Marketing (Are you doing enough to stay in the game?)

Have you or your staff ever complained that there is no business out there?  Complained that the political landscape is not conducive for new business, the economy can’t support new clients, potential customers are difficult and have all but disappeared, and competitors have eroded your market share.  How important is marketing (finding qualified leads) for your business?  Is marketing your business of primary focus or is your company primarily focused on the technical work.  Do you produce high quality products or services, but can’t get the traction to fill your sales pipeline with great prospects?

If you are one of the many companies with the above mentioned symptoms and assuming that your products and services fill customers’ needs, you might want to consider a change in your perspective. If any of the above sounds familiar to you and your business colleagues, you might be interested in reading on.

I have had the pleasure of watching my three sons Jon, Tony & Nick play high and college school sports.  Two focused their energies on football and one was a soccer and track athlete.  Having watched them through their years of development, many of the lessons they learned on the field while actively participating in these sports can be applied to marketing a business.

So with that being said, let’s break it down.

Marketing your business, like team sports, requires:

1. Knowledge of the game or sport rules you’re playing,
2. Leadership abilities to communicate to inspire your team,
3. The ability to apply best practices and techniques to devise winning plays,
4. Learning and developing skills to use on the field of play,
5. Devising a winning game plan or plan of attack.

But that still is not good enough. Like competitive sports, putting your marketing game plan into action is then required at game time.  A game plan designed to score more points than your opponent to win the game.  Then, after the action, the results are measured by a score to determine a winner.  The results, game statistics, the play films are reviewed to ensure strategies and tactics are continually refined to produce an even improved result when playing the next game. 

Are you focused on measuring and replicating successful result (s)?  Do you communicate these results and look to make changes for continued improvement of your business? 

The importance of capturing, organizing and reporting data and information on marketing performance is critical for success.  By developing and refining your business systems that deliver the desired results more often, you too can have a great business and life.  As marketing is an investment, do we strive for the biggest return on our marketing investment as possible?

ThistleSea Business Development, LLC can help you determine and evaluate your current situation and get you back on the field with an action plan to double the effectiveness of your marketing.  It’s just part of the services we offer our clients.   Call us today, (724) 935-1930 for more information on how we help our clients score big. 

By: John D. Laslavic, LPBC

(c) 2010 ThistleSea Business Development, LLC, All Rights Reserved

The Perfect Marketing Strategy

"Perfection is something you should strive for every day but realize you may never reach!"

If someone was to ask me what the most important thing to do in marketing a professional service these days, I might suggest a number of marketing strategies.

But what I'd emphasize, above all else, would be taking action on something, anything, and not worrying if it was perfect enough.

Last last year I had an imperfect campaign to launch a new idea.

Then I designed an imperfect  campaign and launched it.

I sent imperfect emails to announce it.

I put on imperfect teleclasses to promote it.

I did imperfect interviews with marketing experts.

I led imperfect coaching calls with members.

I tried several imperfect introductory pricing strategies. And the clients are getting imperfect results.

I now have about 650 new clients, and that's perfect!

I will continue in my imperfect ways.

I just designed imperfect Groups.  And no doubt I will manage those imperfectly as well.

If you are waiting to do things perfectly before you get started, you may just be a perfect idiot. Perfection is something you strive for, realizing it is never reached.

The Bottom Line: Got a marketing idea? Jump in and do it imperfectly. Your imperfect idea with the imperfect plan and the imperfect implementation may just attract all the new customers you need.

What do you do imperfectly and get great results anyway?

ThistleSea Business Development, has the resources and the expertise to help you grow a "sustainable" business even if a bit imperfectly.

Adapted from an eZine by Robert Middleton, President , Action Plan Marketing,  http://www.actionplan.com.