Archive for the 'Advertising' Category

Jun 03 2010

The Internet Challenge and A Couple of Laughs

DID YOU KNOW THAT

YOU-KNOW-WHAT

HAPPENS?

     It used to be that the only shovelfuls of you-know-what that hit the proverbial fan were flung at us relentlessly from our TV screens. And still we need only watch about 6 seconds worth of any network news broadcast (and how amazing these have not yet come to be called opinion broadcasts) to know that this bull you-know-what stuff is still spewing (splattering? Ugh!) forth about every other tick of the clock.

     So TV-after-Sesame-Street actually has some value. It taught us boredom. It taught us all how to not step in you-know-what. (Curiously, though, some who make it big are said to have stepped there. Hmmm. Go figure.)

     And then along comes the Internet: a truly remarkable and revolutionizing challenge to our senses. Compared to TV, which puts it right out there, the Internet rolls it all up in clandestine little balls and tucks it neatly into our pockets, between the sheets, into  overhead compartments, and under our tongues (well, okay, the tongue thing is pretty disgusting, even after being ordered to eat you-know-what!)  

     We have mastered TV you-know-what, but we’re being tricked everyday by the Internet versions. Can you forever avoid opening a spam email? Isn’t there always that one-time appearance of an old lover’s name in the FROM column, just enough to trigger-finger that mouse of yours into a giant porno pop-up that blazes your trail for 6 months of Pfizer Viagra email you-know-what?

     How about all the websites that start you out with a free ebook download – a terrific 7-Step Action Plan for boosting sales and winning 635 new customers by 9am tomorrow — that takes up two whole paragraphs buried in 19 pages of splendorous full-color you-know-what sales spiels.

     And what else could this innocent little download website possibly be selling except (Aha!) replacement color print cartridges that you just dried up in exchange for your email address that now entitles you to 476 exciting new junk emails a week for life. TV was never like this.

     With TV, you change the channel. With the Internet, one slipup, and a little hourglass guy jumps in your face and freezes your screen to the point where you either heave the whole pile of hi-tech you-know-what out the window, or you start banging on your 15 year-old neighbor’s door to see if you can pry the iPod loose long enough to enlist some hourglass killing skills at a hundred bucks an hour. AW, YOU-KNOW-WHAT!  

     Well, here you are, a respected (let’s hope) business owner. You’ve worked your butt off to get where you are and build your business, working nights and weekends. Your geeky brother-in-law works four-day weeks out of his bedroom closet in his pajamas selling search engine optimization services online and makes twice as much as you.

     No you-know-what! That you-know-what head?

     TV taught us to relax and let down our guards because all of it is no-brainer you-know-what. The Internet has forced us to arm ourselves, and be forever on the alert to keep our businesses out of the deep hmmm-hmmm-hmmm. Internet business buyers beware!

 Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US  

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

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Jun 02 2010

HIRING “Outside Experts”

Pay for Performance 

 . . . Not for Promises!

 

     The best business consultants, advisors, coaches, trainers, and counselors base their fees on what they’re able to accomplish, not on how great they tell you it’s going to be.

 YOU’RE PAYING TOO MUCH IF:  

1)  You’re paying ongoing fees and can’t see any ongoing results.

2)  You’re paying any kind of “retainer” fee, and you’re not sure of what it is that you’re “retaining.” 

3)  You’re paying for dead-end training, coaching, or counseling support that assures you of new and improved leadership/team-work . . . or communications, or customer relations, or sales . . . but that doesn’t produce noticeable change in 21 days, and that doesn’t then keep it going with meaningful, targeted, personal follow-up long after scheduled sessions are completed.

4)  You’re paying for outside services that continuously blame your inside services for stalling/blocking/obstructing/interfering or foot-dragging and/or lack of commitment.

5)  You’re paying for professional expertise exclusively because of long-term relationships and because that individual or group has maintained all your records for a long time. Would you not go to a medical or legal or financial expert you know has the ability to heal you just because your present advisor was hired by your father (or grandfather) and has your complete history in his files?  

6)  You get billed for every breath taken on your behalf. Outside experts unwilling to invest a little extra time and effort on your behalf as an expression of their customer / client relationship management are not worth the invoice postage or email review time. They are easily (and happily) replaced.

     There are a gazillion qualified groups and individuals out there who will deliver ongoing attention and ongoing results. In case you think you haven’t enough time to go shopping for the kinds of outside experts who breed authenticity, consider how much money you’ve been (or are presently) wasting  by not finding more honorable replacements.

     Even hiring someone else to shop for you – with your criteria of course – will probably still end up being a financially-smarter and more performance-rewarding move than avoiding the issue.

     The hardest thing any of us have to do in life – and consequently the hardest thing any business owner or manager has also to do – is to let go.

     Letting go of anything that we own, command, raise, invent, enhance, fix, inherit, create, design, develop, build, or even just think about, is like giving up a piece of our existence. How big of a piece determines the amount of anguish and reluctance and hesitation and whining and complaining that is sure to surface.

     And you’ve already been around long enough to realize that the total of all the upset added together multiplies according to how much time, money, and effort has been invested. So, the time to act is now. Clean house. Find experts who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work with you, who will act like partners, not leeches.   

 

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Hal@Businessworks.US or 302.933.0116

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson] 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals. God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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May 31 2010

Great Marketing Pushes Customer Hot Buttons

People today only buy

                                 

what makes sense.

                                     

 Don’t believe it!

 

Excerpted from comments by Hal Alpiar published in today’s issue of  COMMUNICATION EXPRESSWAY ISSN: 1544-8312 Better Business Communication Judy Vorfeld – www.ossweb.com March-April-May 2010 – Issue # 74

                                                                                                               

     Assessments surfacing about today’s consumers being more savvy, more rational-minded, more interested in authenticity, and less susceptible to some of the more trite expressions that have long passed their days of influence is – in most entrepreneurial minds — 100% correct.

     Where business owners and managers need to depart though from what is being said is that these kinds of comments tend to lead owners and managers down the path of focusing their business marketing messages on rational, logical, unemotional, product and service features alone (i.e., ingredients, warranties, greenness, discounts, etc.) when — in fact — every consumer purchase has been repeatedly proven to be emotionally-triggered.

     That is not to say that price is not important or that features and rational chunks of sales pitches and marketing pieces should be abandoned or sidetracked. This kind of information is required by consumers as justification for their purchases — and more so today than ever before because of speed-of-light information access, and an economy that demands closer dollar-value scrutiny.

      Case in point (which, in concept, applies equally to every conceivable product or service purchase) . . .

      You probably tell everyone all the reasons that you buy a particular vehicle: it gets great mileage; it is ranked among the top in safety tests; the manufacturer is reliable; the warranties are among the best available; parts are easily and inexpensively replaced and service is readily available. And monthly payments? They’re at an all-time low. Sounds great, right? Kind of makes rational, unemotional, authentic mouths water? (Or at least drool a little?)

     The truth is (which you would never own up to in public) that the real deep-down reasons you bought the vehicle are that you think you look good driving it, and that the salesperson wasn’t pushy.

     These dynamics, by the way, are the same for seemingly rational purchases like insurance policies, accounting services, a can of beans, or the daily newspaper.

     So, the bottom line is that while rational, logical information needs to be presented as a marketing cornerstone, it’s always going to be an emotional trigger that makes the sale. But we shouldn’t abandon one approach for the other. They need to work in tandem. It’s what makes great marketing so challenging, and why so few really understand how to do it effectively.

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Hal@Businessworks.US 302.933.0116

Open Minds Open Doors

Many thanks for your visit and God Bless You.

Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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May 25 2010

In HANDWRITING? (What a novel idea!)

AIN’T NOBODY

                                  

WRITES

                                             

NOTHIN’ NO MORE!

                                                      

     For those of you out there who can still actually write with a pen and paper, consider yourself in possession of a unique skill (even if your handwriting resembles the scrawl of your favorite nearby brain surgeon, or your neighbor’s cocker spaniel . . . probably can’t tell them apart! Uh, the writing).

     And you can be assured your handwriting is a skill that’s underused, especially if you own or manage a business or are in professional sales. I lump those entrepreneurial and sales careers together because if you own 0r manage a business, you sell. And if you’re in sales, you own or manage a business.

     So here’s the thing: AIN’T NOBODY WRITES NOTHIN’ NO MORE.

     Don’t believe me? Just look around and what do you see? PCs, Laptops, Cellphones, BlackBerries, Strawberries (Oh, sorry). You really have to search to find a pencil behind some one’s ear anymore, and fountain pens? That’s like discovering a pygmy tribe living in midtown Manhattan.

     Think about the times in your life when you’ve seen business people step up and do something unique, something different for their business or their customers or their employees or their suppliers, and you think to yourself: Self! That’s an idea I wish I had though of first because no one else is doing it.

     Well, here you go — a great new, FREE idea for you that I GUARANTEEwill make you stand out from your competition, regardless of whether you’re a farmer, a rocket scientist, a realtor, a proctologist (okay, well maybe not a proctologist), a website designer, an undertaker or wedding planner, an accountant, a lawyer (though I don’t distinguish much between a lawyer and a proctologist), a retailer . . . you get the idea.

     Dig out that old pen you forgot about; find some nice (unlined) notepaper that’s been collecting dust in the back of your desk drawer. Practice a few freehand swirls of ink on your local newspaper, which is not much good for anything else these days, and get ready to fire off some genuinely appreciative notes to present and past customers/clients/patients who have been particularly supportive of you or who are especially interested in you and/or your business products and services.

     You will get more attention and more mileage out of 100 personal handwritten notes, than you will out of 500 emails or 1000 text messages, or 5000 Tweets. I won’t even bother to waste your time with a visit to the dim prospects offered by US Postal Service incompetence no matter how great you think your direct mail campaign is.

     Do I guarantee these numbers? Of course not. But I absolutely guarantee — given the exact same message — a handwritten, personalized, hand-addressed and hand-stamped note will outperform all the solicitation glut that’s pouring out of our computerized lives. All you have to do is think of what to say, then say it in your own scribble. Oh, and Hallmark cards don’t do it either. Their commercials make you cry maybe, but their words are not your words, and they are machine-printed.

     Besides that no one else in your marketplace is doing it, what makes this idea so outstanding? People like real. Spill on the ink and it will smear. If your writing is great, great! If it’s crummy, great: what other messages do your customers actually work at trying to read? Say what you think. Say what you feel. Keep it short and sweet. But DO it. I promise you’ll be amazed at the responses you get!   

 Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day!

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May 13 2010

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR BUSINESS?

“I see your true colors

                                  

 shining through . . .”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
                                                                                                                                                          — CYNDI LAUPER
                                                                                           

      Is your workspace the drab morning dove gray of a typical stock brokerage or mortuary? (This two-pronged question is, of course, not to suggest any business commonalities.)

     Perhaps, on the other hand, your business screams the vibrant emotional red of casinos and fast food restaurants, or the deep green (“GO” and “MONEY” subconscious associations) of endless bank office and lobby carpets?

     Then there’s always the Caribbean blue that many travel agencies splash around as wall coverings or carpeting or (Awk!) both. How about that maroon and gray at your doctor’s office (presumably because someone thought doctors who are always gray and dealing in blood couldn’t be more appropriately coordinated)?

     Oh, and right . . . we won’t even bother to address the hidden meanings in black and brown law offices.

     Is there some kind of color scheme logic to your workspace or is everything just random?

     How about your product and service “packaging”? The baby stuff? Right, we got that with oinky pink for baby girls and powder blue for baby boys and yellow for unknown and neuter babies!

     You do know of course that even after all that’s happened in recent years, and in spite of political overthrow attempts: red, white, and blue are still the best selling colors in America?

     Did you think there was no method to the madness of TV scene backgrounds, website pop-up colors, ad and brochure uses of color? Has it occurred to you that wardrobe and make-up people on film and video broadcast sets choose certain colors and fabrics and shading and backdrops and patterns and designs for a reason?

     Do you choose what you wear and what you put on your skin everyday according to your schedule? “Dress down Fridays” have become “Dress Down Everydays” in many businesses. What colors do you “Dress Down” to? Why? Are you arware that pinstripes are supposed to communicate sincerity, that Navy blue is seen as authority, tan as neutral.

     You may dismiss all this as nonsense, but if you’re trying to make a major sale or sail through a job interview, wouldn’t it be foolish to not taske advantage of every possible tool at your disposal?

     Why would you want to dress or present your products and services in overpowering colors when you’re trying to schmooze powerful prospects? An over-the-top flashy power dresser is not likely to sell many premium luxury cars because prospect profiles are of well-to-do, powerful people who want to control their shopping excursions. [They’re looking for tan pinstripes.]

     Get employees and customers and suppliers to tell you what color they most associate with your business, and why. No rebuttals or defensiveness; just take it in, write it down, and summarize what you learn.

     Then do some online and/or library research on the one or two colors that you hear most. Are you on the right color path for the image you seek for your business? What can you improve? How? What minute can you start?

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day! 

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May 11 2010

InsideOut Strategies

Decide what you

                                  

want to do.

                                                                                              

Decide what you

                                  

can do.

                                      

Decide what you

                               

will do.

      

     When you determine what you want to do, what you can do, and will actually do INSIDE . . . then go OUTSIDE.

     Too many small business owners start out thinking too big on the OUTSIDE. They march into major marketing and ad agencies, PR firms, media and branding service and management consulting companies, waving investment or borrowed money to engage services they not only can’t afford, but don’t even need to begin with.

     Here’s where common sense gets lost in the shadows of egos.

     You own, manage, operate a business or professional practice. You don’t need outsiders coming in and telling you what your vision or mission statement should be or how to manage your customers or employees or suppliers, or how to sell or maintain your operations.

     You already know how to do these things and nobody else can do these things like you can.  

     You are the heart of your business.

     What you see and hear and think and feel about it is your unique perspective. You can pay outsiders to pretend they get it and pretend they know essentials that you don’t. But they don’t. Until your business grows to mid-size, the only genuine and justifiable outside assistance you’re likely to need (besides perhaps technical website design and maintenance)  is with creating, developing, and delivering the words you use.

     Crafting your communications messages and approach is best done by a proven wordsmith who can demonstrate ability to capture the essence of your business and your “voice” (the ways you express what you think and feel about your business) and put it into appropriately persuasive language. 

     Your branding theme-line needs, for example, to explain what your business is all about, what you do and what you provide, tell a story with a beginning and a middle and an ending, be memorable and/or clever . . . and use seven words or less!

     That kind of writing takes a special skill. Making applications of that theme-line work positively in news releases, brochures, websites, social media, direct mail and other traditional advertising forms takes a special skill.

     For a small business, thinking OutsideIn —hiring a large marketing or PR or advertising agency or consulting group to attack tasks like these–  is a dangerous practice. It is typically a colossal waste of money, time and energy. To make matters worse, the likelihood is that any such efforts will only succeed at winning industry awards for the “team” you recruit. Rarely if ever do these arrangements produce real sales.

     Make it your first line of defense to always work your business from the InsideOut

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless our troops “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!” [Thomas Jefferson]  Make today a GREAT Day! 

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May 09 2010

The MOTHER OF INVENTION . . . is you!

Happy Mother’s Day,

                       

Mother of

                                                  

Invention!

                                       

That’s YOU, Boss…

                                             

     If you work anywhere in that vast SEA OF (government or corporate giant) INCOMPETENCE, click off here and visit some other website. If you’re running or managing your own business –real parent or not– read on: YOU are the “Mother of Invention.”

     Now, Peter Drucker, who’s referred to as the “Father of Management” may not like that idea, but–I would challenge him–when did “Mother” ever lose to “Father”?

                                                                          

     Today, in other words, is also a day to celebrate being your business’s parent.

     First off, anyone who works for you sees you in a parental light. You are looked up to for guidance and leadership. You are a role model. You may not like providing inspiration or being thought of as something special, but you ARE.

     Face up to it and make the most of it. You’ll be helping your staff, your self and your business to grow.

     Don’t just provide leadership. Provide leadership by example; people want to learn by watching and trying and doing.

     Don’t just provide leadership. Provide leadership that’s transparent. Keep all your business dealings clearly defined and out in the open. Forget you have a Bcc setting on your emails. Stop closing doors. Share information freely.

     If you’ve hired good people to start with, you’re only toying with risk levels that are reasonable. If you’ve got a bad apple or two, your open-and-above-boardness will flush them out.

     In other words:

Give everyone a chance to give you a chance for your business to have a chance to succeed.

                                                                                         

     Now, Mothers and Fathers, let’s look at that “Invention” word that you’re parenting. If you’re not CONSTANTLY creating and inventing and innovating . . . coming up with new ideas, ways, methods, designs, plans, steps, contacts, messages . . . EVERY DAY, then you are investing in the status quo.

     Keeping things the same, not rocking the boat, and “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” are the prevalent notions anchoring most stagnant corporate giants, every government agency, and all unsuccessful small businesses. 

     Business owner Job One is to stay out of that trap. Don’t let anything interfere with your daily birthing of inventive thinking. It’s how you started your business. It’s what’s carried your business. It’s what will will make the difference between your business surviving and your business thriving in the months and years ahead. 

     This doesn’t mean every lightbulb that goes on over your head needs to light up the world, or even that little dark corner of your workspace, but it does mean that you and your business cannot afford to pull the plug on that open socket; keep trying out new bulbs; follow up with some and discard others. [Edison made 10,000 tries before inventing the lightbulb!]

     Innovation, remember, is taking the rarest of those good ideas and seeing them all the way through, every specific step of the way, to their final destination markets — even if only on paper or the computer screen. Together with your business itself, it’s those parented ideas that become the inventions that you mother and nurture into adulthood. Happy Mother’s Day!     

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US 

Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! God Bless America, and God Bless Our Troops (“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance!”- Thomas Jefferson)  Make today a GREAT day for someone!

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Apr 15 2010

Small Business Social Media Rampage MYTH

Only 16%

                          

of Thirty Million

                                                      

US Small Businesses 

                                            

Use Social Media!

                                            

     We have already recently heard that fewer than half of America’s 29.7 million small businesses actually have their own websites, and were astonished. When you’re clicking back and forth to your own and other sites all day, it’s incredulous to believe that everyone else is not. Well, now we have more fuel for the opportunity fires.

     Results of a poll http://bit.ly/bWvym3 commissioned by EMPLOYERS, a small business insurance company, was reported today in Angelique Rewers’ final edition of  The Corporate Communicator (rolling over next week into her new online publication, “BRILLIANCE … Rich, Smart and Happy” — Watch for it. Angelique is a sensational writer and online publisher!).

     The poll is a reality slap! 

     Bottom line: You thought the whole world was TWITTER and Facebook crazy and that any business worth their salt had to be heavily engaged in this explosive new media form with knock-’em-dead marketing messages and links galore. Not according to the 500 small business owners and managers surveyed:  the total number of small businesses using social media for marketing is hovering somewhere around a very unimpressive 16%.

     But what does this mean? First of all, consider the vast untapped market potential this information suggests. What a fantastic opportunity this awareness serves for those who focus their businesses on Internet marketing development, and on small business development and related services.

     Just consider the prospect pool. There are more businesses out there who need what you have than there are those who already have it, and clearly everyone will at some point down the road indeed have both feet in the websites and social media arenas.

     Now add to that mix those who already have websites and social media savvy. They either do or will soon need overhauls, updates, upgrades, revitalizations, and expanded, pizazzed-up, better-functioning services. Nowhere does this ratchet up service needs more profoundly than with content development (copywriting) because word content is king in the visual world of the Internet. [If you need help with this and you’ll pardon my brashness, you can find my rates and services at www.TWWsells.com]

     To top off the survey findings, the majority of small businesses leveraging social media are finding it effective, more than half those interviewed believe that having a social media presence is important, and nearly 60 % who do use it say it has provided value to their businesses. So, how much farther does the gauntlet need to be thrown down to you, for you to consider crossing the moat?

     What are you waiting for?

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

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Apr 14 2010

QUIRKY BOSSES SUCCEED

Yes, “quirky” works.

                                                                                                               

Save that tablecloth!

                                                          

     In between rocket-blasting stints with Madison Avenue’s two biggest and most successful ad agencies in history, I once worked as new business director and assistant to the chairman of a rather inconsequential yet highly profitable New York advertising firm. My boss was the number one guy out of three partners. The other two hung out and acted important. My boss was the one who made the sales and brought in the money.

     I never learned much from him except that it really is possible to be successful even when you have no obvious success traits or qualities, as long as you are a stupendous listener, and can be totally quirky. The old man had no redeeming characteristics to speak of but he was both quirky — accentuated by a cartoony voice and over-the-top animation that seemed to ooze incongruously out of his 3-piece suit — plus he was an outstanding listener.

     Three or four days a week, I found myself in the arguably envious position of getting fat by being his sidekick at exorbitantly expensive lunches he hosted at the best restaurants in Manhattan. He invited clients and prospective clients as guests. I was his Boy Friday but he actually encouraged me to talk up agency credentials and experience, setting the stage for his “pitch” at dessert time.

     What he had to say was always on target, but it came only after intensive listening, interspersed with squinty-eyed questions from over the tops of his reading glasses, and requests for examples and diagrams. He made copious notes with marker pens . . . on the tablecloth! 

     In between courses’, he would engage the help of a waiter or two to turn the table covering, drip spots and all, clockwise so he’d have clear writing space for each part of the meal. When lunch ended, he would tuck a $20 bill into the Maitre D’s hand and neatly fold the tablecloth up, tuck it under his arm as he did all the handshake/smile stuff and head for a cab that I would have waiting at the curb.

     When we got back to the office, his secretary would unfold the tablecloth, tack it on the wall over her workspace and type out everything he had written, rising periodically to turn the cloth and re-tack it (lots of pinholes in the wall!). She would enlist one of the designers to recreate any diagrams. The Boss would prioritize items on her draft and identify them as Objectives or Strategies or Tactics the have a final version typed up.

     The typed copy was distributed to all who had any experience with or interest in the business being courted, followed by a meeting, and a summary returned to the lunch guest reiterating the key points, tying them of course to sales points. Often this document became the “working bible” for developing the advertising for an existing client for a full year or more, and often it won new clients.      

     Should we all run out and start writing on tablecloths? Maybe, but the point is that whatever you do to be better at running your business doesn’t have to be something that’s considered “normal” by others, and you need not worry or care about what others say if the system works for you. Someone else I worked for routinely cell phone called his desk from the golf course to leave himself message reminders of sales prospect conversations he would follow up on the next day.

“Quirky” Works.  

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! 

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Mar 23 2010

Overcome the Fear of Marketing

This is not the time

                              

to back off your 

                                                   

marketing plan!

                                                                               

     Three times in recent weeks I have firsthand experienced business owners running scared from the economic crunch, straight into the debris left by salesquakes that erupted because each decided they were too afraid to carry out their marketing plans.

     If you don’t think that’s remarkable, try this on for size: all three had already paid 90-100% of the associated expenses to activate the marketing programs that they had planned. Something is clearly wrong here. Fear of failure? Fear of success? Fear of competition? Fear of more government regulation? Fear of being out of step with the marketplace? Fear of the words and images they were about to use?

You live in the wilderness, and routinely hunt for food for your family. The deer you’ve been tracking all day is now ten yards ahead frozen in place, do you load your gun and then turn around, unload it, and walk away?

Do you say, “Oh, I guess I wasn’t really interested in hunting anyway,” or “Our food supply can hold out ’til next week,” or “Gee, I can’t just shoot it because it’s not running,” or “What if I miss?” or “How would I ever get the thing back to the truck?” or “I should probably wait because one more after this and I could end up exceeding the limit,” or . . . 

     When I asked each of the three what made them pull up short of triggering programs they had already paid for, the answers I heard back were just as ridiculous as the hunter example. You would not believe the credibility each attempted to put behind the excuses they offered.

     It would have been like the hunter deciding to sit and take the whole gun apart to make sure all the pieces were clean and properly connected before resuming the pursuit, by which time the deer would obviously be six counties away.

     This is not the time to back off your marketing plan.

     You’ve come this far. You’ve put together the best program you can, and engaged the best help you can afford. Don’t start to question yourself and your efforts and Monday morning quarterback your decisions! Your instincts are what got you here in the first place. Trust them.

     What’s the worst that can happen if the plan fails? What’s the worst that can happen if you do no marketing? What’s the worst that can happen if you don’t find another deer before your food supply runs out?

     Roll up your sleeves and get in the game! This is what entrepreneuring is all about. Stop choosing to fret and start choosing to take action. You’ll get to your destination. Enjoy the journey.  

Comment below or Hal@BusinessWorks.US Thanks for visiting. Go for your goals! God Bless You! Make it a GREAT Day! Blog via RSS feed or $1/mo Kindle. GRANDPARENT Gift? http://bit.ly/3nDlGF

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