“If I could only land this one huge client, I’d make it big!”
I hear it all the time, “forget the minnows… fish for that whale!”
And it did make sense in an industrialized-aged era. In the previous century, the marketing & sales efforts to attract one hundred clients paying $1,000 was usually significantly more than it was to hook one client paying $100,000.
But in the age of the internet – where information flows swiftly, and technology has helped smart businesses create virtual pipelines for promoting & delivering goods and services – this is no longer the case.
We now have the ability to use social media, websites, email, video and a host of other technologies to further our product’s reach and effectiveness.
As entrepreneurs living in the 21st century we have wonderful opportunities available to us. And over time, we will present specific scenarios and case studies in which you can apply technology into your business.
But technology is not the premise of this article… It’s about being happy.
[continue reading…]
Dear Solopreneur,
Are you a one-man-band pretending your business is bigger than it truly is? It’s easy to do, you know, just change “I” to “we” in your sale scripts. Instantly, you have yourself a firm instead of a home office. Magic!
But you may be doing more harm than good.
What if your potential client or customer is looking for someone rolling solo? You may have scared them away. Or what if a company needed a 10-person shop to help them out and you would have never won the business alone? You and the prospect may have unnecessarily wasted valuable time discussing the project.
Ultimately, it’s best to be honest and up front, since it will only be a matter of time until the client realizes the you-not-us scheme. So as a rule of thumb going forward: be honest and set proper expectations. Call a spade a spade. It’s not We… it’s You.
Sincerely,
Brad
ps. As your business grows and you bring on one or more employees, you will experience a tremendous boost in motivation when you’re changing the content on your marketing collateral from I to We.
It’s no secret that the world of marketing has drastically changed over the past few years.
But unfortunately, I still see entrepreneurs sticking with the old tactics of marketing to increase sales.
It’s dangerous to your business.
Are you thinking you might be one of these old-time marketers caught up in the old techniques?
If so, we have compiled a list of 5 marketing and sales tactics that no longer work:
Build it and they will come
“We’re in the phonebook.”
Phonebook! What’s that?
Elderly aside, most people turn to the Internet these days. They read reviews on Trip Advisor and Yelp. They quickly check out the competition. And usually make up their mind before leaving their desk.
The companies that rely on the fact that they are simply out there and available, will be left to die a slow and capital-depleting death… alone.
We’ve always done it this way!
Have you heard the saying, “The only thing constant in the world of business is change?”
Marketing strategies are no different.
Fifteen years ago, the Internet was mainly reserved for geeks and gamers. Six years ago, YouTube didn’t exist. Four years ago, Facebook was a thing college kids played with.
Think of the past few years. Has your marketing and business system evolved at this rate? For your business’ sake, I hope so.
[continue reading…]
You can learn a lot from a business’ restroom.
From small signs such as the employee’s level of dedication to things as major as the overall success of the company, a restroom usually never lies.
Why?
Because when a business or its coworkers are not on the top of their game, the restroom’s cleanliness is the first to go. Toilet paper rolls are left unchanged, the garbage is neglected and the mirror is full of water spots.
My Father’s old business partner/mentor was adamant about this concept. He would never invest into a business with an unclean restroom.
And me being taught this at a very young age, I’ve constantly kept my eye on restrooms.
It never fails, every clean restroom is found in a successful business. Those unclean facilities I’ve encountered are now mostly all attached to “for lease” empty buildings.
[continue reading…]
Day in and day out, business owners, executives and sales teams struggle to compete for new business. Constantly approaching new companies and consumers begging for a sale.
To assist in the search, marketing departments continual craft witty messages to attract buyers. But more times than not, the sales staff will never sell anything to these folks.
Beaten and depressed, most sales people move onto the next target. The entire time thinking that they lost the sale to their competition down the street. Never realizing that more likely, the prospect never bought from the competitor either.
Finding Your True Competition
B2B Example Scenario: I spent some time after college working as an account manager for a technology reseller. And in the beginning, the sales process was a shaky one. I would find myself with a sinking feeling in my gut every time I heard, “we decided to go another route, but thank you.” It was heart breaking, to say the least.
[continue reading…]
