplish something if you are going to do it.

Look at what is important, not to you, but to your customer. Lean is a great process for this. It is process that I highly recommend everyone receive training in, especially the design team. Proven Methods in process Improvement is beyond the scope of this writing but Lean, Six Sigma and Lean Six Sigma have made great strides in manufacturing, administration, sales and other areas. The principles are sound and with minimal creativity can readily apply to just about any field. The value of these processes, I believe require a long-term commitment. You can spend a great deal of money and make little progress. Ease into it gently but with full commitment, the pot of gold is certainly at the end of the rainbow but it is a steep climb.

Be Objective, no Sacred Cows! People have a tendency to take ownership of “their ideas” and justify them. I have seen jobs created and continued for years in positions that did not do anything that added value to the company. I once removed a position and took the “book” away that the person was responsible for neither was missed. Objectivity can be tough though. We all love our own ideas and struggle to see the other side. We must be careful and especially the leaders of the project. Remember to lose a few battles; we are trying to win the war.

Typically, it is not the lack of available savings, but the lack of a process to find them or to improve them. Processes are important. You have a culture within in a company that you have created and most cost reduction actions will have a tendency to go against that culture. It may rub a few people the wrong way. That is typically when you know you are getting somewhere. You need to develop a process or borrow one from someone. I happen to supply a Cost Reduction Process kit on Amazon. Back to the reasoning though. A process kit should allow you to be objective, determine relative value to the different departments and customers have built in matrixes and used where you have a competitive advantage. Like most processes and plans, it must be a living document. One meant to be massaged and changed as you develop as an organization. It is why processes like Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, and TQM became popular but why did most fizzle out or just become another FAD. They really did not fade away they evolved many time into something else and we were better for it. Take Lean Six Sigma for example. People will argue with me but most of them have sound principles that can be used today. What is important is that you take ownership of a process and use it day in and day out. Develop it and leave it become rooted in the culture of your company. Cost reduction should not be a once and a while fix that we pull out and use. It should be an ongoing part of our everyday lives. Remember Great Companies have Great Systems.

Below is a very simple methodology that you can start using today without any training, just a little common sense.

Seven Step method for solving a cost reduction problem:
1. Define your problem
2. Define your ideal solution(Stop doing it!)
3. Gather the facts
4. Try various combinations, look outside the box, but be careful when you…
5. Break the pattern – not everything happens outside the box. It is interesting how many things are solved within the box. Do not forget the simple solution. Complexity is seldom a solution; it is usually part of the problem.
6. SCAMPER it
a. What can you Substitute?
b. What can you Combine?
c. What can you Adapt?
d. What can you Modify or Magnify?
e. Can you Put to other uses?
f. What can you Eliminate or reduce?
g. What can you Reverse/Rearrange?
7. Leave it sit for a day, but set a deadline. Sleeping on it has value!

Good night.

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