Succeeding In Spite of Yourself

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What do I mean by 'succeeding in spite of yourself'? Well, many businesses will say they are getting what they believe to be acceptable results. Of course they would like to do even better but either they are not really sure how to achieve this, or they are unaware that improvement is possible for them, and anyway, we've just said the results are acceptable!

Many businesses I meet are suffering from one or more of these faults:

• They don't focus on any particular type of customer
• They don't know what is likely to be appealing to their customers
• They don't know why their customers buy from them

As a consequence they continue to:

• Waste money
• Underperform
• Squander their potential

You can do the same as I do every time I meet a potential new client. There are a very small number of very simple questions you can ask yourself to establish whether your business could be easily and rapidly improved by making some elementary changes to your Sales and Marketing function.

Firstly, list all your current methods of promotion

Then list all the messages about you, your products and services, your customers, the problems you help solve, the joy this brings to your customers, the ways in which they can let you know they're interested, the incentives and risk reducing things you offer, which you are communicating in all your current promotional activities.

• Are these messages consistent across all the material?
• Do they make you stand out from your competitors?
• Or are they things your customers expect to be able to take for granted?
• Do they pass the "So, what" test?

If there are too many 'NO's in there, then there are some easy fixes I can suggest.

Whilst on the subject of what the customers expect to be able to take for granted, there is a simple test for whether your message is a UPH (Uniquely Placed to Help) or a TFG (Take For Granted). Just turn your message on its head and ask yourself if any of your competitors are likely to compete on this opposite message. If you think your superb service is a UPH, then how many competitors are advertising in the trade press that theirs is appalling?

These few questions on their own are generally enough to tell whether any business owner whom you know could benefit from my help. But for your own organisation, let's go just a little further.

Now, do you know:

• Are you successfully communicating these messages?
• How do you know whether you are or not?

Again, easy fixes are available if your answers start to trouble you. I have one more question for you.

• Why do your customers choose to buy from you?

Do you know? Have you ever asked them? Presuming that you have, and you have made a list of the reasons, let me finally ask you, "Why is this list different from the list of messages?" I just kind of thought it would be!

If the truth is that, above all other reasons, they buy from you because you're always cheerful and wear red trousers, then for goodness sake why aren't you promoting yourself as the cheerful, red trousers company?

I hope I have given you some food for thought. You absolutely must have solid foundations for your marketing. It might be more exciting to lay bricks, erect timbers and tile the roof, but until a trench has been dug and filled with concrete that has now set hard, there's no point!

Can you clearly articulate who your ideal customers are? Do you know what good they believe they get out of buying your products or services and from having you as their supplier? Can you say why you are a better bet, less of a risk, and more trustworthy than your competitors? And are you letting your market know all of this?