I read question in IFA Life earlier this week from a new CFP planner wanting advice on how to build his business. He’s got the qualifications, done all the training and is ready to take his excellent proposition out to the market place. And of course, that’s where it all gets difficult – he’s finding that solicitors and accountants aren’t really supporting him and don’t really ‘get it’. And where does he start with the general population?

Good question. No-one ever said it would be easy which is why you need to organise you marketing to give structure to your daily marketing activity. The alternative is to risk the ‘all things to all men’ scattergun approach. Fear of missing out on any opportunity makes you spread yourself too thin. Save

I suggest there are three useful strategies to help narrow marketing activity down.

In a difficult business environment, most businesses owners will say that marketing is the most important activity they need to be doing to improve their business. Is that the case for you? And, if so, is it the first thing you do every day?

The reality is that, whilst most people say it’s a really important activity, it ends up being something that get’s left until after everything else has been done. I’ve got news for you – everything else will NEVER be done, and if you don’t prioritise marketing and make it something you work on every day, it simply won’t happen.

When you are selling, the only person who should get emotionally involved in the sale is the prospect. Yet it's difficult for salespeople not to get emotionally involved, especially when they have been working on an opportunity for months and their pipeline has very few other opportunities in it!

When you need the sale your judgement and actions become affected. Prospects can easily sense this, especially in final negotiations. When you need the sale, you will find yourself discounting and giving things away.

It’s the easiest thing in the world to find you are spending half you time marketing your business and precious little actually doing any business! What with updating your website, writing pithy articles for the local press, attending networking meetings, sending newsletters to your client base and heaven knows what else, customers will need to form an orderly queue – you’re far too busy!

In our experience, businesses often lose their way with their marketing as they have no real confidence in what they are doing. So they end up taking far too much time trying to do a bit of everything in the hope that something will work. This is not only a flawed plan with regards to creating marketing traction, but it is highly time-ineffective too. Hence results are diluted and confidence wanes further.

LinkedIn is a brilliant tool for networking in business – no doubt about it. But frankly, of little or no use to anyone if you are sharing your profile with only a handful of connections. I mean, would you turn up at a network event that only had three others in the room?

Networking is most definitely NOT the place to be keeping your light under the proverbial bushel – and social networking platforms even more so! If you don’t up the ante by extending your network you are wasting a really valuable resource.
So – my tips are:

CProject has been voted one of the best loved businesses in Guildford, and second nationally as a PR and Marketing Consultants, according to a massive nationwide search run by TheBestOf to find the best local shops and companies in towns and cities across the UK.

The results of the two-week campaign reveal that Vanessa Lanham and CProject came a close second (by just one vote!) to Boo Design, a boutique design business based in Peaslake.

Vanessa Lanham from CProject said,, “When you are a small business so much of your own personality and energy goes into each project and it is fabulous to hear that clients really appreciate the efforts you make. In difficult days for many businesses, testimonials can make all the difference between clients choosing one supplier and another.”

As an example, one testimonial described Vanessa as “...a powerhouse of energy and enthusiasm”. As well as winning in Guildford, CProject also came second the National category for PR & Marketing.

Social networking in business is becoming increasingly popular – the number of available seminars and discussions on this subject alone certainly testifies to that! But does it really stack up in practice or is it just an excuse for not doing any ‘real’ marketing?

Martin Bamford from Informed Choice in Surrey talked to us about the results they have been achieving - and it makes persuasive reading. In fact, Martin can tell that, just a year ago, just 3% of their business came direct from the internet and social networking – today it is an impressive 17%.

At your first meeting with a prospect, the prospect should be doing most of the talking. The Sandler approach suggests that the prospect should be talking for about 70% of the time.

Typically, however, for these reasons the opposite tends to occur :

• The prospect's expectations have not been set correctly.
• Prospects have a buying system, step 2 of it involves getting free information, knowledge & expertise from suppliers.
• Most salespeople feel more comfortable talking, rather the asking questions.

Integrating your marketing is fundamental – not an optional extra. If your prospect reads one thing in the newspaper, finds an alternate message on your website and is taken on another tangent when you direct mail them, don’t be surprised if confusion abounds!

On the other hand, if all three elements support one another and reinforce the client’s buying decision, you’ve suddenly breathed life and energy into your marketing with a simple case of one and one equalling three.

Yet despite this obviously beneficial formula, why do so few businesses employ the simple principles of integration.

I’ve introduced loads of connection to LinkedIn and they all think it’s a great idea – but when I check up to see how they are doing I’m met with incomplete profiles and no photographs. So why would anyone want to get to know them better?

And Linked In is a hugely powerful search tool – the words in your profile are what it will use to help people find you and the services you provide.

Quick tips for building a better profile...

How many times have you sent a prospect literature, agreed to call them back and then they never take your call or they say, "I haven't had a chance to read it, give me a call back in few more weeks"?. Then when you call back, they still havn't read it!

Prospects have learnt that appearing to show interest is an affective way of getting rid of salespeople. Unfortunately, most salespeople still see it as a buying signal and waste hours chasing prospects who just aren't interested.

 

How many times have you wasted your time giving presentations to prospects who could not afford your product or service?

Of course, salespeople that present before discussing money and budgets are hoping that even prospects with no money, will get so excited they will magically find the money from somewhere.

Another problem is that by waiting until the end of the presentation to discuss budgets and money, the prospect won't be concentrating on what your saying but thinking, "I wonder how much this is going to cost?".

 

The answer seems obvious. Yes, a page 1 listing would be most desireable! But is search engine optimisation – SEO in web jargon - to achieve this really the black art that many specialist consultancies make it out to be? It is quite likely that you will have received email flyers and telesales calls from various SEO experts offering to get your website listed on page 1 of Google.

These companies present an impression that SEO is some sort of back office technical function - a dark art even! - that will transform your website and your business with some clever technical jiggery pokery. But what they conveniently forget to mention is that the fundamental building block of genuine SEO is good old fashioned marketing intelligence and research information. Using this as a sold basis you can quickly get to the bottom of how SEO can work for your business.

Earlier in 2009, I decided that CProject needed to know more about the world of social networking and how it relates to business. In my head I just couldn’t see how Facebook or Twitter had any relevance to me or my clients ... but then I got an invite to join LinkedIn and I decided to take a closer look.

I have since become quite a convert and now have 150 or so first level connections, 20+ testimonials and access to thousands more contacts. Yet, each time I invite contacts to join me I am nearly always met with the same response – “It seems like a really good idea, but what do I do now?”

So I am writing a series of short articles on the basics behind LinkedIn and other social media, and each month (staring from January) there will be a simple step for you to build your knowledge and experience. So if you fancy being part of LinkedIn – do join me on the journey.

If the 'recession' has achieved anything useful, it has been to force many businesses to stop and think very carefully about their marketing habits. Complacency and habitual patterns – ‘we always do it like this’ – are easy traps to fall into. Nowadays, it’s the people thinking or doing things differently that are succeeding against the odds.

There are all sorts of examples … Harley Davidson is now marketing bikes specifically to women. Restaurants are setting up wine clubs, cocktail groups and cookery classes to fill down-times, boost trade and promote their business all in one go.  Hyundai cars in the US are offering a 2 year moratorium on lease car deals if the customer loses their job – the buyer can walk away from the deal with no impact on their credit rating. In one stroke they made it OK to buy in a difficult marketplace.

Do you want to know how to gain a lot of extra business – fast? Stop losing customers! There’s not a business right now that hasn’t lost customers in the last year or so – the trouble is, you may not know who they are, why they left, where they went, or how much it cost you.

You need to stop the loss! Half the time the reason customers leave is because someone simply came along with a better or different offer. They were there when you were not. In a market place where customers are worth their weight in gold, you need to ensure this doesn’t happen to you.

• Stay in contact with your customers – by newsletter, embark on an email marketing campaign, invite them to comment on your online blog. In short, make them feel important and loved.
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