Secrets to Success
John-Paul Micek
Doubling your customer or client base and substantially increasing your profits can really be quite easy. The business you’re in
means everything
to your successBut I'll be extremely frank with you. Ninety-eight percent of all small and mid-size businesses don't come anywhere close to making as much money as they could.
Most businesses don't even begin to approach being as profitable as they could be. And that includes businesses who consider themselves very successful.
The fact is businesses who think they are successful are just scratching the surface of their true profit potential. And in most cases, they are actually succeeding in spite of themselves.
Why is this? The answer is simple. Actually, I'll give you a chance to figure it out for yourself. Take a few seconds, and answer the following question:
What business are you in?
Now here's where the vast majority of business owners go wrong and severely limit their true profit potential.
If you're a CPA, you most likely said you do accounting or tax returns. If you own a chain of pizza parlors, you probably said you're in the restaurant business.
And if you sell a health product, you might have even said you're in the business of bettering the lives of other people.
Once again, I'm going to be brutally frank with you. If your own answer was anything close to those answers, you're severely limiting your ability to be as successful as you'd really like to be.
Whatever business you think you're in, the real answer to what I just asked you is that you're in the marketing business.
Because if you can't sell whatever product or service it is you have to offer, you won't stay in business very long. Or, if you can sell only a fraction of what you know you should be selling, your business life will be a struggle, or unfulfilling at best.
That brings us to one final question. If your business has not reached its full profit potential, if you just keep doing what you've always done, where will you be five years from now? I probably don't have to tell you that the odds are extremely high that your profits, your fulfillment and your free time will not be much different then what they are today.
Fortunately, that doesn't have to happen to you. Because to immediately start boosting your customer base, and to put an end to lukewarm sales once and for all, all it takes is a fresh new approach to marketing. The good news is that it's relatively easy to do. I'll give you an example in a moment, but first it's important you understand why most marketing fails.
Most marketing fails
The reason most marketing efforts fall way short of expectations is because most books and courses on marketing are geared toward big dollar "image campaigns."While these may work for large corporations with huge budgets, they don't work for small and mid-size businesses.
As a small business owner you're probably working with a limited budget. You can't afford to waste precious marketing dollars developing your visibility and image.
Every marketing dollar that goes out must have a measurable return to you and your business. That means more qualified prospects, more sales and more lifetime clients with each and every effort.
A better way
Here's one simple principle from our new TeleCourse "Small Business, Big Profits" that you can use to increase your leads and sales without spending one dime more on your marketing:Market ONLY to the "right" people.
If success in real estate investing can be summed up in "location-location-location," success in marketing can be summed up in "audience-audience-audience."
You can have the most expensive direct mail piece, the most prominent display ad and the most eye-catching headline. But if they are being seen by the wrong audience, all your marketing dollars have just gone down the drain.
Facts are that a mediocre ad presented to the proper audience will pull in far more new leads than an awesome ad presented to the wrong audience. (Just think what you could do with the right ad going to the right audience.)
Business strategy tip
In an upcoming article I'll be covering how you can make selecting the "right" audience a snap.But for now, I suggest you start thinking of your business in a new light, with marketing as your primary business. Start examining the results you're getting from your marketing dollars. If your tracking data shows you are already getting pretty good results, then how could you leverage your efforts to increase your results?
And if you're not happy with the returns you're getting, then it's time to take the necessary steps to learn the secrets to high-impact, low cost marketing.
John-Paul Micek is a small-business strategist
and chief operating officer at RPM Success Group.
Reach him at JPM@RPMsuccess.com
or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.